Jewish Heritage Night at Tuesday's Giants game featured an eclectic mix of Jews, from Jewish summer camp staff and a young adult group to Chabad (serving Kosher hot dogs and He-Brew beer before the game). There was no obvious attraction, like Israeli basketball star Omri Caspi at the Warriors' Jewish Heritage Night last February. Rather, the Jews came out solely for the fun of celebrating their history, and gathering together as a community. As I learned at Chabad's pre-game tailgate barbeque, Jewish history is intimately intertwined with baseball. "Hank Greenberg came along at a time when Jews were very oppressed in America, and anti-Semitism was at its most rampant," said Howard Sapper, originally from Pittsburgh. "Hank Greenberg gave American Jews a reason to have pride, and from that place you get many many Jewish baseball fans." Sapper said that Greenberg was one of the main draws for pre-war and post-war Jews to baseball. However, on this particular day, aside from some fairly insistent JNF ads on the scoreboard, I didn't see much Judaism inside the stadium. The national anthem and 7th inning stretch were not sung by Jews, nor was the first pitch thrown out by one. Between the 4th...
The charm of minor league baseball isn't limited to the small stadium, with seating just a few feet from the action. It's not limited to the dedicated fans, or the local advertisers, or the cute games and contests between innings. It's not even limited to the carnival-like combination of food stands and bounce houses. It's about the feeling itself, of our national game being played not for the money, or for national television, but because the players enjoy it. The San Jose Giants were evenly matched on Monday night against the Bakersfield Blaze, another team in the Class-A Advanced California league. The game featured many impressive plays, if not the show-stoppers that characterize a major-league contest. Still, it's easy to see where these players are headed, and big-league contracts are likely in their future. But the San Jose Giants experience wasn't just about the players and their skills. It started with the pre-game introductions. Each player ran out with a couple kids, and they stood together for the national anthem. Later, as the kids left the field, two little girls declared "play ball!" Between at-bats, the PA announcer played an artful variety of music, everything from 50s and country to...
Basketball and Jews? Truly not a connection that comes naturally to mind. But as the Golden State Warriors celebrated Jewish Heritage Night on Wednesday, Jewish fans had an extra reason to turn out - Omri Caspi, the first Israeli in the NBA, was playing for the visiting team. "Are you rooting for the Warriors or the Kings?" I asked a fan, sitting in the section for Camp Tawonga, a residential Jewish summer camp near Yosemite. She grinned, then replied "I'm rooting for the Israeli!" Indeed, Caspi started the game as the Sacramento Kings' highest scorer, then flatlined for the rest of their 130-98 loss to the Warriors. But that didn't stop Jewish fans from holding their breath every time he approached the basket. "I go to all the Giants' Jewish Heritage Nights," fan Lisa Halperin said, "so of course I had to go to the Warriors'. I'm excited about seeing the Israeli, whose name I don't know, play for the Sacramento Kings." Halperin watched the game from the Camp Tawonga section with her daughter Molly, a longtime Tawonga camper and staff member. Indeed, the entire Jewish community was out in force on Wednesday, taking over several sections of a spottily-filled...
