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July 2, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The hallmark of a person

Abe Novick: Up, up, and aliya

July 1, 2009

Rabbi Avi Shafran: The Road Taken

The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta: Get into the holiday spirit with these Star-Spangled desserts

June 30, 2009

Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg: What makes a great parent?

Caroline B. Glick: Ideologue-in-Chief

June 29, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Beware of 'Caveat Emptor'

Steven Emerson: ACLU pushing for more money for Hamas

June 26, 2009

Rabbi Yoni Posnick: Learn the secret to a healthy marriage from a scriptural villain

Caroline B. Glick: Barack Obama vs. International Law

June 25, 2009

Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf: The Absurd Power of Truth

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 24, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Advancement of technology is a wake-up call for humanity

The Kosher Gourmet by Andrea Weigl: Summer on a stick: Making frozen treats can be easy, creative and fun

June 23, 2009

Martin M. Bodek: 'On Surnames': And so, We Begin

Caroline B. Glick: The Obama Effect

June 22, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Working for a corrupt firm

N. Richard Greenfield : Where are American Jews?

June 19, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Emotion v. intellect

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's rare opportunity

June 18, 2009

Jonathan Rosenblum: Sometimes it is more essential to define the nature of evil than good

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 17, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Language of Confusion

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Nothing pleases Dad more than a thick, juicy onion-smothered steak. Add home-Baked Potato Chips and …

June 16, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Career v. Careersism

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's losing streak and Israel

Richard Z. Chesnoff: ‘Palestinians’: Never Missing an Opportunity …

June 15, 2009

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: How Judea and Samaria can become 'Palestine'

Daniel Pipes: Where Netanyahu's speech failed

June 12, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Some big thoughts about not acting so big

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's High Commissioner

June 11, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: Our historically challenged President

Mitch Albom: Beware the True Believers

Lewis Grossberger: What we learn from the new Hitler photos

June 10, 2009

Mort Zuckerman: What Obama and his advisors won't -- or refuse to -- grasp about Israel and the Muslim world

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky Lotsa pasta: Tips, techniques and (amazing) taste

June 9, 2009

Anne Bayefsky: Obama's stunning offense to Israel and the Jewish people

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: America's first Muslim president?

June 8, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Merchant must take responsibility for careless shopper?

Mark Steyn: A superpower that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on leftovers from the past

Richard Z. Chesnoff: How do you say 'kumbaya' in Arabic?

June 5, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: In quest of spirituality

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's Arabian dreams

Charles Krauthammer: The Settlements Myth

June 4, 2009

Paul Greenberg: The War Comes to Little Rock

The Kosher Gourmet by Judy Hevrdejs: Splash it on! Tap your inner jazz musician and improvise when stirring up a vinaigrette

June 3, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Should terrible teacher be exposed?

Jonathan Rosenblum: The Israel Lobby: Missing in Action

June 2, 2009

Dennis Prager: The Speech President Obama Won't Dare Give in Egypt

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Pressure on Israel raises war risk

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review March 30, 2008 23 Adar II 5768

An 8-Letter Word for the Ultimate Sport

By George Will


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Washington's first major league baseball team, the Senators, was owned by Clark Griffith, who, in the democratic, give-the-people-what-they-want spirit of the city, said: "Fans like home runs — and we have assembled a pitching staff to please our fans." Today, Washington's third team, the Nationals, opens a new ballpark near the Capitol, an appropriate setting for the national pastime. Remember, Lincoln's last words, whispered to Maj. Gen. Abner Doubleday, were: "Don't . . . let . . . baseball . . . die."


Or so said a solemn Bill Stern to a radio audience of millions. Stern, who died in 1971, was a famous sportscaster whose commitment to fact was episodic. A wit responded that if Lincoln had said that to Doubleday (who was not there), Doubleday might have replied, "What's baseball?" Baseball's creation myth is that young Doubleday invented the sport one summer day in 1839 in farmer Phinney's pasture near Cooperstown. Actually, Doubleday spent that summer at West Point. The only thing he ever started, sort of, was the Civil War: He was an artillery captain at Fort Sumter. When he died in 1893, his New York Times obituary did not mention baseball.


Today, baseball arrives in the nick of time to serve an urgent national need. It gives Americans something to think about other than superdelegates. Think instead about:


1. Who are the four players with 10 or more letters in their last names who hit 40 home runs in a season?


2. Who are the 11 players who have four or fewer letters in their last names and hit 40 home runs in a season?


3. Which two players who hit back-to-back home runs have the most combined letters in their last names?


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For you who wasted the winter by not studying such stuff, the answers are below. The rest of you probably are SABRmetricians. Tim Kurkjian of ESPN (do you know that more than 10 American children have been named Espn?) recalls a convention of the Society for American Baseball Research:


" 'Who from SABR might know where I can find the all-time list of pinch-hit, extra-inning grand slams?' I asked the very first man I saw at the convention. The man smiled and — I am not making this up — pulled the list from his breast pocket. 'I have it right here,' he said."


Would that today's subprime wizards of Wall Street had comparable mastery of the numbers important to their business. What Edmund Burke said of the study of law — that it sharpens the mind by narrowing it — might be true of baseball, too, but baseball people at least know what they are supposed to know. Long after he retired, Ted Williams ran into a former pitcher who said he once struck out Williams. "Slider low and away," said Williams. "Old men forget," said Shakespeare's Henry V at Agincourt. Old baseball men don't.


Washington was the setting for "Damn Yankees," the most stirring drama since Shakespeare, who didn't do musicals. Opening in 1955, it concerned a Senators fan who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for one terrific season as a Senators outfielder. This is supposedly a Faustian bargain, but such bargains are presumed to be bad. What is a mere soul when weighed against such a season?


Of course, there might be a gender difference here. As the philosopher Dave Barry has noted, "If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base."


Bill Veeck, who did more for America in one night than most of us do in a lifetime (the night in September 1937 he planted the ivy along Wrigley Field's outfield walls), said that the great thing about baseball — aside from the fact that you do not need to be 7 feet wide or 7 feet tall in order to play it — is: Three strikes and you're out, and the best lawyer can't help you. Baseball, which provides satisfying finality and then does it again the next day, is a severe meritocracy that illustrates the axiom that there is very little difference between men but that difference makes a big difference.


Even if you are not big. Asked in 1971 how it felt to be the shortest player in the major leagues, the Royals' Freddie Patek, a 5-foot-4 infielder, said, "A heckuva lot better than being the shortest player in the minor leagues."


Answers:

1. Campanella, Kluszewski, Yastrzemski, Petrocelli.

2. Ruth, Foxx, Ott, Mize, Mays, Bell, Post, Rice, Cash, Sosa, Dunn.

3. Grudzielanek and Stankiewicz, wresting the laurel from Yastrzemski and Conigliaro.

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