Mighty Roman Themes: Jewness

The Mighty Roman

The First and Only Most Glorious Season

of the Cal–Hairy Baseball League

     

Welcome to this page of excerpts from The Mighty Roman—a fast, funny, dark novel about baseball and the modern American man. "Jewness"—the love of Jews, the hatred of Jews, the fear of Jews, misconceptions about Jews—is one of the hot–button themes in this book. 

*********

"This is a real-life novel, packed with personalities and filled with beautiful language and true emotion.  Huck's raft becomes a team bus, and it is a ride worth taking." ~ Tony Press, riverbabble.

*********

Read The Next Big Thing Interview with the Author Here

***********

Readers say~

"I will hold this story up against any contemporary fiction that I've read."

"Like many great works of fiction, this tale works on more than one level. It ... illustrates the cultural divide that has polarized our country as our hero takes us on a humorous and personal journey of discovery."

"Jon Sindell's voice is what makes this book."

"In ... The Mighty Roman, baseball is much more than just a sport."

"The language of the book was the best part for me, it was often like poetry."

"Fun, fear-inducing, poignant, it's a book that seamlessly merges the often disparate worlds of parents (especially fathers) and sons, masculinity, race and racism, life in all its glory and misery, both on and off the sports pages.' 

"Throw in some off-field adventures, teenage romance, racism and homophobia, and you are pulled into a baseball world that is present day and is pure summer fun reading."

See full reader reviews here.

***********

     The Mighty Roman is available in paperback on Amazon, as an ebook on Amazon, or as an ebook on Smashwords ... or ask your local indie bookstore to order it for you. 

*********
Jewness

Meet Rex Hirsch, Wonder Jew and Ballplaying Rebel

Rex Hirsch, coyote–defender

***

Hammerhead Hirsch: The Jewish Oak from which Rex Grew

Like many a Jew of an earlier generation, Rex's dad, the Golden Gloves boxing champ and former Beat poet Hammerhead Hirsch, reveres Sandy Koufax, whom many consider the greatest pitcher ever. Thus this, from Head:

     As if a switch had been thrown, Rex glided into the aisle to recite his father’s homage to the great Jewish pitcher while miming his miraculous pitching motion:

When Sandy had the ball,

He stood tall on the hill:

Two-hundred-ten of power and grace

A kindly man with a fierce, dark face–

The finest model of his race!

He peered in for the sign

And rocked into his motion

The pill enclosed in his giant hand,

He stretched out wide his great wingspan,

And rolled home like the ocean!

***

     And, like many a Jew of his generation and even today's, Hammerhead loves discovering that ballplayers are Jewish. Thus "Youkie!" ~

       Then the scoreboard announced a Ryan Braun homer, and Rex shouted, “Youkie!” the way you yell “Yahtzee!”

     “Our Jew game,” Head noted. He needn't have, for Rex had already told me how his father had invented “Youkie!”, which he had named after the not–obviously Jewish slugger Kevin Youkilis of the Red Sox. The object of the game was to discover Jewish major leaguers, with extra credit for those without clearly Jewish names. Contestants would yell “Youkie!” upon discovering the Jewish identity of a player, and whenever such a player did something good.

     “Kid thinks the game’s lame,” Head said with the wry grin that was a facial fixture.

     “Not so much lame as irrelevant,” said Rex. “It’s the Jews of his day who were dying for Jewish stars.”

     “Like manna in the wilderness,” said Head in his mellow way.

     “When Sandy had the ball,” I quoted, and Head pointed his thick thumb at me with an approving grin.

***

Getting to know Rex

Meet Rex Hirsch, the undersized, heady, bat–wielding whiz ~

     With a frontiersman's squint, Rex peered down at Pat and received a crisply–transmitted set of signs: square to bunt, pull the bat back to discover the defense, bunt on the next pitch. Rex screwed his feet into the batter's box while White Chocolate danced off second with cross–over steps like a Greek line–dancer. I feared he’d tangle his feet and fall, but his grace was impeccable; Astairian. Rex held his bat as lightly as a musketeer’s foil and described tiny circles in the air as if preparing to duel. The pitcher rolled, Rex squared to bunt, the first and third basemen crashed from the corners: the defense was discovered. But White Chocolate Sasha had misread the sign and started for third. This meant trouble, for his wheels had spun and he'd started off slowly. Bittersweet noticed White's desperate flight and raced towards second as Burger infielders flew about the place like harried teens bagging meals at McDonald's. Rex surveyed it all through hawk eyes and decided in an instant to disregard orders; he pulled back the bat and clubbed the ball, hard, past the charging first baseman. Down the white chalk–line skipped the ball, and the race was on—White Chocolate rounding third like the anchor man of the Russian Olympic relay team, Bittersweet Chocolate closing in on third as the strong-armed rightfielder closed in on the ball. Sasha crossed the plate in a blizzard of white snow while Bitter rounded third and thundered home trailing blazes of glory as the ball skipped long towards the waiting catcher. All eyes were on this man–versus–ball race while Rex, unnoticed, skipped lightly `round the second base bag with a burglar's gaze at the action at home, where ball and Bitter converged in a dust storm. Safe! said the ump, guessing that Bitter had thrust his lead leg between the catcher’s shin–guards and touched the plate before the mitt was lowered. When the catcher turned to the blue in dismay, the mischievous Rex scampered towards third; the surprised catcher's throw sailed sans soucí into left, and Rex trotted home with like insouciance and rolled into the dugout without breaking stride.

Meet Rex Hirsch, the young cross–cultural diplomat (flowing between cultures is a Jewish characteristic as old as the 
Diaspora) ~

     “Dawg,” Roman bruffed, draping a heavy arm across Rex’s shoulders, “I never knew you spoke Spanish. What the hell was that all about?”

     “Just a way to communicate about the runner, Skip. A code, in Spanish.”

     Roman registered alarm at first, then spread the smile of an adult bemused by a boy’s oddball plan. "Now that’s a good idea in principle, son—but don’t you think you’d better do that in English? I mean, this is an English–speaking country, right? And if you think about it, it’s bad for Louie, isn't it? Do you think he'll ever adjust to life in this country if you coddle him by speaking Spanish? I mean, come on, Rex—we’ve got signs on the outfield wall in Spanish, and god damned bathroom signs in Spanish.”

     “It was my idea, not Louie’s,” said Rex. Worried that Roman might pursue the point to the discovery of his dyslexia, Rex snapped his chin as if a twig had snapped inside his brain. “Hey Skip, that reminds me. I hate to put myself in the middle, but you made me captain, and the African-American players—”

     "Jesus,” Roman winced, “you can say blacks to me. Hell, Rex, I’m a Slovakian–German–American, if you want to get all technical about it—but I don’t make everyone say all that. Doesn’t fit in the mouth, you know what I mean?”

     Rex’s eyebrow–antennae twitched in consideration of the point. “Sure, Skip, got it—lots of beats, hard to say. But I think the black guys would kind of like it if you didn’t—you know—call `em Chocolate anymore. They think it's kind of a put–down, you know?”

     A moral wound scrunched Roman’s features and flooded his eyes. “Je–sus, Rex! It’s a nickname, for god's sake!” His face slowly reddened from neckline to hairline; he looked about and lowered his voice. “It’s a compliment, Dawg! And it’s friendly, god damn it! Just how in the hell do you make these guys happy!”

     “Just talk to `em, Skip. Hey, I really don’t want to get in the middle.”

     “And you shouldn’t! You should’ve told `em to bring this straight to their skipper in the first place, Rex!”

     “I wanted to, Skip, but they asked me to talk to you.”

     “Why?” said Roman, his anger overwhelmed by pain and confusion. “And why not talk to me? Aren’t I cool enough? Like you hip city guys?” A slight sneer played on his bulbous lip, and the man looked crazily into Rex’s eyes as if the desire for truth and his dread of the same contended within. Rex looked down at his shoes. “Aw, hell,” Roman barked, “I’m getting to the bottom of this. Pat!”

Meet Rex Hirsch, the free–spirited youth who honors his heritage ~

     “A Jew cannot stand other people happy.” Sasha’s mien was sagacious, for he had passed the merry first–beer and the wry second–beer stages, and was in the midst of the rabbinical third–beer stage, which, though absurd and hard to take, was preferable to the later stages of bitterness verging on malice.

     “I’m not a Jew in the classical sense,” Rex sighed without rancor.

     “A Jew always wants deny he is Jew.” Sasha spread his hands as if releasing the dove of pure truth.

     “Hey, I honor my father and mother and love bagels and Koufax, but I’m not all–in with the Torah and all. It’s a secular thing.”

     “Koufax,” I said with a bitter sneer, for the canned truth–serum was twisting me; and, really, Rex did seem a just bit too smart sometimes, although he was too clever to show it. Which was really annoying.

     Sasha pointed a Talmudic finger at the ceiling. “Forget it, Matt. Jew always knows best.”

     To Rex, Sasha's slurs were merely the harmless yapping of a neighborhood dog, whereas my stab at his father's Jewish idol was symptomatic of a nascent moral infection. He penetrated my bleary gaze with the clinical yet kindly stare of his racial kin, Doc Freud, and administered a psychic remedy. “That was some kind of pitching tonight, Matt. You're a great pitcher, bro.”

     The wee beach ball had done it. He had dipped deep down into some profound Gandhi–Buddha–hippie wellspring of self–denying love and cleansed my wound. I hoisted my beer in spite of the demon gnawing at my elbow. “To our captain,” I said, which Rex still remained in name at least.

***

   

***
Meet Roman Meister, Conflicted Man–Child

Like many conflicted non–Jews ("goys," if you will), team manager Roman Meister 

The Slugger and his Wood

is alternately fascinated and appalled by Jews—

Fascinated:

     “And let that be a lesson to you American boys,” Roman said with hard looks that knocked the grins off snickering faces. “Teamwork means wins. And now I’ve got another announcement, and then you can do whatever it is that little boys like you do on your own. Now. Every ship needs a captain, right? And our ship is no different. And our ship, I see now, is one for the books, with a kid who just won two games for us with his head and his—whatchamacallit, Rex? Hoot-spuh?”

     “Kinda,” Rex grinned. “Chutzpah,” he said with a proper Yiddish schpritz.

     “Chut-spuh,” chunked Roman. “Chut-spuh. Well, son, you got it—you’re a heady ballplayer, and you’re my kind of Jew. So men, I give you ... Moses! Our new team captain with chut-spuh to spare. He’ll lead us all to The Promised Land!”

     “Moses!” cheered the throng, with the exception of Rhino, who muttered a barely–muffled “bullshit” as he clubbed his locker with the side of his fist to a chorus of grunts from the three Baby Rhinos.

Appalled:

     ... “And the fact is, Rex, there’ve been a few pretty good Jew ballplayers over the years, and even my dad said Koufax was great–which for him is saying a lot. Of course, another thing you Jews have going for you is lots of scientists and doctors and stuff, so forget the—you know, the swindler types and all, and be proud of your heritage.” Roman’s magnanimous smile implied that he had bestowed a generous tribute.

     “You know, Skip, it's kind of like, all my heritage, you know? The human race? We the people of a more perfect union?”

     Roman flushed a little, unwrapped his arm from Rex’s neck, and stared as if reappraising an ungrateful first date. “Well I’ll say this for you, you’re a stubborn little ... Hey. And I like that! You’re stubborn on the field, that’s for damned sure. Now listen, Mose, you do me a favor and write that Koufax poem down. There's a Jew to be proud of.” He rubbed Rex’s head with the flat of his hand, and Rex winced like a boy whose dad is too rough with the bath towel.

***

The Ukrainian outfielder Sasha Petrenko is  likewise of two minds when it comes to Jews:

       Al Petrenko—Sasha now, in this season of shedding skins and names—leaned on preying mantis arms and gazed at me through limpid gray eyes. “In Russia,” he explained with a sagacious air, “every Jew is seeking another. He is hoping you are Jew.”

     “Dude you’re trippin,’ ain’t no such thing!”

     Sasha bore into my eyes like guys do at bars when they’ve tapped into some wellspring of communal wisdom that must be shared. “Jews are everything wrong with Russia.”

     Rex prepared to count on his fingers: “Karl Marx was a Jew—true. And Groucho Marx was a Jew! And Albert Einstein—”

     “The only thing worse,” Sasha waved Rex off, “is everyone else.”

     “I’m Italian–Swiss and Scotch–Irish,” I said, for I felt it would be rude not to share.

     “What’d I tell you, Italian!” Rex glowed as Sasha slapped a fiver into his hand.

     “That is what I mean about Jews,” said Sasha, sourly eyeing his captured money.

     "I hate to contradict your stereotyping,” said Rex, “but I’m buying beer for our roomie’s housewarming.”

***

Themes of cultural identify are explored throughout this book, in which gays and straights, Jews and Gentiles, blacks and whites, righties and lefties (of the political variety), hunters and animal defenders mingle and mix it up in the closed system of a minor league team. If I have helped shed a little light on the texture and sources of the conflicts that arise between members of these groups, I have done my job.

*********

Thank you for visiting, Reader! You can read many more excerpts from The Mighty Roman here.

And you can buy the book in paperback on Amazon, as an ebook on Amazon, or as an ebook on Smashwords—or ask your local indie bookstore to order it for you. 

San Francisco readers: autographed copies are available by arrangement. Write jsind@sbcglobal.net to find out more, or to learn about readings and other appearances.

Yours in the love of baseball and lit,

Jon

Look! A dog!