Skokie Theatre shows film on Jews who left mark on America’s game

• Reprints

The documentary "Jews and Baseball" will play July 17 at the Skokie Theatre. | Mike Isaacs~Sun-Times Media

Updated: October 31, 2011 10:51AM

A lead-off message to anyone who wants to crack that a new documentary about Jews in baseball could only fill a short: You’ve been beaten to it.

“Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story” opens with the hilarious scene from “Airplane” where a passenger asks for light reading material and is handed a flyer on famous Jewish sports legends.

Once this interesting documentary lets the scene have its at bat, it spends the next 90 minutes or so striking out the myth behind it.

“Jews and Baseball,” clearly made with the sensibility of Ken Burns’ epic documentary on baseball in mind, will be shown for a second time July 17 at the Skokie Theatre.

It’s difficult not to leave with a better understanding of the intermingling of Jews and the American pastime — not only behind the scenes but on the field as well — thanks to the meticulous research of New York Times writer Ira Berkow.

Like Burns’ documentary series, the film more or less chronologically documents history, and here the expanding role of Jews in the game as the game itself was expanding. It takes detours to profile Jewish Major League players — unsurprisingly spending the most time with superstars Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax — but it doesn’t forget lesser known players who made an impact as well.

The chapter on Koufax stokes the value of the film for here is one of his rare modern-day interviews. Koufax has bordered on reclusive when it comes to the media in recent years; that “Jews and Baseball” was able to get a sit-down interview with him feels like a real coup. (Publicity for the film highlights “a once in a lifetime interview with Sandy Koufax.”)

Koufax though is only one piece of the tapestry that this film weaves in chronicling decades of baseball and history.

Through a myriad of interviews and actor Dustin Hoffman’s narration, the documentary reflects how Jewish athletes overcame stereotypes and instilled in Jewish fans a deep and abiding pride in their heritage.

“You’re not supposed to be a ballplayer if you’re Jewish,” says one pundit early in the film. “You’re to be an attorney or a doctor but not a ballplayer.”

But if you look at the history of Jews in baseball, the film maintains, there’s been “an almost unbroken string of important players in every decade.”

At the end of the Civil War, the Jewish population in America was 250,000 people, one-half of 1 percent of the nation.

Long before Greenberg hit rockets in Tiger Stadium and Koufax became unhittable in Dodger Stadium, L. Emanuel Pike, a Jew of Dutch origin, became one of the first men to receive money for playing the grand old game.

Pike in 1866 earned $20 from the Philadelphia Athletics and became a star a handful of years later when the first professional baseball league was formed.

He was the first of many to come. From 1881 to 1924, two million Jews arrived in America making Jews 4 percent of the population.

“Jews and Baseball” moves through Jewish players who left their mark on the game during these pivotal years while offering delicious bits of trivia as well.

(Who was the first Jewish player to appear on a baseball card? St. Louis Browns pitcher Barney Pelty — “the Yiddish Curver.” Who has the highest lifetime batting average of any Jewish player?

No, not Greenberg but Moses Solomon — “the Rabbi of Swat” — who went three for eight in 1923 with a .375 batting average, and then quit in the off-season over a salary dispute to play football).

Players during these earlier years often changed their Jewish names because of increasing anti-Semitism and ethnic slurs. (Henry Ford accused Jews of being behind the 1919 Black Sox scandal in which notorious gambler Arnold Rothstein was said to be the mastermind).

In Greenberg, the Jewish community found the game’s first bonafide Jewish superstar.

The film offers up his familiar background, his considerable talent, the anti-Semitic taunts he endured and his monumental decision in the Jewish community not to play in the World Series on Yom Kippur.

Even if this information has been well documented in books and a well-received documentary on Greenberg’s life, it’s still enthralling to revisit.

And it’s equally exciting to relive just how great the great Sandy Koufax was — how he became a dominant pitcher after a handful of mediocre years, his four no-hitters and one perfect game in four consecutive seasons, his holdout for more money alongside Don Drysdale and his decision to quit the game at a relatively young age to save his ailing arm.

Like Greenberg, Koufax, too, made the decision to pass up pitching on the opening game of a World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur. Drysdale took his place and was shelled that day. When skipper Walter Alston went to the mound to relieve him, Drysdale said, “I bet you wish I were Jewish today.”

The film portrays key Jewish players from all eras from Al Rosen to Shawn Green to current players like Kevin Youkilis. It also notes the contributions to the game of Jews outside the diamond.

The diversity of those contributions can be found in current commissioner Bud Selig contrasted with former union leader Marvin Miller who changed the welfare of baseball players forever.

It won’t surprise anyone who sees “Jews and Baseball” to learn that director Peter Miller is a longtime Burns associate.

The film moves at a measured pace and is filled with still photos and video set to pieces of music and talking heads, intermingling American history with the baseball stories it tells.

And if the documentary doesn’t achieve the same epic lyricism as his mentor’s marathon film — if the material at times is presented too conventionally — it still is packed with plenty of riches.

“Jews and Baseball” doesn’t knock it out of the park as baseball or historical documentaries go, but it still scores pretty easily without a play at the plate.

“Jews and Baseball” will play at 2 p.m. July 17 at the Skokie Theatre. Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door. For more information, access skokietheatre.com/upcomingshows/july-2011.