By Donald H Harrison
SAN DIEGO – For Jewish fans who attended the San Diego Padres game against the Washington Nationals on Sunday, June 25, the Padres’ loss by a score of 8-3 wasn’t a total disaster.
Among the sell-out crowd of 41,503, they had the joy of seeing Ha-Seong Kim belt a solo homerun and watching Fernando Tatis and Juan Soto each hit RBI singles.
In addition, if they were among the 657 fans who purchased tickets through the “Jewish Community Day” promotion that brought members of synagogues, Jewish agencies, and Jewish organizations to Petco Park, they received upon entering the ballpark a baseball cap with a pretty cool design.
It featured the Hebrew letter samech (S) intersected by a dalet (D) to give a rough approximation of the letter ‘P.’ Put them together and you got S.D.P(adres). The gray and gold cap also pictured a swinging Friar on one side and the notation “Jewish Community Day” on the other side.
Personally, I’ve always thought that the Padres should change their name for the day to the San Diego Avot, a Hebrew word that means “Fathers” just as the Spanish word “Padres” does.
So far, the baseball club hasn’t taken me up on the idea, but one can always hope.
Special stands selling Hebrew National hotdogs were set up to accommodate those Jewish community members who keep kosher.
Best of all, a member of the Jewish community was chosen to throw out a ceremonial first pitch. He was Ben Midler, a Holocaust survivor who will turn 95 on Tuesday. He had practiced for the occasion and lobbed the ball with grace and ease. He won applause not only from the Jewish contingent in the stands, but also from other fans as well.
Midler’s appearance preceded another ceremonial first pitch thrown by a U.S. Navy officer. The Padres on Sundays traditionally host service members in this military city, with color guards trooping the colors, military jets performing fly-overs, military personnel singing patriotic songs, and fresh recruits from the Marine Corps Recruit Depot sitting together in the stands. The Padres players typically wear camouflage jerseys on Sundays in honor of the military.
Anyone who has ever attended a Jewish event knows that there was plenty of schmoozing also going on, with community members leaving their seats to visit their friends sitting in nearby sections. People caught up on news, made plans to see each other again, and generally augmented their enjoyment of the game with their happiness seeing each other.
Unless people brought a radio or were scanning a cellphone for the news of the day, they probably were not aware of some other good news – the kind that follows bad news. Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia on Sunday denounced two neo-Nazi rallies that were conducted on Friday and Saturday outside synagogues in Macon, Georgia, and in Cobb County. U.S. Senator John Ossoff, who is Jewish, also condemned the hate rallies, so the denunciations were bipartisan.
“There is absolutely no place for this hate and antisemitism in our state,” Kemp, a Republican, tweeted on Sunday. Ossoff, a Democrat, commented “All Georgians are united in our rejection of bigotry and hate.”
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Donald H. Harrison is editor emeritus of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com
Neat caps.