Before there was Jackie Robinson, there was Hank Greenberg. Although Jackie Robinson was African American, Hank Greenberg was Jewish,but still encountered racism during his Detroit Tiger playing days before Robinson debuted in 1947.

Many Jews in Detroit and around the country refused to buy Ford Cars because of the founder’s philosophy. They also comforted themselves with humor, telling Henry Ford jokes like the one where a fortune-teller informs Ford that he will die on a Jewish Holiday. “ Which one? Ford asked nervously. “ Their New Year? The day of atonement? Their Passover? Which one?”

“Mr. Ford,” the fortune-teller responds, “whatever day you die will be a Jewish holiday.”

John Rosengren’s exhaustive research in Hero of Heroes is more accurate and detailed than Greenberg’s autobiography. If you love baseball and biographies then read this book. Plus John Rosengren is a local author that lives in Minneapolis. I happened to meet the author at a Society of American Baseball Research Meeting where he shared the opening joke from this passage. By the way, He told everyone that for the record,he is not Jewish.

Greenberg grew up from little Hyman Greenberg in New York, to the “Hammerin’ Hank’ in Detroit. He lead his Detroit Tigers to Four American League Pennants, two World Series Titles, and gave the city something to cheer for and escape during the Great Depression in the United States and while the world started to conflict towards World War Two. He slugged 58 home runs in the 1938 season and nearly broke Babe Ruth’s then record of 60 Home Runs.

In 13 big league seasons Greenberg had this slash line .313/.412/.605.

(http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/greenha01.shtml. But what Greenberg believed were the most important statistic and his greatest responsibility in the batters box was Runs Batted in. He won 4 RBI titles.

“Given the chance to play the four seasons he missed due to military service, Green berg would have boosted his career statistics by rough 50 percent, according to projections by the Society for American Baseball Research, ranking him 26th all time for home runs (502) 11th for RBI (1,869) and tied for 54th for runs scored (1,554) Baseball Historian Bill James thinks Greenberg could have reached 600 home runs, especially if he had batted against replacement pitchers during the war years.”

After his playing days ended Greenberg became a baseball executive and architected Two pennent winning teams in 1948 and 1951, and sponsored a high number of African American players. His 1948 Cleveland Indian team won a World Series. That is Cleveland’s last professional sport championship. After leaving in the Indians, Greenberg Joined his good friend and business partner, Bill Veeck with the Chicago White Sox. There he won another pennant in 1959 with the Go-Go Sox. Working in the front office Greenberg was a deal maker, savvy with the team’s investments and had several innovating ideas. “In retrospect, people like Ralph Kiner, former AL president Bobby Brown and current commissioner Bud Selig think Hank would have been a terrific commissioner. Selig said Greenberg influenced him on interleague play and realignment; changes Hank had suggested and to implemented forty years later. ‘He was right on a lot of issues’

Selig Said “He was very progressive in a sport that was very cautious-I’m trying to be kind in how I say that-He would have been a marvelous commissioner” By reading this book discover the Hank Greenberg on the field of baseball, in the front office of baseball and outside of the ballpark.

Greenberg was extremely competitive on the baseball field, off it the field with his children and into his day’s of tennis and retirement. He would never let his children win and he was a demanding doubles partner.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1329573507