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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/37675/full/37675/holy-baseball-book-ranks-every-jewish-major-leaguer/ <br /><br /> <b>Holy baseball! Book ranks every Jewish major leaguer</b> <br /> Thursday, April 2, 2009 | by ron kaplan <br /><br /><p>In 2003, Martin Abramowitz created JewishMajor Leaguers.org with the mission to create a set of cards that included every “member of the tribe” to play big-league baseball.</p> <p>To mix sports metaphors, Howard Megdal has taken this idea and run with it.</p> <p>His new book, “The Baseball Talmud: The Definitive Position-by-Position Ranking of Baseball’s Chosen Players,” analyzes the performances of each of the approximately 160 Jews in the history of the major leagues. Well, all but one. Josh Whitesell, a late season call-up for the Arizona Diamondbacks last season, missed the cut.</p> <p><img alt="Abaseball" class="left" height="312" src="http://dev.jweekly.com/images/uploads/z_photos_2009/zk_04_03_09/Abaseball.jpg" title="Abaseball" width="216" />“I’m very upset about that,” said Megdal in a telephone interview from his home in Rockland County, N.Y.</p> <p>“Baseball Talmud” is classified as baseball/humor. “I wanted it to be a fun read. I wanted it to be entertaining for people, and I feel confident that it is,” said Megdal, who writes about baseball and lesser sports for the New York Observer. “At the same time, I wanted to add to the scholarship, and I feel I’ve achieved that balance.”</p> <p>There are a few books on the general topic, but they tend to be more scholarly or anecdotal.</p> <p>Megdal, 28, blends commentary with statistical analysis. He used several sources, including baseball-reference.com, Baseball Prospectus and the Hardball Times. He also pored over decades-old issues of the Sporting News, long considered “the bible of baseball.”</p> <p>“Better than ever before, you’re able to rank players. Not only can you adjust [the figures] by park and era, you can do it in several different ways with a number of different metrics so you don’t have to rely on just one for the answer.” This allowed him to “equalize” the athletes’ accomplishments across the years.</p> <p>“Look at Si Rosenthal and Harry Rosenberg in center field,” he said. “They were guys who combined for a very small number of games…. [But] both were tremendous players in the high minor leagues. There’s little doubt that even though they didn’t have the major league career as the four center fielders above them [Elliott Maddox, Lipman Pike, Goody Rosen and Gabe Kapler], they were right there in the mix had they had the chance.”</p> <p>Megdal — who hosts a companion blog, BaseballTalmud.com — attributed the lack of opportunity to the paucity of major league jobs. Prior to 1961, there were only 16 major league teams, a total of 400 jobs on any given day. “You also had a situation of more minor league teams, so if a young player didn’t make an impression quickly, he could get buried in the system.”</p> <p>There was also a “more nefarious reason” why a Jewish player might be held back, Megdal said. For example, Cy Block, an infielder with the Chicago Cubs in the mid-1940s, didn’t get much playing time under manager Jimmy Dykes, whom the author characterized as “not a friend of the Jewish people.” Other Jewish players fell victim to the similar treatment, Megdal said.</p> <p>“The Baseball Talmud” is certain to invite discussion due to Megdal’s criteria in determining a player’s religious identity.</p> <p>“Not being a Jewish scholar — and even among Jewish scholars there’s a lot of discrepancy — I thought it would be easier and fairer to include everyone and let more discriminating people cross people out of the book.” That explains why Lou Boudreau is ranked the top Jewish shortstop, and why Megdal rates David Newhan the fourth-best second baseman even though most Jewish sources omit him from the list because he’s a Jew for Jesus.</p> <p>Megdal, a passionate Mets fan, said he goes through withdrawal at the end of every season. To ease his pain, he participates in WhatIfSports.com, an online fantasy game for which he has created several all-Jewish teams. “You’re looking for your fix in some way,” he said.</p> <p>There are worse addictions.</p> <p><br /><strong>“The Baseball Talmud: The Definitive Position-by-Position Ranking of Baseball’s Chosen Players” </strong>by Howard Megdal (320 pages, Collins, $22.99)</p> <p> </p>

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