Binshtock’s class on the pitch didn’t go unnoticed. When the NASL had established itself as the top league in the land, drawing huge crowds in the late 70s, he was approached. “The [New York] Cosmos contacted me when they were in town to play the LA Aztecs. We met at the Regis Hotel. Pele was there!” Binshtock recalled, sure he was good enough to thrive among that cast of international all-stars.
He was offered a contract, but the timing, and the money, was wrong.
“I couldn’t take it! They didn’t offer me enough money to blow up my life,” Binshtock said, noting that he’d just settled down and bought a house in Van Nuys with his wife. “But if I was single, oh boy, I would have paid them for a chance to play with Pele!”
It wasn’t the last of his missed chances. In 1970, Israel qualified for the World Cup for the first and to date only time, and then-coach Emmanuel Scheffer was in need of talent to bolster his squad.
“He [Scheffer] came to LA and asked me to play at the World Cup in Mexico, but I needed three months off from my job.” Binshtock went to his uncle’s big corner office to request a sabbatical, but there was no guarantee his job would be there when he returned. “I was just an apprentice and so he said ‘no!’ I cried right there in my own uncle’s office! I swear I did. I remember it like it was yesterday.”
Maccabee on the Big Stage
Binshtock still had his moments in the spotlight. The 1978 Open Cup Final against Vasco da Gama of Bridgeport, CT was scheduled as the undercard of a double-header with a Cosmos vs. Tampa Bay Rowdies NASL game at Giants Stadium. He would finally, and in some way, share a pitch with Beckenbaur and Carlos Alberto. Rodney Marsh too – all the best around.
“When we got to the stadium there were people camping and cooking in the parking lot,” recalled Binshtock, who played that day in front of 30,000 against doctor’s orders, having recently undergone surgery. When he came on as a sub, he set up a goal for Avram Cohen in a 2-0 win. “When we were walking into the stadium a few kids said, ‘hey it’s Benny Binshtock!’ I don’t know how they knew who I was, but they did and they even asked for my autograph!”
The Maccabees, as the Jewish team in an ethnic league, had to deal with small-minded abuse on the field. That’s the way things were. But in the squad, there was peace. You didn’t have to be Jewish to be a Maccabee, you just had to be good.
“We didn’t just have Jewish players,” said Binshtock. There were Chileans and Mexicans, Germans and Trinidadians too. “Half the team wasn’t Jewish. They’d make the sign of the cross before coming onto the pitch, wearing a Jewish Star on their shirt. A crucifix underneath!”
Many of the Maccabees still get together for coffee and a chat. Every few Tuesdays at Il Forno, near the Santa Monica piers where you can smell the Pacific Ocean in the air. They look like any bunch of old friends in their seventies. Hair has thinned, or gone. They carry paunches and are a long way from game-shape. They talk the usual soccer talk, the kind you’d hear in a thousand bars in any country on earth. Who’s better, Messi or Ronaldo? Is Maradona better than both? What about Pele?
