She Israeli something
Shay hello to Liberty’s trailblazer
Liberty rookie guard Shay Doron will make history today, becoming the first Israeli to play a regular-season game in the WNBA. (The NBA still has not had an Israeli-born player compete in a regular-season game).
Her parents left Israel during Shay’s high-school days with the WNBA in mind. “My parents said if you have a dream, we’ll do everything we can to help that and I went to the best basketball team in the country,” Doron told The Post’s Marc Berman.
The Dorons moved from Tel Aviv to Great Neck, L.I., before her junior year, and she enrolled at scholastic juggernaut Christ the King in Queens. On April 4, Doron got drafted in the second round out of the University of Maryland – 16th overall – by her adopted hometown team, the Liberty.
Because of Doron’s popularity, the WNBA draft was broadcast live in Israel on Sport5, Israel’s ESPN. “For New York to pick me was the cherry on the sundae.”
Doron says her English is now better than her Hebrew, but her dog accepts commands only in Hebrew.
Putting up their dukes on deck
New York Pitbulls coach Renzo Gracie and his fighters Brian Vetell and Jamal Patterson will join former Playmate of the Year and IFL Battleground host Tiffany Fallon and elite former Giants punter Sean Landeta for an overnight stay with troops aboard the USS Wasp Tuesday. They will ride the warship with the troops into New York Harbor to kick off “Fleet Week” Wednesday.
Bernie in Paradise
With his baseball career on hold if not over, Bernie Williams’ gig as a guitarist continues. The former Yankees center fielder and Jose Feliciano will perform Aug. 18 at the legendary Paradise Theater in The Bronx. The gig will benefit Youth Charities. Williams and Feliciano will go on after a play put on by the cast of “Boy Of Steel.” Williams’ former teammate Darryl Strawberry is cast in the lead for the play.
Good Guy David Wright signed autographs and mingled with a Virginia Tech crowd at a fundraiser at Webster Hall in Manhattan Friday night. Guests paid $32 to attend the event, co-sponsored by groups of Hokies graduates from the tri-state area, intended to help families of the victims of the campus murders. Among the live auction prizes were four tickets to a future Mets game and the opportunity to watch batting practice on the field. David’s brother Stephen, who was also at the event, is an engineering major at Virginia Tech, where the Mets third baseman is working to establish an engineering scholarship in his name.
“My family lives about five hours from Blacksburg and I’ve been thinking about starting a scholarship for a couple of years, but the events of April just sped things up,” Wright told The Post’s Jay Greenberg. “I go up to the university during the offseason to watch football games. It’s a special place for me and my family. They say that time heals wounds, but as someone who was close to the event, it really doesn’t. It’s our goal to make sure people never forget the teachers and students who lost their lives in Blacksburg that day.”
Special honor at LIU
LIU’s sophomore midfielder Joshua Merchant was awarded the university’s Michelle Antoinette Hamdan Memorial Award. After the 2005 season, Merchant was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. The 2005 second team All-NEC selection returned in 2006, starting 14 games, registering two goals and three assists. A journalism major, he recorded a 2.7 GPA and was a member of the Honors Program. The award was established in memory of the daughter of former LIU and Knicks trainer Said Hamdan and his wife, Denise. Michelle Antoinette was stricken by an undetected, congenital heart defect and died on Feb. 8, 1991, just days after her birth on Jan. 30.
Steph’s longer road trip
Stephon Marbury’s wife, La Tasha, had never been to Europe, so the Knicks’ star point guard figured this spring – with the team out of the playoffs – would be as good a time as any to explore The Continent. On Friday after appearing on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” the Marburys flew overseas for a two-week European vacation, sans the kids. The Marburys planned to visit Milan, Florence, Rome and the French Riviera, including Nice. “It’s something my wife always wanted to do,” Marbury told our Marc Berman … Meanwhile, Knicks small forward Jared Jeffries, an expert fisherman, just returned from a three-week fishing expedition in Panama with his father Tom.
Anthony: Curry’s key to Knicks
ESPN’s Greg Anthony, on Sirius radio’s “Steiner Sports,” offered his take on his old team: “I think Isiah [Thomas] did a very good job coaching this year, probably as good a job as you could do under the circumstances. I’m on record as saying I’m not in love with their roster. They have some talented players, there’s no doubt about it. I think Stephon [Marbury] showed a lot of growth this year. I thought he had a solid season. But I don’t look at them as a team that has that guy … [who’s] going to be the one to get you to that next level. A lot has been placed on Eddy Curry to develop into that guy but, for me, when you’ve got a ‘big’ who has that kind of talent, you’ve got to be a dominant rebounder, too. And, to me, we’re still waiting to see if Eddy Curry is ever going to develop. Ultimately, that franchise is going to go as Eddy Curry goes.”
Not a New York accent
Tom Nieto, the Mets’ catching instructor, now has a tilde over the “N” in “NIETO” on the back of his jersey. He didn’t have one in his previous two years with the Mets but had it switched this season so that it would be properly pronounced – the way you would pronounce “senorita,” with a “y” sound following the “n,” like “nyeto.”
Nosh with the stars
La Carne Grill will host a salute to Jewish heritage at a sports benefit for the Jewish National Fund featuring 1969 Amazin’ Met Art Shamsky, sportscasters Len Berman, Kenny Albert and Warner Wolf, Fordham University dean Dr. Ron Jacobson, who heads Fordham’s summer sports institute, unbeaten boxers Dmitriy Salita and Yuri Foreman, who will be joined by Brooklyn supermodel Haylynn Cohen Monday night, June 4 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Fans will get to sample fine kosher cuisine, including Delmonico steak tips and short rib spring rolls, and a wine tasting with owner Eddie Allaham, meet and greet the celebrities, with part of the proceeds going to JNF. Tickets are priced at $75. For information and reservations call (212) 972-5337.