Nearly 50 years after Sandy Koufax declined to pitch the opening game of the 1965 World Series for the Los Angeles Dodgers because it fell on Yom Kippur, foul-mouthed comedian Sarah Silverman went to work on the Day of Atonement. On Friday night, October 3, as many Jews elsewhere were in synagogue reciting the Kol…
● Dolph Schayes and the Rise of Professional Basketball By Dolph Grundman Syracuse University Press, 224 pages, $24.95 Basketball player Dolph Schayes should be as famous as baseball slugger Hank Greenberg. Like Greenberg, Schayes was the first Jewish star in his sport. During his playing career, from 1948 to 1964, Schayes was a 12-time All-Star;…
Jewish museums in the United States often walk a tightrope when planning special exhibitions: Should they focus exclusively on the Jewish experience or study other ethnic communities as well? The former approach risks parochialism, while the latter would make the museum’s focus overly broad. In its new exhibit on Jews and baseball, “Chasing Dreams: Baseball…
1) September 9, 1965: Koufax pitches a perfect game (no hits, walks or errors) against the Chicago Cubs at Dodger Stadium, and sets a record for the most Ks in a perfecto by striking out 14 batters. The victory gives Koufax four career no-hitters, the most by any major league pitcher at the time. 2)…
In October 2012, Gerald Eskenazi wrote an article in this newspaper on the evolving image of the Jewish athlete. The article quoted the mother of major league pitcher Jason Marquis, who had once called the editor of the Jewish Sports Review to ask: “My son’s Jewish. How come he’s not in your publication?” By last…
● Jewhooing the Sixties by David E. Kaufman Brandeis University Press, 360 pages, $36 The final week of September 1961 proved to be an auspicious one in American Jewish history — or, at least, in the history of Jewish-American celebrities. Within a matter of just a few days, Sandy Koufax set his first National League…
Known as the “Iron Batter,” Lipman Pike was one of the earliest baseball stars. Playing for the Philadelphia Athletics in the 1860s, Pike was a power hitter at a time when home runs were rare. And he was one of the first paid players — $20 a week. He is also widely noted as the…
Jewish Jocks: An Unorthodox Hall of Fame Edited by Franklin Foer and Marc Tracy Twelve, 304 pages, $26.99 As long as people are reading the Bible, Jews will always be thought of as a stubborn people. You can thank God for that: In Deuteronomy 9:6, God tells Moses that the Israelites are “stiff-necked.” As long…
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