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Professional Football

Anyone who lived in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area during the 2002/2003 football season might have told you the Miami Dolphins had two Jewish quarterbacks. Jay Fiedler was the starter and Sage Rosenfels, a backup. With two of the fifty-three players on the Dolphin's roster, you might have inferred Jews were reasonably well represented in the National Football League. Two was twice what one might expect.

Not so. Miami just happened to be the one place in the NFL where the sample was unrepresentative. In 2002/2003 there were 1,699 players on the final NFL rosters of the thirty-two teams (fifty-three for all but the Houston Texans, the newest team, with fifty-six). Using the 2.1 percent benchmark, thirty-four Jewish NFL players could have been projected. Instead, there were six, about one-sixth the projection. It turns out Miami was the fluke. In addition to Fiedler and Rosenfels, Hayden Epstein was a place kicker for Minnesota (and before that Jacksonville.) Lennie Friedman was a guard for Denver. Josh Miller was a punter for Pittsburgh and Mike Rosenthal was right tackle for the New York Giants.

Numbers at the end of the 2004 season were comparable with seven active Jewish players: Fiedler, Friedman, Miller, Rosenfels, Rosenthal, plus Antonio Garay at the Cleveland Browns and Igor Olshansky at the San Diego Chargers. Still a far cry from thirty-four. (As an aside, the BC Lions of The Canadian Football League had Noah Cantor who, for a time, was joined by Gus Ornstein before Ornstein became inactive.)

Offsetting their lowly representation as players, Jews have beat the odds as NFL Hall of Fame inductees. Given their under representation as active Jewish players, Jews would seem unlikely to have more than a single member among the 229 inductees. Instead they have six, They include:

It is an interesting mix: a tackle, two quarterbacks, two coaches and a former coach, now general partner. For the most part, the Jews who have made it into NFL's Hall of Fame have done so in leadership roles.

Going back a few years, Harris Barton and John Frank of the San Francisco 49ers, Lyle Alzedo of the Denver Broncos, Cleveland Browns and Raiders (LA and Oakland) and Ed Newman of the Miami Dolphins are also identified as outstanding Jewish NFL players and All Pro Barton may soon make the Hall of Fame.

The notion of leadership in professional football is further borne out in NFL team ownership. The Atlanta Falcons (Blank) Oakland Raiders (Davis), Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Glazer), New England Patriots (Kraft), Cleveland Browns (Lerner), Philadelphia Eagles (Lurie), Baltimore Ravens (Modell), Washington Redskins (Snyder), and New York Giants (Tisch 1/2 owner) have Jewish owners or Managing Partners. Thus Jews own or control about 27 percent of the NFL teams. In addition, Ron Wolf manages the community owned Green Bay Packers, Marc Trestman is a Raiders assistant coach and Andy Sugarman an assistant 49er coach.

To top it off, Paul Tagliabue is Commissioner of the National Football League. And, to get just a bit ahead of our story, but fill out the picture, David Stern is Commissioner of the National Basketball Association, Bud Selig is Commissioner of Major League Baseball, Gary Bettman is Commissioner of the National Hockey League and Don Garber is Commissioner of Soccer.

Professional Baseball

Anaheim, winner of the 2002 World Series, was the Miami Dolphins of Major League Baseball. They had two Jewish, pitchers Al Levine and Scott Schoeneweis. Levine did not play in the World Series, but he had four wins and four losses in regular season play with an ERA of 4.24. Not stellar, but not bad. Schoeneweis did play in the Series, pitching the final two innings of a 10 to 4 Angels victory over San Francisco in Game 3. While neither was the star of the team, an Anaheim fan might have been excused for expecting that with two Jews on their twenty-five player roster, Jews were over represented (as eight percent of the Angel roster) in Major League Baseball.

Wrong again, of the 750 major league baseball players during the regular season, we might have expected fifteen would be Jews. But like Miami, Anaheim was a fluke. Eight Jews played regularly during 2002. They were:

  1. Brad Ausmus of the Houston Astros
  2. Shawn Green of the Los Angeles Dodgers
  3. Gabe Kapler of the Texas Rangers and Colorado Rockies
  4. Al Levine of the Anaheim Angels
  5. Mike Lieberthall of the Philadelphia Phillies
  6. Jason Marquis of the Atlanta Braves
  7. Scott Schoeneweis of the Anaheim Angels
  8. Justin Wayne of the Florida Marlins

At the start of the 2005 season, nine Jewish players were active on Major League teams: Shawn Green (Phoenix), Gabe Kapler (Red Sox), Al Levine (Giants), Jason Marquis (Cardinals), Scott Schoenweis (Toronto), and Justin Wayne (Marlins), from the 2002 rosters were joined by John Grabow (Pirates), Andrew Lorraine (Baltimore), and Kevin Youklis (Red Sox). So the overall picture was much the same, roughly 1.2 percent of Major League players were Jewish, about half their numbers in the population.

The same is true for the baseball's Hall of Fame. Of 261 inductees, we might expect five or six Jews. Instead, we get two. Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax. Some might argue that Al Rosen and Ken Holtzman belong there too. Well, perhaps for Jews in baseball, "there is always next year!"

Interestingly, however, some Jews argue they deserve more credit than that. They point out that between 1871 and 2003, 142 Jews have played professional baseball. Collectively, their lifetime batting average of .265 is 3 percent higher than the league average over the same years. Moreover, they hit a disproportionate number of home runs (.9 percent of all home runs from only .8 percent of all players.). As pitchers, they were 20 games over a .500 winning percentage. (By definition, this makes them 20 games over the Major League pitching average for the same time frame.) And, their lifetime earned run average (ERA) of 3.66 is lower than the 3.77 for all pitchers.

And, there were the other consolations. Bud Selig, remained Commissioner of Major League Baseball and owner of the Milwaukee Brewers. Fred Wilpon, owned the New York Mets, Jerry Reinsdorf, owned the Chicago White Sox. The Fisher family (Gap Stores) were principal partners behind the Oakland As and the San Francisco Giants ownership included some of the City's most prominent Jews. With significant ownership of four to five of the 30 teams (say, 15 percent), they beat the odds in team ownerships. In addition, Mark Shapiro was General Manager (GM) of the Cleveland Indians, Al Goldis, GM of the Cincinnati Reds, and Theo Epstein, GM of the World Champion Boston Red Sox.

Professional Basketball

Surprising to most of us, in the 1920s and 30s, Jews were thought to have a genetic advantage in basketball. Though they were short, that supposedly conferred better balance and quicker foot speed. They were also believed to have better vision and that combination, balance, foot speed, and vision, "explained" why the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association team (the "Spas") was dominant in the semi-pro era, which eventually morphed into the NBA. In twenty-two seasons between 1918 and 1940, the Spas played in eighteen championship series, winning thirteen of them. After World War II, however, Jews were overshadowed by the growing presence and superb talents of black players

Suffice to say, Jews are not well represented among active players in today's National Basketball Association (NBA). As of early 2005, there is only one Jew (David Bluthenthal of the Sacramento Kings) among the 432 active NBA players. Today's Professional Basketball is just not their game. A measure of the recent drought is evidenced in the twenty-one inductees into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame for Basketball. Only two were born after 1928: Tal Brody, born in 1943 who played in Israel despite being drafted number two by Baltimore in 1965; and, Larry Brown, born in 1940 now coaching the Philadelphia 76rs and coach of the 2004 U.S. Olympic Basketball team. Moreover no Jews are listed on the NBA web site among the fifty greatest players of all time.

Offsetting that "drought" is the surprising representation of Jews in the James Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame (whose "members include NBA and NCAA players, coaches and other people who, in one way or another, have contributed in a very special way to the history of basketball.") Of its 262 inductees through 2004, at least fifteen are Jews. This is nearly three times expectations. They include:

  1. Larry Brown, as a head coach (2002)
  2. Nancy Lieberman-Cline, as a female player (1996)
  3. Lawrence Fleisher, as a contributor ((1991)
  4. William "Red" Holzman, as a coach (1986)
  5. Harry Litwack, as a coach (1975)
  6. Maurice Podoloff, as a contributor (1973)
  7. Adolph Schayes, as a player (1972)
  8. Max Friedman, as a player (1971)
  9. Edward Gottlieb, as a contributor (1971)
  10. Abraham Sapperstein, as a contributor (1970)
  11. Arnold J. "Red" Auerbach, as a coach (1968)
  12. Nat Holman, as a player (1964)
  13. Barney Sedran, as a player (1962)
  14. Leonard D. Sachs, as a coach (1961)
  15. David Tobey, as a referee (1961)

Further, the NBA lists Jews as two of the top ten coaches in history. They are Red Auerbach, perhaps the greatest coach of all time, and Ted Holzman. In addition, the Commissioner of Basketball since 1984 is David Stern who has led the NBA through its most successful period in history.

To round out the story, one-third of the NBA's thirty teams have Jewish ownership. These include: 1) the Houston Rockets (Alexander), 2) Miami Heat (Arison), 3) Atlanta Hawks (Belkin), 4) Dallas Mavericks (Cuban), 4) Detroit Pistons (Davidson), 6) Milwaukee Bucks (Kohl), 7) Washington Wizards (Pollin), 8) New Jersey Nets (Ratner), 9) Chicago Bulls (Reinsdorf), and 10) L.A. Clippers (Sterling).

And to add some final flavor to the story, Abe Saperstein created perhaps single most colorful basketball team of all time, the Harlem Globetrotters.

Sports Broadcasting

Perhaps not surprising is the fact that the list of prominent Jews in professional sports broadcasting contains many familiar names. Among them, a few of the better know include:

Other Sports

The mixed picture of Jewish involvement in professional football, baseball and basketball is mirrored in other sports

Daniel Mendoza was England's bare knuckles heavyweight champion from 1792 to 1795. He invented the jab, and defeated Richard (The Gentleman) Humphries in sixty-five rounds. His contemporary, Samuel "Dutch Sam: Elias invented the uppercut and was one of the twenty, or so, prominent English Jews boxing in that era.

The heyday for American Jewish boxing came in the early twentieth Century, particularly the 1920s and 30s. Jews earned seventeen world championships, mostly in light-weight divisions (feather-weight, bantam-weight, etc.), though occasionally they also won as light-heavyweights. J, Louis "Kid" Kaplan, "Slapsie Maxie" Rosenbloom, Barney Ross, and Max Baer (who wore a Star of David on his trunks and called himself Jewish, though his Jewish legacy consisted solely of a paternal Jewish grandfather), are familiar names to those who follow boxing. Jewish boxers are fewer in numbers today than in the 1930s, but vestiges remain. Mike Rossman won the WBA Light Heavyweight title in 1978 with a Star of David on his trunks. Yuri Foreman, a light middleweight, has an impressive 17 and 0 record and was featured in New York Times December 2003 profile. Dimitriy Salita, a Welterweight, has an even better 21 and 0 record, a Web site to promote himself, and was described as "a sensation" in a September 2002, Washington Post story.

Tennis legends, Pete Sampras and Boris Becker, both claim some Jewish heritage, but in both cases, the lineage is far from 100 percent. Sampras has one Jewish and three Greek Orthodox grandparents and Becker says his mother was a Czech Jew, but the story is quite confusing. Anna Smashnova is ranked among the world's top fifty female players and Vic Sexias was top ranked some years ago, as were Harold Solomon, Eliot Teltscher, Brad Gilbert and Tom Okker. And who could forget Rene Richards, the only professional player to play in both men's and women's professional tennis!

Corey Pavin and Amy Alcott are familiar names to golfers. Allcot is #14 on the LPGA list of all time money winners. Beyond those two, however, the prominent Jewish golfers are few in numbers. A little digging yields: Bruce Fleisher, Monte Scheinblum, Jonathan Kaye, Skip Kendall, Cristie Kerr and Emilee Klein among recently active professional golfers, but none are big money winners. Interestingly, some Jews cite anti-Semitic barring of Jews from tennis and golf clubs prior to World War II as one reason Jews have had few championship caliber players in either sport.

Barry Asher, Marshall Holman and Mark Roth are members of the American Bowling Congress or Professional Bowlers Association Halls of Fame. With billiards, bowling shares the distinction that its principal early equipment maker was The Brunswick Company. Founded by John M. Brunswick who built the first perfect billiard table in 1845, the Company began making bowling equipment in 1888.

Vic Hershkowitz, James "Jimmy" Jacobs, and their Jewish contemporaries dominated handball from the 1950s through the 70s and during the 1960s, Jews were said to be 35 percent of the United States Handball Association membership. Victor Niederhoffer was U.S. squash racquets champion from 1972 to 1975 and Stuart Goldstein held the World professional title in 1978. Racquetball's Marty Hogan is one of the greatest players ever to play that sport, and when he toured in the late 70s and early 80s with Benny Koltun and Jerry Hilecher, they were the most powerful trio in the sport. Mike Yellen dominated in the 80s and more recently, Sherman Greenfield, a Canadian Jew, was world singles' racquetball champion in 1996 and 1998.

Peter Revson, Steve Krisiloff, Jody Scheckter, and Tommas Scheckter (father and son) were accomplished professional race drivers.

Comparable data exist for ice hockey (three active Jewish players), roller skating (Scott Cohen, the only four time world free skating champion), professional wrestling (Bill Goldberg, at 6 feet four, 285 pounds, called "a David in Goliath's shoes"), and other sports. But generally, one can say across most of those sports, Jews are successful athletes, but they do not defy the odds in any significant way.

Olympic Sports, however, are another matter. In track and field, Harold Abrahams was immortalized in the movie "Chariots of Fire" for not racing on the Jewish Sabbath and then going on to win the 1924 Olympic Gold for the 100 Yard Dash. American, Kerri Strug, was a star in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics when she vaulted despite an ankle injury and, Gabriela Szabo is a top distance runner from Rumania. The greatest Olympic performance ever was turned in by Mark Spitz. In 1972 he won seven Gold medals (the most ever in a single Olympics), and he is tied for the most medals ever won by a U.S. Olympian at eleven. His 1972 effort set four individual world records and the teams he was part of set three more world records.

Though Israel did not win an Olympic Medal until 1992 (Yael Arad's silver in women's judo), Jews did very well in the 2000 Summer Olympics. That year, 450 Olympic medals were awarded to competitors. Using the 2/10th of 1 percent standard, Jews should have earned one of those. They won sixteen. Lenny Krayzelburg, who emigrated to the United States from The Ukraine, won three swimming gold medals in the 100 and 200 meter backstroke and the 400 meter team relay. Anthony Ervin won a silver in the 400 meter team freestyle and a Gold in the 50 meter freestyle. Scott Goldblatt won a Silver as part of the 800 meter freestyle team relay and Jason Lezak won a Silver as part of the 400 meter team relay event. Dana Torres, whose father is Jewish, won three individual (bronze in the 100 meter butterfly, 100 meter freestyle and 50 meter freestyle events) and two team gold medals (400 meter freestyle and 400 meter medley). Two Russian Jews (Sergei Charikov and Maria Maskina) won medals in Fencing and Adriana Behar, a Brazilian Jew, won a silver medal in beach volleyball.

In 2002, Jews again won sixteen times the number of medals one would project. The thirteen medals won by American Jews (of America's ninety-seven total) is six times their percentage of the U.S. population.

In the 2002 Winter Olympics, Sarah Hughes, half Jewish, and Irina Slutskaya won medals in women's Figure Skating while Sasha Cohen came in fourth (and thus, out of the medals).

Perhaps the most striking story of Jewish Olympic performance over the years comes in Fencing. The statistics are astonishing. Not including the winners of the two 2000 Olympic medals, mentioned above, the Jewish fencing medalists include:

Including the 2000 winners, Jews have captured a total of forty Olympic medals in fencing over the years, 8 percent of the 489 medals awarded and roughly forty times what one would expect.

It is interesting that recent in their Olympic performances, Jews generally outstrip their achievements in contemporary professional sports. Perhaps the disparity arises in the genetics of the relatively small stature of most Jews versus the massive size required of professional football and basketball players. Perhaps it has to do with the large percentage of Jews that complete college and go on to professional or entrepreneurial careers, or maybe it is some other phenomenon. In any case, the differential is tantalizing.

In the end, simple generalizations fail. In some sports, Jews beat the odds. In others they do not. In nearly every sport at least a few Jews stand out. Perhaps one can make a case that they perform better in amateur sports (as that term was classically defined) or that they do better in individual, rather than team sports. Much work might be done beyond the scope of this effort. We can also say that in most sports, Jews play a prominent role. They may be athletic champions, team owners, coaches, broadcasters or league commissioners, but one way or another, they make a mark.

A review of Jews in sports would be incomplete without mentioning Sidney Franklin. Not a name that trips off the tongue of most sports buffs, he has a unique distinction. Ernest Hemingway befriended him and described him in "Death in the Afternoon." Franklin was the only American matador to ever compete on equal terms with Latins. He was much admired during the 1930s and 40s, fighting in Mexico and Spain and earning, a then sizeable $100,000 a year. He headlined the Madrid Plaza de Toros and Hemingway said of him. "Sidney Franklin is brave with a cold, serene, and intelligent valor. No history of bullfighting that is ever written can be complete unless it gives him the space he is entitled to." Of himself, Sydney said, "I didn't have the gracefulness or art of the Spaniards, but I was brave and that made me famous." And to be immortalized by Hemingway!

Chess

Jews dominate Chess. Jocks they may or may not be, but chess champions, they most certainly are.

Of eighteen recognized World Chess Champions since 1866 at least seven, and perhaps as many as ten, are of Jewish ancestry and of them, a surprising number are half Jewish.

William Steinitz, the first Jewish Chess Champion, broke onto the scene in 1866 and stayed there, unbeatable, for twenty-seven years. He lost the crown, in 1894, to another Jew, Emanuel Lasker who also retained it for twenty-seven years. After Lasker lost to Cuban, Jose Raul Capablanca, in 1921, there was a long dry spell until 1948 when Jew, Mikhail Botvinnik of the USSR, won a championship match among the World's five strongest players. He kept the title, with two brief interruptions, until 1963. The two Soviets who interrupted Botvinnik's reign were half-Jew Vasily Smslov (1957-58), and fellow Jew Mikhail Tal (1960-61).

In 1963, Armenian, Tigran Petrosian, took the title and held it till 1969 when half-Jew, Boris Spassky, arrived on the scene. Bobby Fisher, who is either half or 100 percent Jewish, (there is a question about his father), brought Spassky's reign to an end after three years. Fisher was beaten by Anatoly Karpov, three years later. Karpov's roots are a mystery with some saying he certainly has Jewish ancestry and others expressing doubt. For our purposes, Karpov is not counted as Jewish. He lost the title to half-Jew Gary Kasparov, in 1985, and Kasparov, in turn, lost to Vladimir Kramnik in 2000. Like Karpov, Kramnik does not claim Jewish ancestry and the Jews in Sports web site acknowledges they do not know. Nonetheless, (eilatgordinlevitan.com/kurenets/k pages/ kramnik.html) a web site devoted to the Kramnik Family notes that Kramnik is a Russian Jewish name, it has a picture of Vladimir Kramnik playing Chess and it indicates that a number of family members have moved to Israel.

With or without Karpov and Kramnik, Jewish near control of the Chess championship is fascinating. Not counting Karpov or Kramnik, Jews have retained the title more than 60 percent of the time since Steinitz was formally crowned in 1886, and 66 percent of the time if you go back to the beginning of his era in 1866. At two-tenths of one percent of the World's population, Jews should not count in chess. They dominate.

Bridge

After Emanuel Lasker stopped playing championship Chess, he took up bridge. He then led the German bridge team and became a life master. He was early among prominent Jews in the game.

A generation younger, Charles Goren's college girl friend laughed at his ineptness in playing bridge. It drove him to become the best known writer and player of his time, giving up the practice of law to win the world championship in 1950 and twenty-eight U.S. titles. His book Winning Bridge Made Easy, was the first of many to introduce his style of play and he was a syndicated newspaper bridge columnist for decades. But, when asked how it felt to play with a great expert, his longtime partner, Helen Sobel Smith, is said to have replied, "Ask him."

Among contemporaries as championship players, authors and experts were Oswald (Ozzie) Jacoby with 30 national championships, Eddie Kantar, another world champion and author and more recently, Bobby Wolff.

A measure of Jewish importance comes from the bridge bum Web site list of "Famous Players." Of the nine names listed, at least four are Jews, (Charles Goren, Oswald Jacoby, Howard Schenken and Helen Solel Smith.) A second indicator is the British book on bridge, World Class by Marc Smith. It provides interviews with twenty-six of the "world's best players." Of them, at least four are Jews (Larry Cohen of the U.S., Fred Gitelman of Canada, Eddie Kantar of the U.S. and Ron Klinger of Australia.) and to add just one more vignette, the New York Times November 23, 2003 story on the winners of the Fall Bridge Championship listed the "leaders in a strong international field" as the "Jacobs team," and first in the final standings, was the "Steiner team."