Win One For The Kippur

Saturday was the holiest day of the year in the Jewish religion, Yom Kippur.

The day of atonement.

I spent the day at the Temple of the Doomed, Citi Field, the home of New York’s OTHER baseball team.

The Mets have enjoyed two World Championships since joining the league in 1962.

But when you play in the same city as the Yankees, a team with 27 World Championships, two is too few.

This was my first trip to Citi Field, which opened just last year.  

The Mets used to play right next door at Shea Stadium, but they paved Shea and put up a parking lot.

Now Citi Field stands where you used to park for Shea.

The new stadium is completely different than the old one, but there is one thing that remains the same.

The trademark jet planes that fly literally right over your head throughout the game.

LaGuardia Airport is just minutes away and the planes are so close, you can almost see what movie they are playing.

It’s a good thing the planes do scream by or there might not be any noise in the stadium.

You see, there’s very little to cheer about this year if you are a Mets fan.

Unless somebody hits a home run.

Its not the home run that gets people out of their seats, it's the ceremonial rising of the “big (red)  apple”, located in center field.

Whenever a Mets player puts one out of the park, the apple pops up and the fans go nuts.

It happened twice on Saturday.

That’s the most work that apple has had all year.

I’m not sure if the apple is Jewish, but if it is, it really was not supposed to work on Saturday.

Sandy Koufax, perhaps the greatest Jewish player of all-time, made headlines many years ago when he refused to play for the Dodgers on Yom Kippur.

Shawn Green, also with the Dodgers, also chose to do the same several years ago.

But this year several Jewish baseball players decided to work on the holiest of holy days.

In the Jewish religion, the new day begins at sundown, so even though Yom Kippur was on a Saturday this year, it technically began on Friday night.

Jason Marquis, a Jewish pitcher with the Washington Nationals, decided to tempt fate by making his scheduled start on Friday night.

Not a good choice.

He didn’t even make it out of the first inning, giving up six runs on six hits, while posting just one out before he was removed from the game.

Coincidence?   You make the call.

According to www.jewishmajorleaguers.org, yet another reminder that there is a website for EVERYTHING, there are just 14 Jewish players in the major leagues right now.

Upon further review, I actually found three more.

14?  17?  What’s the difference. 

(The line is a lot funnier if you read it with a Jewish accent.)

A pair of all-star hitters, major league all-stars, not just Jewish ones, Milwaukee’s Ryan Braun and Ian Kinsler of Texas, both chose to play on Friday and Saturday.

Braun had three hits on Friday, but went 0-4 on Saturday, while Kinsler got just one hit in his seven at bats during those two games.

Minnesota’s Danny Valencia was born to a Jewish mother and non-Jewish father, who reportedly converted, according to www.jewishbaseballnews.com.

Did I mention there is a website for everything?

Well, Danny was bar mitzvahed when he was 13, so he is officially a member of the team, but you wouldn’t know it by his performance on Friday AND Saturday.

Danny homered both days, while picking up four hits in seven at bats.

Then there is Ike Davis, the rookie first baseman with those New York Mets.

His mother Millie is Jewish, which makes him Jewish in our world, even though his father Ron, a former major league pitcher, is not.

Ike, born Isaac Benjamin Davis, oy, has enjoyed a fantastic first season in the major leagues.

He is a promising star for the Mets.

But he had a very tough decision to make when it came to playing this weekend.

You see, a large portion of his mother’s family from Lithuania was killed in the Holocaust.

And even though Ike doesn’t practice Judaism, he is certainly respectful to the people that do.

Especially his mom.

Not to mention the huge Jewish community that lives in the New York area.

So like any good Jewish boy, when you have a tough decision to make, you ask your mom to make it for you.

Even though she admitted that she “leaned” towards Ike sitting out, Millie handed the hot potato right back to her son, saying that he should do whatever he felt like.

So Ike played on Friday.

And he played on Saturday.

And he had seven at-bats.

And in those seven at-bats, he got a hit in exactly none of them.

Striking out five times.

Coincidence?

I think not.