An interview with the Detroit Tigers’ new manager Brad Ausmus about his Jewish heritage spread out over a half page in
yesterday’s Detroit Free Press. The interview was an excerpt from the new book by Larry Ruttman, “American Jews and America’s Game: Voices of a Growing Legacy in Baseball”. Ruttman’s interview concludes with a prediction that Ausmus will one day become a manager of a Major League Baseball team and of course that prediction came true earlier this month when the Detroit Tigers announced his hiring.
In the two weeks since that announcement many people in Detroit — and outside of Detroit — have asked my opinion about the Jewishness of Brad Ausmus. That’s an easy answer, I explain, because his mother is Jewish and therefore he’s Jewish. However, that doesn’t seem to be enough for many people. They seem to be troubled by the fact that Ausmus isn’t the ideal Jewish character for Jewish baseball fans to be excited about. Growing up with a Protestant father, having a Christmas tree in the house each year, and never becoming a bar mitzvah bothers many who want to be excited about this new Jewish manager (it should be noted that Ausmus isn’t the only Jewish manager currently in Major League Baseball since Bob Melvin, the manager of the Oakland A’s, also has a Jewish mother and coincidentally was also a catcher at one point for the Detroit Tigers).
Ausmus has been very candid about his Jewish background and like Ryan Braun he acknowledges that Judaism didn’t feature very prominently in his upbringing. In fact, both Ausmus and Braun fall very neatly into the category of Jewish American that many were surprised about in the recent Pew Research Center study. I have cynically explained to people that having Jewish baseball players in the Major Leagues and Jewish managers are statistical anomalies. After all, make up a very small percent of the U.S. population and when you factor in that many professional baseball players aren’t from the U.S., the chances of a Jewish professional player are very small. Therefore, we don’t have the luxury of choosing the type of Jewish player.
Yes, it would be easier to feel Jewish pride over a Jewish baseball player who plays like Hank Greenberg, refuses to play on Yom Kippur, attends a synagogue, practices a virtuous life off the field, and donates a portion of his salary to Israel and local Jewish causes. However, we have to take what we get. And that is why we should feel proud that Ausmus (and Bob Melvin) is a manager. He’s honest about who he is as it relates to his Jewish heritage, explaining, “I was not brought up in any religion, I wasn’t bar mitzvahed. I married a Catholic girl and have two daughters. Other than the holidays we spent with my grandparents, there really wasn’t much Jewish religion or Catholic-based religion in the household. I think my mom enjoyed Christmas more than anyone, because she didn’t have it as a kid growing up.”
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