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    The Jewish Mets
    The Jewish Mets
    The Jewish Mets
    Ebook83 pages53 minutes

    The Jewish Mets

    By Mark Berman

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    About this ebook

    Of the tens of thousands of men who have played Major League Baseball, about 160 of them were Jewish. The New York Mets, who play in the Jewish capital of America, have had just nine Jews take the field for them. "The Jewish Mets" takes a look at each of them; what is was like to play for the Mets and their experiences playing in a sport with so few Jewish colleagues.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMark Berman
    Release dateDec 17, 2016
    ISBN9781370075300
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      Book preview

      The Jewish Mets - Mark Berman

      The Jewish Mets

      Mark Berman

      Copyright © 2016 by Mark Berman

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.

      Smashwords Edition

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      Joe Ginsberg

      Norm Sherry

      Art Shamsky

      Elliott Maddox

      Shawn Green

      Scott Schoeneweis

      David Newhan

      Ike Davis

      Josh Satin

      Sources

      Introduction

      I’ve often read that Jews have an unhealthy obsession with trying to learn who else is Jewish. There is a simple reason for that – people find comfort in knowing there are others like them. It is easy for, say, a black person or an Asian person to simply look at people and determine if they are of the same ilk. It is not that simple for Jews.

      Even a name might not be enough; I mean, come on, how are Walt Weiss and Jordan and Ryan Zimmerman not Jewish?!

      So Jews have to resort to research and word of mouth to determine who is a Member of the Tribe (by the way, I hate that term and you will not see it again in this book. I’m not sure why I used it just now). There are a multitude of Are They Jewish? websites out there. Many of those are devoted to sports, and some of them are dedicated simply to baseball.

      This book is a subsection of that – Jewish players who have been on the New York Mets. There have been only nine such men. On the surface, that may seem like a surprisingly low number, given the city in which they play. However, considering the small number of Jewish players in baseball history (around 160 at the latest count) and the miniscule number in America as a whole (about 2% of the population), it should not be surprising at all.

      Everybody has different criteria to decide who is actually Jewish. Jewish mother? Jewish father? Any Jewish blood at all? At least two books on the subject, for example, listed a former Met named Greg Goossen as Jewish. Well, Goossen did indeed have a Jewish father, but he was raised Catholic and identified as such. Goossen himself was stunned to be included in those books. I find it rather insulting to assign a religion to someone just because it fits with the narrative you are pursuing. Therefore, this book includes only players who actually identify as Jewish.

      Thus, I am leaving out Ty Kelly, who has a Jewish mother and played for the Israeli team in the WBC qualifying tournament (it sounds like almost anyone can play for Team Israel – even a non-Jew who is married to a Jew). Someone from the Mets told me Kelly does not identify as Jewish, so who am I to say he does?

      And I am including a black man who converted to Judaism and a man born as a Jew, but believes in Jesus while still identifying as Jewish. Many people would not consider either of them as Jewish. I would strongly disagree.

      This book is as much about baseball as it is about religion, probably more.

      Finally, this book does not pretend to offer definitive biographies of these nine players. They are just quick snapshots of their careers, focusing on what it meant for them to be Jewish in a profession with so few of them.

      Joe Ginsberg

      1962

      The first Jewish player to take the field for the New York Mets was also among the first players to take the field for the Mets, period. And while Joe Ginsberg is hardly remembered by even the most diehard of Mets fans (or baseball fans in general, for that matter), he did create a battle cry that is still heard to this day.

      Ginsberg was the definition of a journeyman catcher. By the time he arrived to the Mets as a 35-year-old before their inaugural season in 1962, he had played a dozen years for six major league teams. Almost exclusively a backup, Ginsberg never topped the 113 games he played in 1952 for Detroit, when he hit a robust .221. Hopefully, he was known for his defense.

      It appears Ginsberg was not brought to the Mets for his offense or his defense. Rather, he was wanted for his experience.

      "When they were trying to get a team together, they

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