What a Year for Jews in Baseball!

For any baseball fan who pays special attention to the few (very few) good Jewish baseball players in Major League Baseball, 2017 was a very exciting year. And the excitement started even before the MLB season kicked off. In a Times of Israel article, I wrote about the memorable seven days of March that were magical for the ragtag Team Israel in the World Baseball Classic. Nate Freiman of Team Israel referred to his squad as "The Mensches of March" and they were known for their iconic "Mensch on the Bench" doll and for donning yarmulkes during the playing of Hatikvah (Israel's national anthem) before games. Team Israel became the pride of every Jewish kid around the world who had been waiting for their big Sandy Koufax or Hank Greenberg-esque excitement.

With the bar mitzvah boy before the Phillies game at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia

The next big moment in Jewish baseball (at least for me) came in late July. I flew to Philadelphia to officiate the bar mitzvah of a special needs boy before the Philadelphia Phillies game. About 100 of us gathered in a party room at the ballpark to watch this young man be called to the Torah (yes, I brought a small Torah into Citizens Bank Park!) along with his therapy dog (it was a bark mitzvah too!). Officiating a bar mitzvah before a Major League Baseball game inside the stadium was pretty cool and I couldn't imagine what could top it on that special night. And then the game went into extra innings. In the bottom of the 11th inning, pinch hitter Ty Kelly, a nice Jewish kid from Dallas, hit the walk off RBI to win the game for the Phillies. The bar mitzvah boy was ecstatic (along with the other Philly fans in the packed ballpark). The 29-year-old Kelly, who proudly wears a Jewish star necklace, has a Jewish mother and played for Team Israel this past year.

The excitement of the 2017 MLB season for fans of Jewish baseball players continued right up to the very end with two elite Jewish sluggers squaring off against each other in the World Series. Both Joc Pederson of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Alex Bregman of the Houston Astros had memorable postseason performances. Pederson had 3 homers in the postseason and Bregman had 4 homers and 10 RBI in the postseason. Had the Dodgers emerged victorious, Pederson was surely a candidate for World Series MVP.

Alex Bregman, of the 2017 World Champion Houston Astros, is one of the top Jewish MLB players today

The 2017 World Series had a couple notable moments for Jewish baseball fans. Pederson had all 3 of his postseason home runs in the World Series, giving him the record for most home runs by a Jewish player in one World Series, moving him past Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg. Bregman also makes the Jewish baseball record books becoming the first Jewish player to win a World Series game with a walk-off hit (in game 5 of the World Series). Both Bregman and Pederson homered in Saturday night's game 4, making them the first Jewish baseball players on opposing teams to homer in the World Series in the same game. Wow, that's a lot of records for one World Series.

White Sox Move Yom Kippur Game for Fans, Youkilis

As an avid Detroit Tigers fan it's difficult to root for Kevin Youkilis and the Chicago White Sox. However, the team's recent decision to reschedule an upcoming night game to earlier that afternoon out of respect for Yom Kippur is worthy of praise.

I've written numerous times on this blog about Jewish Major League Baseball players whose decisions of whether or not to play on Yom Kippur (known as "the Sandy Koufax question") become fodder for debate and discussion. Kevin Youkilis explained his feelings on playing on the Jewish day of atonement in a recent article in Yahoo! Sports after his team rearranged its schedule to accommodate Jewish fans as well as their star third baseman.

"You have to stick with your beliefs," Youkilis said. "You can't worry about people who aren't influential in your life who say things or tell you you're wrong. I know Shawn Green had a tough time with it. It just depends upon the community. In Boston they probably don't even care. They'd want you to play."

The White Sox did something earlier this week that many baseball teams had previously claimed was impossible based on the rigidity of Major League Baseball over its schedule. (The Yankees and Red Sox moved a game from evening to afternoon to accommodate the Jewish fans of both teams in 2009.) The White Sox changed the start time for its game on Tuesday, September 25 game against the Cleveland Indians from 7:10 to 1:10, citing courtesy for the team's Jewish fans who will observe Yom Kippur beginning at nightfall. Even if the stated reason was for the fans, the team's decision was a relief to Youkilis who no longer had to make the difficult decision on whether he would play that night. Last year, Youkilis responded to "the Sandy Koufax question" in the Jewish Journal by saying that there are "plenty of people with strong feelings on each side. It wouldn't be an easy choice."

It seems like Jewish baseball players face the Yom Kippur dilemma each year, but it's only the more popular players in predominantly Jewish cities who are discussed. In recent years in addition to Youkilis, Ryan Braun (who's father is Jewish and is known as the "Hebrew Hammer"), Gabe Kapler and Shawn Green have responded to the Yom Kippur question by sitting out games in some years and playing in other years. Yom Kippur doesn't pose the same dilemma to Jewish pitchers like Scott Feldman of the Texas Rangers or Jason Marquis of the San Diego Padres who can be rescheduled in the starting rotation or simply not used in relief during that particular game.

Interestingly, this dilemma for baseball players has been named "The Sandy Koufax question" after Koufax sat the first game of the World Series in 1965. However, Koufax pitched in the second game instead so it wasn't the same sacrifice as Hank Greenberg who refused to play baseball on Yom Kippur in 1934, even though the Detroit Tigers were in the middle of a pennant race.

A funny story is often told about that Dodgers World Series game which had Don Drysdale pitching in Game 1 in place of Koufax. Drysdale gave up seven runs in 2 2/3 innings and when the manager came to pull him from the game, Drysdale deadpanned, "I bet right now you wish I was Jewish, too!" Koufax went on to lose Game 2.

Some baseball players view the decision to play or not on Yom Kippur to be a personal choice, but not everyone agrees. In an article in the Forward a couple years ago Hank Greenberg's granddaughter Melanie (Former MLB Deputy Commissioner Steve Greenberg's daughter) wrote, "Heavy though the burden may be, I believe that Jewish players share the same obligation as my grandfather — to serve as representatives for their people. Admittedly, he lived in different times. Jewish athletes, however, still have the ability to affect their communities."

At least this year the White Sox helped their star out and he didn't have to make a decision. Youkilis has said that he will fast and attend synagogue this Yom Kippur.