Ray Asher has always loved baseball. As a boy growing up in the 1960s in Calumet City, on the border between Illinois and Indiana, he played on a team. But as much as he loved the game, his experience on the field wasn’t always positive. In a town with few Jews, Asher would hear his share of disparaging references to his being Jewish from the bleachers.

“When I was on the pitching mound, I remember hearing heckling from the sidelines,” he recalled.

So when Asher grew up, he knew he wanted to find a community with a large and active Jewish population where he and his family could feel comfortable as Jews, and where that comfort would extend to all facets of life–even the baseball field.

Asher and his wife settled in Skokie, became Shabbat observant, and had two sons, who love baseball like their dad. The boys joined Skokie Youth Baseball, a competitive baseball program where Shabbat observant children play baseball with Jewish values in mind, and where they don’t roll -or in this case pitch –on Shabbat, when many other leagues hold games.

Skokie Youth Baseball–under the umbrella of Skokie Youth Sports, which also has a girls softball team–is 95 percent Jewish, made up of predominantly Shabbat observant Jews, but is open to everyone, Jews and non-Jews alike, and the players play against both Jewish and non-Jewish teams. Today, more than 200 children-primarily boys and a few girls-play for Skokie Youth Baseball.

Players, coaches, and parents involved in the program say they hold themselves to a very high standard because they know they’re representing all Jews when they’re out there on the field. “We’re teaching Jewish values,” said Steven Greenberg, President of Skokie Youth Sports and a former coach for the baseball team. “It’s expected that our coaches behave in a different manner because we’re wearing kippahs and we know we’re representing the Jewish community.”

Skokie Youth Baseball is a feeder program for Chicagoland Jewish High School and Ida Crown Jewish Academy baseball teams. The two Jewish schools play each other twice each season.

In May, the Columbus Baseball Invitational, known as the Jewish world series, welcomed Jewish high schools from around the nation. The Ida Crown Jewish Academy baseball team won third place in the series.

Greenberg’s son, Seth, is a senior at Ida Crown and a player on the school’s baseball team. He has adored baseball since he was barely big enough to hold a bat. He loves that idyllic picture that baseball paints for so many. “It’s that perfect scene of walking onto the field when it’s 72 degrees, and the sun is out and there isn’t a cloud in the sky,” he said.

At age 6, Seth played tee-ball, and went on to play baseball for Skokie Youth where he says he felt “camaraderie, security, and brotherhood” with his Jewish teammates. Now a senior at Ida Crown, he plays catcher–and sometimes pitches–for his high school baseball team. He is graduating this spring, but will make use of his love of sports next year at Syracuse University, where he plans to study sports management.

Ultimately, the Skokie program is teaching the players about so much more than baseball. “We’re trying to help the kids in the community grow to be better human beings,” said Greenberg, the father. “Baseball is part of it, but we’re truly teaching them sportsmanship and life skills. This is about understanding that there is a winner and loser, but it’s also about walking off the field with your head held high. [This will help them] not just in sports, but in life.”