Baseball Insider

Greenberg threatened to retire rather than play for the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates, considered the worst team in the National League with no hope of reaching the World Series in 1947. Entertainer Bing Crosby one of the team of new owners on the Pirates lured Greenberg to Pittsburgh by making him the first player in baseball to earn $100,000.

I spoke twice during Pesach. The first topic was the Holocaust and Jewish ballplayers and the second was how I, a frum-from-birth Jew, ended up in major league baseball.

Events morphed into what became known as the Six-Day War. While the war lasted less than a week, millions of words were devoted to it in newspapers and magazines over the days and weeks that followed.

Joe DiMaggio, Phil Rizzuto, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Thurman Munson, George Steinbrenner - these are just some of the magic names Marty Appel has dealt with and written about.

It's been all over the news. You had to be in solitary confinement not to hear about umpire Jim Joyce's blown call at first base that should have ended the perfect game by Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga against the Cleveland Indians in Detroit.

Wow! What a finish to the 2011 baseball season. Even before the interesting seven-game World Series won by St. Louis, there was incredible drama in the final month.

New York scored another run in the second; the Tigers added three in the third and another in the sixth, tying the score at 7-7. Neither team scored for another 15 innings.

On one of those cable financial stations the other day, one of the talking heads was explaining the concept of "Mancations."

The Yankees won their first World Series as they downed the New York Giants, four games to two. Ruth was the biggest star of the Series as he batted .368 with three home runs.

As of early December, some 72 former major leaguers had died in 2012. The number is much higher than any of us would have guessed.

It hit me like a baseball bat on my head. I had been sitting next to Red Smith, the legendary sports columnist who knew Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ty Cobb and other baseball greats.

The year is passing quickly. The balls and bats, the lulavim and esrogim, the Phillies World Series memorabilia - all have been put away, and it's time to look back on the 2008 baseball season.

Greenberg was the biggest Jewish hero in America at the time, but the Tigers actually had a second Jewish player in 1938.

The next day, I opened the paper to the first page of the sports section where Falls' column appeared several days a week. I was surprised to see my picture below his usual masthead.

He's older than any radio station and spoke before movies did. My legendary friend Ernie Harwell will be 90 years old soon.

The tall, handsome, charismatic ballplayer topped several polls during his playing days as the most heroic figure among Jews in America.

The rivalry between fans of the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees will heat up as the season progresses.

The 1947 baseball season was Jackie Robinson's first and Hank Greenberg's last. It also marked the debut of another Jewish slugger, Al Rosen.

It was the 20th yahrzeit of Andy Cohen (no relation) recently, and he was remembered by some of the fans in my favorite shul.

While we're counting the Omer we'll also be counting Alex Rodriguez's homers. When the Yankees third baseman hits his 17th home run this season, it will be the 600th of his career. A-Rod, who'll be 35 in July, is a good bet to hit 800 career home runs - a number never yet reached by anyone - before he retires.

A local Orthodox attendance record was set at Detroit's Comerica Park on Sunday Chol Hamoed Pesach as an estimated 500 frum fans were in the stands. They saw a good game as the Tigers downed the White Sox 3-0 on a beautiful sunny day. Seven families from my shul returned with suntans and they reported many shuls were represented in all sections of the downtown ballpark, about a 20-minute ride from my dugout.

Spring training is underway in Arizona and Florida and we're all looking forward to our favorite teams coming home to start the regular season in April.

Max Patkin had a long career in baseball as an entertainer. His trademark was wearing a baggy uniform with a large question mark on his back instead of a uniform number.

I was lucky enough to be on the baseball beat in the 1970s when many of Babe Ruth's former teammates were still alive.

Baseball fans know C. C. Sabathia signed a $161-million, seven-year contract with the Yankees. Not many fans know C. C. is short for Carsten Charles.

For Americans, baseball provided an escape, and Jewish Americans followed the exploits of their favorite teams and of the relatively few Jews who wore baseball uniforms.

Cleveland was the center of the baseball universe in 1948, and Hank Greenberg was the spiffiest dresser in its front office.

We'll leave the serious stuff - the situation in Israel, the shidduch crisis, and other issues of concern to the Jewish community - to the other qualified Jewish Press columnists.

While David was impressed with his great-uncle's past, he was working on his own life and future path.

I'm sure readers noticed those full-page advertisements that ran prior to last month's meeting about the situation at the Brooklyn home of Rabbi Moshe Tuvia Lieff, rav of Agudas Yisroel Bais Binyomin. Avrohom chaired the even along with his brother Menachem, a prominent askan and the president of Lubicom.