I SPORTS
On
A documentary on our favorite
Jewish son is under way.
STEVE STEIN
Special to The Jewish News
W
hat would Hank
do?"
That message
hangs over Aviva Kempner's
computer in Washington, D.C.
Kempner, 45, an acclaimed
filmmaker, has been working
for three years on her second
project, a documentary titled,
"The Life and Times of Hank
Greenberg."
Funding has been trickling
in, but Kempner says she's
determined to finish the film
because, "this is a story which
needs to be told."
Hank Greenberg, first base-
man/outfielder for the Detroit
Tigers from 1933-41 and
1945-46, was America's first
Jewish baseball star.
To many Jews, he was a
52
FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 1992
source of pride when the
Nazis were wrecking havoc in
Europe and when Father
Charles Coughlin was broad-
casting his hate from a
church just miles north of
Briggs Stadium, Greenberg's
home field.
From 1941-45, Greenberg
served his country during
World War II in the U.S. Ar-
my. When he returned to the
diamond in front of 47,720
Briggs Stadium fans in 1945,
Greenberg homered in his
first game in five years.
Greenberg completed his
major league career with the
Pittsburgh Pirates in 1947.
His lifetime statistics of 331
home runs and a .313 batting
average made him an obvious
choice for baseball's Hall of
Fame in 1956.
At 6-foot-3 and 210 pounds,
Greenberg was one of the big-
gest players in the sport dur-
ing his era. But, for America's
Jews, he never stood taller
than in 1934, when he skip-
ped a game late in a pennant
race to attend Yom Kippur
services.
More than a decade before
Jackie Robinson broke the
color barrier in major league
baseball, Greenberg endured
racism and bigotry.
During the 1935 World
Series, the catcalls directed at
Greenberg from the Chicago
Cubs dugout became so
distracting that an umpire
had to stop the game.
Ironically, Robinson's first
season in the majors was
Greenberg's final year. Robin-
son said that Greenberg was
the first opposing player to of-
fer him encouragement.
By then, Greenberg had
finally earned the respect of
his peers in baseball. He was
a part-owner and general
manager for the Cleveland In-
dians from 1948-58 and a vice
president for the Chicago
White Sox from 1959-60.
The Greenberg name re-
mains an important part of
the sport's management.
Steve Greenberg, Hank's son,
is the deputy commissioner
and chief operating officer for
Major League Baseball.
Kempner, scriptwriter and
producer of the Greenberg
film, sees it as a natural
followup to her first project,
Partisans of Vilna. The
130-minute documentary, re-
leased in 1986, chronicles the
Jewish resistance to Nazi oc-
cupation in the Polish city of
Vilna.
"After I made my first film,
I wanted to do one on what
American Jews did here dur-
ing the 1930s and 1940s,"
said Kempner, the daughter
of a Holocaust survivor who
was born in Berlin in 1946
and moved to Detroit when
she was 4. She later
graduated from Detroit Cass
Technical High School and
the University of Michigan.
"I wanted to do something
on the American experience,
and after remembering the
Above, Hank
Greenberg in his
playing days in
Detroit.
At left, filmmaker
Aviva Kempner.