Happy birthday, Sandy Koufax and Hank Greenberg

Every time the High Holidays come around, you can be sure you’ll be reading stories about Sandy Koufax and Hank Greenberg, the two greatest Jewish baseball players of all time. Both refused to compromise their religious beliefs to play on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for Jews — Edgar Guest even penned a poem in Greenberg’s honor to commemorate his devotion — setting the standard (and putting pressure on) current Jewish players to make a similar decision if and when the situation arises. Some skeptics in the audience consider it more of a “religiously correct” move rather than strict observance since the majority of the athletes don’t attend services.

Koufax was born December 30, 1935; Greenberg on January 1, 1911. There are scores of anecdotes about what these superstars meant to a community not known for its collective athletic prowess, including this one, which appeared in the NJ Jewish News awhile back.

My own story goes like this: The major American Jewish organization I was working for decided to honor Mets owner Fred Wilpon with its annual award. Wilpon invited his good friend and high school baseball teammate, Koufax, to attend. I was in the public relations department and asked the event phtographer to trail me for awhile as I approached the notoriously shy Hall of Famer. I finally was able to corner him for a moment and this is the result (I’m the one on the right, in case you’re wondering. I edited it to sepia because it is a very old picture.):

Koufax’s star was relatively brief, but for five seasons (1966-66), Koufax, in increasing pain for an arthritic elbow, had arguably the best streak of any pitcher. There are plenty of sites were you can find those stats, so I won’t repeat them here. And, like many of his generation, Greenberg — also a member of the Hall — spent several years fighting for his country in World War II.

Books about Koufax include:

Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy, by Jane Leavy (Harper Collins, 2003)
Koufax, by Edward Gruver (Taylor Trade, 2000)
Koufax, by Koufax and Ed Linn (1966)

Books on Greenberg include:

Hank Greenberg: The Story of My Life, by Greenberg and Ira Berkow (Crown, 1989. In 2001, Berkow also released Hank Greenberg: Hall of Fame Slugger, slimmed-down bio, through the Jewish Publication Society of America.)
Aviva Kempner produced an excellent documentary, The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, in 1999.