JEWISH BASEBALL NEWS — Former 3B Elliott Maddox, an African-American man who converted to Judaism midway through his MLB career, will become a Bar Mitzvah on August 9.

Maddox, 52, will read from the Torah before roughly 300 campers and former teammate (and fellow Jew) Ron Blomberg at the NJY Camps in Milford, Penn., according to an NJY news release. Blomberg will speak at the ceremony.

Maddox played for six teams in a career that spanned from 1970 to 1980, finishing with a lifetime batting average of .261 and a .358 on-base percentage. While in college at the University of Michigan, he took Judaic Studies courses and formally converted in 1974 or 1975, depending on who’s telling the story.

Mazel tov, Elliott.

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