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.

Hank Greenberg, Sandy Koufax and Jewish Baseball Players' Yom Kippur Dilemma

The Detroit Tigers are currently in a pennant race for the American League Central Division, where they currently have a razor thin half game lead on the Kansas City Royals. 80 years ago the Detroit Tigers were similarly in a pennant race for their division. That was the September that the team's star, Hank Greenberg, famously sat out the game on Yom Kippur. It was September 20, 1934 and the Detroit Tigers faced the New York Yankees in a key game late in the pennant race. While his participation was sorely needed, Hank Greenberg stayed true to his Jewish religion and attended synagogue instead at Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Detroit. The Tigers lost the game, but went on to win the 1934 American League pennant (the Tigers lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in the '34 World Series).

With Hall of Famer Lou Brock, Willie Horton's son Al and Hank Greenberg's son Steve Greenberg

It is interesting to note that Hank Greenberg had in fact played in a game ten days earlier on Rosh Hashanah, in which he led the Detroit Tigers to victory with two home runs. A local Detroit rabbi gave him permission to play on Rosh Hashanah and the Detroit News ran the headline on the front page, "Talmud Clears Greenberg for Holiday Play." The day following the Rosh Hashanah victory, the Detroit Free Press ran a banner headline that read simply, "Happy New Year, Hank."

Hank Greenberg Hall of Fame plaques will be given out before today's game at Comerica Park

In commemoration of the day Hank Greenberg chose to sit out the game on Yom Kippur, the Detroit Tigers and local Jewish community organizations like the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit and the Michigan Jewish Sports Foundation will celebrate Jewish Heritage Day at the Detroit Tigers game today. It will also be a chance to honor Hank Greenberg, who was the first Jewish player elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

Detroit Tigers Hire Jewish Manager Brad Ausmus

I'm a big Detroit Tigers fan and have always been interested in Jewish baseball players in the Major Leagues. Therefore, the soon-to-be made announcement that the Detroit Tigers will hire Brad Ausmus to be their next manager is exciting news. Ausmus, who is Jewish and once played for the Detroit Tigers, is currently the manager for Israel's World Baseball Classic team.

Brad Ausmus played for the Detroit Tigers in 1996 and 1999-2000.

The hiring of Brad Ausmus marks the first time the Detroit Tigers will have a Jewish manager*. As soon as Jim Leyland made his resignation public last month, Brad Ausmus' name immediately was mentioned on the short list of potential replacements for Leyland, who took the Tigers to the World Series twice during his eight years with the team. Last year, Ausmus interviewed with the Red Sox for their manager position and turned down an opportunity to interview with the Astros for their manager position.

Brad Ausmus wearing a yarmulke and tefillin at the Kotel in Jerusalem while manager of Israel's World Baseball Classic team.

Ausmus spent 18 seasons in Major League Baseball as a catcher for the Padres, Tigers, Astros and Dodgers. He won the Gold Glove Award three times and made the All Star team in 1999. In 2007 Ausmus won the Darryl Kile Award "for integrity and courage." Ausmus was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2004. Now that he'll be back in Detroit, I will be certain to bring up his name as a candidate for the Michigan Jewish Sports Foundation's Hall of Fame, of which I'm a voting member.

Jewish History Through Baseball

I was recently asked to review Irwin Cohen's new book, Jewish History in the Time of Baseball’s Jews: Life On Both Sides of the Ocean, for the Michigan Jewish Historical Society's upcoming annual journal. Cohen, who writes for the Jewish Press, is a baseball maven and a history buff who has chronicled Detroit's Jewish history and also worked for a time in the front office of the Detroit Tigers organization. I immediately agreed to write the review and an inscribed copy of the book arrived at my office a few days later.

Holocaust Memorial Center director Stephen Goldman addresses members of the Detroit Tigers organization

As I sat down to read Cohen's book, which focuses on both baseball history and modern Jewish history with a special emphasis on the Holocaust, I thought back to this past winter when members of the Detroit Tigers coaching staff and front office were invited to the Holocaust Memorial Center here in Detroit, the country's first free-standing Holocaust memorial museum. The HMC was included for a site visit on the Detroit Tigers Winter Caravan, a week-long publicity tour to get local fans in Michigan excited for the upcoming season.