In first for Israel, Kibbutz Gezer’s Alon Leichman named pitching coach for MLB team
Leichman, who has worn the number of his kibbutz laundry tag and highlighted his Israeli identity, has been appointed by the Colorado Rockies
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When Alon Leichman steps into the dugout as the new pitching coach of the Colorado Rockies, whose starting staff last year was perhaps the worst in recorded history, it won’t be the first time he’s faced down an unusual challenge.
When he was 10, Leichman got a chance to represent Israel at a baseball tournament in the Netherlands. But the team had no travel budget, so Leichman had to work extra hours at Kibbutz Gezer, his hometown in central Israel, to help pay for the plane ticket.
To the budding ballplayer, the extra toil was worth it.
“It was really cool,” he recalled to The Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2022. “A sense of pride. That’s the first time I think I felt like: ‘You’re not just Alon, you’re not just representing the kibbutz anymore — you’re representing a whole country.’
In the more than two decades since, Leichman, 36, has stayed in the world of baseball. After IDF service and a brief college career cut short by injury, he’s played and coached for Team Israel at the World Baseball Classic and the Olympics, and worked his way up as a coach in the United States — first in the Seattle Mariners’ system, and then as an assistant pitching coach for the Cincinnati Reds and Miami Marlins.
On Wednesday, the Rockies named Leichman their pitching coach. The appointment makes him the first person born in Israel to hold that senior position for a major league team.
Leichman got the call from the Rockies the day after his wedding, according to MLB.com. He is now in Israel, in part to celebrate his marriage with family.
“Thank you Miami! You’ve changed my life,” he wrote on Instagram. “Can’t wait for what’s next with the Rockies and Colorado.”
The role is one of the most influential and visible jobs on a baseball team’s coaching staff aside from the manager. Leichman will oversee the team’s pitching staff, work on their technique and performance, and help make decisions about who’s on the mound.
“I think you would be hard-pressed to find a better pitching coach,” Warren Schaeffer, the Rockies’ manager, told The Denver Post. Baseball analyst Lance Brozdowski posted on X: “Alon is a plus-plus human and an even better coach. Great get.”
Leichman’s hire was part of a flurry of appointments the Denver-based team has made recently in hopes of improving on last season, when they tied for the third-worst win-loss record in history.
Denver, whose thin mountain air helps baseballs travel farther, has always been tough for pitchers, and the team’s pitching was particularly bad last year: Its starting pitching staff’s ERA, one of the core statistics for pitchers, was the worst in recorded history, dating back to 1913.
Leichman is known for being innovative, according to MLB.com, and is also a fluent Spanish speaker, an asset in Major League Baseball, which has a large contingent of Latino players.
He has also kept highlighting his Israeli identity. His uniform number, 29, is his laundry tag number at the kibbutz.
He’s posted repeatedly on X in support of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas in the October 7, 2023, attack and, last year, in favor of the protests calling for an agreement to release them. On MLB’s opening day in 2024, he posted a photo of a baseball glove stitched with an Israeli flag and the words “Bring them home now!”
“Proud to have an Israeli-grown athlete excel at the highest level of baseball,” said Ari Varon, president of the Israel Association of Baseball. “He gives hope to a generation of Israeli players who seek to excel in baseball at all levels.”
Leichman will meet later this month for a coaching session with players and coaches in Israel.
Opening day 2024.#bringthemhomenow @StandWithUs @StopAntisemites @BringThemHome23 pic.twitter.com/tZIPMMsu1G
— Alon Leichman (@alonleichman2) March 29, 2024
Leichman isn’t the only pioneer in his family. His father was key to building a regulation-sized baseball field in the southwest corner of the kibbutz’s farmland, years before the movie “Field of Dreams” came out. His mother, Rabbi Miri Gold, filed a petition that led non-Orthodox rabbis to receive public salaries for the first time more than a decade ago.
Leichman was previously named pitching coach for Team Israel at next year’s World Baseball Classic, a role that could change given his new job. But the team is still celebrating its homegrown hero.
“The Kibbutz Kid does it again,” the organization posted on X. “The incredible journey of [Leichman] from Kibbutz Gezer to the Major Leagues continues. Next stop, Colorado.”
The Times of Israel Community.