Is Shlomo Lipetz a baseball player who is passionate about live music, or is he a music industry professional who, at age 46, still manages to pitch two or three times a week? The answer is obvious: he’s both.
“I am lucky to indulge in two things I love,” Lipetz said over the phone while driving to Wantagh, Long Island (New York) from his “real job” as president of venues at City Winery, the famous music venue with seven locations across the United States. He was going, of course, to play baseball.
In the course of the conversation, Lipetz seamlessly moves from discussing playing baseball as a boy in Israel, to booking Prince and other famous musicians, his love for cats, being a foodie, and of course his playing career with Team Israel.
For fans of Israel baseball, Shlomo Lipetz is a legend, with a storied career that includes being with the team at every point in its history. He has earned the right to have his own bobblehead doll—and even a Shlo Motion t-shirt. Available for purchase!
It is hard to describe Lipetz in a few words, but in a 2023 Fox Sports piece, Jake Mintz took a stab at it.
“Armed with a mid-70s fastball, a vagabond’s passport, a mullet and, sometimes, a gold tooth,” said Mintz, who made his name as part of “Cespedes BBQ” online. “Lipetz is Kenny Powers, Forrest Gump, Paul Bunyan, Batman and Walter Johnson rolled into one.”
Not bad, but Lipetz so much more than even that. Born and raised in Tel Aviv, he got hooked on baseball at an early age and has never stopped living, breathing and playing the game.
He watched for a while, then starting playing catch with a softball under a bridge in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park. He started playing but regularly stayed on after hourlong practices for an additional 90 minutes of popups and grounders. He couldn’t get enough.
Lipetz isn’t sure how the game grabbed him. “All I know is there was something very cool about it.”
His two young coaches, Jerry Glantz and Shai Weiss [and later, such coaches as Leon Klarfeld and Sam Pelter] had something to do with it.
“They were willing to spend personal time,” recalls Lipetz.
And they had more time for each kid. In other sports like soccer or baseball, the coach to player ratio was about 1 to 25, but in baseball, it was 2 to 10. He enjoyed both the personal attention and the competitive nature of the game. Since those early days in Yarkon Park, baseball has taught Lipetz many life lessons.
“If you look back on life, the subject (you are studying) doesn’t matter, but the teacher does,” said Lipetz. “I could have just as easily gotten hooked on something else but I was athletic and liked being competitive. I could have been in another sport but I had a good arm and ended up with baseball.”
His playing career began as a third baseman who earned the nickname “Shotgun Shlomo.” When his team was short pitchers, he took the mound.
“I liked being the center of attention,” said Lipetz, whose ability to throw strikes consistently helped advance his pitching career – a post-army growth spurt didn’t hurt either. Lipetz didn’t throw especially hard, but he was a pitcher, not a thrower, which contributed greatly to his longevity.
Over the decades, Lipetz has had some great moments on the field. He pitched on the first Israeli team to qualify for the World Baseball Classic, in 2013, and on the 2017 WBC team that advanced to play in Tokyo. He took the mound at the Africa/Europe 2020 Olympic Qualification tournament in Italy in September 2019, which Israel won to qualify to play baseball at the 2020 Summer Olympics, then pitched at those games in Tokyo, delayed by the COVID pandemic to the summer of 2021.
“The Olympics was one of the most mind-blowing experiences of my adult life,” said Lipetz, who stayed on with Team Israel to pitch in the 2023 WBC.
There were also challenging moments and decision points, many of which he turned into learning opportunities.
At the 1989 European Little League Championships at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Lipetz and his Team Israel were blown out, 50-0 (not a typo), by Saudi Arabia. The legend-to-be took it in stride.
“Nothing could break our spirit,” said Lipetz, who was just 10 years old at the time. “It was such a cultural experience, interacting with the different players and teams, exchanging pins. Playing against such high-level baseball players was all extremely powerful and exciting.
“I’m not sure my ego was fully developed to get scarred (by the huge loss).”
Even though the Saudi Arabian and Jordanian teams were populated by Americans whose parents worked in those countries, government representatives instructed the kids not to shake hands with the Israelis after their games and not to keep the pins they exchanged.
“They grew up playing baseball,” said Larry Bleicher, the coach of that Israeli entry. “Our kids never played a game in their life! They were learning the rules as we went along.”
The score was 13-0 after the first inning and the umpires recommended implementing the mercy rule.
“They wanted to call the game after nine minutes,” said Bleicher. “We huddled as a team and reminded the guys we didn’t come to win but to improve from the experience and to learn what the game is about.”
Bleicher’s boys played out the game for 7 innings and had a great time.
Later in the tournament, they lost 12-1 to Ramstein, representing Germany. Scoring that first-ever run was a huge highlight for Lipetz.
“We were so excited that after the game we grabbed the Israeli flag from the dugout and the whole team ran around the field,” Lipetz said.
From that point on, Lipetz wanted to play college baseball. He may have been the only boy at the time in Israel with that dream.
“At age 16, I thought about skipping the army to play college baseball,” said Lipetz. “But as time passed, I didn’t have the guts.”
Before setting off on a three-month pre-army trip, Lipetz applied both for an elite naval unit and to be a sportai mitztayen (outstanding athlete), where he would be able pursue a career in baseball while completing his army service.
He was in the United States when his father called to say he had been accepted to both.
“It was the easiest decision,” said Lipetz, “and it changed my trajectory.”
With elite athlete status, Lipetz could train, attend baseball clinics, and go to tournaments in the Czech Republic and the Netherlands—all while completing his army service.
After the army, it was time to pursue Lipetz’s true dream—playing college baseball. This was no easy task for an Israeli kid who grew up in a country without serious competitive baseball or even regulation baseball fields.
Lipetz walked onto the field at San Diego Mesa (Junior) College and said: “I am Shlomo. You don’t know me. I want to play baseball.”
The coach offered an opportunity to throw in the bullpen and Lipetz made the team. He hit the gym – hard – and over the course of his time there, and eventually at the University of California-San Diego, his fastball jumped from 75 miles per hour to 89.
In his first year after transferring to UCSD, Lipetz went 5-0 and led the team with a 2.84 ERA, sharing the club lead with three saves. The next season, he had a team-leading seven saves. While Lipetz is proud of his Team Israel accomplishments, he describes with almost equal delight how UCSD has climbed from NCAA Division 3 to become a powerhouse, in his words, in D1.
After spending some time playing semi-pro ball in Mexico, Lipetz was invited to participate in the just-formed IBL, a professional baseball league in Israel in 2007. One of the few players with high-level baseball experience, Lipetz excelled, posting a 0.98 ERA in 27⅔ innings.
A few months later, Lipetz moved to New York and answered an ad on Craig’s List for an unpaid internship with famed entertainment industry executive Michael Dorf. The next year, the venture Dorf was working on became known as City Winery, and Lipetz followed him there.
Lipetz has been with Dorf and City Winery ever since, rising steadily through the ranks to his current role as president of venues.
“I listen to music from the minute I wake up ‘til I go to sleep.”
While Lipetz played some piano as a kid, he does not currently play an instrument, though the recorder may be in his future. His father picked it up at 80, after all.
Lipetz has worked closely with nearly every big name in music and still remembers his first big show, a Philip Glass residency. Lipetz also remembers booking Prince.
“One night, (Prince) did not go on stage until three am,” Lipetz said. “People were peeking in the window to watch him at eight in the morning on the way to work.”
He has worked with Neil Young and Paul Simon and has produced many of the yearly “Michael Dorf Presents” shows including last year’s Patty Smith 50th anniversary show. He is currently hard at work on next year’s Billy Joel show.
“I got to work with every artist. I have an excuse to work with the people I love.”
That attitude very much applies to his ongoing work with Israel baseball, where he surrounds himself with those very people. While the team is well aware of his love of baseball, cats (he had three for years, though two recently died) and of his role as a foodie (“I am the chief food officer when we travel as a team”), he proudly reports that he has not forced his musical tastes on his teammates.
Even while immersed in his work at City Winery, Lipetz feels close to and keeps up with developments at all levels of Israel baseball. He followed the Under-23 National Team which recently competed in August’s European Championship in Czechia. They finished last place, but Lipetz saw a silver lining in that most of the players on that team were Israeli-born.
Lipetz also remains excited about the Senior National Team competing at the European Championships in Rotterdam later this month in a group with Great Britain, the Netherlands, and France.
As he contemplates retirement, Lipetz has been thinking about his days with Team Israel and the many players and members of the organization he has encountered over the years.
He appreciates his Jewish American teammates like Ryan Lavarnway and Danny Valencia and what he called their “urge to feel connected to something bigger.” He is pleased by how much playing for Israel has meant to them, even becoming, as he says, “an inseparable part of their identity.” Lipetz has also learned a lot about American Jewry through his relationship with these teammates.
There have been conversations about moving into a coaching role, but regardless of any future formal role with the team, Lipetz will always be around, dedicated to preaching the gospel of Israel Baseball with young players.
Because of course.
The man known simply as “Shlo” has always been a team player. In 2011, he pitched a complete game in the first game of a doubleheader against Great Britain. The team needed one more win to qualify for the European Championships, so he pitched the second game as well.
Despite rumors that the upcoming European Championship in Rotterdam many be Lipetz’s last time competing with the national team, the determined, hard-working, feisty pitcher is not so sure.
“If it was up to me, and as long as I feel I can compete at a high level, I would like to continue to play. I am still very good. I wish someone would take my spot. Let someone beat me out of the position.”