While reading Ron Kaplan’s HANK GREENBERG IN 1938 and preparing this review, I read a news report that Baltimore Orioles centerfielder Adam Jones had been the subject of racial taunts and conduct at Boston’s Fenway Park during a game between the Orioles and Red Sox. The news was sad but not surprising. Sports has become so intertwined with political views that it is often difficult to separate the political from what occurs on playing fields. From White House visits of championship teams, to the playing of the national anthem prior to games, recitation of prayers before high school football games and countless other such instances, we have become a nation that cannot even watch a ballgame without some political issue influencing our sports entertainment.

"HANK GREENBERG IN 1938 is a wonderful baseball book, loaded with anecdotes and statistics. Whether you love baseball, history or both, you will want to read it."

Sports enthusiasts are divided about whether politics should play any part in our lives as fans. After all, many want to simply watch a game in order to escape from the tumult of our political system. Others feel that the sports venue is the best place to make a political statement. I will leave that argument for another time, but Kaplan’s story of Hank Greenberg’s quest to break Babe Ruth’s home run record in 1938 is told in the context of a world that was headed for war and of a man who faced anti-Semitism on and off the field with dignity and public grace. Kaplan tells the story with the same dignity and grace that Greenberg exhibited on the field and in his life. This is baseball history that provides readers with a deep appreciation of an iconic baseball season and the role Greenberg would play in history that led him to observe, “I came to feel that if I, as a Jew, hit a home run, I was hitting one against Hitler.”

Greenberg came to Detroit from New York. While the New York Yankees may have been his first choice, he decided early on that his path to the major leagues would be blocked by Lou Gehrig. The other New York franchise at the time, the Giants, were not interested in him despite their perpetual search for a Jewish player who they hoped would attract fans. Perhaps it was ironic that Greenberg chose to sign with Detroit, a city best known in the 1930s as the home of Henry Ford and Father Charles Coughlin, two virulent anti-Semites. Greenberg’s first roommate in Detroit was “Jo-Jo” White from Red Oak, Georgia, who confessed that he had never seen a Jew before. The two players would often argue about the Civil War, and White would tell Greenberg, “My granddaddy would chase your granddaddy right up the goddamn hill…” Greenberg, always a gentleman, declined to inform White that his grandparents had been born and raised in Romania.

Readers learn from Kaplan that Greenberg began the 1938 season as an accomplished major league star. During his career that began in 1933 as a 19-year-old, he had helped the Tigers win a world championship and two pennants, and had been voted the American League Most Valuable Player. He was consistently among the league leaders in home runs, runs batted in and batting average. In 1938, he began the season slowly, but as the year progressed, his home run total mounted, and in September he was challenging the 60-home run record.

The 1938 season is placed in a historical context here. We see Greenberg progress, even as the Tigers were unable to break out of a season-long team slump. Each month of the season is chronicled by Kaplan, as are other historical sports events and the worsening situation in Europe as Hitler consolidated power and began the steps that led to the deaths of millions of Jews.

Did Greenberg’s effort to reach the 60-home run level falter because fellow players did not want a Jew to break Ruth’s record? Greenberg was always reluctant to share his personal thoughts on that subject, but he blamed fatigue and his own shortcomings more than a conspiracy among pitchers to prevent a Jew from attaining that goal. Others were not so charitable, and Kaplan presents their evidence in his final chapters. He also talks about Greenberg’s life after the 1938 season.

Hank Greenberg was an American hero and a mensch (look it up if you are unfamiliar with the term). HANK GREENBERG IN 1938 is a wonderful baseball book, loaded with anecdotes and statistics. Whether you love baseball, history or both, you will want to read it.