Between Greenberg and Green:
Memories of Jewish Ballplayers

by Ken Kantor

I have been an avid baseball fan since my childhood. Growing up in Chicago, I had opportunities to see the Cubs at Wrigley Field and White Sox at Comiskey Park. While the success of those teams was at best sketchy during that period, I did get to see the best teams and players in each league as they came into town. I especially admired the great African-American and Latino players--Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Hank Aaron, Roy Campanella, Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal, and Don Newcombe, as well as Larry Doby and Luis Aparicio of the White Sox and Ernie Banks and Billy Williams of the Cubs--for their courage and ability to overcome racism.

The recent and celebrated documentary "The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg" reaffirmed for me how Jewish athletes, especially in earlier days, also had to confront prejudice and discrimination. Since Greenberg played a little before my time, though, my memories are primarily of those who followed him, and who preceded current stars like Shaun Green and Gabe Kapler. I will share here my recollections of five Jewish baseball stars, bolstered by information contained in two books by father and son Harold U. and Meir Z. Ribalow, Jewish Baseball Stars (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1984) and The Jew in American Sports (New York: Hippocrene Books, 4th edition, 1985). (An earlier edition of the latter book was my favorite Bar Mitzvah present in 1956). These profiles are presented in chronological order of their careers in the major leagues.

If anyone defied the stereotype of the timid Jew, it was Al Rosen. The tough and talented third baseman of the Cleveland Indians in the early 1950's, he would stand up to anyone who dared to insult his ancestry. In 1953 he was voted the American League Most Valuable Player, in an unprecedented unanimous vote. I can recall listening on the radio to White Sox-Indians games, in which Rosen would often make a key play in the field or get a winning hit. He once declared that he would be willing to change his name to Rosenthal or Rosenstein to become even more apparently Jewish. Commenting on his career after his retirement from baseball, Rosen said, "I wanted it to be, here comes one Jewish kid that every Jew in the world can be proud of."

Lesser known was Dodger relief pitcher Larry Sherry, but I recall him vividly as the guy who almost singlehandedly beat the White Sox in the 1959 World Series. He closed the door on Sox hitters four times in six games. I felt crushed by the defeat, but also impressed with Sherry's grace under pressure. To describe Sherry's performance, the Ribalows quote Judah HaNasi from the Talmud: "Some win eternity after years of toil, others in a moment."

Sandy Koufax is acknowledged as the greatest Jewish baseball player, and some say the greatest pitcher of all time. For his career shortened by arthritis, the numbers are astonishing: 165 victories, 2,396 strikeouts, 40 shutouts, 4 no-hitters, and an earned run average of 2.76. I can remember sitting behind home plate at Wrigley Field, watching Koufax strike out one batter after another with his devastating curve and overpowering fastball. Like Greenberg and Rosen before him, he was proud of his religion and in 1965 refused to pitch a World Series game on Yom Kippur; after that day manager Walter Alston always kept a Jewish calendar on his desk.

At times unfairly compared to Sandy Koufax, Ken Holtzman was in his own right an outstanding pitcher for the Cubs in the late 1960's and the world champion teams of the Oakland Athletics in the 1970's. He was a mainstay for both teams, throwing two no-hitters for the Cubs and winning World Series games for the A's. Having witnessed the collapse of the Cubs in 1969, I was even more upset to find out how manager Leo Durocher had mistreated his players, in particular calling Holtzman a "kike." Throughout his career, though, Holtzman retained his dignity and pride in his Jewish heritage.

Though I admit I didn't pay strong attention to Steve Stone's playing career in the 1970's, I've appreciated him in more recent years as a Cubs television announcer; he's as knowledgeable and articulate as any in the business. He was also an exceptional pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles, winning the Cy Young Award in 1980 with 25 victories. Interviewed in 1985, he claimed Sandy Koufax as his personal role model, adding with characteristic humor, "I'm the best right-handed Jewish pitcher to come into the majors in the past twenty years--mainly because I don't know of any others."

In the introduction to their book, the Ribalows pose the question, "why Jewish athletes?" The answer, they say, is that it shouldn't matter, but it does, because of the pride that people naturally take in the accomplishments of their own, especially if they have faced and surmounted obstacles. We admire baseball stars like Hank Greenberg and Al Rosen, as we do Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron, for the ways in which they

overcame bigotry with courage, dignity, and grace. And though anti-Semitism has been less an impediment in more recent times, we also celebrate Larry Sherry, Sandy Koufax, Ken Holtzman, Steve Stone, Shaun Green, and Gabe Kapler, for the ways in which their achievements, character, and Jewish identities represent the best in ourselves.

Ken Kantor is a professor of education at National-Louis University in Evanston, Illinois. This past summer he fulfilled a long-time desire by taking a baseball odyssey, seeing games in eight different cities in twelve days.

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