This post originally appeared at the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To view it there : https://www.fwweekly.com/2017/01/16/baseball-realizes-dreams/
If you were a young Jewish boy newly arrived in the United States in
the early 20th century, you might have looked and talked differently
from your schoolmates. You wore a small circular cap on the back of your
head. How would you have tried to fit in?
For many such boys, adjustment to America involved wearing baseball caps as well as yarmulkes.
That’s the message of Chasing Dreams: Baseball and Becoming American, a multimedia exhibit on display through March 5 at Congregation Ahavath Sholom.
“What
the immigrants of the early 1900s determined was if you really wanted
to be American, you needed to learn about baseball,” explained Rich
Hollander, who spearheaded bringing the exhibit to the Fort Worth
synagogue from the Philadelphia Museum of American Jewish History.
The most prominent portion of the display consists of a series of
two-sided panels featuring large photos and text related to the ways
Jews and other minorities became a part of baseball. Text from the first
panel declares that baseball “represents a shared American identity.”
Videos about baseball’s cultural richness reinforce the message. They
feature comments from prominent Jewish and minority participants in the
game, including the Rangers’ Jewish general manager, Jon Daniels.
Hollander had seen a TV news story about the exhibition and contacted
the Philadelphia museum about arranging a showing in Texas. As
president of Tarrant County B’nai B’rith, he presented the concept to
local chapter of the national Jewish service organization. They decided
to provide the money and manpower necessary to bring Chasing Dreams to Cowtown.
An iPad display allows visitors to look up every Jewish player who
played in the majors. On Friday, Rick Weintraub of Arlington had come to
see the exhibit with his friend and his grandson. He asked Hollander to
retrieve the information on his distant cousin Phil Weintraub, who
played in the 1930s and 1940s.
Rick was born in 1937 and grew up in New York City as a Brooklyn
Dodgers fan. He confirmed that the exhibit got it right about the
importance of baseball to Jewish boys his age.
“When you were a kid growing up in Brooklyn, baseball was your second religion,” he said.
The man Hollander considers his baseball hero once placed the
religion they share ahead of the game they both love. Sandy Koufax
declined to pitch Game 1 of the 1965 World Series when it fell on the
same day as Jewish holy day Yom Kippur. He has a prominent place in the
exhibit and in Hollander’s memory: “He said to me, ‘If you’re Jewish,
you can be a baseball player.’ I wasn’t good enough to be a
[professional] baseball player, but you could be a baseball player.”
Hollander took pleasure in noting that Israel had qualified to play
in the 2017 World Baseball Classic, the country’s first appearance in
the main round of the quadrennial competition. The tournament website
indicates some 3,000 Israelis of all ages participate in the sport. It
seems that in addition helping immigrants adjust to life in the U.S.,
baseball makes a pretty good export, too.
On Blotch at Fwweekly.com, you can read my take on why it made sense to write about the exhibit during a week that includes Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Inauguration Day.
You can find Chasing Dreams: Baseball and Becoming American at 4050 South Hulen Street Tuesdays – Thursdays from 10 am to 5 pm, Fridays from 10 am to 2 pm, and Sundays from noon to 6 pm. Tickets are $5 each and children under 12 are admitted free. On Sunday, February 12, former Rangers President Tom Schieffer will speak at a bagels and lox brunch that includes a tour of the exhibit. For information about the event, call 817 909 4354.
Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for
sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns,
television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities
through Rush Olson Creative & Sports and FourNine Productions.
RushOlson.com
Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports
Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports
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