Ruttm An, Larry. American Jews and America's Game
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R u t t m a n , L a r r y . American Jews and America's Game: Voices o f a Growing Legacy in Base ball. Foreward by B ud Selig. Lincoln: University o f Nebraska Press, 2013. Pp. xxxii+510. Illustrations, bibliography, and index. $34.95 cb. A large, ambitious, and deeply personal work, this book attempts to define the Jewish- American experience through the prism of baseball. With sections organized around de cades, American Jews and America's Game ranges from the 1930s to the present. Original face-to-face interviews, conducted in venues as disparate as Rancho Mirage, Phoenix, Manhattan, Cooperstown, Boston, Baltimore, Kissimmee, and Tel Aviv, provide the core content. Telling photographs, many taken by the author, burnish the commentary. Baseball’s attraction for Jews, the varieties of Jewish baseball experience, anti-Semitism, evolving Jewish identity, relations between the generations, and the future of American Jewry re ceive significant attention. Passionate and determined, Larry Ruttman, attorney, adult education teacher, regional writer, and baseball enthusiast, commenced the five-year mis sion that culminated in American Jews and America's Game after the age o f seventy. Ruttmans visceral connection to the subject matter colors the presentation. By con trast, in The Glory o f Their Times: The Story o f the Early Days o f Baseball Told by the Men Who Played I t (1966), the most acclaimed oral history of the game, editor Lawrence S. Ritter defers to the voices of his interviewees. Save for his preface, elimination of certain material, and some sequential rearrangement, Ritter, largely confining his role to that of catalyst and compiler, displays editorial restraint. Conversely, Ruttman mixes verbatim interviewee quotations with his own informational narrative, opinion, and encomiums. Alternative approaches might have either simply reproduced the actual transcripts of Ruttmans interviews or separated author commentary from subject responses by begin ning each section with a brief introduction to provide context. At times, Ruttmans voice potentially imposes his own perspective on responses, leading one interviewee, then Con gressman Barney Frank, to interject, “You asked me a question, and I have given you the answer. If you don’t like my answer, don’t suggest an answer— that’s not good journalism” (p.62)! Nonetheless, Ruttmans praise for Frank, as it does for several of his subjects, borders on hyperbole: “Barney Frank will be a first-ballot shoo-in for the Congressional Hall of Fame” (p. 64). Partisanship and format aside, Ruttmans interviews, fifty in total, merit commen dation for scope, respondent selection, and content. Ruttman employs surrogate inter views for the two most notable Jewish ballplayers, the late Hank Greenberg and the very private Sandy Koufax, and he teases insight from the latter’s classy telephone interview demurral. The volume also limns several other major leaguers, including Al Rosen, Steve Hertz, Ken Holtzman, Art Shamsky, Ron Blomberg, Elliot Maddox, Brad Ausmus, Gabe Kapler, David Newhan, Kevin Youkilis, Craig Breslow, Sam Fuld, and Ian Kinsler. While the beliefs and/or parentage of some of the preceding raise the perennial question of who is a Jew, the roster of interviewees omits Most Valuable Player Ryan Braun and Cy Young Award recipient Steve Stone. Ruttman presents sessions with the commissioner of Major 178 Volume 41, Number 1 League Baseball, Bud Selig, as well as with two former executive directors o f the Major League Baseball Players Association, Marvin Miller and Donald Fehr. Major and minor league team owners and executives, sportswriters, scholars, memorabilia collectors, fans, and a rabbi also find representation in the volume. Sometimes Ruttman’s less celebrated respondents provide the most revealing insights. Tiby Eisen and Anita Foss recall the congruence o f gender and sport in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Veteran umpire Al Clark candidly discusses the mis- judgments that led to his banishment from baseball and imprisonment as well as his sub sequent redemption A father-son dialogue with Ross Newhan and David Newhan, re spectively a sportswriter and a major leaguer, elicits a father’s thoughtful reflections concerning his son’s identification with Messianic Judaism and Jesus. From the vantage point of adulthood, Jeffrey Maier, fan-turned-aspiring-baseball-executive, considers the impact of an action by his twelve-year-old self, deflecting a Derek Jeter fly ball away from the outstretched glove o f an opponent and into the stands for a home run. Leon Feingold, competitive eater, m inor league pitcher, Israel Baseball League Player of the Year, attorney, and entrepreneur, recounts his attempt to reconcile an exuberant lifestyle with Jewish observance. American Jews and America’s Game ends without concluding synthesis. Nonetheless, readers will recognize recurrent themes common to many or the interviews. According to Ruttman’s respondents, the following figure prominently among the attributes that draw Jews to baseball: provides a sense o f belonging; expresses Americanism; connects genera tions; offers symbolic heroes and standard bearers; entertains; possesses an intellectual component; emphasizes numbers; and conveys mysticism. This, however, raises the unan swered question of how the Jewish connection to baseball compares to that of other ethnic and racial groups. Interviewees also frequently cite certain, sometimes conflicting, percep tions about American Judaism, including ethnic resilience, powerful familial bonds, de cline o f religion, perpetuation o f Jewish cultural and personal identities, generational evo lution, eclecticism, compatibility of wealth accumulation with ethical behavior and charity, pervasive assimilation and intermarriage, humor, tribalism, and keen interest in baseball. Some o f the preceding, however, may well derive, at least in part, from sources other than Judaism. New York Times sportswriter Alan Schwarz, for example, informed Ruttman that “for me, being Jewish is more of an outside characterization than an inward identity” (p. 372 ). Distinctive and idiosyncratic, American Jews and America’s Game will engage, enter tain, and inform readers. Despite occasionally digressive and uncritical observations by the author, the interviews possess significance and constitute a notable contribution to the burgeoning literature on Jews and baseball. Both scholars and general readers interested in the intersection between American Jewry and baseball will rind the book well w orth their time. —W il l ia m M . S i m o n s State University o f New York at Oneonta Spring 2014 179.