Eastern Michigan University’s Student Center Auditorium hosted Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times sports columnist Ira Berkow to talk about the documentary entitled “Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story,” for which he wrote the screenplay.
According to English professor Marty Schictman, who introduced Berkow at the beginning of the evening with an EMU baseball cap and T-shirt, nearly 200 people, in addition to the entire EMU baseball team attended the speech.
The interviewer, EMU political science professor Jeff Bernstein, began by asking Berkow about the title of the documentary.
“The producer, Peter Miller, who also directed, called me and said that I was recommended to him,” Berkow said. “By whom, he didn’t say. He wanted to do a Jewish All-Star team; I offered to do a documentary on an ethnic minority integrating in America.”
“Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story” pays homage to Jewish major leaguers and the effect the sport had on American Jews during a time of immigration, adjustment, racism, heroism and triumph.
Narrated by Dustin Hoffman, the film takes a journey through time with the interviews of fans, writers, executives and players including Al Rosen, Kevin Youkilis, Shawn Green, Bob Feller, Yogi Berra and a rare interview with the Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax.
Fans, including Ron Howard and Larry King, contributed their own stories of baseball, which were intertwined with never-before-seen film clips and photos of Jewish players and games throughout history.
Time Out New York called it “irresistible to baseball fans, Hebraic or otherwise.”
The questions pitched to Berkow seemed, by design, to guide Berkow into long, story-like replies, which were based mostly on Berkow’s first-hand accounts with a few stories of baseball’s first Jewish all-star Hank Greenberg, as well as Jackie Robinson, the first African American Major League baseball player.
He explained at the pitchers’ mound one time, Greenberg, a former Detroit Tiger, told Robinson not to listen to the hecklers and racists; he had gone through the same thing when he just started, too.
Greenberg, who was named most valuable player in 1935, was called countless derogatory names because of his religion.
Berkow accepted questions from the audience at the end of the interview. He also took a moment to give predictions for the upcoming World Series.
“The Cubs will not be in the World Series,” he said. “Let’s hope [the Tigers’ Justin] Verlander can pitch every day but my answer is, ‘I don’t know.’ ”
After the interview, Bernstein said, “I grew up reading his articles in the New York Times and have read a few of his books and watched the DVD on Jews and baseball, in which he was heavily involved.
“The interview felt like a conversation with someone who has so many interesting experiences to share. He is a very nice man, completely unpretentious and very easy to talk to. I wish the interview could have lasted longer than it did.”
