Major League Baseball Should Fix the Yom Kippur Dilemma (Guest Blog)
Why must Jewish fans, players and league officials confront religious dilemmas about watching playoff games during the holiest Day of Atonement?
Aviva KempnerGuest Writer | October 8, 2019 @ 7:14 PM
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In Washington, D.C., we are blissfully recovering from Monday night’s game when the Nationals beat the Dodgers to tie up the playoff series 2-2. We are hoarse from yelling and need serious manicures from all the nail biting innings.
East Coast Jewish fans are religiously thrilled our match-up will begin on Wednesday night at 8:30 p.m. ET because the start time comes after sundown of our holiest Day of Atonement. We are supposed to observe the holiday by praying in synagogue, not eating or drinking, and not watching baseball.
It’s not fair to those Jewish fans living on the West Coast as the game starts there at 5:30 p.m., which is before sundown. Although I want my home team Nats to win, I do feel empathy for those Jewish Dodgers fans who are confronting religious dilemmas about watching the game during Yom Kippur.
It’s even worse for Jewish Cardinals and Braves fans, as the game is scheduled at 5:02 p.m. in Atlanta on Yom Kippur afternoon. I know of one Cards fan who has the difficult choice of saying a memorial prayer for her sister in synagogue or watching the start of the game she adores.
These questions of what to do about Yom Kippur come up also for players in baseball history. Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg faced his Yom Kippur challenge in 1934 when he decided to attend synagogue instead of the Detroit Tiger stadium during a pennant race when he was the top hitter. Greenberg is duly honored for that religious stand during a time of domestic anti-Semitism because he wanted to honor his observant parents. And fate intervened during the 1935 World Series when he broke his wrist and did not have the ability to choose when Yom Kippur came up again to during the World Series his team was playing in.
Ace Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax confronted a similar issue 31 years later in the first game of the 1965 World series between the Dodgers and the Minnesota Twins. He switched to pitching the next day and was similarly hailed as a hero for sitting out that day while his substitute Don Drysdale lost game one. Koufax wound up winning MVP for his pitching during the rest of the series.
Koufax is now a special adviser for the Dodgers and it will be interesting to see if he shows up before sundown. Another person certainly conflicted will be Stan Kasten, the president and part owner of the Dodgers. The Lerner family members, who are the owners of the Nationals, also face the religious challenge.
When I interviewed AL Rosen, past player and baseball executive, he explained how a fan criticized him for seeing him on television at a Yankees game on Yom Kippur. Rosen wrote back asking the fan why he was even watching television on Yom Kippur.
These annual end- and postseason playing choices could be easily avoided if Major League Baseball officials could be more considerate to their Jewish fans, players and owners by not scheduling a game during Yom Kippur. MLB could emulate two of our branches of government in Washington —the U.S. Congress and the Supreme Court. The Congress has been on recess last and this week, allowing their Jewish members not to be in conflict observing their holidays.
In an interview I conducted with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for my documentary on television pioneer Gertrude Berg (who played Mrs. Goldberg), she noted that the Supreme Court has a policy not to have any cases argued on Yom Kippur out of respect for Jewish lawyers. She said the practice was inspired by Hank Greenberg and the choice he had to make in 1934.
Just think how much larger MLB’s fan base would be if they did not schedule any game for those 24 hours of religious observation and allowing for time differences. And for me and my friends who are coming to my house to break the fast of Yom Kippur, we will be watching the final matchup between the Nats and the Dodgers at sundown. We will be rooting and hoping that our prayers have been answered.
20 Highest-Grossing Baseball Movies, From 'League of Their Own' to 'Major League' (Photos)
Let's get into the spirit of a new MLB season with some of the biggest baseball movies that all hit a commercial home run. These are the highest grossing baseball movies of all time, ranked from lowest to highest.
20. "Mr. 3000" - $21.8 million
Bernie Mac plays a former baseball great who returns to the league at age 47 after learning he was just a few hits shy of 3000.
Buena Vista
19. "Major League II" - $30.6 million
Charlie Sheen, Corbin Bernsen and Tom Berenger all came back for the sequel to "Major League," but Wesley Snipes had become a bigger star, and his role of Willie Mays Hayes was taken over by Omar Epps.
Warner Bros.
18. "The Sandlot" - $32.4 million
"The Sandlot" performed modestly at the box office in 1993, but it found a second life as a cult film on VHS and on DVD a decade after its release.
Twentieth Century Fox
17. "Bad News Bears" (2005) - $32.8 million
Billy Bob Thornton starred in Richard Linklater's remake of the '70s classic starring Walter Matthau.
Paramount Pictures
16. "For Love of the Game" - $35.1 million
Kevin Costner shows up quite a bit on this list. Sam Raimi directs Costner as a washed up pitcher reflecting on his career in baseball.
Universal
15. "Trouble With the Curve" - $35.7 million
Clint Eastwood and Amy Adams play a father and daughter trying to patch up their relationship during Eastwood's final season as a baseball scout.
Warner Bros.
14. "Million Dollar Arm" - $36.4 million
"Million Dollar Arm" kicked off a string of globe-hoping Disney movies, with Jon Hamm starring as a sports agent who travels to India in search of baseball talent on the cricket pitch.
Disney
13. "Hardball" - $40.2 million
This early-2000s Keanu Reeves hit stars a young Michael B. Jordan in this movie about a Cabrini Green little league team.
Paramount
12. "Fever Pitch" - $42 million
Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore make for one of the more charming rom-com couples of late. But even more special about "Fever Pitch" is that it arrived in the year the Red Sox finally won the World Series.
Twentieth Century Fox
11. "The Natural" - $47 million
Robert Redford, Robert Duvall and Glenn Close star in Barry Levinson's inspiring classic that has been fodder for countless homages and parodies.
TriStar
10. "Major League" - $49.7 million
"Juuuust a bit outside!" The University of Arizona baseball team did their own version of the famous scene from this film where the players all arrive to spring training.
Paramount
9. "Angels in the Outfield" (1994) - $50.2 million
You've got to believe! A young Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars in this cute Disney movie about a baseball miracle.
Buena Vista
8. "Bull Durham" - $50.8 million
Kevin Costner again. This baseball romance even received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
Orion
7. "Rookie of the Year" - $53.6 million
Back when the Chicago Cubs were still lovable losers, it made sense that they might take a flyer on a miraculous young kid as depicted in Daniel Stern's family comedy.
Fox
6. "The Benchwarmers" - 59.8 million
"The Benchwarmers," starring Jon Heder, David Spade and Rob Schneider, was a hit with audiences, but much less so with critics, earning only a 25 on Metacritic.
Sony/Columbia
5. "Field of Dreams" - $64.3 million
Even more Kevin Costner. This weepy classic went on to earn three Oscar nominations and might be the best baseball movie ever.
Universal
4. "The Rookie" (2002) - $75.6 million
Dennis Quaid stars in this inspiring true story of Jim Morris, who discovered well past his prime that he could throw some real heat and ended up making a major league team.
Disney
3. "Moneyball" - $75.6 million
Nominated for six Oscars including Best Picture, the film adaptation of Michael Lewis's book starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill was an unexpected critical and commercial darling.
Sony
2. "42" - $95 million
Before he became Black Panther, Chadwick Boseman starred as Dodgers great Jackie Robinson in the biopic on his life, "42."
Warner Bros.
1. "A League of Their Own" - $107.5 million
"There's no crying in baseball!" Penny Marshall's hilarious story of the first female professional baseball league is the only movie to crack the $100 million mark.
Sony
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Get in the spirit of the World Series with these commercial home runs
Let's get into the spirit of a new MLB season with some of the biggest baseball movies that all hit a commercial home run. These are the highest grossing baseball movies of all time, ranked from lowest to highest.
Aviva Kempner is the co-director with Ben West (Cheyenne) of "Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting" documentary. Jessie Atkin is the communications coordinator for the documentary.