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The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg

He is out there somewhere. Maybe, he is in high school, just starting first grade, or is just learning to walk. A natural. A five-tool player. He can hit for power and average, fly down the base paths, make amazing plays in the field, and he will be a flaming gay. There might have been a spring cleaning of closets across the country the past few years with actors, ministers, congressmen, and even conservative talk show hosts painting rainbow colors on their walls, but so far, in the arena of our national religion, sports, the wardrobe door has remained firmly closed. I can see minor role players, reserve outfielders, and a .500 pitcher or two showing their pink triangle, but it is going to be a major deal when a superstar announces he is here, he is queer, and proud of it. It has nothing to do with the attitudes of teammates. Currently, 74 percent of major leaguers surveyed said they would be open to a gay teammate, and I expect that percentage to rise as Generation Y fills major league rosters.

It has to do with cash, lots and lots of cash. A modern switch-hitting Jackie Robinson has to be willing to cut off his financial nose to spite his face. The lion’s share of money that a great player makes over the course of his lifetime comes not from the salary he gets paid, but from sponsorship, merchandising and card shows. Corporations do not like controversy surrounding their spokesperson and any whiff of a boycott is as welcome as a positive pregnancy test in a nunnery. In other words, the need to be honest about who a person is will have to play chicken with the need to recline on huge beds of money. So far, the huge bed of money has won every time. Former umpire David Pallone, who was fired by major league baseball a year after he publically announced he was homosexual, claims that a fashionably dressed team could be put together that would rival the World Series champs.

An openly gay sports star would not only have to risk millions, but he would have to put up with drunken catcalls, threats against his life, and even a homophobic teammate or two. Such an athlete is important as an inspiration to thousands of kids who identify with him. I bring up this example because it has been a long time since there has been a sports hero who has been hated by a large segment of the population not because of something they did off the field, because of their skills, or because of who they play for, but rather because of something they cannot change about themselves or their openness about something they believe. (Muhammad Ali might be the last.)

While everyone remembers Jackie Robinson - baseball has done a great job of honoring him and impressing his importance on contemporary generations - another trailblazer, Detroit Tigers’ Hank Greenberg, has largely been forgotten. Bronx born Hankus Pankus, Hammerin’ Hank, was the first major Jewish baseball player who proudly bore his Jewish heritage and faced a great deal of anti-Semitism because of it. The world that Hank was born into was a place where even mainstream politicians unashamedly derided and flaunted their negative attitudes about the Jewish people. The 6’5” Hank, who grew up in the shadow of Yankees Stadium, dreamed of playing for his hometown team but the Bronx Bombers already had the greatest first baseman in the game named Lou Gehrig, who played everyday. So, instead he had to sign with the Detroit Tigers, the city where Henry Ford, the auto manufacturer, lived.

Ford, through his newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, over the course of eight years, published the factious Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, which “reported” on a secret meeting of Jewish leaders to take over the world. Ford showed his anti-Semitism by stating, “The only statement I care to make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what is going on.” In a suburb of the Michigan city, Father Charles Coughlin broadcast to America his racist anti-Semitic views. Dearborn was a hotbed of anti-Semitic groups and pro-fascist organizations. A majority of Midwesterners had probably never knowingly met a Jew until Greenberg started playing for the Tigers. Many would have had the same reaction to a teammate of Greenberg’s in the minor leagues who was puzzled because Greenberg did not seem to sport a set of horns on his head.

Throughout his career, he faced racial epithets and slurs, sometimes with great gentleness understanding the ignorance of his fellow players. At other times retaliating, the most famous of these incidents were when the hulking Greenberg charged the Chicago White Sox clubhouse to challenge manager Jimmy Dykes to a fight and on another occasion threatened to beat up the entire New York Yankees team singlehandedly. The St. Louis Cardinals, the infamous Gashouse Gang, were in a league by themselves when it came to anti-Semitic remarks to the point of not understanding that calling Greenberg “Mo,” short for Moses, might be offensive. Many Tigers fans had little sympathy for the giant first baseman who had to take Yom Kippur off. (Although his rabbi bent over backwards to make sure Hankus Pankus could play on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.)

What is the secret to overcoming racism and anti-Semitism in this county? Winning. Hank Greenburg did that. In 1934, his second full season in the major leagues, the Tigers made their first World Series in 25 years and Hank’s bat was largely responsible. He hit .339, led the league in doubles, and was third in the American League in slugging percentage (.600), just behind future Hall of Famers Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx. Although they lost, he carried the team on his back the next season, leading the league in RBIs, total bases, and home runs, resulting in his first MVP award, but more importantly the Detroit baseball team won the World Series. Anti-Semite Henry Ford sat in the stands for many of those games. The raw boned giant continued to dominate the game throughout the 1930s. He barely missed breaking Babe Ruth’s home run record in 1937, clubbing an amazing 58 round trippers. (Many pitchers intentionally walked him so that a Jew would not break the record held by a “real American”.)

In 1940, Greenberg showed his team spirit by moving to the outfield, so Rudy York could play first base, and took home his second MVP award and just like that he was gone. Greenberg entered military service and would not return to the major league playing field until 1945. At 34, an age many considered too old to make a comeback, especially because Hank never looked the most graceful on the field, he led the Tigers back to the World Series, setting a record of 11 multi-home run games along the way and clinched the pennant the last day of the season by hitting a grand slam.

Playing just two more seasons, Greenberg finished out his career on the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates before retiring to become an investment banker, and later, minority owner of the Chicago White Sox. His last season in the major leagues was Jackie Robinson’s first. He went out of his way to extend a hand of friendship to the African-American ballplayer because he understood what Jackie was going to go through. Robinson remembered, “He (Greenberg) suddenly turned to me and said, ‘A lot of people are pulling for you to make good. Don’t ever forget it.’ I never did.” Somewhere there is a gay kid on a sports field somewhere and I hope he never forgets that.

Verdict: A Great Documentary on A Forgotten American Hero