MEDIA MONITOR

A WORLD OF ELEGANCE

Will A Messiah Appear
Around The Short-Stop?

ARTHUR J: MAGIDA

Special to The Jewish News

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36

FRIDAY, AUGUST 11, 1989

hat is it about this
summer? The week
after Time reported
about a poll for the Jewish
All-Star baseball team that
been taken in Manhattan's
Stage Deli, Spy magazine,
that chronicle of often
tasteless quasi-humor,
devotes four columns to
baseball players of the
Hebraic faith. Journalists'
sudden attention to Jews and
the game played on a dia-
mond may suggest they ex-
pect to see a messiah appear
somewhere around the short-
stop position.
Spy's sports columnist Neal
Karlen's fascination with
Jewish baseball players
began when, as a 6-year-old
in Minneapolis he found
himself "unaccountably
rooting" for pitcher Sandy
Koufax, a Jew, to lead the Los
Angeles Dodgers to a World
Series victory over his "belov-
ed" Minnesota Twins in 1965.
The Dodgers won, and Karlen
learned a lesson in "shtetl
chauvinism."

Karlen recently joined the
Jewish Sports Information
Center, based in Parma, Ohio.
The center's main purpose is
to keep track of the 141 Jews
who have made it to the ma-
jor leagues.
Karlen's
membership
package included a four-page
print-out of the Fab 141.
Codes next to each player's
name indicated his relation-
ship to Judaism: A meant he
had converted from Judaism;
C, he had converted to
Judaism; MJ, only his mother
was Jewish, FJ, only his
father was Jewish. PC meant
"possibly converted" (Rod
Carew) and D signified
"disputed data."

Former Orioles pitcher Jim
Palmer rated a D because his
father was reportedly Jewish,
but as one club member wrote
to a JSIC newsletter, "I was
under the impression that
[Palmer] was an adopted
child. If this be so, is it
Palmer's biological or adop-
tive father who is Jewish?"
Another former Oriole pit-
cher with a disputed
genealogy was Moe

Drabowsky. "He's Catholic,"
wrote a club member to the
newsletter. "It has been
rumored that Moe's mother
was Jewish. I asked Moe, face
to face. She wasn't."

Then there was Henry
Kesler, a shortstop for the
Cincinnati National League
Team in the 1870s. A letter
writer to the JSIC publication
reported that Kesler "storm-
ed off" when asked by a
newspaper reporter whether
he was Jewish. Kesler was
later arrested for setting fire
to a Jewish-owned depart-
ment store in Philadelphia.

Karlen writes that he "lost
my stomach" for researching
players' Jewishness while
getting some background on
Andy Cohen. When Cohen ar-
rived to play for the New York
Giants in 1928, a parody of
"Casey at the Bat" appeared
in a New York tabloid:

And from the stands and
bleachers
The cry of "oy, oy" rose
And up came Andy Cohen
Half a foot behind his
nose .. .

Rappin' Against Jews
Shows Grudges Of Some

Rap music may have a great
beat, but apparently some rap
musicians have a grudge — a
big one.
In a recent interview in the
Washington Times, "Pro-
fessor" Griff, the "minister of
information" of Public
Enemy, identified by Rolling
Stone as the "premier
political rap group," said Jews
are "wicked" and responsible
for "the majority of
wickedness that goes on
around the globe." Griff also
claimed Jews had financed
the slave trade.
In a June 21 press con-
ference reported in Rolling
Stone, Chuck D., the leader of
Public Enemy, defended
himself against accusations of
anti-Semitism. Calling Griff
a "brother," he said Griff's
statement had been taken out
of context.
"Offensive remarks by Pro-
fessor Griff are not in line
with Public Enemy's pro-
gram," said Chuck D, adding
that his group is "not anti-
Jewish," but "pro-black, pro-
black culture and pro-human
race." Griff was to transmit
these values. He sabotaged
this. We are not here to make

enemies, but to say that the
system is the enemy . . . "
Rolling Stone also reported
that a "militant" group, the
Jewish Defense Organization
(JDO) had sent a group with
baseball bats and chains to
the Manhattan office of
Public Enemy's management
company, Rush Artists
Management. The armed

group went to the wrong of-
fice.
JDO also sent fliers with
Griffs statement to record ex-
ecutives and record retailers.
This has led, according to
Rolling Stone, to "erroneous"
reports that at least one
retailer had decided to stop
stocking Public Enemy
records.

Alex Cockburn:
Master Cynic

Self-styled leftist Alexander
Cockburn has never been a
friend of Israel. His column,
which ran in the Village Voice
for many years, was habitual-
ly not only anti-Israeli, but
full of invective and vile when
he wrote about the Jewish
state. When Cockburn was
dismissed from the Voi6e in
1984 because he had accepted
$10,000 from a pro-Arab
group, the Institute of Arab
Studies, to help finance
writing a book on the 1982
Israeli invasion of Lebanon,
he found outlets for his col-
umns in the Nation, the LA
Weekly, and of all places, the
properly staid and thoroughly

capitalist Wall Street Journal,
a heck of a journalistic perch
for someone committed to
overthrowing the system.
Cockburn's occasional
presence on the Journal's op-
ed page is a testimony either
to his resilience or to the
tolerance of the paper — or to
both. • In a Cockburn column
that ran in the Journal last
week, for instance, he pulled
out all his biases. There was
little nuance and much
cynicism in the column,
which was entitled "Shamir,
Sharon, What's the Dif-'
ference?" Cockburn was con-
vinced that Israel's prime
minister, Yitzhak Shamir, is

