Al Rosen, the American League’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 1953, died at his home in California on Friday at age 91.
The former third baseman for the Cleveland Indians also was president of the New York Yankees, the Houston Astros and the San Francisco Giants.
He also was proud to be a Jew, and he refused to play on the High Holy Days.
Rosen was born in South Carolina and moved to Miami at a very young age. He was known to be proud of being a Jew and when Ed Sullivan once suggested that Rosen’s habit of drawing a “cross” in the dirt with his bat indicated he might be a Catholic, Rosen said the “cross” was an “x” and demanded that Sullivan retract his comment.
An on-the-field incident almost ended with a fight when a player for an opposing team called him a “Jew bastard.” Rosen immediately challenged him to a fight, and the player backed down.
Hank Greenberg, another Jewish baseball legend, once said that Rosen “want[ed] to go into the stands and murder” fans who hurled anti-Semitic insults at him.
Rosen said in a 2010 documentary on Jews and baseball, Rosen said, “There’s a time that you let it be known that enough is enough. . . . You flatten [them].”
As a slugger for the Indians in the 1950s, Rosen led the American League in home runs and “runs batted in.”
In 1953, he slammed 43 homers, his RBI was 145, and his batting average was .336.
Rosen is survived by his second wife, three sons, two stepchildren, four grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.
