There are three things every Jewish kid knows by his or her Bar or Bat Mitzvah.
Cheeseburgers aren't kosher.
Cheeseburgers are tasty.
And, most importantly, Sandy Koufax didn't pitch on Yom Kippur.
The Yom Kippur story of Brooklyn Dodgers' Hall of Famer Koufax is the most famous sports-related tale involving a Jew. (Probably because it's just about the only sports-related tale involving a Jew).
On October 6, 1965, Koufax-the most dominant pitcher in the game at the time-did not pitch Game One of the World Series. Instead, he went to synagogue and fasted, and the Dodgers lost Game One.
Koufax took a lot of flack for that. People said he let his personal life interfere with his professional life.
But the southpaw got the last laugh. He pitched a dominating three-hitter in Game Seven to win the World Series and won the World Series MVP.
Anyway, most Jewish kids are familiar with the story because September and October-when Yom Kippur always falls-is prime youth baseball and soccer season. Invariably, Yom Kippur would fall on a Saturday or Sunday one year, and all the little Jewish boys and girls wouldn't be allowed to play in the game on that day.
"Why can't I play?" the little children would whine to their parents.
And the parents would say, "Your game is more important than the World Series? Sandy Koufax didn't play in the World Series; you aren't going to play soccer."
Duke football left tackle Cameron Goldberg faced a similar dilemma this year, and he chose to practice on Monday morning. He said his grandparents gave him a little bit of a hard time-told him that he should go to synagogue instead of practicing. He decided he could do both.
But one thing Goldberg couldn't get around was the holiday's fasting requirement. And if you thought not eating or drinking for a day was tough, try doing that while practicing football.
Hey, no one said being Jewish is easy.
"I didn't drink any water during practice," said Goldberg, who finally broke his day-long fast at nearly 9 p.m. "If I had asked coach [Ted Roof], of course he would have let me skip practice, but we have a really big game coming up."
So maybe he played on Yom Kippur and Sandy Koufax didn't, but Goldberg had his own set of difficulties. His teammates knew that he couldn't drink any water during practice, so they jokingly squirted him with water bottles.
And fasting had to have been extra tough for Goldberg-you can't imagine the 6-foot-6, 280-pounder skips a lot of meals.
(Sorry. No Anti-Train this week. I just finished repenting for abusing, hating, insulting, jeering, mocking and zealotry for bad causes. The Anti-Train basically encapsulates all of that.)
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