Jews & Sports

from Big Mo's Sports Desk



Glatt Kosher Stadiums

Time Out

Mordechai Siev

(Spotted by my father of blessed memory in Newsday, and from a NY Times Magazine a while ago)

For Jews who attend night games at Camden Yards in Baltimore, a minyan for the evening prayer, Maariv, is no longer a problem. Held at the kosher food stand (!) behind home plate after the last Oriole out in the bottom of the fifth, the evening service typically attracts 20-60 men and boys, some with baseball hats over their yarmulkes.

That's great! The Baal Shem Tov, founder of Chassidism stressed:

There is not the vaguest shadow of doubt that, wherever our feet tread, it is all in order to cleanse and purify the world with words of Torah and prayer.
It is said of the Time to Come: "A stone in the wall will cry out and a beam from the tree will respond" [Habakuk 2:11]. At present, inert creations are mute; though trodden upon, they remain silent. But there will come a time when the revelation of the Future becomes a reality Then the inert will begin to speak and demand: "If a man was walking along without thinking or speaking words of Torah, by what right did he trample upon me?"
By decree of Divine Providence, man goes about his travels to the place where the "sparks" that he must purify await for their redemption. The holy ones, who have vision, see where "their" sparks await them and go there deliberately. As for ordinary folk, The Cause of all causes and the Prime Mover brings about various reasons and circumstances that bring these people to that place where lies their obligation to perform the work of purification and elevation.
(Based on Hayomyom: 5 Adar A, 15 Adar A, 1 Cheshvan)

By the way, why is the minyan in the fifth, and not during the traditional seventh inning stretch? Because it is always already dark by the fifth, and we don't want to delay a mitzvah, right? Next, half-time at the Garden and the Forum!

(Mordechai "Big Mo" Siev is in charge of Jewish student activities at ASCENT OF SAFED.)


More Hot Dogs

In previous articles we mentioned the glatt Kosher hot dogs served at Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium in New York, and at Camden Yards in Baltimore. Now we found another Major League source. It seems there are two Glatt Kosher hot dog stands at Jacobs Field in Cleveland. One is on the lower level, in Right Field, near Section 109, and the other is on the upper deck, behind Home Plate, near Sections 455 & 555.

(Based on a submission by Paul S. Wolf to the Jewish Travelers Forum: <travel@shamash.org>)


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