Baseball's first Jewish star

In the seventh inning of a game played 60 years ago, Hank Greenberg hit a home run off Gordon (Dusty) Rhodes. Not so unusual, since Greenberg hit another homer off Rhodes in the ninth inning as the Tigers beat the Red Sox, 2-1. And not so unusual because Greenberg led the Tigers with 26 home runs that year, 1934, as they won the American League pennant.

But the game against the Red Sox occurred on September 10, the first day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Hank Greenberg was Jewish. Not by a long shot was he the first jew to Play major league baseball but unquestionably he was the first Jewish star. And in the days leading up to September 10, whether he should play ball on Rosh Hashanah or observe the Holy Day by resting caused quite a stir.

For remember, this was 1934. Adolf Hitler had been Chancellor of Germany for 19 months, and even though Oskar Schindler was doing nothing more than working in his family's machinery plant in Czechoslovakia, the threats of National Socialism were already a concern to Jews everywhere.

"I got telegrams from rabbis and Jewish advisers from all over the country," Greenberg told THE SPORTING NEWS that October. "Some told me of the mistake I would make if I did not observe the day properly. Others told me to use my own judgment. I was in a terrible fix. (Manager) Mickey Cochrane told me it was a personal matter that I must handle myself."

Like other second-generation Americans, Jews growing up in the 1920s were torn between the power of ethnic traditions and the forces of assimilation. As historian Peter Levine has shown, Eastern European Jews coming to America did not grant sport lofty status, but the children of these immigrants were attracted to athletics. Especially in New York City, jewish teens like Hank Greenberg found that they could use sport in their pursuit of the American dream.

"Finally I decided I would play," Greenberg recalled. "But I don't mind telling you I was upset mentally and at heart when I went into that game. Some divine influence must have caught hold of me that day."

The funny thing was Hank Greenberg was not very religious. He had grown up near Crotona Park in the Bronx, just a short distance from Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds, and he cared much more about sports than his religion. "I had begun drawing away from it even as a boy," he wrote in his autobiography, "Hank Greenberg: The Story of My Life."

John McGraw, manager of the New York Giants from 1902 until his resignation early in the 1932 season, had long sought a premium jewish ballplayer for his roster as a way, he thought, to attract Jewish fans and counteract the enormous popularity of Babe Ruth. "An outstanding Jewish player in New York would be worth his weight in gold," McGraw told writer Fred Lieb in The Sporting News in 1935. But McGraw let Greenberg slip away without so much as a second thought. "I knew that New York kids sometimes went to the Polo Grounds to shag flies when the Giant irregulars hit in the morning, and I asked for permission to join them," Greenberg recalled. "Back came the word from John McGraw: Henry Greenberg had already been scouted by the Giants; he would never be a ballplayer."

Greenberg signed with the Tigers in 1929 with the understanding that he could finish college before reporting to play ball. After just one semester at New York University, he changed his mind. He spent three years in the minors before joining the Tigers in 1933. "As a first-year Tiger," TSN said, "Hank crowded Harry Davis off the bag and wound up with a .301 batting average."

Edgar G. Brands, editor of The Sporting News, picked Detroit to finish second in 1934. "The Tigers possess what many critics believe to be the best young pitching staff in the majors," Brands said, "and the batting of Greenberg and (Goose) Goslin will be big helps." But when The Sporting News conducted its annual preseason poll among members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, the Tigers finished behind the defending-champion Senators, the Yankees and the Red Sox. Yet on September 4, the Tigers stood in first place, 51/2 games ahead of the Yankees. And so Greenberg approached Rosh Hashanah with the Tigers still in the thick of a pennant race.

Nine days later, it was different. Now it was Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, more solemn than Rosh Hashanah. And now, the Tigers were more securely in first place. This time Greenberg did sit out, skipping a game against the Yankees that the Tigers lost, 5-2.

"On Yom Kippur, my friends took me to synagogue," Greenberg remembered. "We walked in about 10:30 in the morning and the place was jammed. The rabbi was praying. Right in the middle of everything, everything seemed to stop. The rabbi looked up; he didn't know what was going on. And suddenly everybody was applauding. I was embarrassed; I didn't know what to do. I was a hero around town, particularly among the Jewish people, and I was very proud of it."