The Jewish Sport Report: Talking Jews in baseball with ESPN’s Jeff Passan

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Good day and have a nice opening day of spring training!

OK, so the games don’t count, but Major League Baseball teams are playing today, and I, for one, am excited. So is Jeff PassanESPN’s senior MLB insider I spoke to this week as he traversed the Phoenix area and visited a number of big league camps.

Read on for our conversation—and register for our event, Jews on First: A Celebration at the World Baseball Classic, to have Jeff join other exciting Jewish baseball experts and personalities to talk about baseball and the WBC.

Jeff Passan on the Hebrew School, Sandy Koufax and Jewish Baseball History

Since joining ESPN in 2019, Jeff Passan has quickly become one of the most prominent and trusted baseball reporters in the industry. He is a constant source of updates to his millions of Twitter followers and appears on ESPN’s TV, radio and podcast shows.

But like many of us, Passan grew up going to Hebrew school and looking up to it Sandy Kufax.

So when it came time to interview Koufax for his book on Krugs and the Tommy John operation — which was itself an arduous process given Koufax rarely grants interviews — Passan was understandably nervous.

“I was impressed the whole time,” he told me. “When I talk to people, I generally call them by their first names. He was Mr. Koufax.”

Passan also told me about his Jewish upbringing, how he found camaraderie with other Jewish reporters and players, and why he thinks Jews love baseball so much.

Here’s the story.

mid-term report

MACCA-SEE YOU LATER. The Yeshiva University men’s basketball team lost in Thursday’s Skyline Conference semifinals, ending the season of the Maccabees. The club had lost a crucial matchup last Saturday due to insufficient warm-up time after Shabbat. The no contest cost YU a shot at the top seed.

Speaking of losses. The Miami Catholic school team, which had been in a fight with a team from a nearby Jewish school, lost their semifinal game at a state soccer tournament last weekend. The school’s athletic director confirmed the decision was made because of the brawl, but gave no further details about the incident.

A SECOND CHANCE. Meyers Leonard, the NBA player whose career took a turn in 2020 after using an anti-Semitic slur online, has signed with the Milwaukee Bucks. Leonard has apologized multiple times — including in a recent interview with ESPN’s Jewish reporter Jeremy Schaap — and has joined forces with the Jewish community to make amends. The Bucks cited Leonard’s Jewish community work when they signed him this week.

BEST OF THE BEST. MLB Network has slowly released its list of the top 100 players heading into the 2023 season and Max Fried (a matching number 36) and Alex Bregman (24) both ranked fairly high. Both players also improved from their 2022 rankings (Fried was 48th; Bregman was 29th).

BOBBLE BABY BOBBLE. The National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum in Milwaukee — whose Jewish founder I wrote about in 2021 — has announced its newest bobblehead: Jewish Olympian Jason Brown.

IN OTHER JASON NEWS. Two-time All-Star second baseman Jason Kipnis officially announced his retirement this week. Kipnis is now a practicing Catholic, but his father is Jewish and he reportedly grew up self-identifying as Jewish. Kipnis once celebrated a home run with a “Hava Nagila” dugout canoe dance.

See Jews in sports this weekend

🏒 IN HOCKEY…

Zach Hyman and the second-place Edmonton Oilers take on the last-seeded Columbus Blue Jackets tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. ET. On Sunday at 5 p.m. ET, Adam Fox and the New York Rangers host the LA Kings while Jacob Chychrun and the Arizona Coyotes play the Nashville Predators at 7 p.m. ET. Chychrun is expected to be traded shortly.

🏀 IN BASKETBALL…

Deni Avdija and the Washington Wizards host the New York Knicks tonight at 7:00 p.m. ET and meet the Chicago Bulls on Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET. Over in the G League, Ryan Turells Motor City Cruise, who have won five straight games, play the Delaware Blue Coats tonight at 7:00 p.m. ET and the Raptors 905 on Saturday at 7:00 p.m. ET.

⚾️ IN BASEBALL…

Spring Training games start today – here’s the full league schedule. The Boston Red Sox and new helper Richard Bleier hosted Northeastern University for their annual exhibition game today at 1:05pm ET. There are 17 games tomorrow (yes there are only 30 teams, spring training is weird). Baseball is back!

A yeshiva wrestling tournament returns

The Henry Wittenberg Invitational Wrestling Tournament, an annual competition sponsored by the Yeshiva Wrestling Association, returned for the 26th time this past weekend after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic.

Hosted by the Frisch School in Paramus, New Jersey, the competition featured 120 wrestlers from a dozen schools in New York, New Jersey, Boston, Atlanta and Chicago. The host school won the championship.