There isn’t anything surprising in this biography of baseball legend Hank Greenberg.  There are clips of his illustrious career with the Detroit Tigers in the ‘30s and ‘40s, as well as interviews with Greenberg, his family, his fans, his teammates, assorted sportswriters, and even actor Walter Matthau (Hanging Up) and attorney Alan M. Dershowitz.

What The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg doesn’t include is an interview with my grandfather, who met Greenberg while they both served in the United States Army during World War II.  My grandfather, who was a photographer, saluted Greenberg and asked if he could take his picture for the base or the Post newspaper.  “If you want pictures of me,” Greenberg growled, “get in contact with the West Coast Training Command.”  So did my grandfather hold a grudge?  “I hated him from then on, even though he was a good hitter.”  Did the grudge filter its way down to my generation?  Of course not, but I will point out that Greenberg died in 1986 and my grandfather is trying to score tickets to see Ken Griffey, Jr. play in the Cincinnati Reds spring training camp.

Of course The Life and Times portrays Greenberg in a much rosier light than my grandfather did.  The lumbering lefty was, after all, the original Hammerin’ Hank.  If you grew up in the Bronx during the ‘30s or ‘40s, Greenberg was so admired that people assumed that he would become the first Jewish President of the United States of America.  His Jewish fans dubbed the first baseman the Moses of Baseball.  Greenberg wasn’t the first Jewish ballplayer, but he was certainly the best of his day, if not of all-time.  He was also one of the first to keep his un-Gentile-sounding name before going professional.  Greenberg’s reluctance to hide his religion became a constant source of pride within the Jewish community, and the slugger became their biggest role model.

Like Jackie Robinson two decades later, Greenberg endured a barrage of anti-Semitic taunts from hecklers and from opponents.  During his first major league season in 1934, he had the added pressure of being on a team involved in a pennant race that coincided with two major autumn Jewish holidays.  Faced with a tough decision that pitted his religion against his beloved game, Greenberg played on Rosh Hoshanah, where he went yard to win the game, and sat out Yom Kippur, where he received a standing ovation from his entire congregation.

So did Greenberg really deserve the adulation and faith-induced scrutiny?  In his first season in the big leagues, all he did was help the Tigers establish the major league record for most RBI in a season by an infield and lead them to the World Series, where he narrowly missed the Series record for RBI.  In the following five seasons, Greenberg collected two MVP awards (the first man to win at different positions), won a World Series, missed Babe Ruth’s home run record by two dingers and Lou Gehrig’s RBI record by one.  He became the first ballplayer to volunteer for the war when he enlisted in 1941.  Missing four seasons in the prime of his career, Greenberg returned to Detroit in 1945, when he again led the Tigers to another world championship.  When he was unceremoniously traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates the following season, Greenberg became the game’s first $100,000 man.  And somehow he even found time during all of these accomplishments to piss off my ancestors.

Directed by Aviva Kempner, The Life and Times also includes clips of an interview with former Law & Order actor Michael Moriarty, whose grandfather was an American League umpire during Greenberg’s reign of terror.  The film opens and closes with the Marx Brothers singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” in Yiddish.  And how could you resist something like that?

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