Plum Crazy

As part of the Googlebomb effort to get Wikipedia's entry on Jewish people to the top of Google's search results, I present three baseball and three basketaball luminaries who are Jewish.

Sandy Kofux: a dedicated Jew who famously refused to pitch on Yom Kippur.

Shawn Green: also serious about his Jewish roots, he refused to play on Yom Kippur last year, though he did actually play one game before sitting the other one out.

Jason Marquis: a hard-throwing lefty, could this 25-year-old be following in the footsteps of that Jewish pitching legend Sandy Kofux. Not likely, but he is one of the better young pitchers in the game.

Red Auerbach: you can learn more about the man regarded as the greatest coach in NBA history in Robert Slater’s "Great Jews in Sports".

Red Holzman: elected to the Jewish Hall of Fame in 1988, maybe not the greatest coach in NBA history, but the greatest coach in Knicks history and maybe a model for:

Larry Brown: maybe taking his Jewish roots too seriously by wandering the NBA and college ranks for thirty-plus years. Says his current stint with the Pistons is his last, but Knicks fans hope that this Brooklyn native decides to wrap up his career in his hometown.

I may make this a weekly posting (no promises), but in the meantime, to learn more try these sites -

Jews in Sports at their homepage

Archive of American Jews in Sports located here

- or these books -

Jewish Baseball Stars by Harold U. Ribalow and Meir Z. Ribalow

Jews In American Sports by the same authors

C'est tout pour le moment. Except to note, by the way, that I - and what a surprise this is - am Jewish myself.