dear Dave Hirsch, I can dream, can’t I.
In the documentary film about that other great Jewish ballshpieler,, Hank Greenberg (who also did not play on Yom Kippur), Alan Dershowitz states that when he was a young boy (and baseball fan) in the late 1930s, he believed that Hank Greenberg would be the first Jewish president. Greenberg was handsome, well-spoken, determined, famous, free from scandal, and an all-around great guy. When Hitler, Goebbels and Father Coughlin were ranting about the athletic inferiority of Jews, here was a Jewish man you could reasonably argue was the best baseball player of his time.
Well, Hank Greenberg is no longer alive, but Sandy Koufax is, and he is handsome, well-spoken, determined, and an all-around great guy. You could make an argument that he pitched better than anyone else ever pitched, and instilled pride in another generation of Jewish boys, specifically mine.
Maybe I should have nominated Koufax/Bloomberg.
Contrary to what my mother told me, Koufax did not refuse to pitch on Yom Kippur. He was spared that since Don Drysdale would have normally pitched in the rotation that day. This doesn’t lessen my admiration for Koufax.
His accomplishments on the field were not limited to not pitching on YK.
“I can see how he (Sandy Koufax) won twenty-five games. What I don’t understand is how he lost five.” – Yogi Berra on Sandy Koufax’s 1963 record, after he faced Koufax in the World Series.