Fastballs and Gefilte: Blomberg

Fastballs and Gefilte: Yankees' 'Designated Hebrew' Talks Baseball and Religion at Movie Screening

Former Bronx Bomber Ron Blomberg was joined by author Dan Schlossberg at the AMC Loews Theatre in Mountainside on Tuesday.

By David Lazarus | Email the author | April 6, 2011

The weather was frigid on the first Tuesday night of April, making the AMC Loews Theatre in Mountainside a much more appropriate place to watch baseball than Yankee Stadium. A small but enthusiastic and knowledgeable group of baseball fans attended the penultimate night of the JCC-sponsored Jewish Film Festival where the documentary “Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story” was shown. Most of the audience came to meet and schmooze with former Yankee star Ron Blomberg, who was also featured in the movie and afterward spoke to the audience about his experiences of being a Jewish professional baseball star. Blomberg was joined in the question-and-answer session by author Dan Schlossberg, who co-authored Blomberg’s autobiography, “Designated Hebrew: The Ron Blomberg Story.”

“It’s a little too cold to play baseball tonight. I’m a Southern boy and I like warm weather,” said Blomberg, who played from 1969-77 for the Yankees and proudly wears his World Series championship ring from 1977. Blomberg finished his career with the Chicago White Sox in 1978. Blomberg has a long association with the JCC through his Baseball Camp run in association with NJY camps.

The movie was the second installment of the JCC of Central New Jersey’s three-part film series, which started March 31 with the Israeli film “The Matchmaker,” and concludes April 13 with the Argentinean film “Anita.”

The crowd that attended Tuesday contained a cross section of people, many wearing Yankee caps. Among the attendees was Adam Sackett of Scotch Plains, who brought his four year old son.

“I am hoping he can make it through the movie. He really likes baseball,” said Sackett, who, midway through the movie, became a bed for his tired son.

Although injuries ultimately shortened Blomberg’s career as a player, they also presented him the opportunity to take his place in history. In 1973, Blomberg was slated to start as the Yankees’ first baseman in the team’s season-opener at Boston, but suffered a pulled hamstring during Spring Training that prevented him from taking the field.

Manager Ralph Houk, loath to lose Blomberg’s bat, assigned him to the newly created position of designated hitter. Because the Yankee-Red Sox game was the first American League contest to start that day, Blomberg became the first designated hitter in history to come to bat. He drew a bases-loaded walk from Red Sox hurler Luis Tiant, and proceeded to go 1-3 on the game, which the Yankees lost 15-5. After his hamstring healed, he switched between right field, first base and designated hitter.

“I liked being DH when I did it. You would take your at-bat, and then you could go back into the clubhouse to get something to eat while you were waiting to bat again,” chuckled Blomberg, who also referred to DH as Designated Hebrew.

A three-sport star in high school, Blomberg was the first athlete to ever be named a Parade All-American in football, basketball and baseball. Among his 150 basketball scholarships was an offer to play for the legendary John Wooden at UCLA, where Blomberg would have been a part of three straight NCAA championship teams. He also had over 100 football scholarships, including the chance to play wide receiver for Bear Bryant at Alabama. But Blomberg opted for baseball, where the Yankees had made him the top pick in the 1966 draft.

“It was actually an easy choice,” Blomberg recalled. “What left-hand power hitter wouldn’t want to play at Yankee Stadium?”

Like many Jewish professional athletes, Blomberg experienced anti-Semitism during his career, but growing up in Georgia had prepared him for much of what he was to encounter, he said. Blomberg said one of his most memorable at-bats came in a September game, in which his hit clinched a Yankees victory just before sunset and the start of Rosh Hashanah.

“That was going to be my last chance to bat and I made the most of it,” Blomberg recounted. “After that they always called me the Sundown Kid.”

Long after he stopped playing baseball, Blomberg said that he experienced one of his greatest athletic thrills as manager of the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox in the Israel Baseball League in 2007.

“I learned that managing is pretty intense. There is so much to know but the most important thing is knowing your personnel and what their strengths and weaknesses are. I guess I did okay,” Blomberg said.

“I have been very blessed in life to do exactly what I wanted to do,” he concluded. “I greatly appreciate that my parents let me follow my dreams and if I could tell anything to the parents out there with young children is to let them find out what their passion is and pursue it to the fullest.”