JEWS AND MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL – Paul Roitman Bardack (
I would like to thank the Tifereth
Israel Mens’ Club for inviting me to talk briefly
this evening on the subject of Jews and major league baseball. Past presentations, I understand, have dealt
with such weighty topics as asset management and preservation, the quest for
I also wish to acknowledge
at the outset that the synagogue bulletin of activities, in its listing of
tonight’s talk as “Jew and Major League Baseball,” has it wrong. Thankfully, the story can be told in more
than the singular.
For the story of Jews and
baseball, as I perceive it, is in large part the story of our group’s desire,
as well as our group’s actual ability, to transition from residents of an
insular, mostly Eastern European identity into citizens of a more secularized
American society.
Here’s how Chaim Potok put it, in his
wonderful novel “The Chosen.” I quote:
“We batted and threw the
ball around, and it was warm and sunny, and there was the smooth, happy feeling
of the summer soon to come, and the tight excitement of the ball game. We wanted very much to win, both for
ourselves and, more especially, for Mr. Galanter, for
we had all come to like his fist-thumping sincerity. To the rabbis who taught in the Jewish
parochial schools, baseball was an evil waste of time, a spawn of the
potentially assimilationist English portion of the
yeshiva day. But to the students of most
of the parochial schools, an inter-league baseball victory had come to take on
only a shade less significance than a top grade in Talmud, for it was the
unquestioned mark of one’s Americanism, and to be counted a loyal American had
become increasingly important to us during the last years of the war.” End quote.
So the real subject of
tonight’s talk is Jews and Americanism, and the sometimes uneasy, sometimes
quite comfortable ways in which the two play out their relationship through the
vehicle of the game of baseball. The old
joke from the 1920’s – “”Zaydie, Babe Ruth hit
another home run today!” “Yes, but is it
good for the Jews?”” – has never been, in my opinion, too far from the surface.
Let’s start at the beginning
or, to avoid an extensive side discussion, what for many passes as the
beginning. Nobody really knows with
certainty when, or where, baseball started:
That changed after the Civil
War, as did our nation.
Industrialization and commerce were on the march, and first in trickles
and then in waves so too was immigration.
The New York Game of Baseball – as it was first called, with its arcane
rules such as direction by the striker of where the hurler was to pitch the
ball – was now being referred to typically as The National Pastime. Goodness, that was
the very same term used in
For baseball
increasingly was becoming a moneyed game, one that manufactured its early
stars, both fictitious and real. Mighty Casey, perhaps a Baltimorean, perhaps
a Brooklynite, gave poetic voice during his famous time
at bat to the Irish wave of immigrants participating in the increasingly
visible national game. So too did the
real Irishman, King Kelly, who inspired what was once the most popular song in
the land. I quote:
“Slide,
Kelly, slide!
Your running’s a disgrace!
Slide, Kelly, slide!
Stay there, hold your base!
If someone doesn’t steal ya,
And your batting doesn’t
fail ya,
They’ll take you to
Slide,
Kelly, slide!” End quote.
Yes, baseball was a growing
presence throughout the land. In 1876
the National League was born. In its
wake, prior to the 1901 formation by Ban Johnson of the working class
beer-and-whiskey American League – one that would play Sunday games as no
respectable National League team would do – a host of leagues came and
went: the Players League, the American
Association, the Union Association, and others. Baseball was growing, it was democratizing
(although not racially), and it was opening up to new participants, both on the
field and off.
And one of these was Lipman Emanuel Pike, by most accounts the first Jewish
ballplayer. Born in
Lipman Pike became legendary: a power hitter, he is said to have hit six
home runs in an 1866 game and – I’m merely reporting here – to have out-raced a
horse. Primarily an outfielder, he
played all positions for a variety of teams in
And yet, despite his historic
significance, it cannot be said that Lipman Pike
blazed an immediate trail for Jews in the sport. Few played over the next several decades,
according to research undertaken by the American Jewish Historical Society. The next Jews to play in the majors subsequent
to Lipman and his brother Jacob (who, truth be told,
appeared in only one game) likely were 40 year old Nathan Berkenstock,
who played one game in 1871 for the Philadelphia Athletics; and Jacob Goodman,
a first baseman who played sixty games for the 1878 Milwaukee National League
team, spent several subsequent years floating around various minor league and
independent teams, and resurfaced with Pittsburgh’s American Association
franchise in 1882.
And over the coming decades the
few Jews who did follow Pike and his brother, who followed Berkenstock,
and who followed Goodman, were mostly journeymen players who took great pains to
hide their religious affiliation. That
shouldn’t prove surprising; so did many of their counterparts elsewhere in an
America beginning to burst with successive waves of first German, then Eastern
European, Jewish immigrants. And while
it is true that occasionally the sport would see a clearly identifiable player
like Barney Pelty, known as “the Yiddish Curver,” who pitched mostly with the Browns from 1903
through 1912, most Jewish players of the next several decades were mere
footnotes to the real stars of the game, footnotes who tried with mixed success
to hide their Judaism from others:
-
Mark Manuel of the 1904
Senators and 1908 White Sox went by the name of Moxie Manuel.
-
Philip Clarence Cohen
played for the 1905 New York Highlanders under the name of Philip Clarence
Cooney.
-
Harry Cohen played for
the Browns, the Tigers of Detroit, and the Philadelphia Phillies
between 1902 and 1906 under the name of Klondike Kane.
-
Henry Lipschitz played third base in 1915 for the Philadelphia
Athletics under the name of Henry Bostick.
-
Infielder Michael Myron
Silverman was known as Jesse Baker when he played one game for the 1919
Washington Senators (and had his career ended when the notoriously racist and
anti-Semitic Ty Cobb spiked him in the throwing arm
while stealing second base).
-
Reuben Cohen played for
the Cardinals in 1921 as Reuben Ewing.
-
Sammy Cohen played for
-
Joseph Rosenbloom played as Joseph Bennett for the Phillies in 1923.
-
And then there is James
Herman Solomon. Solomon was a part-time
infielder for the Yankees in 1930 and ’31, and for the
Cardinals in ’32. Playing as Jimmie Reese,
James Herman Solomon has two claims to fame:
on road trips as a Yankee, he roomed with Babe Ruth – surely the most lonely position ever in organized sports, and as a
ninety year old he appeared on field as coach of the California Angels, the
oldest man ever to appear on field in uniform.
One therefore wonders what on
earth could have served as the inspiration for the nationally popular 1913
song, “Jake, Jake, The Yiddish Ballplayer!”
Still, tentatively, and
somewhat uneasily, Jews were starting to become real Americans, slowly
assimilating within the world of baseball just as they were slowly assimilating
within the larger country. And they were
making their mark in baseball off the field as well. The vaudevillian lyricist and composer, Jack Norworth (who may have been Jewish; my research is
inconclusive), joined by the verifiably Jewish composer Albert Von Tilzer, wrote this song in 1908:
“Katie Casey was base ball
mad.
Had the fever and had it
bad;
Just to root for the home
town crew,
Ev’ry sou Katie blew. {Note:
“sou” was slang for a low denomination coin)
On a Saturday, her young
beau
Called to see if she’d like
to go,
To see a show but Miss Kate
said,
“No, I’ll tell you what you
can do.””
Anybody recognize it? If you didn’t recognize the song by its first
verse, you will surely recognize it by its second:
“… but Miss Kate said, ”No, I’ll tell you what you can do.”
Take me out to the ball
game,
Take me out with the crowd.
Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack,
I don't care if I never get back,
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don't win it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the old ball game."”
That song was written in
1908 by one, possibly two, Jews. Perhaps
only “Happy Birthday To You” has been sung more often. Yet, it would be a quarter century before
another Jew would have as lasting an impact on the game. His name, of course, was Hank Greenberg.
But before we turn our
attention to Hank Greenberg, let’s look at another pattern of Jewish involvement
in early baseball. In 1882 Louis Kramer
helped organize the American Association, and was its president in 1891. Aaron
Stern, a clothing merchant, was a co-founder of the
American Association and owner of the Cincinnati Reds in 1882-1890. Other officials
of the
One
of the game's most controversial owners, Andrew Freedman, a lawyer and a power
behind
Thus,
seeing a significant Jewish front office presence in the sport, a 1921 article
in The Dearborn Independent entitled “The Jewish Degradation of American
Baseball” could declare the following, and I am quoting at length here:
“The Jewish controllers of wrestling will not permit a
real wrestler to appear—indeed, they go to infinite pains to bar him
out—because a real wrestler would immediately show up the game. Wrestling is as
much a Jewish business, controlled in its every part, as the manufacture
of clothing, and its hirelings are mostly Gentiles. That is what baseball was coming to. The
whole sport was getting down to an “exhibition game” status. The overtone of
“money, money, money” grew louder and louder. The sport aspect of the game was
beginning to give way to the “show” aspect. There were numerous signs that an
attempt was being made to “star” certain persons, to run “headliners,” and to
pull off a game with a sensational ending—just like a ballet is staged, or a
pageant. Thrills were being offered—not as the give and take of the game, the
accident of tensest action, but as practiced acting. That is, baseball was slowly being brought
under the level of the box-office idea.
There were forces against this metamorphosis of the game. Certain men
saw what was coming. There were also forces favoring the change, and wanting it
to come. Curiously enough, the forces that favored turning baseball into
afternoon vaudeville were Jews, and those who favored keeping the game as part
of American outdoor sports were non-Jews.”
End quote from The Dearborn Independent in 1921.
That, too, was part of the American tableau
earlier in the last century. And
anti-Semitism was endemic in the owners box as
well. How else to explain the sad tale
of Harry Rosenberg?
So onto that stage emerged the greatest
Jewish ballplayer of all time, Hank Greenberg.
Hank Greenberg was
In 1938, Greenberg achieved
tremendous fame when he fell two home runs short of matching Babe Ruth's record
of sixty home runs in a single season. He was chosen Most Valuable
Player in 1935 as a first baseman and again in 1940 as a left
fielder. He batted in more than one hundred runs per season seven
times in his career. His lifetime batting average was .313 and his
career home run total was 331.
In May 1941, Greenberg made
headlines as the first star ballplayer to enlist in the Armed
Services. In June 1945, he was the first ballplayer to attempt a
comeback after so long an absence from the sport. And he did so
successfully by hitting a home run in the first game he played upon his
return. In l947, Greenberg set another benchmark when he became the
first major league baseball player to earn more than $100,000 per year.
Now, Greenberg was not the
first Jewish ballplayer to have been touted as a superstar. That would have been Andy Cohen, mostly a
second baseman with the 1926, 1928, and 1929 New York Giants. The Giants, looking for a Jewish star to
attract a Jewish fan base in the nation’s most Jewishly
populated city, traded Rogers Hornsby to the Boston Braves to make room for
Cohen on their roster. Hornsby went on
to a Hall of Fame career; suffice to say, Cohen did not.
And Greenberg was not the
only successful Jewish ballplayer of his time.
Remember that Morrie Arnovich
had a six year career as an outfielder, one that lasted from 1936 through 1941
and saw him selected to the 1939 National League All Star team.
But Greenberg was easily the
best and most famous Jewish ballplayer of his time, the first Jewish superstar. Recall the story from 1934 when the Tigers had
their first chance to win the pennant in thirty years. After receiving rabbinic “dispensation” to
play on Rosh Hashana, Greenberg missed a crucial game
on the even more important holiday of Yom Kippur. Although the Tigers lost that day,
Greenberg’s decision won the respect of a nation. As syndicated poet, Edgar Guest,
wrote (and I quote):
“We shall miss him in the
infield and shall miss him at the bat,
But he’s true to his religion
– and I honor him for that!”
Religious fealty, by the
way, only went so far, contrary to what is alleged in the second paragraph of
the Shema – the paragraph, you will recall, which
advances the notion that good deeds will yield good outcomes: the Tigers of Hank Greenberg went on to lose
the 1934 World Series to St. Louis, four games to three.
Back to
Hank Greenberg. Greenberg often confronted on-field anti-Semitism. Now
Jew-baiting from the bench was an accepted part of the sport at the time, as
was all ethnic baiting. (Even the
Italian Yankees of the era – people like Tony Lazzeri
– were the subjects of constant slurs by opposing players.) So it was no surprise that, for example, during
the 1935 World Series against the Chicago Cubs the umpire had to intervene in
order to stop the catcalling aimed at Greenberg from the
Now, compare Greenberg’s
experience with that faced by the other prominent Jewish star of the era, Sid
Gordon. Along with Greenberg, Gordon of
the New York Giants was taunted with horribly obscene bench jockeying and
Jew-baiting. But Gordon was liked in a
way that Greenberg was not, and – frankly – he was not as good a ballplayer, so
not infrequently opposing managers shut down the anti-Semitism directed to
Gordon as they would not against Greenberg.
No, for the most part, Greenberg stood alone to the ceaseless cries,
from the opposing players and from the opposing fans, of “kike” and “Heb” and
worse.
Regardless, when Jackie
Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947 (the same year the classic film on
anti-Semitism, “Gentleman’s Agreement,” was released), Greenberg was among
those who most empathized with the obstacles Robinson faced. In future years Robinson would remember
Greenberg as the first opposing-team player to give him encouragement; and Jews
of that generation would remember Greenberg as a bridge both to baseball and to
secular
For – after Robinson and
Greenberg – baseball began to democratize as never before, as did America, and
the next several decades following Greenberg’s career therefore saw an
explosion of Jews in major league ball:
the brothers Norm and Larry Sherry, Al Rosen (the first major leaguer to
be voted MVP unanimously), Cal Abrams (the runner thrown out at home plate in
the Dodgers pennant losing final game of 1950), Mike Epstein (otherwise known
as “SuperJew”), Ken Holtzman
(who holds the record for most career wins by a Jewish pitcher), Scott Radinsky (who holds the record for most games pitched by a
Jewish pitcher), Steve Stone, Elliott Maddox, Art Shamsky,
and Steve Yeager, among others.
In the interest of time, I
won’t dwell too much on the most famous member of this post-Greenberg group,
Sanford Koufax of Brooklyn. If you are
attending tonight’s talk, it is a fair assumption that you already know his
story. Suffice to say, when fellow
Jewish ballplayer and pitcher, Bob Tufts – who pitched for San Francisco and
Kansas City in the early ‘80’s – was asked at the ceremony marking his
conversion to Judaism what Jewish name he wished to adopt, Tufts replied “Sandy
Koufax.”
What can one say about Sandy
Koufax? He made his debut with the
Brooklyn Dodgers at the age of 19. He
was mediocre, at best, his first six seasons, losing more games than he
won. Then, overnight, things
changed. How they changed! From 1962 through 1966 Koufax was baseball’s
dominant pitcher, ever, before or since, overpowering hitters with a blistering
fastball and a huge curve. He was the
league’s ERA leader all five of those years.
He won the Cy Young Award three times.
He was World Series MVP twice. He
was National League MVP once. He had
four career no-hitters. He pitched a
perfect game. After retiring prematurely
due to arthritis, he became the youngest person ever selected to the Hall of
Fame. And – in what appears to be the
defining statistic for complete Jewish reverence for Jewish ballplayers (see, also,
Shawn Green) – he refused to play the first game of the 1965 World Series, which
was held on Yom Kippur.
(An interesting
footnote: Don Drysdale
pitched that 1965 World Series game in place of Koufax. He struggled.
When he was pulled early by manager Walt Alston, Drysdale
purportedly said to his manager: “I bet
you wish I was Jewish today, too.”)
Now, I do not purport tonight
to be providing the definitive, all-encompassing tale of Jews in baseball. There simply is not enough time this evening. I could, for example, speak an entire day
about the wonderful career of Moe Berg, a journeyman ballplayer better known as
a master of numerous languages and an extraordinarily successful World War II
spy. It is said that he spoke seven
languages and could hit in none. I wish
there was time to show footage of the antics of Al Schacht, the “Clown Prince
of Baseball, who entertained millions of fans at twenty-five World Series
games, eighteen All Star games, countless major and minor league games, on
military bases, and in films such as “Bull Durham.”
I cannot focus upon the
upstart Federal League, whose records to this day – including those of its only
Jewish ballplayer, Guy Zinn – are not recognized
officially but whose existence was described fictitiously by Philip Roth in his
vastly underappreciated work “The Great American Novel.” (I regard that as the single best book on
baseball I have ever read, by the way, and heartily commend it to you.) I also do not have time to pay sufficient tribute
to the great sportswriter Shirley Povich, the
Washingtonian who wrote both of the immortal Walter Johnson and the hapless
Senators, and who is the only man ever listed in Who’s Who of American
Women. And I certainly wish there was
time to discuss in detail the absolute moral connection that I perceive between
political breakdown exemplified by the 1972 Watergate break-in and social
breakdown exemplified by the 1973 introduction of Ron Blomberg
as baseball’s first designated hitter.
But, alas, there isn’t the time. To quote the words uttered both by legions of
Brooklyn Dodgers fans and by legions of Jews at the Passover seder: “Next year.”
But I would like to conclude
with an observation. The story of Jews
and baseball, I said at the outset, is really the story of Jews and their
assimilation into secular
So Jews today proudly and
confidently constitute a presence in baseball, on the field and off. Even fans can order kosher meals at
ballparks. What a far, far cry from the
early days, when – say – Abraham Cohen felt the need to pitch for the 1918
Chicago White Sox as Ed Corey. Yes, we
Jews have made it as real Americans, we seem to be
saying, for we have even made it in the national pastime of baseball.
And we say this at precisely
the moment when baseball has been eclipsed in popularity by football and
basketball. Super Bowl ratings are
dramatically ascendant, World Series ratings in dramatic decline. And the future prognosis for baseball is just
as poor. More kids, after all, play
youth soccer than Little League.
That, too, I think is the
story of Jews and baseball. We belong in
baseball, just as we belong in
“Zaydie,”
the 1920’s joke went, “Babe Ruth hit another home run today!” And, at some level, many of us still wonder
if it is good for the Jews.
Thank you.
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