The Baseball Talmud: The Definitive Position-by-Position Ranking of Baseball's Chosen Players

by Howard Megdal

From the icons of the game to the players who got their big break but never quite broke through, The Baseball Talmud provides a wonderful historical narration of Major League Jewish Baseball in America. All the stats, the facts, the stories, and the (often unheralded) glory. The Baseball Talmud reveals that there is far more to Jewish baseball than Hank Greenberg's powerful slugging and Sandy Koufax's masterful control. From Ausmus to Zinn, Berg to Kinsler, Holtzman to Yeager, and many others, Megdal draws upon the lore and the little-known details that increase our enjoyment of the game, But this is more than just stories. Megdal, a stat geek himself, uses the wealth of modern sabermetrics to determine the greatest Jewish players at each position, the all-time Jewish All-Star Team, and how they would rate against the greatest teams in baseball history, from the 1906 Chicago Cubs to the 1998 New York Yankees. The Baseball Talmud rewrites the history of Jewish baseball and is a book that every baseball fan should own.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Nonfiction

320 pages, Hardcover

First published March 21, 2009

Reviews

[RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN · Rating 4 out of 5]

RICK “SHAQ” GOLDSTEIN SAYS: “SOME BALLS… SOME STRIKES… SOME WILD PITCHES.”
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When I heard about this book I was excited beyond words and couldn’t wait for it to be released (I ordered it so many months ahead of its release… that there wasn’t even a picture of the cover yet.) and unfortunately I was disappointed when I received it. This is not to say it is not a worthwhile purchase based on an individual’s desires. I was expecting a book that not only reported Jewish ballplayers accomplishments in the big leagues… but I thought there would be tales of their youthful experiences with anti-Semitism… and how they overcame it… where their families came from and the hardships they faced being Jew’s in the United States… and if applicable… in the countries they left. (fled). Perhaps the area that I most greatly anticipated… was the “behind-the-scenes” blatant anti-Semitism they faced in the Major Leagues… not only from opposing teams… but from their own teammates and fans. I was really expecting “it-can-now-be-told” exposes about the prejudice against Jews… e.g.… the prejudice against Jackie Robinson that was truly revealed years later. Other than a very brief discussion of the deplorable situation Hank Greenberg faced in Detroit led by Hitler’s favorite American Henry Ford… there is nary a mention of the despicable anti-Semitism that has existed.

Being a lifelong “old-school” baseball fanatic and trivia statistic “buff”… I knew I was in trouble… when instead of seeing lifetime statistics and year by year historical data… you know… like on the back of baseball cards and in the encyclopedia of baseball and the baseball almanac… I was instead told on page two that the author would determine which players were better by using “BASEBALL PROSPECTUS’S WARP3, WHICH DETERMINES SEASON VALUE IN TERMS OF WINS OVER A REPLACEMENT-LEVEL PLAYER, ADJUSTED FOR PARK AND ERA, IS AN IMPORTANT TOOL.” In layman’s terms that means the author’s rankings would not be discussed in the type of language/statistics that the “boys” down on the corner used in the formative years of my romance with baseball. One other thing that perplexed me was the page that many times divided the end of each positional (1B… 2B… LF… CF… etc.) section of the book. With literally a billion baseball pictures and drawings available in the world… why did the author use the SAME painting/picture of an umpire looking over a catcher’s shoulder and a batter in quilted pants… so many times?

Now… how about some compliments for this hard working Jewish author. My Lord… the amount of research that went into this book is staggering and the author must be praised for his single-minded purpose in completing this Herculean task. In addition… his ability to incorporate some excellent “Yidisha” humor that integrates seamlessly with baseball is one of the highlights of this production… as an example: “SANDY KOUFAX ONE OF THE GREAT PITCHERS, KOSHER OR TREIF.”… and after telling about one Jewish ballplayer (Harry Eisenstat) who at the end of his career “FOUGHT IN WORLD WAR II, RISING TO THE LEVEL OF SECOND LIEUTENANT TO HELP DEFEAT THE NAZIS”… and then writing about Jewish pitcher Scott Radinsky “WHO WENT ON TO SING LEAD FOR PULLEY, A PUNK BAND”… the author summarizes his feelings by saying: “NOW, THIS MAY BE MY ANTI-PUNK-MUSIC BIAS SHOWING, BUT I AM HARD-PRESSED TO THINK OF A SINGLE PUNK ALBUM THAT RISES TO THE LEVEL OF DEFEATING THE NAZIS.”

This book helped me learn about ballplayers that I didn’t know were Jewish… and it also educated me on the fact that when I was in attendance at Sandy Koufax’s first no-hitter (he would eventually pitch four no-hitter’s) on June 30, 1962… not only was it Sandy’s first no-hitter (The class act that Sandy was… and is… he signed my ticket stub from that game and I still have it in a frame on the wall of my family room.)… but it was the first no-hitter ever… for a Jewish pitcher. It also helped bring back memories of my Dad… since Sid Gordon who was listed as the greatest Jewish left fielder used to play cards with my Dad… and Brian Horwitz a left fielder for the San Francisco Giants in 2008… is my cousin… even though he doesn’t know it… because I haven’t seen his Mother in thirty-years… and in this mountain of statistical data there is one mistake that I must point out since it involves my childhood hero Sandy Koufax. On page 186 the author writes: “IT WAS SANDY’S FINAL REGULAR-SEASON LOSS IN THE MAJOR LEAGUES-HE WON HIS FINAL TWO DECISIONS, THEN WENT 1-1 IN THE 1966 WORLD SERIES.” This is incorrect. In the 1966 World Series the Baltimore Orioles swept the Los Angeles Dodgers four games to zero. So even the great Koufax couldn’t have been 1-1… he was 0-1… but he was let down by three errors in one inning by centerfielder Willie Davis a gentile… perhaps if Sammy Davis Jr. was playing center that day it wouldn’t have happened.
This one miniscule error by the author is more than made up for with such gems as the information he provides on Mose Solomon a left fielder for the 1923 New York Giants… who was known as “THE-RABBI OF SWAT”.

NOTE-IMPORTANT REVIEWER'S FACT: THE FACT THAT I RATED THIS BOOK****FOUR-STARS-OF-DAVID**** GIVE IT A HIGHER RATING THAN A RUN OF THE MILL FOUR STAR RATING!

[Catherine Mustread · Rating 3 out of 5]

Episode 284: “The Baseball Talmud” BASEBALL BY THE BOOK podcast DEC 7, 2020 ⋅ 55:16 Sandy Koufax or Hank Greenberg? Or maybe Lou Boudreau? It's a special Hanukkah episode as author Howard Megdal joins us to debate the greatest Jewish baseball players of all time, from Lip Pike to Alex Bregman. Find out why Ryan Braun has hurt his standing, why Rod Carew doesn't make the list and why one former player belongs in the International Clown Hall of Fame.

[Lawrence A · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun read, chocked full of statistical analysis, charting the careers of many, if not most, of the Jewish ballplayers who have graced Major League Baseball since the 1880s. Megdal is a witty writer as well, and is quite conversant with current statistical thinking about the value of a player, developed by the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR) and legions of talented SABRmetricians. Megdal did take some grief for identifying Greg Goossen as Jewish in this book; Goossen---who played for the mid-1960s New York Mets, as well as other teams, went on to a fairly successful acting career after his playing days were over---was Catholic, and got some hearty laughs when Megdal tapped him as the "7th-best all-time Jewish first baseman." As a long-time baseball fan, however, I was quite surprised when Megdal included analyses of several pitchers who appeared in only 1 major league game, while completely omitting even a passing reference to Jewish left-handed pitcher Robert "Bo" Belinsky, who chalked up 28 wins in an 8-yr career for 5 major league teams, and Jewish right-handed "prankster" pitcher Myron "Moe" Drabowsky, who compiled 88 wins and 55 saves in a 17-yr career for 8 major league teams, held the one-time major league record for consecutive strikeouts in a game (8) [a mark that was ultimately eclipsed by Tom Seaver's 10 consecutive strikeouts in a 1970 game], and helped lead the 1966 Baltimore Orioles to a 4-game sweep of the LA Dodgers in that year's World Series.

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A useful compilation of Jewish major leaguers, but Megdal seems to have stretched to fill an entire book here. And if you are going to fill an entire book, why not give us more biographical detail on people like Harry Danning, Buddy Myer, Hank Greenberg, Al Rosen, et al.? The format appears to have been borrowed from Bill James' New Historical Abstract, but there aren't enough players--certainly not enough significant players (players with 4 or 5 major league at-bats are getting three-paragraph descriptions!)--to make that work here. Instead of detailed, probing commentary on what it might have meant to have been a Jew playing in MLB in the 10s and 20s, we get treated to bad ethnic jokes (oy vey, Jackie Mason!) and lots of unfounded speculation ("imagine all the Jewish mothers who would've wanted their daughters to marry someone like him!"). Megdal's willingness to embrace Baseball Prospectus-style sabermetrics is admirable, but even some of his conclusions on that end struck me as superficial ("well, this player has more of X than that player, so he's probably better") and ham-fisted.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you love the game of baseball, you'll enjoy this easy read on the Jewish "Boys of Summer" that goes far beyond Sandy Koufax and Hank Greenberg. Take a transistor radio, a pitcher of lemonade and this book out to the backyard on a lazy Sunday afternoon in August. Tune in the game and travel back to a time when baseball really was the national pastime.

[Doug Kabak · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great book. A baseball treasure.

[Jennifer Hiatt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I still don't completely understand the stats, but I now know some amazingly interesting factoids about obscure Jewish baseball players.