Shortly before our aliya in 2002, we crammed in a bunch of typical American activities that we knew we wouldn’t do again for a long time. What sticks out most was the Yankees game we went to just days before our departure. After all, baseball games are as American as apple pie. I could make a pie in Israel, but what to do about baseball?

This summer the Israel Baseball League made its debut. The teams have drawn fans from all over the country, but especially American ex-pats who are tired of soccer games and crave the American pastime.

As a fan, I was excited about the league and couldn’t wait to take my kids. The summer was slipping away, and I realized the short season — a mere two months — would be over before I had gone to even one game. Then the aliya organization Nefesh B’Nefesh organized a special price for olim of only 15 shekels (about $3.50) for a game between the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox and the Modi’in Miracle. We were on our way.

Having been to a number of major league stadiums in the States, I was not quite prepared for the “down home” feeling of an IBL game. We drove through the countryside and a huge sunflower field. When we reached the site where the game was being played — on a kibbutz — all I could think of was the movie Field of Dreams.

Eitan, 13, Ezra, 10, and Yaakov, four, trotted along with me toward the sound of the announcer calling the plays. We paid our admission and were told we could sit anywhere, the “stands” being a couple hundred plastic chairs set up along the baseline between home and first base; no nosebleed section at this game.

Unfortunately, all the seats were taken. We went back to the ticket girl and saw a few empty chairs where her colleagues had been sitting. “Take those,” we were told and carried them in — giving new meaning to the phrase “find your own seats.”

The scoreboard was a manual one, behind the outfield fence. The amused fan in front of us explained how to read it after listening to us floundering to figure it out.

The two teams were clearly New York wannabes: the Blue Sox with their Yankee pinstripe uniforms, while the Miracle uniform was a definite Mets look-alike. Even the name “Miracle” was partly borrowed from the ’69 “Miracle Mets.”

While I really enjoyed myself, my kids had a hard time following the game. To keep them entertained I sprung for a souvenir baseball, which became a highlight of the event for them.

After the seven-inning game — there are lots of impatient Jews in this country; the IBL had to work within that limited attention span — came the best part for my kids. The players, whose numbers were not much fewer than the remaining spectators, came out to mingle with the fans. I watched Ezra rush off joyously to go from player to player, as though he owned the place, getting all those autographs on the ball that in his mind was now worth millions.

Ah! the pleasures of baseball in Israel, the joy of being taken “out to the ball game” on a kibbutz field of dreams.