* Holy Baseball!

This article appeared in the Jan. 22 edition of the New Jersey Jewish News:

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In 2003, Martin Abramowitz created JewishMajorLeaguers.org with the “mission” to create a set of cards that included every “member of the tribe” to play big-league baseball.

To mix sports metaphors, Howard Megdal has taken this idea and run with it.

His new book, The Baseball Talmud: The Definitive Position-by-Position Ranking of Baseball’s Chosen Players, analyzes the performances of each of the approximately 160 Jews in the majors. Well, all but one. Josh Whitesell, a late season call-up for the Arizona Diamondbacks, missed the cut.

“I’m very upset about that,” said Megdal in a telephone interview from his home in Rockland County, NY.

Baseball Talmud, which will be published in April by Collins, is classified as baseball/humor.

“I wanted it to be a fun read. I wanted it to be entertaining for people and I feel confident that it is,” said Megdal, who writes about baseball and lesser sports for The New York Observer. “At the same time, I wanted to add to the scholarship and I feel I’ve achieved that balance.”

There are a few books on the general topic — including The Big Book of Jewish Baseball by Peter and Joachim Horvitz and Jews and Baseball: Volume 1 by Burton and Bonita Boxerman — but they tend to be more scholarly and/or anecdotal. The author blends commentary (it is a Talmud, after all) with statistical analysis to put every player in his place.

Megdal, 28, used several statistical sources to come to his conclusions, including baseball-reference.com, Baseball Prospectus, and The Hardball Times. He also poured over decades-old issues of The Sporting News, long considered “the bible of baseball.” Among other things, he learned that Sid Gordon, Cal Abrams, and Saul Rogovin were adjudged as their respective teams’ “Most Conceited” in a 1954 poll of baseball writers.

“Better than ever before, you’re able to rank players. Not only can you adjust [the figures] by park and era, you can do it in several different ways with a number of different metrics so you don’t have to rely on just one for the answer.” This allowed him to “equalize” the athletes’ accomplishments across the years as well as compare those with lengthy careers with their baseball brethren who had the proverbial cup of coffee.

“Look at Si Rosenthal and Harry Rosenberg in centerfield,” he said. “They were guys who combined for a very small number of games…. [But] both were tremendous players in the high minor leagues. There’s little doubt that even though they didn’t have the major league career as the four centerfielders above them [Elliott Maddox, Lipman Pike, Goody Rosen, and Gabe Kapler], they were right there in the mix had they had the chance.”

Howard Megdal, second from left, during a game in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Photos courtesy Howard Megdal

Megdal — who hosts a companion blog, BaseballTalmud.com — attributed the lack of opportunity to the paucity of major league jobs. Prior to 1961, there were only 16 major league teams, a total of 400 jobs on any given day. “You also had a situation of more minor league teams, so if a young player didn’t make an impression quickly, he could get buried in the system.”

There was also a “more nefarious reason” why a Jewish player might be held back, Megdal said. For example, Cy Block, an infielder with the Chicago Cubs in the mid-1940s, didn’t get much playing time under manager Jimmy Dykes, who the author characterized as “not a friend of the Jewish people” and said other Jewish players in the early-to-middle part of the 20th century fell victim to the similar treatment.

On the other hand, there was at least one instance in which a player’s heritage might have been an advantage. John McGraw, the feisty manager of the New York Giants, was always on the lookout for a good Jewish player to bring more Jewish fans to the ballpark. He found one in Andy Cohen, a member of the ball club in the late 1920s who lasted just two full seasons despite a career batting average of .281. Cohen’s statistics seem pretty good until you put them in context: his mark of .294 in his final season put him in sixth place among Giants’ regulars.

Numbers aside, The Baseball Talmud is certain to invite discussion because of Megdal’s criteria in determining a player’s religious identity.

Megdal’s cat, Regan, leaves no doubt where the author’s loyalties lie.

“The fairest to do was to have as inclusive a definition as possible. Not being a Jewish scholar —and even among Jewish scholars there’s a lot of discrepancy — I thought it would be easier and fairer to include everyone and let more discriminating people cross people out of the book.” That explains why Lou Boudreau is ranked the top Jewish shortstop, even though Megdal rates David Newhan the fourth-best second baseman even though most Jewish sources omit him from the list because he’s a Jew for Jesus.

Megdal, a passionate Mets fan, said he goes through withdrawal at the end of every season. To ease his pain, he participates in WhatIfSports.com, an on-line fantasy game for which he has created several all-Jewish teams. “You’re looking for your fix in some way,” he said.

There are worse addictions.

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‘The Greatest Jewish Baseball Players…’
Hank Greenberg
Sandy Koufax
Lou Boudreau
Shawn Green
Buddy Myer
Al Rosen
Sid Gordon
Ken Holtzman
Harry Danning
Mike Lieberthal

…and the best at each position
Catcher: Danning
First base: Greenberg
Second base: Myer
Third base: Rosen
Shortstop: Boudreau
Left field: Gordon
Center field: Elliott Maddox
Right field: Green
Righty starter: Barney Pelty
Lefty starter: Koufax
Righty relief: Larry Sherry
Lefty relief: Harry Eisenstat

Source: The Baseball Talmud