Holy Days and Baseball: It’s That Time Again

9/17/2015

The Biblical Image by Igor Paley. Just saying.

There is something ancient about the National Pastime that evokes the spiritual, the other-worldly. I submit “The Natural” and “Field of Dreams.”

Now two friends of mine have written topical essays about the overlap between baseball and the Jewish holy days.

In New York, we are used to glorious weather for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Last Sunday, the rain stopped right around sundown on the Jewish New Year to let the United States Open begin, albeit three hours late. Tennis fans did not have to be Jewish to benefit from the cessation.

The baseball season is always in its crucial days when the holy days arrive. My friend Mendel Horowitz, rabbi and family therapist in Israel, who often contributes insightful comments on this site, has written about the intersection of the sacred and the profane. Here is the link from the Washington Post the other day:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/09/16/yom-kippur-is-about-to-collide-with-baseball-but-the-two-go-so-naturally-together/

And my friend Hillel Kuttler from Baltimore has written about an event half a century ago, when Sandy Koufax chose to not pitch the opening game of the World Series on Yom Kippur. Kuttler discusses the message Koufax sent to Jews (and others.) The link from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

http://www.jta.org/2015/09/08/life-religion/why-sandy-koufax-sitting-out-a-world-series-game-still-matters-50-years-later

I covered that World Series in Minnesota, when Don Drysdale, the second ace, was hammered. Kuttler repeats the anecdote that when manager Walter Alston came to the mound to take him out in the third inning, Drysdale said, "I bet right now you wish I was Jewish, too." Everybody low-keyed that observance, including Koufax. He just never worked on that day. The Dodgers won the Series anyway.

Woe to people who ignore the holy days. In 1986, Major League Baseball scheduled a night game and a subsequent day game -- not one game but two -- within the 24 hours of Yom Kippur. In New York.

I’m not Jewish, but I know from chutzpah. My column on Oct. 1, 1986, predicted a deluge:

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/01/sports/sports-of-the-times-mets-forecast-a-deluge.html

The Sunday night game was rained out. Of course. Mendel Horowitz and Hillel Kuttler understand.

Mendel

9/17/2015 11:21:16 am

Yom Kippur, this year, falls on September 23. The MLB season ends October 4. Jews offer an annual prayer for rain on October 5, at the close of the Tabernacle holiday. The profane and the sacred will not clash this year in the playoffs. Unless, of course, the Yankees play the Mets.

Hillel link

9/17/2015 02:55:59 pm

Mendel, an honor to "meet" you through George's column. George, an honor to have you post my work; you are such a mensch. May we live to enjoy many more World Series wherever we may be.

Mendel

9/17/2015 04:21:00 pm

Hillel, nice meeting you. I was going to make George an honorary member, but then learned he was conferred before I was born. A mensch indeed.

George Vecsey

9/18/2015 07:48:11 am

Guys, thanks. It's true. I was proclaimed an honorary landsman back in the early 80's by my good friend Rabbi Wolfe Kelman, at their family Seder, after I had sung an old Hebrew song we had learned in chorus at Jamaica High. I appreciate the sentiment. Best, GV

Alan Rubin link

9/17/2015 10:38:14 pm

I remember all the positive comments when Sandy Koufax did not play on Yom Kippur. This is the first I heard about Drysdale's comment.

I long for the days when the World Series was played in early October, mostly in the daylight. A warm weather sport should not have its champion crowned in freezing weather.

If the playoff system must remain, do something to shorten or condense the regular season. Also, the AL should through out the DH for good measure.

Thanks to Mendel Horowitz and Hillel Kuttler for such great insight.

George Vecsey

9/18/2015 07:54:28 am

Alan, I covered that series. You are right -- the World Series was a different entity in sunlight. Of course, Willie Davis lost a fly ball in the sun that same Series. The Series was an event. Now it's a post-script, always in the dark, usually in nasty weather. I can tell you, many times I covered the last 10-20 years, I just wanted it over. Not that amazing things didn't happen 'round midnight (Mookie, etc.) but as a morning person I say, it's just too late.
I don't remember the Drysdale remark from 1965 but only a few people would remember -- and Drysdale, Alston and the very nice John Roseboro are all long gone. It's the kind of thing that could easily have come out in an relaxed telling weeks, months,years later. Great to see you, GV

bruce

9/23/2015 01:18:54 pm

George,

there was quite a fuss about Koufax's decision. different times. can you imagine a player back in those days taking a day while his wife gave birth?

if I recollect correctly, the davis three error game was Koufax's last. doing this from memory, but I think his world series record was only 4-3 but his ERA was under one.

and you don't have to think jewish about holy day problems......I think it was 1971 when the chiefs and, I forget who, went into playoff OT on xmas day. many weren't happy about the nfl playing that day. nor two days after the jfk assassination. I think the afl cancelled.....

George Vecsey

9/23/2015 02:16:24 pm

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1966/B10060LAN1966.htm

Bruce, true, it was a 1 PM game, bright sun (Oct often the hottest month in LA) ....It was last game for Koufax. I had a photo of US VP Humphrey talking to Koufax at his locker after game in Balt,. I was standing, eavesdropping, got in the picture. Now I cant find it.

Players did not take time off. Neither did reporters. I went to Detroit for two football games when our son was born (my wife stayed in the hosp. an extra day...but still)

GV

Elliott Kolker

3/2/2016 07:31:57 am

When I umpired softball, my role model was Bill Klem, HOF, the Dean of National League Umpires, who was famous for saying, “I calls ‘em as I sees ‘em!” When Bill Klem says “Baseball isn’t just a game; it’s a religion,” I say:

“Amen”
The Village Elliott” 1/15

When I umped, strove to make decision
With Old Arbitrator-like precision;
For I share and “Amen:”
"Baseball,is," said Bill Klem “
More than a game, it's my religion!

Comments are closed.

QUOTES

Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online.
The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal….

After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness.

The progress stems mostly from three factors:
First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately
Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
***

From the great Maureen Dowd:

As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop.
But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels."

--- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing.
***
"Putting out the paper," we called it.
Much more than nostalgia.
---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html

Holy Days and Baseball: It’s That Time Again

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