Oct 14, 1999 | Mendy's, the real-life Murray Hill restaurant made famous on "Seinfeld,"
is about as authentic a kosher deli as you can get. It's got
excellent matzoh ball soup and it's closed on Friday nights for
Sabbath. Satisfied? So when a Semitic superstar is indoctrinated onto
Mendy's "Jewish Athletes Wall of Fame," you know he has received the
rubber stamp of an authority almost as high as the Big Guy himself.
Only problem is, there are very few fellas on the wall. Sure, you've got
your baseball heroes of old -- Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax -- and
All-American poster boy Mark Spitz. But the rest of the mural space is
taken up by significantly lesser figures; indeed almost a third of the
names belong not to athletes but to coaches and local sportscasters,
like Len Berman and Bill Mazer. (There's also a hilariously defaced Marv
Albert, whose name has been scratched out.)
We Jews are not exactly renowned for our athletic prowess -- we're
usually better at the management side of things. The four major
professional sports leagues in North America know from what I'm talking
about, as three of them have Jewish commissioners (Major League
Baseball's Bud Selig, the NBA's David Stern and the NHL's Gary
Bettman).
But recent developments in the sports landscape indicate that Jews are
through wandering the athletic desert: Suddenly, bar-mitzvah boys are
kicking ass on the diamond, the hardwood and the ice and in the ring. Soon,
Mendy's might have to commission a new muralist.
Consider:
- There are currently nine Jews on Major League Baseball rosters --
almost enough for a minyan. Detroit outfielder Gabe Kapler enjoyed a
much-heralded rookie season and three other chosen people -- Toronto
outfielder Shawn Green and catchers Mike Lieberthal of Philadelphia and
Brad Ausmus of Detroit -- were chosen for their respective leagues'
All-Star teams, a religious record of some sort.
- Green is considered one of baseball's future superstars, and rumors
have circulated in Gotham City that George Steinbrenner is eying Blue
Jay Green in Yankee pinstripes, hoping to put Jewish fannies in his
seats.
- Baseball will unveil its All-Century team next week during the World
Series, and three Jews are on the ballot. Pitcher Sandy Koufax is a
lock to make the squad, and this summer Koufax was a Sports Illustrated
cover boy as the magazine's all-time favorite athlete.
- This summer, amusingly named Lenny Krayzelburg, a Ukrainian-born
American, won the 100-meter backstroke at the Pan-Pacific Championships
in Australia. He broke the world record and has his sites set on gold in
Sydney 2000.
- Much has also been made of the up-and-coming young Orthodox basketball
phenom in Baltimore, Tamir Goodman. Dubbed "the Jewish Jordan" by the
national press, he was offered a basketball scholarship to the highly
competitive University of Maryland Terrapins basketball program in his
junior year of high school. Just last month Goodman rejected the
offer, as he said the Maryland coaching staff frowned upon his refusal
to play on the Sabbath. (Interestingly enough, the high school senior
just transferred from his Talmudic yeshiva to Takoma Academy, which
plays a tougher hoops schedule. It's also a Seventh Day Adventist high
school.)
