Yankee Trailblazer Passes his Torch
Count Ron Blomberg, Major League Baseball’s first designated hitter, among those Jewish fans happy to see Shawn Green in New York — even if the right fielder did fall short of leading the Mets to the World Series.
“I think it’s wonderful. Jews are just itching to have another ball player,” Blomberg (pronounced Bloomberg) told the Forward after a Sabbath eve appearance at the Jews in Pro-Sports weekend recently held at Manhattan’s West Side Institutional Synagogue. “I feel like I’ve passed the torch to Shawn. Unfortunately, he’s on the wrong side of town! One day I’ll meet him.”
Blomberg, who played for the Yankees from the late ’60s through the ’70s and for the White Sox for two years, was plugging his new book, “Designated Hebrew: The Ron Blomberg Story.” He is slated to appear on “Live with Regis and Kelly” and “Fox & Friends” in December. He told the audience at the Sabbath dinner that it was his first time attending Orthodox services.
Not so for the weekend’s other two main attractions — onetime Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys lineman Alan Veingrad and Ukrainian-born boxer Dmitriy Salita, both of whom embraced religion after coming under the sway of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement.
Salita is the subject of a new documentary addressing both his career in pugilism and his religious life called “Orthodox Stance,” which was recently submitted to the Sundance Film Festival. Veingrad, meanwhile, is about to be inducted into the Hall of Fame of his alma mater, East Texas State University — quite possibly becoming the first Lubavitcher Hasid to earn the distinction.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
- 2
Fast Forward Ye debuts ‘Heil Hitler’ music video that includes a sample of a Hitler speech
- 3
News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
- 4
Fast Forward Student suspended for ‘F— the Jews’ video defends himself on antisemitic podcast
In Case You Missed It
-
Yiddish קאָנצערט לכּבֿוד דעם ייִדישן שרײַבער און רעדאַקטאָר באָריס סאַנדלערConcert honoring Yiddish writer and editor Boris Sandler
דער בעל־שׂימחה האָט יאָרן לאַנג געדינט ווי דער רעדאַקטאָר פֿונעם ייִדישן פֿאָרווערטס.
-
Fast Forward Trump’s new pick for surgeon general blames the Nazis for pesticides on our food
-
Fast Forward Jewish feud over Trump escalates with open letter in The New York Times
-
Fast Forward First American pope, Leo XIV, studied under a leader in Jewish-Catholic relations
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.