Baseball, Beer, Cornhole, Art Shamsky, and Scooter the Holy Cow: A Night at the Center for Jewish History
From Al Rosen and Phillip Roth, to Marvin Miller to Ryan Braun, Jews have had an outsized influence on America’s pastime. The story of Jews, baseball, and American assimilation is, of course, a well-mined one, rich with legendary names both on and off the diamond. And on Tuesday evening, baseball fans young and old gathered at the American Jewish Historical Society in Manhattan to celebrate another telling of the story at an event called “A Family Fun Night of Baseball.”
Tuesday’s event ran in conjunction with the latest pop-up exhibition at the American Jewish Historical Society, called Chasing Dreams: Baseball and Becoming American, on loan from the National Museum of Jewish History in Philadelphia. Featuring testimony from Jewish baseball insiders like Fred Wilpon (owner of the New York Mets) and Larry Baer (CEO of the San Francisco Giants), and some rare Hank Greenberg memorabilia, the exhibit provides a nice starting point for anyone interested in the history of Jews and baseball, and served as a nice backdrop to a family night out.