During the month of March, the Jewish community of Greater Boston will have to put aside the fact that Brad Ausmus is the New York Yankees bench coach.

Ausmus – the son of the late Brookline native Linda (Dronsick) Ausmus – has been promoted to manage Team Israel in the 2026 World Baseball Classic.

Yes, just in time for Purim (March 2-3), Ausmus, 56, will step away from the pinstripes to lead a group of Jewish Major League Baseball and minor league players as they represent Team Israel for a month.

Ausmus, who was an MLB catcher for 18 seasons, succeeds former Team Israel manager Ian Kinsler, who won his only World Series with the 2018 Red Sox. Ausmus was the bench coach for Kinsler, who happened to play for him when he managed the Detroit Tigers.

“He was always one of my favorite players in Detroit,” Ausmus said. “He felt like he wanted someone next to him who had managing experience, and I said ‘sure.’”

Ausmus was raised in Cheshire, Connecticut – near New Haven, the unofficial fault line between Red Sox Nation and the “Evil Empire” of the Yankees.

Ausmus grew up a Red Sox fan, more because of his mother’s ties to the Boston area than anything having to do with central Connecticut geography.

His New England connections continued in the late 1980s, when he played baseball and graduated from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

Ausmus’s only all-star season was 1999, when the Mid-Summer Classic was held at Fenway Park.

“It was a fun All Star Game because I grew up a Red Sox fan, they had the all-century team so they had these great players there, and Ted Williams came out,” Ausmus said.

Earlier in the 1990s, Ausmus had a chance to break bread with the Splendid Splinter when the catcher was playing for the San Diego Padres in Williams’s hometown.

Aside from sometimes celebrating Jewish holidays with his Brookline family, Ausmus didn’t grow up in the Jewish tradition. However, he had an epiphany that led him to represent his heritage.

“At some point in my playing career, I think a journalist became aware that my mother and grandparents were Jewish,” Ausmus said. “From that point on, I’ve always connected with Judaism because there are so few MLB players who are Jewish.”

Ausmus managed the original Team Israel through the unsuccessful WBC qualification rounds in 2012 – when one of his coaches was Gabe Kapler, who played on the 2004 Red Sox World Series Team. Ausmus and Kapler were teammates on the 1999 Detroit Tigers.

“I spent a week in Israel in 2012, visiting the sites and meeting people as well,” Ausmus said. “It definitely strengthened my connection to Judaism. Judaism and Israel weren’t part of my life, but since 2012, the complete opposite is true.”

Team Israel’s 2026 WBC roster has yet to be determined, but there’s some hope that Alex Bregman, who played for the Red Sox last season, might join the team.

Ausmus doesn’t expect the team to be favored, but they just have to play well at the right time. He’ll have former Red Sox slugger Kevin Youkilis on board as Team Israel’s hitting coach.

“Nobody’s going to pick Israel to win the whole thing, but it is baseball, and you only need a pitcher or a couple hitters, you can beat any team – even a team that’s better than you on paper,” Ausmus said. “If we played the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico 10 times, they’d probably get the better of us. But we don’t have to play them 10 times. We just have to beat them one time.”

In 2020, Ausmus was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in Netanya, Israel. He wishes he could have attended the ceremony, but it was during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

Ausmus has played more games than any other Jewish player (1,971 games) but never set out to be the Jewish Cal Ripken.

“I always prided myself on playing and being available for the manager every single day,” Ausmus said. “It was a source of pride, but I never went to the field trying to set that mark.”

In other Jewish MLB news, the aforementioned Kapler was promoted to general manager of the Miami Marlins on Nov. 3. Kapler declined an interview request from the Journal.

Kapler, the 50-year-old former Phillies and Giants manager, earned National League Manager of the Year honors while with San Francisco in 2021.

Kapler was drafted in the 57th round of the 1995 MLB draft. Four years later, Kapler hit a career-high 18 home runs – the third most among American League rookies. He played for the Red Sox from 2003 to 2006.

Kapler, who is outspoken about his Jewish pride (including tattoos of a Star of David and “Never Again”), joins Craig Breslow (Red Sox), Jeff Greenberg (Tigers), Mike Chernoff (Guardians) and David Stearns (Mets) as MLB general managers who are Jewish. Θ