arts & life

DONATED BY CORBIS

exhibit
on t h e cover

Hank Greenberg and Joe DiMaggio

Play
Ball!

Suzanne Chessler | Contributing Writer

An exhibit weaving

together America’s

favorite pastime and

the story of American

Jewish identity

highlights Detroit’s

hand in history.

46 September 1 • 2016

D

avid Sloan was named
after his paternal grandfa-
ther, a Russian immigrant
who strongly believed that part of
becoming American was getting
involved with popular American
pastimes.
An easy involvement was base-
ball, a love he quickly acquired and
passed along to his son, Bernard,
a lifelong Tigers fan who agreed
with his dad’s belief that Tigers
teams would open the door to
friendships, neighborliness and

commerce.
Although the younger David
Sloan never met his grandfather,
he developed the same sports
passion with the encouragement
of his dad and came to share that
enjoyment with his own son, John.
David Sloan, a resident of
Huntington Woods and Jewish
history buff, will take part in dem-
onstrating how widely baseball
has entered into the immigrant
experience by lending mementoes
for display in “Chasing Dreams:

Baseball & Becoming American.”
The exhibit, touring under the
auspices of the National Museum
of American Jewish History, has
been enhanced through relevant
keepsakes borrowed from
Metro Detroiters and
will be on view Sept.
9-Nov. 27, at the
Detroit Historical
Museum.
The touring
exhibit, made up of
photos with captions
and associated texts,
features a searchable database
of American Jewish ballplayers
and an interactive screen to tempt
viewers into simulated play.
“My dad and his father could
always be seen together watch-
ing the Tigers in person or sitting
beside a crystal set listening to the
play-by-play,” Sloan explains.
“My dad was 17 when his dad
passed away. After that, as games
were broadcast during the day, my
father would take a radio to the
Workmen’s Circle Cemetery and
play the games for his father so
that the tradition continued.
“My dad was known as the per-
son who took people to their first
Tigers games,” says Sloan.
“Whenever my son comes
home from service abroad, his trip
is scheduled around going to a
Tigers game together,” Sloan says,
“and we imagine we are sitting
alongside David and Bernie with a

mixture of immigrant fans.”
The exhibit, presented locally
by the Jewish Historical Society of
Michigan (JHSM) and the Detroit
Historical Society, launches Sept. 8
with “The Season Opener,” a stroll-
ing dinner and program to benefit
the Jewish Historical Society.
In addition to a docent-led
tour, the event will spotlight a
presentation by Tigers broad-
caster Dan Dickerson, who will
recall outstanding baseball events,
and an upbeat panel discussion
about the relationship of baseball
to the Bible, a conversation led
by Detroit News columnist and
Tigers fan Neal Rubin with Rabbis
Aaron Bergman of Adat Shalom
Synagogue, Mark Miller of Temple
Beth El and Joseph Krakoff of
Jewish Hospice and Chaplaincy
Network.
Other events will be offered
throughout the time of the exhibit.
(See sidebar.)
“The exhibit was designed so
that each presenting community
could add significant content,” says
Wendy Rose Bice, JHSM executive
director. “Guests will know where
the content is local because of the
adjoining map of Michigan.”
Aimee Ergas, exhibit cura-
tor and research director for the
JHSM, worked with a committee
of five to find the local items and
put the display together with seg-
ments that have been on tour. The
display has large panels of photos