A Soulful Journey

 King Kelly played for the Boston team one hundred years ago.  He was a great slider.  When dying of pneumonia he fell from the stretcher carrying him.  His final words were, "This may be my last slide."  - Daniel Okrent and Steve Wulf No one and nothing lasts forever.

The reason the New York Yankees wear pinstripes is because the owner many decades ago thought it made Babe Ruth look thinner. We often cater with almost an absence to those whom we venerate.  We are all equal.

"Sandy Koufax is now on the (Brooklyn) Dodgers, but he is still like one of us.  Spring has ended.  The season has ended.  The season is about the begin.  And it is Passover.  We took matzo sandwiches to Ebbets Field with chicken fat.  We go to the dugout give it to Sandy and he's saying, "Get out.  Get away.  They are crazy.  They are tumlers!" Jackie Robinson came over and said, "What's this?" "Matzo." We had the whole Dodger bench eating matzo and chicken fat."  - Larry King As Jews, we are called upon to share with the world our understanding of what God wants.  While this story may not be exactly applicable to what God wants us to share with the world, it illustrates that we should not be shy about sharing with others our truth, our way.

White-maned Dr. Solomon Schechter, the seminary's president, took special pains with the shy scholar [Rabbi Louis Finkelstein]. Walking with him on the street one day, Dr. Schechter stopped at a newsstand to read the latest World Series scores. "Can you play baseball?" he asked. "No," admitted Finkelstein. "Remember this," said the old man. "Unless you can play baseball, you'll never get to be a rabbi in America."   “ A Trumpet For All Israel,”   -Time Magazine, October 15, 1951

When baseball’s Henry Aaron hit his 175th home run breaking Babe Ruth’s record, he said, “I don’t remember the noise, or the two kids that ran on the field. My teammates at home plate,  I remember seeing them. I remember my mother out there and she hugging me. That’s what I’ll remember more than anything about that home run when I think back on it.  I don’t know where she came from, but she was there…” - interview with George Plimpton This is what matters, what we yearn for.  Connection with the people who love us most dearly and whom we look up to.  Make that call today.  You know which ones.

"Think of life like a baseball season -- all those games. Win one at a time. There's a spot out there, on some kind of roster for everybody. Just keep working at it, and don't take too big of a bite at a time." - Joe Torre

Rabbi Haskel Lookstein reflected on the 55,000 fans who gathered at Shea Stadium for the seventh game of the World Series. When the game was over and the Mets were victorious, it was expected that the fans might riot, a debacle which had occurred after the seventh game of the Mets-Astros series. Yet after this game the fans stay passively in the stands, with no loss of life, or property. Had the fans of the New York Mets suddenly repented of wanton destruction? Had the great wickedness departed from humankind? Or had their wicked schemes simply been foiled by the mighty show of force of 700 riot police mounted on horseback?  -Rabbi Lionel Moses As the Mishna teaches, Rabbi Hanina said, "Pray for the welfare of the government for without it people who swallow on another up. "  (Avot 3:2)

“I never forgot about what I want to do,” said Kruk, who batted .316 last season and who in eight years in the majors has a career average of .300. “I never forgot about baseball. But my main focus was getting my radiation and killing the cancer. I think the Phillies even think that I’ve been working out every day, but the other day I was tired, I didn’t go. But it came to the point where even if my skills aren’t going to be a sharp when I come back, so be it. I’d rather hit .220 and live and hit .300 in cash it in at the end of the season.”

Ringo Starr, Leonardo Da Vinci, Charklemagne, Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe and Jack the Ripper were all left-handers, southpaws.  "Southpaws, sinistrals, port-siders, lefties.  Editor H.L. Mencken traced the word southpaw to Chicago sportswriters int he late 19th center who used it while writing about the city's west-side ballpark.  Pitchers faces west into the setting sun, so that their left arms were to the south." - Kiwanis Magazine

When he went to bat for the first time Pete Rose remarked: ”If I ever get to the big leagues and I draw a walk, I’m going to run to first hard as I’ve ever run in my life- they’re going to know I’m there.” Everybody needs attention.

Moe Burg, the White Sox catcher, was learned and extremely smart.  Someone once said of him, “Burg can speak 12 languages but he cannot hit in any of them.” – Daniel Okrent and Steve Wulf Nobody can excel at all things.  Do what you do best.

Joe Gordon was one of the greatest second baseman in baseball history. In 1947 he was at its prime when he played for the Cleveland Indians. In that same year Larry Doby came to play for Cleveland, the first black rookie to join an American League team. Doby was tense and nervous when he stepped up for his first time at bat. He swung at three pitches missed each of them-by at least a foot. He walked back to the dugout with his head down, walked past every other player on the bench and slouched in the corner alone with his head in his hands. Joe Gordon, a power hitter, was up next.  The opposing pitcher that day was one that Gordon usually blasted out of the park. But this time, Joe Gordon went up to the plate and missed three pictures in a row-each of them by at least 2 feet. He returned to the dugout, walked past every other player on the bench, sat down in the corner next to Larry Doby and put his head in his hands.    No one ever asked Joe Gord...

Hank Aaron was asked one day why he went to the plate with a trademark label of the bat facing down. “I don’t go up there to read,” said Aaron. “I go up there to hit.” We are supposed to execute our duties as they are prescribed.

Once while playing outfield, Yogi Berra had a hard time seeing in the afternoon shadows.  He said, "It gets late early out there."

When a rookie pitcher complained to the umpire that Rogers Hornsby was thrown three balls, the umpire replied, “Young man, when you pitch a strike, Mr. Hornsby will let you know.” We may think we are deserving of much.  Humility may make us think twice.

The day after Elie Wiesel won the Nobel prize, an aide to Peter Ueberroth, the baseball commissioner, asked Wiesel to be at the phone at a specific time the next day.   At the appointed time, the aide, called and Ueberroth got on the line. “My son had appeared at my press conference (in New York) in a New York Yankees jacket, so I though maybe he was calling to protest or something,” Wiesel said.   “Instead, he told me, I want to bestow a very great important honor on you.   Would you throw out the first ball in the World Series on Saturday?” Wiesel said he told Ueberroth that he could not because it was the Jewish Sabbath.   Ueberroth came back with a counteroffer: Sunday.   Again, Wiesel demurred, because it was Sukkoth, the Jewish holiday. Finally, Wiesel said, Ueberroth called and said he had consulted with rabbis and was told it would be all right to throw out the ball after sundown and that the game could be delayed so he wouldn’t have to travel bef...

In 1959, after hitting over .300 for seventeen consecutive years, Ted Williams, on of the all time greats of baseball, batted a mere .254.  In spite of dismal season, Boston Red Sox owner, Tom Yawkey sent him a contract worth $125,000 for playing the next season. 1969, for the same amount he had received for 1959.  At that time, Ted Williams was baseball's highest paid player, but he was too proud to accept such a generous contract for failing to maintain his high level of play.  He sent the contract back and demanded at twenty-five percent salary cut, the maximum that was allowable in those days.  The Boston Red Sox Management agreed to those terms and Ted Williams went on to have an outstanding season.   -Rabbi Bernard Glassman C an you imagine a world where such integrity was the norm and not the exception ?

Before the 1992 season, Chicago Cubs second baseman, Ryne Sandberg   signed a contract worth seven million dollars annually. But Sandberg, a quiet almost laconic hero, walked away from his multimillion dollar salary in the middle of the 1994 season, when his numbers at the plate dropped below those he had routinely posted it in past seasons. He chose to retire rather than play below his own high standards. Why? “I and not the type of person who can be satisfied with anything less then my very best effort in my very top performance,” Sandberg   declared at the press conference announcing his departure.   “And I am certainly not the type of person who can ask the Cubs organization and fans to pay my salary when I am not happy with my mental approach and my performance.”   -Current Biography   Do your best.  nothing else will satisfy you.  

“We shall miss him of the infield and shall miss him at the bat, but he’s true to his religion- and honor him for that.”     -Edgar Guest poem written after Hank Greenberg’s refusal to play baseball on Yom Kippur, 1954

On June 2, 2010, Armando Galarraga, 28 pitched what seemed to be a perfect game, a feat only achieved twenty times in Major League Baseball's 130 year history. However, on the very last play of the game, umpire Jim Joyce, 65, mistakenly called the runner safe at first base, ruining the perfect game. After the game, understanding the mistake he had made and the implications to Galarraga, with tears in his eyes, Joyce went over to Galarraga and apologized, admitting his mistake. Galarraga graciously accepted his apology saying "Nobody's perfect. Everybody's human. " They are currently writing a book together titled "Nobody's Perfect."