Ron Blomberg

Former Yankee Ron Blomberg will be the featured speaker at Congregation Or Shalom in Orange, NY on Sunday, March 28 at 10 a.m. The event is open to the public, which is $5 in advance or $8 at the door. For more information, call 203-799-2341.

I spoke with the Majors’ first designated yesterday to find out more about his new gig: a bimonthly radio show co-hosted with Ed “Talking Baseball” Randall.

“I’m really excited about it,” Blomberg said in a telephone conversation from his home in Georgia. “They think it’s a natural. I shoot the bull. That’s what people like.

“This is my town; New York has been great to me,” he said. “I’m so much involved with the Y camp and my other stuff, I’m very excited to be with the Yankee people again.”

Blomberg, who was one of the coaches at Yankee Fantasy Camp when I was there in November, gave me a bit of grief when I told him my knee still isn’t right from my catching duties. “You got on the disabled list at Fantasy Camp,” he scoffed.

A natural shmoozer (he should be paired with Steve Somers), Blomberg appearing at Fantasy Camp. “It’s a great time,” he said.

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In an article in the New Haven Register,

Blomberg said he was blessed with parents who encouraged him to go after his dream, never holding him back, as some Jewish parents might have done at the time because they wanted their children to be a doctor or lawyer, or join the family business.

In 1967, after having signed a letter of intent for a basketball scholarship, Blomberg became the No. 1 draft pick and signed with the Yankees. At 17, Mickey Mantle was his first roommate, and later he roomed with Yankee great Thurman Munson for four years.

“It was a shock going from a small, minority Jewish community to the New York world of Goldstein, Silverstein, Lichtenstein,” he said, noting he loved the city’s embrace.

He wrote “Designated Hebrew” in 2007, with all proceeds going to charity. “The book sold 45,000 copies, and I think 45,000 Jews bought it,” he said.