“Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story” plays SFJFF in Berkeley, Palo Alto

"Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story" has its 2nd and 3rd showings in the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival this weekend: Saturday, July 31 in Palo Alto and Sunday, Aug. 1 in Berkeley (see below for listings). Last weekend, the 90-minute documentary played at the Castro Theatre.

Scholarly and informative but without a hook or much heart, the documentary travels through the 20 th century (actually, the late 1800s are included as well) and into the first decade of the 21 st century in chronological order. The focus is Jewish players and other assorted Jewish contributors to the game; it celebrates both Jews connected to baseball, and also the place baseball has had in the lives of American Jews.

You'll probably learn more on those topics than you ever knew before.

But you learn it in sort of a dry and factual manner, and in stereotypical documentary fashion: lots of talking heads, as much vintage footage as the filmmakers could dig up, still photos and old newspaper clippings. Standard fare. I kept thinking the whole time that this would be a great documentary on PBS. Why not take it the next level, for example, show an entire Hank Greenberg at-bat or Sandy Koufax pitching a full at-bat or even a whole inning -- rather than just the standard two-second clip?

There are some great revelations: For example, I learned that Greenberg, the great Jewish Hall of Famer for the Detroit Tigers, was the general manager for the Indians when Rosen played for that team, and that the two men had a special relationship because both were Jewish. It goes unsaid, but those times Rosen spent with Greenberg might have helped lead him toward becoming a general manager himself. (Rosen, by the way, was a much better player than I ever realized, hitting 24 or more homers and driving in 100 or more runs in five straight seasons; sadly, a finger injury cut short, at age 31, what could have conceivably been a Hall of Fame career).

Greenberg and Koufax are, of course, the big stars of the movie, with something like 15 to 20 minutes devoted to each one. Hank Greenberg's son gets a decent amount of screen time, and Koufax consents to a rare interview (in fact, the scenes of Koufax talking and revealing things we've never heard before are the pearls of the movie).

That leaves roughly an hour for all of the other players and Jewish contributors - and there are many!

One great thing about this film is that it penetrates beyond the trivial things many of us already know (Ron Blomberg was the first designated hitter in major league history; Koufax refused to pitch on Yom Kippur in the World Series; Moe Berg was a spy; etc.) and enlightens us to so much more. We even learn (too briefly, unfortunately) about a Jewish woman who played in the All-American Girls Baseball League in the 1940s.

Believe me, it's worth checking out... but as a piece of filmmaking, it's not super exciting. The first third is probably the worst, so just stick with it beyond that, and you'll start finding yourself more entrenched in the topics.

There are some truly corny parts, such as old New York sportswriter Maury Allen proclaiming with a twinkle in his eye that of course Jews and baseball have a unique relationship, because, well, the Bible starts, "In the Big Inning." Then there's some talking head I can't recall saying lines like "We wanted desperately to be American, and baseball was our conduit; baseball was an avenue to be part of the community." Actually, that might have been the narrator reading from his script, now that I think about it -- and I guess I should mention that the narrator is Academy Award winner Dustin Hoffman. He's serviceable but dry and kind of boring; if you didn't know it was him, you might be hard-pressed to guess that it was. Not one of his best performances.

The film does get off to a dazzling start, and I was cheering within seconds, thinking, "Wow! These filmmakers are on the ball! This is going to be an amazing experience." The very first thing you see on screen is the famous clip from "Airplane:" in which the stewardess asks: "Would you like something to read." Passenger: "Do you have anything light?" Stewardess: "How about this leaflet, ‘Famous Jewish Sports Legends'?"

It's a leadoff home run, but the rest of the movie hits mainly singles and doubles. And that's just fine.

. . . . Here's the full lineup of screenings . . . .

Sun, July 25 2010, 1:15pm
Castro Theatre

Sat, July 31 2010, 2:00pm
Cinearts @ Palo Alto Square‎

Sun, August 1 2010, 2:15pm
The Roda Theatre (at Berkeley Repertory Theatre)

Sun, August 8 2010, 2:00pm
Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center

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