By Ron Kaplan, contributor Welcome back, faithful readers. The baseball season is upon us. Not only is this the earliest Opening Day in history, it’s the first time all 30 teams have debuted on the same day. So without further ado… The JML (Jewish major leaguer) roster to start the 2018 season includes: Richard Bleier,…
By Scott Barancik, Editor Major League Baseball’s 2018 Spring Training ended yesterday. So how did the 19 Jews who were invited to play perform? Here are the batting highlights: A total of 12 Jewish position players collectively hit .272 with 12 HRS and 53 RBIs in 372 at-bats. Alex Bregman’s 12 walks tied for #5 among all MLB players. His…
By Scott Barancik, Editor Braden Bishop, Jewish Baseball News’ 2017 Minor-League MVP, is a player to watch. Selected by the Seattle Mariners in the 3rd round of the 2015 amateur draft, the California native hit .320 in his first season of professional ball. He has continued to impress. In 2017, Bishop was named MVP of…
By Scott Barancik, Editor Cory Jones, a 6-foot-5-inch pitcher with the Baltimore Orioles franchise, is the latest athlete to join the ranks of known Jewish ballplayers. The 26-year-old California native was plucked out of junior college by the St. Louis Cardinals in Round 5 of the 2012 amateur draft and given a $220,000 signing bonus….
By Scott Barancik, Editor Sometimes, a player slips through the cracks. And it can take quite a while for us to find them. Thanks to our friends at Jewish Sports Review, we now know about another athlete selected in the 2016 MLB draft: Scott Manea, a 40th-round pick of the New York Mets. (Yes, I…
By Scott Barancik, Editor With 1,215 amateur players chosen in the 2017 MLB draft, it was perhaps inevitable that we’d miss a few. Mea culpa, Tyler Benson. A 21-year-old from New Jersey, Benson hit .377 his junior year at Bloomsburg University, adding 8 HRs, 41 RBIs, 15 stolen bases, and a sweet .505 on-base percentage….
By Scott Barancik, Editor Joc Pederson hit a solo home run last night to help the Los Angeles Dodgers earn a 3-1 win over the Houston Astros in Game 6 of the 2017 World Series and force a decisive seventh game. His post-homer celebration was jubilant: The homer, his third of the Series, set a…
By Scott Barancik, Editor Game 4 of the the 2017 World Series produced yet another record, says The Jewish Baseball Card Book author Bob Wechsler. In his team’s 6-2 win yesterday, Los Angeles Dodgers DH Joc Pederson hit a 3-run home run in the top of the 9th to pad a one-run lead. The 410-foot drive to right…
[Updated and corrected 10/26/2017 @ 11:15 am] By Scott Barancik, Editor The 2017 World Series is only two games old, but according to stats gathered by The Jewish Baseball Card Book author Bob Wechsler, it’s already making history. [Revised and corrected] For the first time since the 2011 World Series, when Ian Kinsler and Scott Feldman played…
By Scott Barancik, Editor If the 2017 minor-league season were a wine, it would be a good year. Three pitchers — Ryan Sherriff of the St. Louis Cardinals, Brad Goldberg of the Chicago White Sox, and Max Fried of the Atlanta Braves — made their Major League debuts. A number of minor-league players — marked…
By Scott Barancik, Editor Did your parents throw out the box of baseball cards you left in the attic or basement — including the ones of your favorite Jewish ballplayers? Have no fear. With help from two nonprofit groups, author Bob Wechsler has just published the The Jewish Baseball Card Book, a hardcover history of original cards issued…
By Scott Barancik, Editor Ryan Sherriff made his MLB debut with the St. Louis Cardinals last night (8/25/2017), and boy, did he impress. Coming on in the 5th inning, the 27-year-old southpaw tossed three shutout innings against the Tampa Bay Rays, yielding just two singles (including a bunt) and a walk while striking out 4….
By Scott Barancik, Editor The St. Louis Cardinals called up 27-year-old southpaw Ryan Sherriff today for the first time in his 7-year professional career. The Triple-A reliever will fill in a roster opening left by Trevor Rosenthal, who was placed on the 60-day disabled list. (For those wondering: Rosenthal is not Jewish.) A 28th-round pick in the…
By Scott Barancik, Editor Three days after his improbable call-up from Double-A, Atlanta Braves prospect Max Fried made his MLB debut tonight, pitching two scoreless innings of relief in a 5-2 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies (see game stream). In so doing, he became the 12th Jewish player in the Majors this season and only…
By Scott Barancik, Editor Max Fried, a 23-year-old pitcher picked 7th overall in the 2012 draft, was called up today by the Atlanta Braves. Fried’s call-up is nothing less than surprising. The 6’4″ southpaw missed most of 2014 and all of 2015 with injuries and Tommy John surgery, and he didn’t exceed Single-A ball until this season, when…
By Ethel Hilsenroth, contributor It’s August, and Richard Bleier‘s ERA this season is 1.56. That’s after pitching in 31 games for the Baltimore Orioles. A total of 40.1 innings. How special is that? Well, to put it in perspective, not one other American League pitcher who has pitched 40 or more innings this season has as low…
By Scott Barancik, Editor Ryan Lavarnway, a 29-year-old catcher who last played Major League ball in 2015, was called-up by the Oakland Athletics today. Lavarnway was hitting .274 with 4 HRs, 20 RBIs and a .362 on-base percentage at Triple-A when he got the news. He is replacing C Josh Phegley, who took a three-day paternity leave,…
By Scott Barancik, editor When the Los Angeles Dodgers drafted catcher Sam Finfer out of high school in 2013, nabbing him in the 29th round, the Bellevue, WA, native took a pass. Thus began a collegiate odyssey that took him from Seattle University and Bellevue College to Marshall University. After a lackluster junior year at Marshall, where…
By Scott Barancik, editor Jewish Baseball News recently updated its page devoted to all-time Jewish batting leaders. Following are some highlights from the stats, which are current through the end of the 2016 season: It’s been nearly 70 years since Hank Greenberg last swung a bat in the major leagues, but he remains the most dominant player…
(Note to readers: Jewish Baseball News invited author and JBN contributor Ron Kaplan to write about his new book on Hank Greenberg and how it came together.) By Ron Kaplan, contributor When I first began work on my new book, Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War, it was…
