Letters to the Editor
-
Hey!
What about Mo Berg?
-
Mo Berg - second!
OK, so maybe not the most talented baseball-wise, but definitely one of the most interesting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo_Berg).
-
Funny, they aren't named Jewish
Ryan? Ian? Shawn? Oy!
-
A couple surprises
Being raised as a die-hard Cubs fan, I was surprised to see Steve Stone and Lou Boudreau on the list. I'm one of Stone's fans for his sportscasting and miss him terribly doing color for the games.
But I guess Airplane! had it wrong when the bubbe asked for some light reading and was given a pamphlet of great Jewish sports stars.
Even though I'm a sheygetz, I kvell when I read articles like this. The Jewish mothers may prefer their sons to be doctors or lawyers or accountants, but I'm sure they would plotz with pride if their sons accomplish what these boychiks did.
-
What about slighted Malaysian rugby players
What's the deal, here? If Salon doesn't lead off with an article related to Jewish identity something like once a week will it lose market share? The author can take solace in the fact that whatever real or imagined limits he suffered in not being cultivated into the next NBA power forward has been compensated for in his adult life by his access as a Jewish guy to writing the lead piece for Salon, irrespective of whether that access comes by virtue of the narcisistic self-recognition and identification with his plight from Salon's writing staff or readership or both.
No offense, Jonah, but in an American sports scene in which teams and athletes are disproportionately owned, managed, commented on, and written about by Jews, I just don't see why Salon needs to be paying attention to or reaffirming Jewish identity politics within the context of sports. Even a whiff of self-pitying comes across as exasperatingly self-absorbed.
-
um
maybe i'm out of the loop, but what's the point of this article in salon? i'm all for jewish ballplayers, etc., but what's the point? have we had a retrospective on the top 18 best african american ballplayers of all time? the top 18 latino ballplayers of all time? i'm sure the top 18 best white ballplayers of all time have been explored, but just curious why this is of import in salon, when there is, i don't know, a war on?
-
Yeah, Moe!
Moe Berg = Brad Ausmus with a great backstory.
-
what about Johnny Kling?
Moe Drabowsky, Stu Miller and Mike Epstein from my own childhood were good enough to compete for spots on your list (although Al Weiss wasn't), but Johnny Kling most certainly deserves a spot, a very good catcher for one of the strongest teams of all time, the pre-WWI Cubs. Buddy Meyer was another decent prewar player.
Some more marginal players may have been held back by anti-semitism. Walter O'Malley has been accused of keeping a promising outfielder out of the lineup for that reason, although there is reason to doubt that the very pragmatic O'Malley would have ignored the benefits of having a Jewish starter in Brooklyn.
-
more to the point
i wonder how well received an article on the top 18 catholic ballplayers of all time, or even the top 18 baptist ballplayers of all time would be received by salon and salon readers?
-
Wow, they're circumsized....and they're running around throwing balls!
I agree -- what's the point? Who gives a flying fuck? When is Salon going to post an article about the world's greatest Buddhist puppeteers? Hindu graphic designers? Islamic entomologists? Rosicrucian jugglers?
-
Or how about
The 18 reasons why nachomama needs to chill out, relax, and stop looking for reasons to be offended. Go pet a puppy already.
-
Enough
Articles focusing on Jews, Judaism, and Israel are getting tiring. Those of us not members of the tribe don't need to be constantly reminded of how Jews dominate every field they enter. It breeds envy...which leads to ugly things.
-
Man, talk about chutzpah.
Gotta agree with Frankly Speaking and Nacho Mama here. What's the deal with the need of Jewish people in the media to continually seek affirmation or reaffirmation through their Jewishness ... whatever that means -- even this article goes back and forth defining Jewishness as though ethnicity and religious beliefs are interchangeable. Seriously, if this applies to you or you're a knee-jerk defender of this type of congratulatory self-stereotyping, before you pull out the "anti-semitic card" because you don't want to hear criticism, just understand that you come across like (if you've ever met them) someone who has found Jesus or Amway or both and has to drop that malarkey into every interaction they have. For God's sake (oops, sorry, for G_d's sake) ... please give it a rest.
And Jonah Keri, geesh, you're like a Jewish Mormon converting dead people to your "tribe" at will. Heck, if you're going to stretch it that far, Ruth ... a good biblical name. Babe Ruth ... there's your new #1 entry on the list of 19 top Jewish baseball players of all time. And for that matter, David was a heckuva hurler (true, Goliath would have taken a base, but that's quibbling), so he should be somewhere on the list after the Babe too.
Salon, you usually do far better than this. For shame.
-
why not?
There are lots of articles in Salon that I don't bother to read. I never read every article in a magazine or a newspaper either. I don't watch every show on TV. Plenty of things don't appeal to me and I don't bother about them.
For those of you who aren't interested in a short article about Jewish athletes there are plenty of other things to read in Salon.
Go read them.
Ignore this article since you don't care.
-
From Joan Walsh
Wow. I love our readers. But every once in a while, I feel...surprised. This is a great, only-in-Salon story, in my opinion. I never expected a debate about it. Please click on the link in the Kevin Youkilis item for one of my favorite ways into the story.
For complicated reasons, there aren't too many Jews in baseball. For some of the reasons why, read the article. Thanks to Jonah Keri for a great piece.
-
No Mike Epstein aka "Superjew"?
Yup that was big Mike's nick name and he was a very, very good player and surely better then the bottom 2-3 on the list. While he didn't go to Dartmouth, he graduated from Berkeley...not an Ivy but a better school. He was also has a few World Series rings from the Oakland A's dynasty in the '70s. I'm not even Jewish and I hate AL baseball but I know this.