Now a Jewish Major Leaguer baseball site
By Bruce F. Lowitt
ST. PETERSBURG, Florida — Think Jewish baseball players.
OK, now that you’ve come up with Sandy Koufax and Hank Greenberg, think about, say, a dozen Jewish major leaguers playing right now.
There’s Kevin Youkilis of the Red Sox and Gabe Kapler of the Rays, and … um … Ryan Braun of the Brewers and … and … is John Grabow of the Cubs Jewish? (Yes.)
And Shawn Green of the Mets? Sorry. He hasn’t played since 2007.) Oh, and David Eckstein of the Padres. (Sounds like he might be Jewish, but he’s not.)
And how’s Braun doing this year? (Very well, thank you, as is Youkilis.) And why is it necessary to scour the box scores in the newspaper or online sites to find out how Grabow is doing this year?
It isn’t.
Former St. Petersburg Times reporter Scott Barancik created the Jewish Baseball News, online at www.jewishbaseballnews.com in May for just that purpose.
The Rays’ Gabe Kapler is one of the players followed on the new website: http://www.jewishbaseballnews.com It isn’t his first online venture.
He is also the founder, in 2008, of www.baylawsuits.com, a news service that researches court cases – about 2,000 so far — for his clients. That venture was an outgrowth of the former American Banker writer and then eight-year Times business reporter being caught up in the first wave of layoffs as the economy slumped.
Looking back on it, he acknowledges, “I think daily journalism was not for me. I always had trouble making deadlines. I was much more into wordsmithing than the job and time allowed.”
He came up with the idea for http://www.jewishbaseballnews.com while researching his family history.
“At some point, probably in my 20s (he turned 46 on May 21), well after I’d become interested in baseball in general, Barancik said, “I started looking into genealogy, trying to find ancestors, immigrants who’d changed their names when they got here or were in some other way concealed by the records of history.”
After a while, he said, “I thought, ‘I’m spending all this time on dead people. … There are all these living (relatives) I don’t know about. Maybe I should concentrate on looking at the family tree going forward.”
He realized he had the same attitude about Jewish ballplayers, about having a sense of pride in the performance of Jewish athletes.
But do an Internet search for Jewish major leaguers and you’ll find that most of the sites take a historical approach, looking back at Koufax, Greenberg, Cal Abrams, Rod Carew, Al Rosen, Moe Berg, Ron Blomberg, and dozens of names rarely mentioned outside of a line or two in the Baseball Encyclopedia’s list of all-time players.
If there are discussions, debates, it often comes down to just what makes a player Jewish. Did Carew convert or did he not? If a player has a Jewish father but a non-Jewish mother, is he Jewish? Does it matter how observant he is?
“I found that a turnoff,” Barancik said, “and, kind of like with my family history, it made me look to the present. Who’s Jewish today? … I started looking into it and I was blown away that there were more than a dozen last year.
“I started asking my Jewish friends, ‘How many Jews do you think are playing (in the major leagues) today? Invariably they said, ‘One?’ ‘Two?’ Usually Youkilis, maybe Braun.”
He found it interesting that when people say Jewish ballplayer, Koufax and Greenberg – and rarely anyone else – come to mind.
“There’s all of this stuff going on now and why aren’t we celebrating that?” Barancik said. “And I thought, ‘How can I keep track of these guys, keep track of how they’re doing? How can I, y’know, live out the Jewish male fantasy of seeing how these Members of the Tribe are performing on a daily basis.’ ”
Unlike other websites, jewishbaseballnews.com provides daily and season-total up-to-date statistics of the 12 current “Members of the Tribe” major-league players, plus blogs, news updates, and features, Barancik said.
There are other websites devoted to Jewish athletes in general and baseball players in particular, notably jewishsportsreview.com, run by Shel Wallman and Ephraim Moxson.
It’s a one-man operation at the moment — with a lot of assistance from Wallman and Moxson.
“At this point I’m relying on them,” Barancik said. “They don’t call me every time they find someone and say, ‘Hey, there’s a new Jew.’ When they find somebody new they break it in their own publications. But they’ve been very generous in sharing their information with me, the historical stuff they’ve gathered.
“They’re the go-to people for knowing who is Jewish. They call players or their families and try to both confirm that they’re Jewish and comfortable with being identifi ed as Jewish in a publication,” Barancik said.
He is developing a blog for features and opinion pieces. He says he wants to add more bloggers and to establish a give-and-take with his readers and hopes that, over time, he can introduce other writers “who have a voice and are interested in waxing eloquent on the subject of Jewish baseball players.”
He has also learned that feeling pride in the success of one member of a group, whether it’s religious (Greenberg), racial (Joe Louis) or anything else, is commonplace.
“I’ve met folks from the Dominican Republic who can name every one of the roughly 40 Dominican players in the majors,” Barancik said, “and fans who can tell you every Cuban-born player. There’s that sense of pride, and I think that we as Jews feel the same way.”
He wonders if, in fact, there’s anyone else out there with the same passion, the sense of group pride. He thinks there is, although he doesn’t have an answer yet because the site is barely a month old.
But that’s why I created it,” Barancik said, “to indulge my own interest with the hope that others might be interested as well.”
Which begs the question: Why should that many people care about Youkilis as a Jew rather than what he’s doing to help carry the Red Sox? Why should people who aren’t Rays fans care about Gabe Kapler?
“I think it’s fair to say that if you’re not a baseball fan, if you’re not a Rays fan, you’re not going to care about Gabe Kapler,” Barancik said. “Granted, if there’s, say, an incredibly talented Jewish soccer player in the English Premier League, I wouldn’t care about him that much because I don’t really care about soccer.”
Barancik, a Chicago native and Cubs fan, said he was a Youkilis fan before discovering after the 2008 season that the Red Sox first baseman was Jewish.
“I never would have guessed it. Usually you tend to ‘hate’ the best guys on the other team, but I had such an admiration for Youkilis,” Barancik said. “He’s butt-ugly, he has the weirdest (batting) stance, he’ll foul off 10 pitches before he gets the one he likes. And he always seems to have fun. It was like, ‘I wish we had that guy.’ ”
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This article previously appeared in the Jewish Press of Pinellas County.
San Diego County’s historic places: Lemon Grove
By Donald H. Harrison
LEMON GROVE, California – If you travel to Hamburg or Frankfurt in Germany, you’ll find that in neither place is a “hamburger” or a “frankfurter” a staple of local diets. Wouldn’t you think that in Lemon Grove, one could get a glass of fresh-made lemonade? Lido’s, a popular family-owned restaurant serving Italian food for nearly a half century, indeed has lemonade on the menu. However, the waitress advises, it’s not fresh-squeezed; it’s from a dispenser.
Alas, things are not always what they seem. This is a town that right in the heart of its downtown boasts a 10 foot-by-6 foot lemon sculpture, recognized on the Roadside America website as the largest lemon in the world. However, the only fresh lemons you’ll find in the City of Lemon Grove are those that grow on a few trees recently planted for effect behind the lemon sculpture. The acres upon acres of lemon and orange groves of the past are no more; they gave way to housing developments and stores in this working class San Diego suburb on the San Diego Trolley’s ‘orange’ line.
The town has all but lost its namesake fruit, and except for the big lemon sculpture, does little to promote itself as a lemon capital. There are no ‘lemon fairs’ for townspeople to compete in; no international competitions for the best lemon meringue pies, lemon cookies, or lemon tarts. There are no trade fairs demonstrating the lemon’s qualities as a furniture polish, and not even any exhibitions of defective automobiles.
Yet, the town does keep nostalgia alive. Its station house along the San Diego Trolley line is a copy of one that served the town a century earlier. Four murals adorn the wall of the Grove Pastry Shop, located where the city’s first business, Sonka Brothers General Merchandise, once stood.
Four of five idealized history murals by local artists Kathleen Strzelecki and Janne LaValle were completed prior to New Year’s Day 2010. The first shows a Kumeyaay family outside a thatched hut or ewaa. Children are playing, women are weaving, a man is readying a spear for fishing.
In the second mural, crew members of explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo ride horses through the land he named ‘San Miguel’ in 1542, but which subsequently became known as ‘San Diego.’ In the background is a scene that could not have occurred for another 267 years—a Franciscan padre teaching a group of Kumeyaay Indians gathered around a tree. It was not until 1769 that Spaniards led by Father Junipero Serra began to colonize this area.
The third mural depicts San Diego County during its Mexican period. There is a procession of two brides on horseback—accompanied by musicians.
The fourth mural focuses on the early history of Lemon Grove, which was first settled in 1869 by sheep rancher Robert Allison. The mural shows the Lemon Grove Store operated by the Sonka Brothers, as well as a church, the school where a teacher leads children in a recess game, and the train station. The fifth mural, when completed, is supposed to show modern Lemon Grove.
In a 1958 edition of the Journal of San Diego History, Anthony F. Sonka, a second generation owner of Sonka Brothers, recalled that “in the early days, lemons were the chief industry, and hundreds of carloads were shipped from the local packing house, which was operated by the California Citrus Union; later the Lemon Grove Association was organized. … Lemon Grove was a community of five and ten acre lemon and orange ranches, chiefly owned by semi-retired people.”
He also wrote that baseball was the chief diversion for the lemon pickers in town. “In 1915 Lemon Grove won what they called at that time the Valley Championship. Among the teams were North Park, Lakeside, El Cajon and Chula Vista. We had a diamond which the players had built themselves, and which they kept up.”
Sports today still is important to Lemon Grove. The Lemon Grove Little League rates its own banner near the big lemon, and one of the best known businesses is Berry’s Athletic Supply, which keeps a huge inventory so that it can fill orders immediately.
Although Lemon Grove still has a small-town feel, with the Chamber of Commerce trying to persuade passers-by that they are experiencing the ‘best climate on earth” and most businesses along Broadway and Lemon Grove Avenue being one-story affairs, national chains are coming to the suburb. Close to the giant lemon is a Starbucks coffee outlet, and about a mile down Broadway is a huge Home Depot.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. This article appeared previously on examiner.com
New York Yankee baseball camp will be strictly kosher for the Shomer Shabbas
TAMPA, Florida (Press Release)–For the second consecutive year, the New York Yankees have announced they will offer strictly kosher food offerings and Shabbat accommodations at their November 2010 Fantasy Camp. Glatt kosher food will be provided by Weberman Foods with OK supervision, and a Wednesday “Dream Game” will be played so Shomer Shabbat Jews can participate.
Campers who keep kosher will be able to fully participate in all regular camp activities and have three strictly kosher meals served daily. The camp will offer traditional Shabbat services Friday night and Saturday, with Friday practice ending well before Shabbat and kosher campers able to participate in final games on Sunday.
For six days and seven nights, Yankees Fantasy Campers live the life of a big league player, dressing in full Yankees uniform and using the same Spring Training clubhouse and fields as the New York Yankees. All campers get their very own locker and are served by a staff of clubhouse attendants and professional trainers to create the authentic Yankees experience.
Former Yankees Chris Chambliss, Fritz Peterson, Tommy John, Mickey Rivers, and Ron Blomberg, among others, are scheduled to attend.
Founded in 1997 and located in Tampa, Fla., the New York Yankees Fantasy Camp has hosted over 1,500 campers and 50 former New York Yankees players. For more information on the New York Yankees Fantasy Camp, and the addition of strictly kosher and Shabbat accommodations, please call (800) 368-2267.
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Preceding provided by the New York Yankees
Kevin Youkilis of Boston Red Sox voted ‘Jewish Player of the Decade’
NEWTON, Massachusetts (Press Release)– Boston Red Sox infielder Kevin Youkilis has been voted the Jewish Player of the Decade in online balloting conducted by Jewish Major Leaguers, the organization which produces an annual set of trading cards to honor the Jewish contribution to America’s National Pastime. Youkilis received 54% of the nearly 350 votes cast, with Shawn Green finishing second at 20% and Ryan Braun third at 11%. Other candidates included Brad Ausmus, Jason Marquis, Scott Schoeneweis, John Grabow, Gabe Kapler, Scott Feldman, Ian Kinsler, Craig Breslow, Adam Stern and Mike Lieberthal.
Ausmus, Marquis and Schoeneweis played the full decade of the ‘00s, and Green enjoyed two monster seasons with the Dodgers at the start of the decade. “Clearly,” said Martin Abramowitz, who heads JML, “Youkilis made a more lasting impression because of his superb play in the second half of the decade, which included a .382 on-base percentage, tops among everyone in the group.”
Youkilis also had a consecutive errorless streak at first base which broke an 86-year old record, won a Gold Glove, and had two top-ten finishes in MVP voting. Several voters commented on his versatility and intensity, which has led the Red Sox to four post-season appearances in his 7-year career. He batted .500 in the 2007 American League Championship Series, with a .929 slugging percentage. The 2010 edition of Jewish Major Leaguer baseball cards will include a card recognizing Youkilis’s selection.
“One of the purposes of the balloting”, Abramowitz noted, ”was to highlight the fact that this has been an extraordinary decade for Jews in baseball, perhaps the greatest ever.” Jewish Major Leaguers, Inc., is a Boston-based not-for-profit organization “Documenting American Jews in America’s Game.” It has produced five highly regarded limited-edition sets of Jewish Major Leaguers baseball cards and two nationally-publicized events at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.
The 2008 Hank Greenberg Edition and the 2009 “Record-Setters” edition are still available; the 2010 “Deck of the Decade” is planned for publication shortly after Opening Day of next season. Jewish Major Leaguers baseball cards are licensed by Major League Baseball, and the Major League Baseball Players Association. The 2010 edition will be produced in cooperation with The Topps Company, and is made possible in part by grants from Major League Baseball, the Chicago White Sox, the Florida Marlins, the New York Mets, the Tampa Bay Rays and the Washington Nationals. Youkilis’ 2010 card from the Jewish Major Leaguers forthcoming set, as well as the special Player of the Decade card, are attached. For further information, visit www.Jewishmajorleaguers.org.
Which Jewish baseball player was the best of all?
NEWTON, Massachusetts (Press Release) — What has been the “Golden Age” for Jewish Major League baseball players?
Was it one of the eras in which future Hall of Famers Hank Greenberg or Sandy Koufax stood alone at the top of the class?
A good argument could be made for the current age, at least in terms of quantity and yes, quality!
No fewer than 29 players with Jewish heritage emerged in this decade, with at least a dozen qualifying for consideration as the best Jewish player of their time.
Now, Jewish Major Leaguers, Inc., the organization that has produced an annual set of baseball trading cards honoring historical and current Jewish players, and which has conducted two seminars at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown – has created online voting so that fans can select the Jewish player of the decade.
Three players have spanned the full decade – Brad Ausmus, Jason Marquis and Scott Schoeneweis. Five have played in a good part of the decade – John Grabow, Shawn Green, Gabe Kapler, Mike Lieberthal and Kevin Youkilis.
And another five have played in half or less of the decade, include All-Stars Ryan Braun and Ian Kinsler, along with Craig Breslow, Scott Feldman and Adam Stern. (Youkilis, Green, Lieberthal, Marquis and Ausmus have also made All-Star teams).
The decade has featured a 19-total base game from Green, the best 9-inning single game performance in the history of baseball – a consecutive errorless streak at first base by Youkilis which broke an 86-year old record; and Kinsler’s hitting for the cycle while also going 6-for-6 (which hadn’t happened in 100 years). There were three Gold Glove winners (Youkilis, Lieberthal, Ausmus), two Silver Slugger award winners (Marquis and Braun), and the first-ever Jewish Rookie of the Year (Braun). “One of the purposes of the contest”, according to the organization, is to highlight the fact that this has been an extraordinary decade, perhaps the greatest ever.”
Fans can vote at the website http://www.jewishmajorleaguers.org, or by emailing their selection to jewishmajorleaguers@rcn.com. Fans are encouraged to vote only once, although like the MLB All-Star voting, multiple ballots are accepted. For those who vote for the winning player, a random drawing will be held for the opportunity to join in presenting the award.
Voting by mail is also permitted, with ballots to be sent to Jewish Major Leaguers,
104 Greenlawn Ave, Newton Center, MA 02459. Voting closes December 31.
Jewish Major Leaguers, Inc., is a Boston-based not-for-profit organization “Documenting American Jews in America’s Game.” It has produced five highly regarded limited-edition sets of Jewish Major Leaguers baseball card and two nationally-publicized events at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. The 2008 Hank Greenberg Edition and the 2009 “Record-Setters” edition are still available; the 2010 “Deck of the Decade” is planned for publication shortly after Opening Day of next season.
For further information, visit www.Jewishmajorleaguers.org.
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Preceding provided by Jewish Major Leaguers Inc.