” title=”Jews in baseball” target=”_blank”>Jews in baseball?
Guys like ” title=”Hank Greenberg” target=”_blank”>Hank Greenberg and, of course, ” title=”As have the Dodgers” target=”_blank”>As have the Dodgers. Coincidentally, yesterday was ” title=”Jewish Exponent” target=”_blank”>Jewish Exponent has a story asking and answering that question as it pertains to Youkilis. An excerpt:
“I don’t put religion into sports,” Youkilis said recently when the Red Sox were in Philadelphia for a three-game series in what was being seen as a World Series preview. “I consider religion entirely different, so I don’t bring it to the field.
“I’ve never played on Yom Kippur. Hopefully if we were playing, it would be a night game, not a day game.”
Youkilis acknowledged a “lot of pressure” from the Jewish community not to play.
“But you have to stick with your beliefs,” he said. “You can’t worry about people who aren’t influential in your life who say things or tell you you’re wrong.
“I know Shawn Green had a tough time with it. It just depends upon the community. In Boston they probably don’t even care. They’d want you to play.”
(skip)
“I know kids look up to us, but to me the biggest role models in your life are your parents,” said Youkilis, voted Jewish Player of the Decade in 2010 and who recently began marketing a “L’Chaim” T-shirt.
“We don’t make it out to be as big as the Jewish community does,” he said. “We just see ourselves as baseball players. It’s very special to be among a select few; a great thing for Jewish kids, but more so for Jewish fathers and adults.’‘
As regular readers of this blog know, and as I recently discussed in a post about ” title=”like basketball player Jordan Farmar” target=”_blank”>like basketball player Jordan Farmar, who feel like they’re letting Jews down when they don’t so conviction like Koufax or Greenberg.
It’s understandable. By all means. We all need heros, and often those heros taken on mythical characteristics.
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