Rod Carew, not a Jew

Ran across an interesting website in an NYT article about the the Israeli baseball team trying to qualify for the World Baseball Classic www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/sports/baseball/team-israel-scouts-for-talent-and-jewish-ties.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

From the article: Scott Barancik runs the Web site www.jewishbaseballnews.com. He not only maintains a list of Jewish ballplayers, he publishes a feature called “Not a Jew,” meant to eliminate confusion caused by the Jewish-sounding names of non-Jews, like David Eckstein or Madison Bumgarner."

And from the Not a Jew tab: "In the 1970s ... many fans thought batting king Rod Carew was Jewish. Rumor had it his wife was a member of the tribe, his children were being raised Jewish, and Carew himself had converted. Adam Sandler’s “Chanukah Song“ rejuvenated the myth in the 1990s. Alas, while the first two claims were true, Carew never converted. And after divorcing, his ties to Judaism largely faded away. Thus, Jewish Baseball News concludes that Rod Carew is Not a Jew."

The site led me to www.jewornotjew.com.

A day late, but happy new year to my fellow Tribe members.

 

I'm crushed. I grew up in Minneapolis. I thought it was true.

Good yontif.

 

You still have the Coen Brothers.

 

And Harrison Ford is one-quarter Jewish. Not too shabby

 

And in the category of strange knack for total recall on stories I have read this was clear in the 1983 SI portrait that Ron Fimrite did on Carew:

"Race and religion weren't problems for the newlyweds. Carew agreed to have his children raised in the Jewish faith, and though he has never converted, he has done the reading, observes the holidays and, in Marilynn's opinion, is more religious than she is."

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1120933/1/index.htm

 

Wade Boggs is an interesting one.

My all time favorite mix up is Bernie Kosar.

 

Also Robert Zimmerman, AKA Bob Dylan.

 

Al Franken mourns with you.

 

Buncha posers.

Happy new year to the tribe, BTW.

Need to submit the fabulous LinZee to that site, on account of her Rosh Hashana announcement that she now loves Jesus.

Will probably save that for Thanksgiving, pending my sister's release from the county mental hospital.

 

David Cone has said that he used to get fan mail addressed to him as David Kohn, from young Jewish kids, who assumed he was Jewish.

 

I decided to google this story to make sure I didn't just imagine it and this is what came up

It still cracks me up.