Rosh Hashanah and the World Series: What Would You Do?

Prelude
Looks like the Pirates are going to make it to the playoffs this year. Fortunately, with holidays coming so early in the calendar year there’s no “conflict” with the World Series. But, what if there was? What would you do if the Pirates were playing in the World Series and you had tickets to the opening game in Pittsburgh – which happened to be the first night of Rosh Hashanah? Would you go to synagogue services or would you go to the game? Serious answers only please.
In 1964, a Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher named Sandy Koufax (who is Jewish), made international news when he refused to pitch in the opening game of the World Series because it was scheduled for Yom Kippur. Koufax wasn’t just any pitcher. To this day, he’s one of the 10 best pitchers of all times. Not starting the opening game would mean that he would not have enough rest between games to be available for a seventh game if one were needed. And it was. With the series tied 3-3, Koufax did pitch the seventh game of the Series on only two days of rest. And, he actually pitched a three-hit shutout.
(Here’s an interesting side note: Sandy Koufax tried out with the Pittsburgh Pirates before he signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Wikipedia says, “During his Pirates’ tryout, Koufax's fastball broke the thumb of Sam Narron, the team's bullpen coach. Branch Rickey, then the general manager of the Pirates, told his scout Clyde Sukeforth that Koufax had the "greatest arm [he had] ever seen.” By time the Pirates offered Koufax a contract, though, he already signed with the Dodgers.)

Story
When I was in high school in 1968, the St. Louis Cardinals were repeat winners of the National League Pennant and advanced to the World Series against the Detroit Tigers. Bob Gibson, the St. Louis ace, was slated to pitch the first game. Much to my surprise, a week before the game, my parents revealed that my dad had been given two seats to the opening game. For my father, a former minor league player and part-time major league pitching coach, this was the dream of a lifetime. And I knew he would take me. My mother didn’t like baseball. My younger brother was too young to sit through a full game, let alone appreciate its significance. And my older brother was fighting a war in Vietnam.
The problem was that game day was also the first day of Rosh Hashanah. I knew that dad wouldn’t care if we skipped services and went to the game. The problem was mom. She’s what we would call “a person of principle” and one of those principles was Jewish education. She made me attend afternoon Hebrew school through my bar mitzvah and Sunday morning religious school through 12th grade. No excuses were accepted and unless I was so sick that she had to take me to the doctor, I went to school.
That’s why I was so surprised when mom said, “Son, you’re in high school now and old enough to make your own decision about this. So, it’s your choice whether you go to Rosh Hashanah services or go to the game with your father.” She told me I could think about it if I wanted some time to sort things out. I didn’t. It wasn’t even a contest. There was nothing I wanted more than to go to that World Series game with the man who had spent countless hours teaching me to play baseball, coaching my little league teams, taking me to professional games and generally helping me understand how many ways that baseball skills prepares one for life. I chose the Game.
The experience was as special as I imagined it would be and the game proved historic. Gibson set a new strike out record of 17 batters. And, my World Series ticket stub ensured I was the center of attention in school for at least a week.

Post-Story Lesson
I’ve been to dozens of Rosh Hashanah services since 1968 but I have yet to go to another World Series game. I don’t know what would have happened if mom had put her foot down and told me outright that I couldn’t go “because your Jewish education is more important than a baseball game.” I suspect that I would have been filled with great resentment that would have led to bad decisions and possibly to decisions that would have altered the path leading me to become a life-long Jewish educator. I don’t know what motivated her to give me the choice rather than telling me what to do. (Over the years, though, I’ve discovered that my mother was far wiser than I realized in my younger days. I wish I could say that I caused her less grief about going to religious school over the final two years of high school--but that wouldn’t be true. I continued to invent new excuses for not going and recycled old ones in the hope that she had forgotten them. Thankfully, she was a strong woman and my efforts repeatedly failed.

Final Note
Two months after graduating from high school, I was in Israel attending the Chaim Greenberg Teacher Institute.