Letters to the Editor
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Wha...?
I am of Asian descent. And similar to Jews, we Asians are not known for our "athleticism."
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You gotta be kidding! Lookit all them Chinamen with the Kung Pao and the acrobatics and all, like from The Matrix!
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Who Are You People, and Are You Allowed Outside?
I read the comments section for many Salon articles, but I have to admit I could only get through about 2/3 of these comments before vomiting a little in my mouth.
To the posters who made their own lists, or suggested some additions - congratulations - you have a life.
The rest of the posters seem to think that whining is a skill that should be nutured - mostly on the Salon boards. How about this? A list of the top twenty whiners of all time, with a sublist of paranoid/whiners. It should be easy to do. You could probably get them all from this comments section.
Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic. And they're calling the Salon editors and writers idiots! That was the only humor in all the posts. Pathetic!
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In Other Jewish Sports News . . .
An interesting note regarding the good-luck significance of the number 18 in Jewish culture: Shahar Peer (who I suspect, even so early in her career, could make a Top 18 Jewish Tennis Players list) is seeded 18th at this year's US Open. That good luck seeding has propelled her to the quarterfinals so far, already two rounds ahead of her seeding.
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At risk of adding fuel to the fire...
I am not taking sides here, but one person wrote about doing a Salon.com search and finding only a small number of articles about jews (and reporting that most of the results were about politics). So I wanted to check on that myself, and I found that by going to the Salon directory there were a number of results that did not appear in the search.
So for context, I wanted to list the results for Salon articles on different ethnic and religious groups. Note: these numbers are a function of Salon's own categorization of articles, and may be overrepresentative or underrepresentative of the actual amount of coverage devoted to different ethnic or religious groups. (For instance, there are only 11 articles listed under the heading "Athletes", which is clearly an example of underrepresentation of the actual number of articles dealing with athletes.) By posting this, I am not intending to draw any conclusions.
Anyway, here are the directory results:
Jews (90 articles)
Judaism (38 articles)
Latinos (50 articles)
African-Americans (164 articles)
Arab (27 articles)
Native Americans (13 articles)
Christianity (88 articles)
Evangelicals (19 articles)
Muslim (59 articles)
Islam (141 articles)
Mormons (8 articles)
Budhism (23 articles)
Catholicism (76 articles)
Asian Americans are not categorized in the directory.
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Plenty of other lists
There are plenty of other lists of baseball players from certain regions. For example, I've seen lists of the greatest Latin ballplayers, which included Roberto Clemente, Juan Marichal and others. I've even seen lists of the best baseball players from the Dominican Republic. So, a list of Jewish players is not that extraordinary or remarkable.
And, before anyone speculates, yes, I am Jewish, but I'm also a baseball fan and find these sorts of lists interesting (meaning many types of lists and not just those allegedly touting the "exceptionalism" of Jews.)
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Baseball and Lists : Like Ham (you should forgive the expression) and Eggs
I think the Jewish ballplayers lineup is wonderful, a hoot, and perfectly pitched, as is Joan Walsh's postnu?script. Complaints eminate from baseball neophytes. Real baseball fans will sit around for hours arguing and listing. Watch Baseball Tonight on ESPN one hour for a tutorial on lists. Right now, they're looking at the ten best Venezuelan baseball players. Jonah Keri's article is perfectly wonderful, and I've sent it on to all my friends in the Tribe -- Jewish, baseball, and Cleveland. By the way, a footnote: during Spring Training 2006, Peter Gammons, baseball sage extraordinaire, reported that the Red Sox started Adam Stern, Kevin Youkilis, and Gabe Kapler in the outfield, being the first and only time a team played a game with an all-Jewish outfield. So. Who's paying attention?
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Turning the argument on its head
The issue is not whether Salon should plan future articles on the athletic accomplishments of other minorities (southpaw Zoroastrian lawn bowlers or whatever, but why one about Jewish baseball players drew so much flack from Salon's putatively enlightened leftmenschen followers. The article was, after all, benign apolitical entertainment; not a statement planted by the pro-Israel lobby intended to persuade fence-sitting Trotskyites of the moral virtues of Zionism. More evidence, as if we really need it, that the emerging face of bigotry is shifting to the left.
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Leftist anti-semitism
Probably the hardest racist tactic to deal with is the "colorblind" tactic. How dare we mention race, etc. We don't want to think about race, etc. If we whine that just noticing it causes divisiness, we don't have to look at ourselves.
We don't need the "benign neglect" of the colorblind crew.
Refusing to see is idiotic. This article busts stereotypes. I find many of the "anti' comments bigoted. I'm black and Catholic, and I've seen the "Italian", "Irish", "Catholic", etc lists elsewhere.
The people who are sick of hearing about Jewish achievements remins me of Americans kids who whine that they don't want to hear about kids overseas doing better on tests. It highlights some people overcoming adversity (historically Jews were segregated and disciminated against very heavily in this country in a way Muslims were not until 9-11, for instance). For some people, that's a reminder of their own issues.
Oh, yeah, to the Anonymous who got mad about the Southern comment- I'm a Southerner. You are a bigot. You yelped because the remark nailed you. You try to call people out, but you don't have the courage to use a handle. Most of these players played at a time when Jews were segregated, harrassed, etc. Clearly you either lack historical context (as well as a sense of proportion and humor).
Great article.