00:04Hank Greenberg
00:05Growing up in the Bronx in the 30s and the early 40s, you thought of nothing else but baseball and
00:11Hank Greenberg.
00:13The original hammering Hank. Not the Biblical Moses, but the baseball Moses.
00:21I wanted to be Hank Greenberg, I suppose, and I couldn't be Hank Greenberg, so I...
00:27The word in Yiddish is canality, right?
00:30Just loved being part of a group that idolized Hank Greenberg.
00:36He came to this city at a time when this city was really on its back.
00:39The whole interest of this city, Detroit, was Hank Greenberg.
00:43Everybody just talked about baseball, everybody thought about baseball.
00:47He was baseball.
00:496'4", his biggest schoolboy role. My God, nobody ever saw a Jew that big.
00:54Two-time winner of the American League's most valuable player of war, Slugger Hank.
00:58There was a general aura of anti-Semitism in those days.
01:03I can recall bigoted people in the stands yelling,
01:06Hey, you kite, you're not supposed to be able to play ball.
01:09There's always some leather lump in the stands that was getting on me and yelling at me.
01:13I found that it was a spur to make me do better.
01:16Because I could never fall asleep on a ball field.
01:19You know, as soon as you struck out, you know, you were not only a bum, but you were a
01:23Jewish bum.
01:24He began to recognize himself as a kind of a symbol for the Jewish people.
01:29Here it is. I have a precise going off the left. Looks like it's in the stand for a home
01:34run.
01:36They recognized him everywhere.
01:38Some things say, Pa, I went to school with you, Hank.
01:41I have met, personally, 4 million people that went to James Monroe High School at the same time.
01:46In fact, they all sat next to him, which was incredible. I guess they did empirically.
01:50I used to collect his pictures and his articles.
01:54I had his autograph. I knew where he lived.
01:56Right after the All-Star game in 1938, I hit 4 consecutive home runs in the double header.
02:01And somebody then printed that I was ahead of Rue's record.
02:05So from then on, there was nothing to go for except to say ahead of his record.
02:14He was the first professional ball player to enlist and go fight the Nazis.
02:18I thought he was fighting Hitler all by himself.
02:28Call him the hero of heroes. Call him the champion of champions.
02:33I almost weep still remembering what that meant to us.
02:41ショ KING
02:41on the left end.
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