Required Reading: Jeff Pearlman on Ian Kinsler

Our friend Jeff Pearlman wrote this piece on Ian Kinsler — one of the troika of Jewish all-stars these days, along with Kevin Youkilis and Ryan Braun – on Sports Illustrated‘s website.

Ian Kinsler? Jewish?

Though he will never boast Green’s raw power, throwing arm or appetite for chopped liver sandwiches, the Rangers second baseman is, to steal from Adam Sandler, a fine-looking Jew. Among the American League leaders in runs, home runs and RBI, Kinsler is — up until now, at least — a stealth landsman, yet to grace the pages of any of America’s 100,000 Jewish weeklies, but clearly on the verge of carrying the proverbial Louisville Torah. “I recently got a letter in the mail from a Jewish deli in Philadelphia,” Kinsler said recently, standing by his locker. “They want to name a sandwich after me.”

Kinsler smiles, happy to add his name to pastrami on rye and even happier to talk about a heritage he calls, “something I’m very, very proud of.” The son of a Catholic mother (Kathy) and Bronx-born Jewish father (Howard), young Ian was brought up in Tucson, Ariz., relatively non-religious, but celebrated all of the Jewish and Christian holidays.

“We’d have Christmas, and I’d be excited,” he says. “Then we’d have Chanukah and I’d be excited, too. We’d sing the songs, light the candles, play Dreidel. Then every year for Passover we’d have a seder, which I always looked forward to. I’m not a devoutly spiritual person, but I’m very into the cultural identity that comes with being Jewish. If there are Jewish kids out there who look up to me or see me as a role model of what’s possible, I embrace that proudly.”

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