Tagged Hank Greenberg

What Hank Greenberg’s friendship with Jackie Robinson can teach us today

From left: Jackie Robinson in 1945 (Hulton Archive/Getty Images); Hank Greenberg (Getty Images); Zach Banner (Katharine Lotze/Getty Images); and DeSean Jackson (Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Pittsburgh Steelers offensive tackle Zach Banner posted a video late last week in response to Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson’s anti-Semitic screed against Jews. After describing his horror at the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, Banner preached that as important as the work of Black… Read more »

With ‘team’ portrait, Jewish ballplayers go to bat for charities

Sandy Koufax is out front in the Ron Lewis painting of Jewish major leaguers and others. The sale of 500 autographed prints is partly for profit and charity. (Jewishbaseballplayer.com)

(JTA) – At the first Detroit Tigers game he attended, in 1940, Bob Matthews saw slugging first baseman Hank Greenberg play. Now a retired orthodontist living in Farmington Hills, Mich., Matthews can gaze each day at his hero’s image on visits to the Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit… Read more »

Hank Greenberg in extra innings

A memorial statue for Baseball Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg stands in Detroit's Comerica Park. (JMR_photography via Flickr)

(Washington Jewish Week) — “I think Hank Greenberg was the great American hero,” Washington filmmaker Aviva Kempner says. “What he did on Yom Kippur. What he faced. He was our Jackie Robinson.” Thirteen years after the debut of “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg,” her documentary about the… Read more »

Jump-shot Jews: Review of Neal Pollack’s novel ‘Jewball’

Neal Pollack (Laura Sartois/Anthology Photography)

(Tablet) — In the 1930s, Hank Greenberg chased Babe Ruth’s records and won the 1934 World Series with the Detroit Tigers. The national pastime wasn’t friendly territory for a Jewish athlete then, but by proudly staking out a claim, Greenberg proved that Jews could play the game as well… Read more »