metro >> on the cover

New book probes links between
the diamond and the diaspora.

Detroit
Tiger

Pause here, however, for another reality
check: What was happening at that time of
great consequence to Jews worldwide?

star Hank

Greenberg

David Sachs
I Senior Copy Editor

I

n 1938, Tiger slugger Hank
Greenberg, the icon of Detroit Jewish
pride, nearly broke Babe Ruth's
"untouchable" single-season record of 60
home runs. But that wasn't all that was
going on in the Jewish world. More was
happening outside Detroit ... across the
ocean.

Forty-one days after Hank Greenberg's
58th home run, Herschel Gryznspan, a
17-year-old Polish Jew, attempted to kill an
official of the German Embassy in Paris.
... "I did it because I loved my parents and
the Jewish people who have suffered so
unjustly," he said.

The Nazi diplomat died, and his genocidal
regime used the incident as pretext to launch
the Kristallnacht pogrom in Germany and
Austria resulting in the murder of scores of

Focus On Greenberg

H

ank Greenberg is currently the
subject of renewed media atten-
tion.
A book exclusively about the great
Jewish Hall of Famer came out last
month. Hank Greenberg: The Hero
of Heroes by John Rosengren (NAL,
$26.95) spans more than 350 pages
and provides a thorough history of
the man the author calls the greatest
Jewish athlete of all time.
No other Jew has achieved his
athletic prowess and cultural signifi-
cance," Rosengren writes.
He not only batted his way into

16 April 4 • 2013

A week after Al Rosen and Hank
Greenberg rode in the victory parade in
downtown Cleveland to celebrate the win-
ning of the World Series, the new State of
Israel repelled most of the invading armies
of Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Egypt still
remained a threat to the tiny nation of
650,000. ...
While more Jewish Americans were
buying television sets, many wealthy Iraqi
Jews were arrested. Some were hanged, and
Zionism was declared a crime. The events
would lead to the confiscation of property
and bank accounts by Iraq, and 126,000
Jews going to Israel.

Jews,
the
burning
of more
than 1,000 syn-
agogues and looting
of 7,500 Jewish-owned
businesses.
This horror was a pre-
It would take quite a history and
lude to the Holocaust and
baseball buff to compile a book of
World War II.
parallel timelines between baseball
Three years later,
and Jewish history.
Greenberg, the greatest
That author is Irwin Cohen, the
Jewish baseball player
local Jewish historian, Zionist and
former Detroit Tiger front-office
of all time, was the first
Major Leaguer to enlist
employee whose encyclopedic
in the Armed Forces
knowledge of the sport won him
the nickname "Mr. Baseball:'
after the Japanese attack
on Pearl Harbor. He
His latest book, Jewish History
returned to the Tigers
in the Time of Baseball's Jews: Life
after the war in 1945 and Irwin Cohen was given a on Both Sides of the Ocean, links
led the team to a World
historical events affecting Jews
World Series ring in his
Series championship.
with concurrent tales of Jewish
work for the '84 Tigers.
But by 1948,
feats and foibles on the baseball
field.
Greenberg had retired
from the game and was employed as a
Although the two topics may at first
front-office executive with the world-
seem unrelated, Cohen's book, surpris-
champion Cleveland Indians. On this win-
ingly, can be appreciated by Jews not
ning team was another Jew, Al Rosen — a
obsessed with baseball on one hand and
young infielder who would soon become a baseball nuts not members of the tribe on
superstar in his own right.
the other.

the Hall of Fame, he showed Jews the
way to assimilate and elevated their
esteem among their gentile peers.
"'It's arguable that
Hank Greenberg is
the most important
American Jew to have
ever been,' baseball
scholar Rabbi Michael
Paley declares without
hyperbole."
Rosengren is planning
publicity appearances in
the area, including one
June 4 at Comerica Park
and another to be planned
for a Jewish Community

Center location.
In another Greenberg-related devel-
opment, a special two-disc DVD
edition of Aviva Kempner's
Peabody Award-winning film
The Life and Times of Hank
Greenberg will be released on
April 24.
A(
The original DVD released
in 2001 has been out of
circulation for years. The
DVD package includes
more than two hours of
new extras including a
ttl
R
NCR
phone interview with
N
Ted Williams and more of
Walter Matthau, Bob Feller and an

Link To The Holocaust

The idea for the book arose by chance.
Cohen, the former publisher of the weekly
Baseball Bulletin and author of Echoes of

Detroit's Jewish Communities — A History,
was at the Holocaust Memorial Center
in Farmington Hills when he met former
minor-league ballplayer Richard "Hap"
Foreman who was a docent there.
Foreman, whose grandfather Gus
"Happy" Foreman played briefly in the
Major Leagues, and Cohen, who spent
nine years working in a public relations
role with the Tigers, hit it off right away
over baseball. But, being at the Holocaust
Center, they also speculated what their
lives would have been like had they been
born on the other side of the Atlantic.
Cohen's book leaves the reader over-
whelmed by the profound conundrum
of American Jewish identity: religious
freedom and upward mobility in America
versus the struggle to save one's very life
everywhere else.
His grasp of historical details, whether
in the diaspora or on the diamond, is
impeccable. And he doesn't just focus on
Israel and the Holocaust.

interview with U.S. Supreme Court
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
In other baseball events, the
Huntington Woods library will present
"Rick Ferrell, Knuckleball Catcher," a
slideshow presentation 7-8 p.m. at the
library, 26415 Scotia.
Ferrell's daughter, Kerrie Ferrell, will
trace his 63 years in the American
League as a player, coach and Tigers
executive. From 1958-92, Rick Ferrell
worked as general manager, vice
president and consultant in the Tiger
Stadium front office. For information,
call (248) 543-9720.

❑

- David Sachs