Tagged: Baseball

The baseball gods regard spring training as a time of renewal. There aren’t any losses. All teams have the same record and players abound in hope for the future. Young pitchers are promising and Las Vegas odds are meaningless. Baseball heaven has angels dancing over the outfield.

    Baseball in the 1930s was more than a national pastime; it was a cultural touchstone that galvanized communities and gave a struggling country its heroes despite the woes of the Depression. Hank Greenberg, one of the most exciting sluggers in baseball history, gave the people of Detroit a reason to be proud.

But America was facing more than economic hardship. With the Nazis gaining power across Europe, political and social tensions were approaching a boiling point. As one of the few Jewish athletes competing nationally, Greenberg became not only an iconic ball player, but also an important and sometimes controversial symbol of Jewish identity and the American immigrant experience.

In the wake of Lance Armstrong’s mea culpa that he took performance enhancing drugs – and the recent Baseball Hall of Fame vote (where NOBODY got in) – we ask you: Does it matter to you if athletes use performance enhancing drugs?