For Jewish Americans, baseball has not only been an all- American game and national pastime, but a path toward integration and acceptance. (with video)
This is the theme of Jews and Baseball: An American Love
Story, which opens in Toronto at the Cineplex Odeon Sheppard
Grande theatre on Oct. 1.
An absorbing film directed by Peter Miller, produced by
William Hechter, written by Ira Berkow and narrated by Dustin
Hoffman, Jews and Baseball is billed as the first major documentary
on this theme.
The stereotypical view is that Jews don’t excel in sports,
but nothing can be further from the truth, especially in baseball.
There have been an unbroken string of professional Jewish
baseball players, from Lipman Pike (1845-1893) in the 19th
century to Kevin Youkilis today.
And as sportswriter Maury Allen jokes, baseball has its origins
in the Bible, “In the big inning…”
Humour aside, Jewish players, some of whom rose to stardom,
have been an integral part of the game since the start.
Abraham Cahan, the legendary editor of the Jewish Daily
Forward, wrote that baseball was a good way for Jewish boys to
assimilate into American society.
Baseball was indeed a great leveller, but there was a dark
side, too.
Some Jewish players, fearing anti-Semitism from fans,
anglicized their names. Still others, such as Henry (Hank)
Greenberg, perhaps the greatest Jewish player in the history
of the sport, proudly retained their surnames.
Greenberg, who famously declined to play on Yom Kippur
during a pennant
race, paid a price for his refusal to obscure
his Jewishness.
Racists mercilessly taunted
him, but he remained unbowed.
“It was a spur to make me do better,” he says.
Greenberg led the Detroit Tigers to the World Series in 1934
and 1935, when anti-Semitism was on the rise in the United
States and Europe.
Named the American League’s most valuable player in 1935
and 1940, he chased Babe Ruth’s home run record in 1938,
coming within two homers of equalling it. Seven decades on,
some observers believe that Greenberg could have surpassed
Ruth’s record of 60 home runs had he not been Jewish. They
base their theory on the assumption that Greenberg could have
done so had opposing pitchers been more co-operative. Greenberg’s
son, however, questions that hypothesis.
Apart from showcasing Greenberg’s fabulous career, the
film focuses on a number of other Jewish players.
Andy Cohen, the first Jew recruited by the manager of
the New York Giants, John McGraw, fizzled soon after his
debut,
breaking his leg in 1929 and never
returning to the
major leagues.
Moe Berg, a lawyer by training and a so-so player, established
a reputation as a spy for the forerunner of the Central
Intelligence Agency during World War II.
Al Rosen, the third baseman of the Cleveland
Indians, led the league in homeruns
in
1953 and made the all-star team four years
in a row. But the Indians’ general manager,
Hank Greenberg,
inexplicably let Rosen go,
ending his stellar
career on a low note.
Sandford (Sandy) Koufax compiled a
disappointing record as a pitcher in his first
six years for the Brooklyn Dodgers. But the
lefthander hit his stride in the 1960s, compiling
no-hit games in 1962, 1963 and 1964 and
a perfect game in 1965, striking out no less
than 27 players.
Like Greenberg, he wouldn’t play on
Yom Kippur, which coincided with the first
game of the World Series in 1965, when Koufax
was scheduled to pitch.
Jews and Baseball also highlights the
careers of Ron Blomberg, the game’s
first designated hitter; Ken Holtzman,
who won more games than any other
Jewish pitcher (175); Shawn Green, who
was probably the best Jewish
player of
the 1990s, and Kevin Youkilis,
who is
touted as the finest Jewish
player in the
game today.
The film also mentions off-field figures
such as Allan (Bud) Selig, baseball’s
first (and current) Jewish commissioner,
and Marvin Miller, the lawyer and former
executive director of the Major League
Baseball Players Association who struck
down the reserve clause and thereby raised
the salaries of players across the board
by a significant margin.
