Hank Greenberg: The Hero Who Didn't Want To Be One (Jewish Lives)
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.19 (583 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0300136609 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 192 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-02-08 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Though Hank Greenberg was one of the first players to challenge Babe Ruth's single-season record of sixty home runs, it was the game Greenberg did not play for which he is best remembered. One of the reasons baseball fans so love the sport is that it involves certain physical acts of beauty. But what is even more extraordinary than his grace and his power is that in Detroit of 1934, his swing—or its absence—became entwined with American Jewish history. And one of the most beautiful sights in the history of baseball was Hank Greenberg's swing. Yet, as Kurlansky writes, he was the quintessential secular Jew, and to celebrate him for his loyalty to religious observance is to ignore who this man was.In Hank Greenberg Mark Kurlansky explores the truth behind the slugger's legend: his Bronx boyhood, his spectacular discipline as an aspiring ballplayer, the complexity of his decision not to play on Yom Kippur, and the cultural context of virulent anti-Semitism in which his career played out.What Kurlansky discovers is a man of immense dignity and restraint with a passion for sport who became a great reader—a man, too, who was an inspiration to the young Jackie Robinson, who said, "Class tells. It sticks out all over Mr. His calmly poised body seeme
"Mark Kurlansky, a historian and a fan, zeroes in on Greenberg like Hammerin' Hank teeing off on a fastball."—Allen Barra, San Francisco Chronicle
Hank Greenberg: The Heor Who Didn't Want to Be One. Kurlansky's biography of Hank Greenberg, part of the "Jewish Lives" series of Yale University Press, places Greenberg's career within the context of the anti-Semitism of the Depression and early post-World War II era. The author is at his best in describing how Jews in various sports changed their names to avoid anti-Semitism and to hide their involvement in sp. RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "HALL OF FAMER WHO BATTLED ANTI-SEMITISM WITH HIS INNER STRENGTH AND HIS BAT" Hank Greenberg the son of immigrant Jewish parents grew up and played Major League Baseball during what was perhaps the time of the worst American anti-Semitism. Though his parents were Orthodox Jews, Hank was not a religious man. In the 1930's he went on to become the biggest of stars as a Detroit Tiger coincidentally in the backyard of one of America's worst . "Living life on his own terms" according to dcreader. It's important to understand up front that Hank Greenberg: the Hero that Didn't Want to be One is part of the Yale Press Jewish Lives series. The series contains short (approximately 150pp) biographies designed to "explore the breadth and complexity of Jewish experience from antiquity through the present." So, we know not to expect a standard sports biography,