Today, March 28, is opening day across Major League Baseball. Although our St. Louis Cardinals start the 2024 season on the road in Los Angeles with zero Jewish players on the team, we’re still celebrating them and their Jewish connections all season long.
Yes, there are plenty of connections to talk about.
Cue Mandy
We’ll start with Mandy Patinkin kicking off the 2024 season. Known for his talent as an actor and singer, his rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” in Yiddish is a treasured treat, bridging cultural worlds.
If those five words sound familiar, then thank you very much. From 2007 to 2014, I produced the Emmy-winning television show “This Week in Cardinal Nation” a.k.a. “The Cardinal Nation Show” on KSDK-TV (Channel 5). The show was hosted by Rene Knott and aired every Sunday at 10 a.m.
Because opening day, and the home opener on April 4 both fall on a Thursday, which coincidentally was the day of the week we taped the Channel 5 show, Thursday will henceforth be our day to remember Jewish baseball history in the Morning Light.
What’s on deck?
There are truly so many fun Jewish connections to highlight. We’ll look through the Jewish Light archives and recall the stories of Butch Yatkeman, the Cardinals trainer from 1926 to 1982. We’ll shine a light on the amazing relationship between Bing Devine and the St. Louis Jewish community in the 1970s. And of course, we will remember PR extraordinaire Marty Hendin, who worked for the Red Birds for decades.
We’ll check in on former Cardinals trainer Barry Weinberg and front office guru Dan Kantrovitz as well as the young farmhands Tanner Jacobson and Zach Levenson who are working their way through the Cardinals’ systems.
St. Louis is also home to some of the most impressive Cardinals and baseball collections in the nation. We’ll meet some of those folks who just can’t stop collecting. We’ll also look at Cardinals players from the past, many of whom you probably don’t remember were Jewish and played in St. Louis.
I hope you’ll join us every Thursday during the season for “This Week in Cardinals Nation.” If you have any Cardinals stories or memories to share, feel free to send my way via email: [email protected].
Now let’s play ball.
