Kevin’s an odd name for a Jewish kid, isn’t it? And do Jews still take inordinate pride in the few professional athletes who are MOTs? When I was growing up, I learned at Hebrew school, before I got got kicked out* for insubordination, that Sandy Koufax was a very big deal. Hank Greenberg, too.**
* I was always a rebel.
** No, I’m not as old as John McCain***. That’s my point. People**** were still, as late as the 1980s, talking about these guys.
*** Not Jewish. Obama? A little. The part that’s not Shi’a.
**** Well, Hebrew school teachers at least. So maybe not exactly “people.”
The Edge of the American West 
41 comments
October 10, 2008 at 8:19 pm
SEK
RE: *
“I’ll take ‘Who couldn’t learn his haftorah passage for $500, Alex.'”
October 10, 2008 at 8:21 pm
ari
I totally rocked my haftorah, thank you very much. But I did, having long since been booted from Hebrew school, have to go to a private tutor.
October 10, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Sifu Tweety
No less odd a name for a Romanian.
Yet so, so Boston.
What can I say? He knows his roots.
October 10, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Ben Alpers
A mutual friend of Ari’s and mine went to Hebrew school with Goldberg, the pro wrestler (then Danny Goldberg, I believe).
Though at this point, the fact that we are still talking about Goldberg, the pro wrestler….
I know that Youkilis is Jewish, but I’ll always think of him as the Greek God of Walks.
And Moe Berg is still my favorite Great Jewish Athlete.
October 10, 2008 at 8:31 pm
ari
Yeah, Ben, that he’s not Greek is troubling. Even if he’s from Boston, Jetpack.
October 10, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Ben Alpers
Perhaps we could compromise and call him the Greek G-d of Walks?
October 10, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Sifu Tweety
I don’t think he’s from Boston.
He just appreciates the history, hence the name. His parents gave him. Years before anybody imagined he might play professional baseball in Boston.
Look, shut up, okay? Red Sox fans don’t have to make sense.
October 10, 2008 at 8:41 pm
ari
Red Sox fans don’t have to make sense.
It’s good to be the king?
October 10, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Sifu Tweety
King yes hello mmm beer! Yoooouuuuk! Make winning hello!
October 10, 2008 at 8:44 pm
SEK
I wish I could’ve been booted from Hebrew school, but then there wouldn’t have been a Hebrew school, what with me being the only student and all.
October 10, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Ben Alpers
Youk is from Cincinnati, which is why he makes a brief appearance, at age 14, in the utterly forgettable film Milk Money which happened to be filmed in Cincy.
October 10, 2008 at 8:47 pm
ari
You really are a film historian, aren’t you?
October 10, 2008 at 8:50 pm
SEK
Or a Sox fan. They love that stuff. COWBOY UP!
October 10, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Sifu Tweety
How can you call Milk Money unforgettable? The movie where Melanie Griffith plays a prostitute? That’s up there with The Sorrow and the Pity in the annals of unsexy film.
October 10, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Ben Alpers
Actually I’m an A’s fan…and a Wikipedia user.
October 10, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Sifu Tweety
I contracted “utterly forgettable” into “unforgettable”; never mind me: I’m a sox fan!
October 10, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Ben Alpers
Wicked pissa!
October 10, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Sifu Tweety
Utforgettably pissa.
October 10, 2008 at 8:57 pm
SEK
Sorry about that Ben. Should’ve just called you a moneyballer and be done with it.
October 10, 2008 at 9:11 pm
urbino
Are we talking about the Red Sox? Dude.
October 10, 2008 at 9:13 pm
ari
Is that “dude”? Or “dude“? Or “dude“? Help a brother out.
October 10, 2008 at 9:14 pm
ari
Stupid smart quotes.
October 10, 2008 at 11:12 pm
foolishmortal
He’s a Bulgarian jew, which means his family suffered under Orthodox, rather than Catholic, oppression. The Orthodox were nicer about it.
He’s also from the A’s organization, which, if copied, would end the Athletics as a viable franchise. But it won’t be, because everyone else has different priorities. Serious Sox fans listen to WEEI; serious A’s fans follow the rivercats.
He also should be the AL MVP, but won’t be
October 10, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Jason B
For whatever reason this thread has me thinking of Kirby Puckett, who wasn’t Jewish, never played in Boston, and never appeared in an unsexy movie with Melanie Griffith.
Maybe it’s just the “funny name” idea blended with the “unhateable player” thing.
October 10, 2008 at 11:27 pm
ari
Kirby Puckett wasn’t Jewish? I knew my rabbi was a liar.
October 10, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Jason B
I know . . . he seemed Jewish, because he–actually, I have no joke here, bad or otherwise.
But how ’bout that Kevin Youkilis?
October 11, 2008 at 12:20 am
grackle
He’s also from the A’s organization, which, if copied, would end the Athletics as a viable franchise. According to the Wikipedia link above, this is untrue, at least the first part. Youkilis was drafted by Boston in 2001 and spent the three years until he was called up in 2004 in the Boston minors. If he’d a been an A’s property he would have played for them until he could be traded for a near minyon of younger players, say last year or this.
October 11, 2008 at 1:16 am
urbino
Is that “dude”? Or “dude“? Or “dude“? Help a brother out.
It’s more of a, “Fuck a duck! I have to hear about them here, too?!” But with love.
October 11, 2008 at 4:26 am
lutton
Sandy Koufax was at the Dodgers-Phillies game last night! Good to see him.
One stat mentioned was Koufax went 111-34 over a six season period. Wow, a 77% win percentage. Simply stunning.
October 11, 2008 at 5:30 am
PorJ
Ari, how could you forget Rod Carew? Or do converts not measure up? Personally, as a Jewish ‘Nats fan, I’ll always have a softspot in my heart for Mike “SuperJew” Epstein. Yes, that was his real nickname (he got it at Berkeley, of all places). He once got in a fistfight with Reggie Jackson on an airplane when he played with the As in the early 1970s (apparently, the dude was completely obnoxious – that’s why he got traded by the Orioles, Senators, As, etc. all in the space of 7 years even though he was a decent slugger).
October 11, 2008 at 5:39 am
Levi Stahl
Youkilis is good, though badly needing to shave that . . . thing . . . but the real star of the Jews of Baseball right now is Ryan Braun. That kid can hit. Sadly, like the rest of his Brewers brethren, he’s sitting at home right now.
October 11, 2008 at 7:32 am
david
Koufax and Youkilis share something besides being MOT. They both played baseball for the University of Cincinnati Bearcats. Youkilis comes from the NE ‘burbs of Cincinnati. He went to one of the few public school districts that offers Hebrew (at least did before budget cuts a couple years back).
October 11, 2008 at 8:11 am
washerdreyer
if copied, would end the Athletics as a viable franchise.
At the proper level of abstraction, the lesson of Billy Beane’s Moneyball and the years since its writing is that the A’s go after whichever player characteristics the market is currently undervaluing, and trade players with skills the market is overvaluing. Copying this requires not only that every team decide to target undervalued skills, but that they agree on which skills are undervalued. It’s not that easy to copy them.
October 11, 2008 at 10:50 am
Sandie
And, guess what? I was actually named after Sandy Koufax. My mother was/is a Dodgers fan and appreciated that he was Jewish. I also happen to be left-handed. So there.
October 11, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Ben Alpers
That is the Moneyball idea, wd.
At the time of the book, the signature A’s players tended to be guys without a lot of power, but with a ton of plate discipline, because that’s what the market undervalued at the time.
More recently Beane went after, and now has, Jack Cust, who’s very different: a guy who, when he’s on, either homers or strikes out in a huge percentage of his ABs.
October 11, 2008 at 3:28 pm
washerdreyer
At the time people mostly took away the plate discipline underrated and the speed guys are over rated ideas. The under valued in general idea is certainly there, but it took the subsequent years, where which skills were undervalued changed, for this to really become the main take away from the book.
October 11, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Sir Charles
ari,
I know you’ll appreciate this — as a fairly good sized Irish Catholic kid at Brandeis I was asked several times the first couple of weeks I was there what sport I played. When I answered none, one guy gave me a quizzical look and said — “you mean you’re smart?”
Well yes — yes I am.
Our baseball team was particularly goy laden and they tended to seek out easy classes that they would take in large groups. Thus, the peculiar demographic in the “Geography of Israel” class which was rougly divided into two halves — one group of young men of Irish and Italian extraction wearing the baby blue windbreakers of the (I kid you not) “Judges” baseball team — that puts fear in the opponents heart — we’ll hold you in contempt! — and the other half young men virtually all sporting yamulkes. Seemingly no women, non-jocks or non-orthodox ever took this class.
October 11, 2008 at 9:53 pm
urbino
Shawn Green gets no love?
October 11, 2008 at 10:35 pm
ari
we’ll hold you in contempt! is excellent.
And Shawn Green was too handsome to be a Jew. Green was the Ezra Klein of the big leagues.
October 11, 2008 at 10:43 pm
urbino
But he won’t play on the high holy days. That’s, like, Chariots of Fire Jewish.
October 11, 2008 at 11:11 pm
ari
That’s, like, Chariots of Fire Jewish is also excellent.