One, of course, is/remains the Brewers, who have split their first two games against the St. Louis Cardinals, their National League Central archrivals (over whom they have home-field advantage). In their seven postseason games so far, I guess you could say Braun’s been playing okay, what with his .500 average, two home runs and eight RBI, and stratospheric 1.528 OPS. Third game of the Midwest Brewfest is tomorrow night in St. Louis, We personally prefer Budweiser to Miller, but are taking Milwaukee.

In the American League, there is a wonderful sort of parity, as the Rays and the New York Yankees, this year’s version of the perennial two teams from the American League East (the Chanel of divisions), both lost their divisional series, leaving us with the AL West champs, the Rangers, versus the AL Central champs, the Detroit Tigers. Indeed, of the final four teams, the one with the highest payroll is the Tigers, whose $105 million figure is good for only tenth-most and is barely half the Yankees’. The Tigers are wonderfully likable, and Lord knows that city could use a break (although they are already getting one in the form of the resurgent, undefeated Lions). And, sure, the Rangers defeated our beloved Rays. But the Rangers also have second baseman Ian Kinsler, who is coming off a career year and batting leadoff. He is slumping a bit; let’s hope he picks up by tonight, when game three moves to Detroit following the Rangers’ first two wins at home, and we become the first Jews to root en masse for Rangers owner Nolan Ryan since he was on the Mets’ rotation in 1971.

Earlier: Playoff Time!

Arizona Diamondbacks. They have pitcher Jason Marquis, a trade-deadline acquisition from the Washington Nationals who helped them secure the NL West. Sadly, however, Marquis is on the Disabled List and not on the D-Backs’ 25-man playoff roster; and, even more sadly, J.J. Putz is not Jewish.

Boston Red Sox.

Detroit Tigers. Hank Greenberg’s old club!

Milwaukee Brewers. Two words: Ryan Braun. Don’t expect him to sit out Yom Kippur (he played on Erev Rosh Hashanah, going 0-4 and narrowly missing the batting title): he has said he is an unobservant but proud Jew. (There is even a reference to him as “The Hebrew Hammer”—Al Rosen’s old nickname—in Chad Harbach’s stupendous new novel The Art of Fielding.) If his career continues on its current trajectory, he will be one of the great players of his era. Final numbers this year: 33 homers, 111 RBI, .332 average, and league-leading .597 slugging percentage and .994 OPS. In the Brewers’ series against Arizona, he’s gone 6-for-8, with a home run and 3 RBI.

New York Yankees. Have from time to time drawn the occasional Jewish fan.

Philadelphia Phillies. Star Phillies GM Ruben Amaro, Jr., is a CuJew (Cuban, that is). Plus you know they have lots of Jewish fans.

St. Louis Cardinals. Did you know Harold Ramis is from St. Louis? Well, he’s not, he’s from Chicago, but he went to Wash. U., so, um, that’s something.

Tampa Bay Rays. Owner is Stuart Sternberg. Top front-office guys are Matt Silverman and Andrew Friedman. Together, they exemplify the trend of Jews bringing non-sports expertise into the sports world, enabling, for example, the franchise with the league’s second-lowest payroll and competing in its toughest division to win the wild card. What a bargain! Plus, and with the caveat that he hasn’t really done much since April, Super Sam Fuld made the playoff roster.

Texas Rangers. Ian Kinsler! The Rangers’ Jewish second baseman this year became only the third Jew to join the 30-30 Club, for those who hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases in the same season (other two: Shawn Green and Ryan Braun, also this year). He’s gone 2-for-8 with 2 RBI in the Rangers’ series against the Rays.

In order to forestall disagreement as long as possible, Tablet will root for one team in each league, and these will be: the Rays and the Brewers. The Rays split their first two games with the Rangers, both in Arlington, Texas; they head home for the next two. The Brewers are the only team with a 2-0 series lead, over the Diamondbacks. Stay tuned!

Earlier: Golden Boy of a Golden Age

Earlier: The Rangers Win the Pennant!
So Much for Our Team

In the National League, the Giants won the pennant (the Giants won the pennant); Game 1 is Wednesday night in San Francisco (Lee will face Giants ace Tim Lincecum, a match-up you won’t want to miss). The Giants, of course, date back to upper Manhattan, where they were based when they won their previous championship with the aid of a pretty good centerfielder. Texas, on the other hand, had gone 50 years as a franchise (it began as the second iteration of the Washington Senators) without a single World Series appearance, much less victory. The Giants are likeable, but there can be only one winner, and Tablet Magazine can have only one team. Go Rangers!

Earlier: So Much For Our Team
The MLB Playoffs Kick Off

• The Emergency Committee for Israel has created a “Super PAC” (seriously!) and continues to press hard against Senate candidate Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pennsylvania), as does the Republican Jewish Coalition. [Ben Smithl]

• A Tel Aviv gallery will feature a realistic-looking sculpture of a comatose Ariel Sharon. [ArtsBeat]

• You will soon be able to scan the Dead Sea Scrolls from the privacy of your personal computer, smartphone, iPad, or –hone. Google helped out, of course. [JTA/Jewish Journal]

• Another day, another crazy Israeli arms-dealer trying to sell bad stuff to Somalia. [PBS]

• Israeli President Shimon Peres led a candelight vigil marking the 15th anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. [JTA]

Cliff Lee put on a clinic last night, holding the all-powerful New York Yankees lineup to two hits, one walk, and zero runs in eight innings, as our team, the Texas Rangers, took a 2-1 lead in the American League Championship Series. Below: The final of this 13 strikeouts of the night.

But the door is opened on the Rangers and their second baseman, Ian Kinsler, who is now the only Jewish player left in the playoffs (for what it’s worth, he is also the only man named Ian ever to play every day in the big leagues). And it is not like he is some guy who is on the roster: He has played sensationally. Look at his five-game stats! Three home runs (including the game-icing one last night), 6 RBI, a .444 average, and .944 slugging (and a 1.444 OPS for the sabermetrically inclined). Ron Kaplan notes that he was involved in more than 50 percent of his team’s runs. Divisional series don’t have MVPs, but if they did, Kinsler would have a strong case.

And one more thing. Last time, I tried to justify my case with reference to something about Jews historically being underdogs, and there were somewhat justified complaints in the comments, so I’m dropping that pretext. Just face these facts. The Yankees’ payroll is nearly four times the size of the Rangers’. The Rangers savvily traded for starting pitcher Cliff Lee this season, and last night, he pitched a gem of a game, going the distance, allowing one earned run and six hits, and accomplishing 11 strikeouts; in seven postseason starts, Lee is 6-0 with a 1.44 ERA. And in the offseason, he is expected to do what most fabulous postseason pitchers represented by Scott Boras do: Sign with the Yankees. Word is he’ll get $115 million for five years. But why not $120 million? $150 million? What exactly is stopping the Yankees from paying him whatever it takes? The lack of a salary cap in baseball is making the game as close to a mockery as it can be.

The dialectician in me would love to see the Yankees win the World Series every year, heightening the contradictions to the breaking point such that the proletariat—excuse me, the small-market franchises and their fans—finally gain class consciousness and successfully agitate for a salary cap. The baseball fan in me, however, simply can’t stomach that. And fortunately, the Jew in me happens to agree. Go Rangers!

Earlier: The MLB Playoffs Kick Off

• The National League East-winning Philadelphia Phillies are the favorite, not at winning our endorsement but at winning, y’know, the World Series (among other things, they had the most wins this season, 97, although the Rays’ 96 are more impressive given their division). The champions two years ago and runner’s-up last year have essentially the same decent lineup, and, in Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, and Cole Hamels, claim three of the top ten pitchers in the league—pitching being how you win in the postseason. Philadelphia is America’s fourth-largest Jewish population center (by volume), and the Phillies’ general manager, Ruben Amaro, Jr., is the son of a Cuban-American ballplayer and of a local Jewish girl. He is a member of the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.

• The NL wild-card team, the Atlanta Braves, make for a good, intergenerational story: Their most electrifying player is 21-year-old rookie right fielder Jason Heyward; their oldest member is 69-year-old manager Bobby Cox, who has one won World Series and more games than all but three other managers in history, and who has said this will be his final year. Atlanta is, of course, a not-insignificant Jewish population center.

• From a baseball perspective, the NL Central champion Cincinnati Reds are quite likable: Great heritage, great baseball town, super-likable star in first baseman Joey Votto. Their ex-owner (like but recently) was a horrific neo-Nazi racist scumbag, though, and I’m still not over that. Moving along.

• The San Francisco Giants have an interesting case to make, right? Once-great, they have suffered one of the longest championship droughts of all franchises not forbidden from ever winning a championship again. They reside in America’s seventh-largest Jewish population center, and of course hail from its largest, from back when their home stadium, the Polo Grounds, was at 155th Street in Manhattan. Then again, in Jewish terms, they arguably play second-fiddle to the Dodgers to the south; just as, back in the day, in Jewish terms, they arguably played second-fiddle to the Dodgers to the south-east.

• The American League East champion Rays have a bonanza of Jews. A Jewish player (back-up outfielder Gabe Kapler, who is currently injured and, Ron Kaplan notes, isn’t currently on the roster as a result); a Jewish majority owner (Stuart Sternberg); and a Jewish de facto general manager (Andrew Friedman). There’s even a false, anti-Semitic conspiracy theory floating around about their pitching rotation. Plus, the Rays are a likable young team that play an attractive style of baseball.

• The AL Central-winning Minnesota Twins play in the country’s newest and greenest stadium, honor the Twin Cities’ small but famously vibrant Jewish community, and start exciting Jewish rookie third baseman Danny Valencia. Fun squad, with an underrated manager (Ron Gardenhire, who is not Jewish).

• The AL West-winning Rangers and their new owner, Nolan Ryan, are the subject of an interesting Times Magazine story from this past Sunday, which will make you want to root for them unless you categorically don’t like Republicans. Their second baseman, Ian Kinsler, is Jewish and good. Let’s also just pause and note that this is the first season that both Washington Senators franchises (the Twins and the Senators/Rangers) made the playoffs.

• As for the AL wild card team, see this. Also this. Intellectual honesty compels me to note that the New York Yankees undoubtedly have more Jewish fans than any other baseball team. But they will not be our team.

• The Boston Red Sox did not win enough games to qualify for the postseason.

Judaism should mean rooting for the underdog, and you could most usefully define the word “underdog” with reference to the Yankees’ being its exact opposite. If they merely had the largest payroll in baseball, dayenu. But they have the largest payroll in baseball by more than $50 million. Their payroll is about 35 percent larger than second place (the Sox), about 150 percent larger than the median, and 500 percent larger than last place (the putrid Pirates of Pittsburgh).

At the least, our team should be in the bottom half of payrolls, which leaves us with the Rays and the Rangers. The Rays have Jewish ownership and a better chance. Go Tampa Bay!

What the far-left from Britain to Berkeley has been been unable to bring off—a sense among Israel’s allies that Israel has become a heartless, morally heedless aggressor state worthy of sanction and shunning—the far-right in Israel’s own government, and in particular, its Foreign Ministry, seems determined to inculcate to the full. [Haaretz]

• After Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon refused to meet with J Street’s congressional delegation, the Israeli government seems increasingly out-of-touch with American Jews, James Besser argues. [JW Political Insider]

• Boxing promoter Bob Arum reached an agreement with the bar mitzvah boy who rented out the Yankee Stadium Jumbotron on the night of June 5th. Meaning: Orthodox fighter Yuri Foreman will very likely take on Miguel Cotto that night in that place. [AP/ESPN]

• Benjamin Netanyahu, Tony Blair, and Tzipi Livni have all pledged to attend the annual AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, D.C., in late March. [Ben Smith]

• The sustainable food movement collides with old-line Jewish delis. Shall the twain ever meet? [Forward]

• Palestinian rights groups are attempting to organize a boycott of an Israeli ballet company’s performance this Sunday at Brooklyn College. [ArtsBeat]

By the time I realized what was what, it was too late. I had become a fan. With remarkably few exceptions, I approached each April with hope springing eternal, dreaming of wild cards and pennants and all the world’s glories. Come October, I would cower, morose and defeated, and watch some other team bathe in ticker tape and champagne. By now, heartbreak has become a habit.

Watching the World Series unfold this week and last, and witnessing the inevitable march to greatness of my team’s crosstown rivals, the New York Yankees, I sped through the Seven Stages of Met fanhood, experiencing first shame, then anger, and, finally, acceptance. I was about to turn off the TV. I didn’t want to see A-Rod, Jeter, Damon, and the other pin-striped primadonnas celebrate their 27th championship. And then came game five, and Chase Utley’s homeruns, and the Philadelphia Phillies, trailing 3-1 and on the verge of extinction, won the game and looked, for a split second, as if they might unseat the Yankees and claim victory.

My mind raced. I imagined a historic upset. I fantasized about the Yankees, standing, stunned, in their lavish new stadium, forced to watch their rivals rejoice. I thought about calling every Yankees fan I know and gloating until I could gloat no more. But nothing of the sort happened: game six arrived, the Yankees delivered, the title was won. Miracles don’t happen to Mets fans, with one or two notable exceptions.

They do, however, abound in this week’s haftorah, which recounts the story of Elisha, the disciple of the great prophet Elijah, and a woman who’s exceedingly kind to him. She furnishes a room in her house for the holy man, and generously hosts him every time he comes by her part of town. Seeking to repay the favor, Elisha notices that the woman is without children, and that her husband is elderly. Familiar with the story of the aged Sarah giving birth to Isaac—recounted in this week’s parasha—Elisha promises the woman a son. Just like her ancient matriarch, she doubts the veracity of the prophecy, and, again like Sarah, is shocked when a son eventually materializes.

But the boy soon falls ill, and, unlike Isaac and his intervening angel, no divine entity saves the child from dying. Incensed, the woman goes to see Elisha; grabbing his feet, she begins to moan. “Did I desire a son of my Lord?” she cries. “Did I not say: do not deceive me?” Moved, Elisha gives his staff to Gehazi, his faithful assistant, and sends the apprentice back to the woman’s home to revive the boy. Gehazi tries and fails, and Elisha himself arrives, praying to the Lord and breathing life into the dead child.

It’s the Jewish take on of the story of Lazarus, the man who Jesus, according to the Gospel of John, brought back from the dead. But Elisha couldn’t by anymore different from the Nazarene if he tried. When Jesus learns of Lazarus’s death, we’re treated to what is perhaps theology’s best-known show of emotion: “Jesus wept.” Elisha, on his end, remains unmoved. Jesus performs his miracle in public; the small crowd gathered outside of Lazarus’s tomb all become instant believers in his teachings. Elisha works alone, in silence, behind closed doors. Even his assistant isn’t allowed in the room.

These are no minor differences. Watching Christ revive his man, we’re supposed to believe in his power to reverse the natural order. He’s bigger than the universe, and he happily proves it. If we take the story on faith, the world becomes, quite literally, a magical kingdom, a heady realm in which God, or His son, has the power to condemn and redeem us all at will. If we believe, in other words, all we have to do is trust Jesus as our own personal savior, and pray that when the time comes, he’ll be there for us as well, and carry us, too, alive and kicking, out of our tombs and back into the light.

Elisha puts forth a very different vision. Bringing back the dead, he realizes, is an act so incongruous with everything we know the world to be that no one but the inspirited man of God should be allowed to see it happen. Elisha doesn’t want us to believe in him. He does his best to downplay his own powers, sending his servant first and personally intervening only as a last resort. He doesn’t want people to mistake him, a mere servant of God, for the savior himself. Only God has the power to rewrite life’s fundamental rules—to part the waters, say, or make a dead boy breathe again. But God, alas, is strange to us mortals. By the nature of our being, we possess neither the intellect nor the insight to know the Lord’s ways. Therefore, Elisha insists, it’s prudent not to spend too much time waiting for miracles to happen; better focus on our own powers, our own skills, our own agency instead. Put simply, Elisha is telling us this: miracles don’t happen, unless they do. And when they do happen, don’t expect them to happen again.

These are words any Mets fans instinctively understands. This week, for a brief moment, I suspected a minor miracle might occur, that the God of baseball may see it fit to punish the wicked Yankees, that us bitter and damned denizens of Citi Field may yet enjoy a brief moment of spiteful mirth. It didn’t happen. It rarely does.

Yanks Bench Tenor After Jewish ‘Joke’ [NBC New York]

One wants to see the hand of Adonai Himself in the uncanny timing whereby the High Holidays always fall smack in the middle of the pennant race and postseason, tempting the talented faithful. Anyway, given that the Sox are currently a mere 6.5 games behind the Yankees, we’d guess most New Yorkers are hoping Youkilis has so many sins that he has no choice but to Kol Nidre the night away.

An Unholy Move by ESPN [New York Post]
Green, Koufax, and Greenberg—Same Dilemma, Different Decisions [ESPN Classic]
Previously: Look, Jews in Baseball!
Yankees Trade For a Jew