Baseball, Passover Share Openers - Baltimore Jewish Times

Martin Abramowitz
JTA Wire Service

MARCH 13, 2007
Boston

This certainly won't be the first time that opening day of baseball season
coincides with the first Passover seder, but the confluence seems
particularly appropriate this year.

Why is this spring training different from all other spring trainings?

It turns out that this winter saw the greatest exodus of Jewish Major
Leaguers, or JMLs, in the history of the sport. Six of last year's
record-tying 13 JMLs will begin the 2007 season with new franchises, and
three are among the top 10 Jewish players in career rankings.

After fading as a starter for St. Louis in the second half of last season --
and being left off the post-season roster that eventually took the Cardinals
to a World Series championship -- Jason Marquis took advantage of his free
agent status to sign a three-year, $21 million contract with the Chicago
Cubs.

If Marquis wins as few as four games this year, it will send him past Barry
Latman into seventh place on the all-time victory list for Jewish pitchers,
with 60. If Marquis has three decent years as a starter with the Cubs, he
could become just the fifth Jewish pitcher with 100 victories – and he'd
still be only 32 years old. The other four 100-game winners, in descending
order of victories, are Ken Holtzman, Sandy Koufax, Steve Stone and Dave
Roberts.

Mike Lieberthal, a catcher who had spent his 13-year career with the
Philadelphia Phillies, signed a one-year, $1.15 million contract with the
Los Angeles Dodgers to back up Russell Martin. Lieberthal's first hit and
first homer, in 1994, both came in Los Angeles.

Apparently in the twilight of his career, Lieberthal is in fifth place among
Jewish home-run hitters with 150, and seventh in runs batted in with 609 and
hits with 1,137.

Scott Schoeneweis struggled in the Toronto bullpen during the first half of
2006 and was traded to Cincinnati, where he went 2-0 with a 0.63 ERA and
three saves in 16 appearances. The second-half success for the Reds
apparently helped the lefty earn a three-year, $10.8 million contract with
the New York Mets, the fifth franchise of his career.

Schoeneweis is particularly effective against left-handed hitters, whom he
has held to a .231 average over his eight-year career. He has 466 career
strikeouts, 10th overall in the history of Jewish players.

If he makes 41 relief appearances this year, Schoeneweis will pass Larry
Sherry and Allan Levine to move into third place on the all-time appearance
list for Jewish relievers.

Late-season callup Jason Hirsch was traded from the Houston Astros, where he
went 3-4 with a 6.04 earned run average, to the Colorado Rockies. The
right-hander was the Texas League Pitcher of the Year in 2005 and the
MLB.com Triple-A Starting Pitcher of the Year last season.

In pitching to catcher Brad Ausmus last year, Hirsch was part of the first
Jewish battery since the days of Koufax and the Sherry brothers.

The Boston Red Sox will open with at least two fewer JMLs than their 2006
complement of four. Outfielder Adam Stern was the "player to be named later"
in the deal with Baltimore for catcher Javy Lopez, and outfielder Gabe
Kapler retired to begin a managing career at the helm of the Sox's Single-A
Greenville franchise in the South Atlantic League.

If Kapler works his way back to the major leagues as a coach and manager, he
would be the first former JML to manage in the bigs since Norm Sherry guided
the California Angels, now the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, in 1976 and
1977.

The seven JMLs who return to their 2006 teams are Mets outfielder Shawn
Green; Ausmus, a Golden Glove catcher for the Astros; first baseman Kevin
Youkilis and lefty pitcher Craig Breslow of the Red Sox; second baseman Ian
Kinsler and right-hander Scott Feldman of the Texas Rangers; and lefty
reliever John Grabow of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

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