Hank Greenberg Biography - Preferred Baseball To Schoolwork, First Jewish Baseball Star, Chronology, Highest-paid Player, Career Statistics - SELECTED WRITINGS BY GREENBERG:
american batting league home
1911-1986
American baseball player
The American baseball star Hank Greenberg, celebrated in the 1930s and 1940s for his powerful batting and multiple homeruns, was baseball's first legendary Jewish player. With the Detroit Tigers from 1933 to 1947, and with the Pittsburgh Pirates for the last year of his playing career, Greenberg led the American League four times in home runs. The peak year for the Depression Era player was 1938, when he hit fifty-eight home runs—only two fewer than record-breaking slugger Babe Ruth. The 6-foot-4, 215-pound player held a career batting average of .313, and won his league's Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award in 1935 and 1940. While he encountered anti-Semitism throughout his career, Greenberg won over many fans and was particularly beloved among Jewish baseball aficionados.
SELECTED WRITINGS BY GREENBERG:
(With Ira Berkow) Hank Greenberg: The Story of My Life, Triumph Books, 2001.
Additional Topics
Born on January 1, 1911, in New York City's Greenwich Village neighborhood, Greenberg was one of four children of Romanian immigrants David and Sarah Greenberg. His father owned a successful cloth-shrinking plant; his homemaker mother kept a kosher house. When their son was six, the family moved to a Jewish neighborhood in the Bronx; here young Greenberg attended Hebrew school. Hoping their…
Called back to the major leagues, Greenberg became a starter and first-baseman with the Tigers in June of 1933. The rookie made his debut with thirty-three doubles, twelve home runs, and a .301 batting average in his first season. The following year found him playing a stronger game, with sixty-three doubles (the most in his league), twenty-six home runs, 139 RBI (runs batted in), and an impressiv…
In the wake of disagreements with the Tigers' owners, Greenberg was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1946. Pleased to have Greenberg, the National League team offered the star a contract worth more than any other baseball player had ever received: $100,000. Three days after signing his contract, he married department store heiress Carol Gimbel, with whom he would have two sons and a daug…
Every day I'd play ball in Corona Park, across the street from our house in the Bronx. Anytime there was less than a foot of snow, I was playing baseball. The neighbors shook their heads and warned my mother. Baseball wasn't looked upon as a business, and most of the guys in the game were pretty rowdy. So my parents didn't think much of me pursuing it. They thought I ought to …
Greenberg, Hank, with Ira Berkow. Hank Greenberg: The Story of My Life. Chicago: Triumph Books, 2001 Bates, James. "For Determined Filmmaker, Tale of Jewish Baseball Hero Became a Quest." Los Angeles Times (May 18, 2000). "Hank Greenberg, First $100,000 Player, Dies." Los Angeles Times (September 5, 1986). "Hank Greenberg, Top Hitter and Member of Hall of Fame.&#…
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