Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes by John Rosengren

This new volume comes to me as gift from my 10th grade Bible class (knowing my proclivity towards baseball) and brings to light some aspects of Hank Greenberg that actually show a tragic disconnect.  The book is divided into basically his youth, his playing years, his baseball management years and his family life after baseball.

Hank was a superstar.  He was a ball player that loved knocking in runs; he valued the RBI statistic over home runs.  He was a crowd 'pleaser'; often hitting in clutch situations and winning ball games.  Hank appreciated his Jewish status as inspiring Jewish kids and he took to heart the antisemitism of the thirties and the rise of Hitler.  He absorbed much verbal abuse for being Jewish. He would say that every homer was a hit against Hitler.  He respected his parents wish not to play on the High Holy days.  On the morning of Rosh HaShanah, he went to synagogue but played in the afternoon,  On Yom Kippur, however, he sat out games in observance of the holiest day of the year.  He was very conscious of being a prominent Jew in the Major Leagues.

When Greenberg was general manager of the Cleveland Indians he alienated some great players by demanding pay cuts.  Al Rosen, for example, decided to quit baseball instead of taking a cut in salary,  feeling that Greenberg was unnecessarily harsh with him.  (Rosen, so ensconced in the Jewish community at the time, did not need baseball to succeed and was offered some great opportunities.)  Pitching great Bob Feller was also asked to take a cut.  One sees that Greenberg was insensitive to the players and eventually was let go as a result of his not getting along with the players.

The greatest disconnect, however, was his relationship to his Judaism and how he related that identity to his three children.  After serving in the Pacific theater of WWII, he became disillusioned with organized religion and did not frequent the synagogue.  He did not communicate his religion to his children to the chagrin of his daughter who was embarrassed about not knowing about Judaism.  He replied that he did not believe in organized religion!  His sons, in going to Yale, put down "Congregationalist" for their religion, as that was the religious auspices of the university!  His advocacy for the State of Israel was absolute, however, even alienating his daughter in law who identified with Palestinian causes.  He demanded observance of Yom Kippur, the day of atonement by going to the planetarium!  What a confused soul!

Someone who intuitively understood his responsibility as a Jewish sports hero could not even pass on a Jewish identity to his children!  A sad disconnect.  As Peter Levine so eloquently has stated, Baseball and other sports were merely vehicles for the immigrant generation to assimilate.  Hank Greenberg's assimilation was so complete he passed on to his children an absolute American identity without a Jewish conscience.

The Lone Samurai by William Scott Wilson

This volume reveals the salient features of probably the most celebrated and talented Samurai of Japanese history: Miyamoto Musashi.  This legendary figure has been the subject of nonfiction, fiction and films because his accomplishments are astounding and worth noting.

To appreciate Musashi, one must understand the feudal structure of Japan in the pre-modern period and see how this great personage developed into the independent figure of heroic proportions.  In feudal Japan there is a martial class of samurai that are retained by a local authority.  The lowest class, the farmer perhaps may break out of his lowly class by becoming a samurai, however, in general, one's class is cast.  Musashi is self taught and one never really understands which clan retains his services, thus being a Ronin, an independent.  He learns the art of swordsmanship alone without a teacher, preferring the two sword method of a short and long sword.  In samurai culture, to be a samurai means being challenged to bouts, the only way by which one gains a reputation of worth.  Musashi's career as a Samurai is sixty individual bouts and 4 battlefield campaigns.  He loses to no one!  His mastery of the sword is so skilled that after he turns 30 years old he matures and shows his determination not to kill his opponents.  With commanding presence, he counters the ability of his opponents to strike with authority.  As a result of his resolute determination his opponents concede the match: he cannot be beaten.

Musashi's life, however, is much more sophisticated then only being a skilled swordsman.  He becomes a truth seeker and delves into art and calligraphy.  He becomes a noted artist with keen insight and philosophizes about the martial arts.  He writes a magnum opus: The Book of Five Rings that explain that the purpose of a fight is to win at all costs, thus including all advantages.  For example, he shows the ways of psychology.  In one bout, Musashi deliberately arrives late on the scene knowing that his opponent will be irritated even angry.  When his opponent unsheathes his sword and casts away the scabbard into the sea, Musashi declares victory by saying "you have already lost because only a loser would no longer need his scabbard!"

He understands the need to be independent and he establishes his own dojo with only a select few students. He breaks with the Samurai notion that a good death is the goal.  Musashi believes in life so one may continue to serve.

This book is worthwhile for the introduction to one of the great personalities of world history.

The Only Game in Town (volume 1): Baseball stars of the 1930s and 1940s talk about the game they loved by Fay Vincent

Former Major League Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent collects the memories of some of the great players of the bygone era before and after WWII, making a very readable history of baseball.  What stands out about this book are the testimonies of some of the players of events that have already been told before.  One gains a different perspective from listening to different voices.

For example, Eldon Auker tells of his Baseball 'all star' trip to Japan after the season in 1939 that included Moe Berg.  Now Moe Berg had a reputation of being very smart, and Auker tells how he did not fit in because he was so mysterious.  A Princeton graduate, Berg surprised everyone by being fluent in Japanese and became the interpreter.  Auker tells how Berg was very popular among the Japanese because he could speak their language.  Berg would slip away from the team and take pictures all over the country.  He even stays longer in the country so he could travel the country side.  Auker tells how nobody on the American team suspected that Berg was gathering intelligence for the US government.  As it turned out Moe Berg took pictures of almost the entire War complex of Japan that proved to be very useful after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  The catcher was a spy!

Bob Feller, Cleveland pitcher who pitched with velocity approaching 100 mph, tells how famed black home run hitter, Josh Gibson could not hit a curve ball!  Feller tells of the days of barnstorming (exhibition games) with the Negro Leagues and pitching against the great Black players.  He questions the claim that Josh Gibson would have made it to the Major Leagues.  Feller says adamantly that Gibson hit nothing off of him because he served up Gibson "with that big, what we called elliptical snake", a tough curve ball. Feller was close to some of the Negro players and claims that the racial rivalry only took place in the stands among fans and not among players.  Buck O'Neil's claim of the blacks winning their fair share against Feller's teams is questioned by Bob.  Claiming to have the score books as proof, Feller submits that the claim was more publicity to gain more attendance for a bigger share of money than the truth.

John "Buck" O'Neil explains the difference between Jackie Robinson and other Black players and he claims that is the reason Robinson was chosen to break the color barrier.  Robinson was a cut above the rest.  O'Neil explains the difference when his team was traveling in the South barnstorming to make money.  The bus came to a filling station for refueling.  After putting the hose in the gas tank, Robinson goes toward the restroom that is marked "Whites Only".  The attendant calls out to Jackie, "Where are you goin', boy!" and Robinson replies, "to use the restroom."  The attendant says sternly, "you can't go there" and Robinson without missing a beat tells his teammates to take the gasoline hose out of the bus.  The attendant immediately realizes that he will lose a big sale of close to a hundred gallons of gasoline!  With due consideration of seconds the attendant concedes and stops the hose from coming out of the tank and permits Mr. Robinson in using the facilities by saying "but don't be long!" O'Neil interprets this scene as a manifestation of the difference between Robinson and the rest of his team: While his teammates including Buck O'Neil are resigned to prejudice, Robinson is not willing to accept the status quo.  Jackie Robinson is seen as a fighter of prejudice.

The scene of Hank Greenberg going into the Chicago White sox locker room in his underwear with a baseball bat to confront the people who hurled anti-semitic barbs against him during the game, met with frozen Sox players is mentioned twice from different people.

Ralph Kiner credits Greenberg with his success as a Home run hitter.  Greenberg was willing to tutor Kiner when Greenberg was traded to Pittsburgh.

This is an excellent example of an oral history project.

A.G. Spaulding and the rise of Baseball by Peter Levine

I still remember my Spaulding outfielder's mitt with which I roamed Center Field in High School.  I remember the choices when I needed a mitt: Rawlings, MacGregor, Wilson (the 2000 model was very popular). There was never any real question as to which mitt to buy.  There is something special about a Spaulding.  It has been always associated with ball play.  The "pinky" used for stick-ball in my vocabulary is always called a "Spauldeen".  The Spaulding brand is practically synonymous with Baseball.  So, I bought a Spaulding.

Historian Peter Levine investigates the founder of the Sporting Goods company and concludes that Albert Goodwin Spaulding successfully grew professional Baseball from a pastoral country game into a urbanized sport.  Mr. Levine shows how the USA grew to an economic power house after the Civil War through its cities and how Baseball rose out of that rural country and was brought to the cities.  Spaulding successfully brings a pastoral existence to the hustle and bustle of the cities!

Spaulding was a very success pitcher and gained his fame as a result.  He was, however, more than a ballplayer, he was a visionary.  He saw the potential of this great pastoral game as a vehicle of recreation and business.  As a variety of teams formed and traveled throughout America for exhibitions, Spaulding conceived of a league and an organization which eventually was fixed in big cities.

Spaulding by nature was a salesman, indeed a "pitch man" and developed a catalog of sporting items first of baseball equipment and then many more outdoor equipment.  He successfully exploited the transition of a pastoral game to an urban business.  This slim volume is worth the read to gain an understanding of how Baseball gained popularity and became the "national pastime" but really all along was developed into a business with the capitalistic ambition that characterized America in the late 19th century.  Mr. Levine includes a discussion of the creation of the famed "reserve clause" that essentially meant that teams owned their players and players could not act as their own agents.  This was a collusion of owners that would not change until after Curt Flood challenged the clause in 1969.

From Ellis Island to Ebbetts Field by Peter Levine

This volume explores the assimilation of the American Jewish community through the vehicle of Sports.  The book discusses boxing, football, basketball, and baseball, all the professional sports and their Jewish adherents in the first half of the 20th century. Personages like Barney Ross, Sid Luckman or Marshal Goldberg, Dolph Schayes, and Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax are highlighted.

There is a very moving scene of return when Barney Ross comes back to his old neighborhood in Chicago and is called up to the Reading of the Torah.  His rabbi recognizes his errant member and warmly says "you've come back!" and even though Ross' return is not back to a Torah lifestyle, nevertheless, his Jewish identity is not shorn. 

Greenberg struggled with the dilemma of playing on the High Holidays receiving some sort of rabbinical permission for the New Year but personally chose to sit out the game on the Day of Atonement.  By the time Sandy Koufax comes around the choice is not novel but nevertheless inspiring to most Jewish Americans.  Professor Levine intimates that Koufax might have had a tinge of self hatred since in his personal life he never identified with the Jewish community or with Jewish causes.  It took him years to come to terms that he was a hero to most Jewish kids.  Koufax always wanted to be remembered as a Ballplayer not a Jewish Ballplayer!

Levine's thesis is simple: Sports were a vehicle to become American and when the Jewish community came of age, came out of the immigrant experience and were accepted as Americans the novelty and plethora of Jewish sports figures waned. In almost each case Levine's thesis rings true!  Sports help one assimilate it does not help one develop a Torah lifestyle.

This book is excellent scholarship very readable and very insightful about how the Jewish community came of age.

Unquiet by Joseph Gollomb

An excellent selection of historical fiction about life on the Lower East Side of New York City is Unquiet by Joseph Gollomb.  Gollomb met success as Hollywood screenwriter, however, before mastering his craft as a writer he penned an authentic, if not autobiographical novel in 1935 about an immigrant Jewish family trying to succeed in the ghetto of the famed East Side of downtown Manhattan.

The story begins in Vilno where the pious antecedents live with the emerging winds of socialist  revolution sweeping Tzarist Russia.  The emigre family of 5 course their way through the labyrinth of life that takes them to the Jewish section of Manhattan to a rude introduction of poverty and squalor.  The heroic efforts of father and mother to eek out a living and provide a good life for their three children remind me of my own grandparents.  The book describes the filth and debauchery of the ghetto and how in spite of the negative environment, the family members persevere to achieve an education and an assimilation to American life.  The book is a discussion of the social ills that manifest a minority existence, an existence of not only class distinction between the rich and poor but also the hatred of Antisemitism.

Rachel Levitt, the mother struggles to calm her excitable husband who has trouble making a living.  Her whole existence is that of a wise, insightful selfless person.  She identifies with the world view of Socialism that the poor should not be exploited but cannot accept that her pious orthodox father and rabbinical brother are on the dark side of humanity.

Her oldest son, David the real protagonist struggles with his familial obligations over his desire  to lead an independent life.  He longs to be a writer and reporter, to assimilate into real society, however, his parents impress upon the need for practicality and push for a degree in teaching that would provide a steady income.  Along the way, one learns of the class differences between the heavily Jewish populated commuter school of City College of New York and the privileged private school of Columbia University. One lives through David's adventures and tragedies, his moments of love and despair.  Ultimately, David comes to terms with his situation that family obligation trumps his personal happiness and can't free himself from his family and neighborhood.

Judaism plays no role in this story except in a cultural way.  The Jewish ghetto is just another section of a diverse city with Italian, Irish and Chinese neighborhoods.  When David meets and falls in love with a non-Jewish girl, their is no explicit discussion of religious/cultural differences, however, there is tacit concern for the differences between the rich and poor.  Only when the protagonist's father dies and there is a funeral does the reader understand that there are serious differences between downtown Jews and uptown Non-Jews.

The story's title is disturbing because the immigrant experience is a highly pressurized existence that demands Americanization without the dispelling of one's cultural identity.  David's soul is "unquiet" because he is never master of his own life: support of family takes precedent over one's personal 'selfish' desires.

This is an outstanding volume, an authentic voice of the assimilating Jewish American.

Belle Boyd: in camp and in prison - Edited with Introduction and notes by Curitis Carroll Davis

In reading about 19th century, Civil War era Jewry (Isaac Leeser and Judah P. Benjamin), the regional attitudes toward slavery etc, I noticed the mention of a notorious spy, Belle Boyd.  With my curiosity piqued, I found a book about the spy.

Her memoir of the war years is a fascinating read about Southern gentry, values and culture attempting to justify secession.  Ms. Boyd (who becomes Mrs. Hardinge) is an articulate voice of the Confederate demand for freedom to continue the values and culture of the South and a constant critic of Northern bullying and brutality.  According to her memoir, after the Union conquest of her hometown, she and her mother are accosted at their home by belligerent Union soldiers who verbally disrespecting them demand entry to be fed and quartered.  Ms. Boyd demands a minimum of courtesy which is not forthcoming and requests that the soldiers stand down or she will defend herself, her mother and her home!  The first belligerent soldier steps threateningly toward the threshold and Boyd pulls a small derringer from concealment and mortally wounds the soldier.  She is hauled into custody and the following investigation aquits her with the Union commanding officer commending Ms. Boyd's conduct saying that he would have done the same.  Later, she overhears conversations of Yankee positions that she gallantly, courageously conveys to the Headquarters of Confederate General 'Stonewall' Jackson.  That information is vital to Jackson's routing of Union forces and Belle Boyd is instantly famous in the Confederacy.

The most interesting element of this memoir for me was Ms. Boyd's attitude toward slavery.  Although it is clear that she believed in white supremacy (very common in the South- e.g. she does not believe a loyal black servant that warns her of the Union pursuit of her) she seemed to acknowledge that slavery would be short lived.  This assertion is similar to Judah P. Benjamin's attitude.  Perhaps, this may not be a true attitude but rather a politically necessary attitude because the Confederacy was lobbying for British recognition and support.  The British outlawed slavery in the 1830's.  Ms. Boyd's memoir was directed to a British audience.  In downplaying the institution of slavery and stressing State's rights and freedom from a central federal government, Boyd makes the case for supporting the Southern way of life.

From this memoir, one can deduce a well educated, and  outgoing personality who would not be abused and the demand for refined Southern gentleman values.