The National Baseball Museum and Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, will host a program on Sunday, June 29, to mark the 75th anniversary of Hank Greenberg’s rookie season.
Scheduled to participate in a panel discussion on Greenberg’s life and impact on the Jewish community are Pulitzer Prize winner Ira Berkow, a former sports columnist for The New York Times and coauthor of Greenberg’s 1989 autobiography; Aviva Kempner, who produced and directed The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg; Greenberg’s daughter, Alva; social and sports historian Bill Simons of the State University of New York at Oneonta; and Dr. Martin Abramowitz, founder and president of Jewish Major Leaguers, Inc. (www.jewishmajorleaguers.org) — one of the event’s sponsors –and a leading historian on Jews in baseball history. (Jewish Major Leaguers held a two-day seminar at the Hall in 2004 celebrating American Jews in Baseball.) The organization, which produces a set of trading cards of all the Jewish players who have appeared in the Majors, created a 10-card subset in recognition of Greenberg’s career for its 2008 edition.
"We honor Hank Greenberg for what he did for a generation of Jewish youngsters, many of them first-generation Americans who were learning baseball and looked with pride to the great star," said Abramowitz in a statement. "His refusal to play on Yom Kippur, his standing up to anti-Semitism, and the stature he brought to our National Pastime made him then — and now — a role model for the ages."
The program is cosponsored by Major League Baseball, Nokona Athletic Goods Company, and the Florham Park-based Goldklang Group, which operates six minor or independent league teams.
In an e-mail to NJ Jewish News, Marvin Goldklang, chair of the Goldklang Group, said, "As someone with deep roots not only in Judaism, but in professional baseball, I felt honored when approached by [event organizer] Bob Ruxin to be one of the major sponsors."
While acknowledging that Greenberg wasn’t the first Jewish Major Leaguer or even a particularly observant or practicing Jew, Goldklang said, "For me, Hank Greenberg was the Jackie Robinson of the Jewish people. He was a striking symbol of a strong individual, intensely proud of his Jewish heritage, making his way and succeeding in a predominantly Gentile and frequently anti-Semitic, yet uniquely American, world."
Goldklang connected the Hall of Fame program to another celebration.
"For the past 60 years, the State of Israel has instilled a sense of pride among Jewish people everywhere in their identification as Jews. That’s what Hank Greenberg did for those of his generation."
Greenberg, who died in 1986, is one of four Jews in the Hall of Fame. Born in New York City, he passed up on the chance to join the New York Yankees because someone by the name of Lou Gehrig was firmly in place at his position, first base. Instead, he signed with the Detroit Tigers. Although he had one at bat in 1930 at the age of 19, 1933 still qualifies as his "rookie" year. He played 13 seasons, retiring with a .313 career batting average, 331 homers, and 1,276 RBI.
As one of the first Major League players to enlist in the military, Greenberg missed more than four prime seasons during World War II. He homered in his first game back from the service and hit a pennant-clinching ninth inning grand slam on the final day of the 1945 season. The Tigers’ victory over the Chicago Cubs marked the last time the franchise from the Windy City has appeared in a World Series.
The event will be free to those purchasing admission tickets to the museum but tickets for the panel and film screenings must be reserved. Tickets will be available beginning June 3 for members of the Hall; any remaining tickets will be offered beginning June 17. The panel discussion, which will be held in the Grandstand Theater, will include video tributes from former Greenberg teammates Ralph Kiner and Virgil Trucks. The Kempner documentary will be shown throughout the day in the Bullpen Theater.
For more information, visit BaseballHallofFame.org or call 1-888-HALL-OF-FAME.
Ron Kaplan is the features editor for the New Jersey Jewish News