A home run celebration unveils a Hebrew tattoo — with a typo

It’s all Greek to Mets third baseman Mark Vientos

Mark Vientos of the New York Mets celebrates his game winning two-run home run. Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

By Louis Keene September 11, 2024

A breakout 2024 season has helped lots of baseball fans get to know Mark Vientos, who plays third base for the New York Mets. But even the diehards learned something new about Vientos the other day after he whacked a game-winning home run: He has Hebrew letters tattooed on his chest.

It happened at home plate, when celebrating teammates literally tore the jersey off Vientos’ back, revealing the tattoo on his left pectoral muscle. There were the Hebrew letters הפלפמ — ha’pelpem — above the numbers 4:6, suggesting a chapter and verse of the Bible.

But Vientos isn’t Jewish. Neither is the verse. And the Hebrew is a little off.

There is no book in the Hebrew Bible with that title. There is, however, a New Testament book whose title is … similar: Philippians, the first-century epistle, or letter, generally attributed to Paul the Apostle. In Hebrew, it would properly be rendered אל הפיליפים — meaning, “To the Philippians.”

Philippians was not written in Hebrew, but Greek, like much of the New Testament.

Which raises the question: Why would Vientos have it inked in Hebrew? Maybe he thought Hebrew made it seem more authentic. Or maybe he was concerned that having Greek letters on his chest would give frat-boy vibes.

The trouble is that to Hebrew speakers — not terribly uncommon in Mets country — the letters betrayed not authenticity, but amateurishness. As most graduates of any Hebrew school — not to mention those with a solid DuoLingo streak — know, the leftmost Hebrew character of Vientos’ tattoo, mem, is rendered differently when it is the final letter of a word (we call it mem sofit, or “the mem of the end”).

Alas, he is not the first athlete to stumble while venturing into other languages for their body art. Stephen Curry, the basketball phenom, has his name tattooed in Hebrew on his left wrist; it’s unclear whether he knows that the same letters spell the Talmudic word for “accidental seminal emission.” Curry also has a phrase from I Corinthians — again, originally Greek! — inked in Hebrew on his arm. (It says, roughly, “Love never fails.”)

My favorite botched Hebrew tat, of course, is not from sports — it’s the guy who thought he had the Hebrew word for “strength” on his forearm when it actually said “matzo.” (A superior concept, to this writer.) A now-inactive blog called Bad Hebrew compiled similar flubs.

Vientos’ erroneous inking is, in a way, apt. Philippians 4:6 begins, “Do not be anxious about anything.” It’s an outlook that might be helping Vientos at the plate. And, perhaps, leading him astray at the tattoo parlor.

Louis Keene is a reporter for the Forward. His work has also been published in The New York Times, New York Magazine and VICE. He is based in Los Angeles and can be followed on Twitter @thislouis.

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