SWC75
Bored Historian
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- Aug 26, 2011
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I was doing some household chores today and decided to find something on You-Tube to watch and listen to while doing them and came up with this:
Here’s a Wikipedia page on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Times_of_Hank_Greenberg
I have a vague memory of seeing the latter part of this before, (it came out in 1998). I found it fascinating. Greenberg was a sort of Jewish Jackie Robinson in his time and became a big supporter of Jackie when he came along. He was a symbol of making it in America for Jews in the 30’s and then a symbol of opposition to Nazism after that, although he was never strongly religious himself and in fact was down on religions after seeing people killing each other in the name of their version of God during the war. After his career he became general manager of the Indians and then the White Sox, the two teams with the most integrated rosters in the American League and the two teams , besides the Yankees, who won the Al pennant between 1947 and 1964.
Ol’ Hank was quite a guy.
P.S. Everyone in those days had to have a song done in their honor. Here’s Hanks tribute song, sung by Bing Crosby and Groucho Marx, with some help from Mr. Greenberg, himself:
http://tenement-museum.blogspot.com/2011/04/goodbye-mr-ball-goodbye.html From the lyrics, it was done in the last eyar of his career, when he was with the Pirates, of which Bing was a co-owner at the time. Ironic that ends with “Goodbye Mr. Hank, goodbye!
Back to the chores...
Here’s a Wikipedia page on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Times_of_Hank_Greenberg
I have a vague memory of seeing the latter part of this before, (it came out in 1998). I found it fascinating. Greenberg was a sort of Jewish Jackie Robinson in his time and became a big supporter of Jackie when he came along. He was a symbol of making it in America for Jews in the 30’s and then a symbol of opposition to Nazism after that, although he was never strongly religious himself and in fact was down on religions after seeing people killing each other in the name of their version of God during the war. After his career he became general manager of the Indians and then the White Sox, the two teams with the most integrated rosters in the American League and the two teams , besides the Yankees, who won the Al pennant between 1947 and 1964.
Ol’ Hank was quite a guy.
P.S. Everyone in those days had to have a song done in their honor. Here’s Hanks tribute song, sung by Bing Crosby and Groucho Marx, with some help from Mr. Greenberg, himself:
http://tenement-museum.blogspot.com/2011/04/goodbye-mr-ball-goodbye.html From the lyrics, it was done in the last eyar of his career, when he was with the Pirates, of which Bing was a co-owner at the time. Ironic that ends with “Goodbye Mr. Hank, goodbye!
Back to the chores...
