Ready for some football?

With the approach of football season, I contacted all the NFL teams to see if they had any Jewish players. I tried to word the e-mail respectfully, jovially, given the sensitive nature of the topic. Some haven’t gotten back to me yet, but several have said they are unaware of any Jewish players. Think about that. Is it me or is that kind of a mixed blessing? It wasn’t that long ago when a person’s religion was a big deal. Now, not so much. The way the Jewish sports fan community bands together, I doubt if any new names will pop up. I receive some questions as to the religion of a few, based on surnames, but it’s a fairly deceptive method of investigation.Here’s what we have, as of this writing:

• Igor Olshansky and Kyle Kosier, Dallas Cowboys
• Sage Rosenfels, NY Giants
• David Binn and Antonio Garay, San Diego Chargers
• Taylor Mays, San Francisco 49ers
• Adam Podlesh, Jacksonville Jaguars
• Geoff Schwartz, Carolina Panthers

Obviously not everyone is sensitive to holidays, as Danny Breslauer writes on NewJerseyNewsroom.com. Kind of reminds me of the Jewish Hollywood moguls who didn’t want to have too much Jewish content in their pictures for fear of rousing anti-Semitic feelings.

Speaking of football…

Every year I promise myself to become more studious about sports besides baseball, and every year I fail. I buy the magazines, try to memorize the college conferences and NFL personnel. Fail, fail, fail. But I keep trying. For those of you interested in how the college football rankings work, here’s a lengthy — and not especially illuminating — explanation from HowStuffWorks.com.

There are also several books with insulting titles you can read, such as Football for Dummies, Football Made Simple, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Football, etc. I recently received a copy of Take Your Eye Off the Ball: How to Watch Football by Knowing Where to Look, by Pat Kirwan (Triumph). While I did find it helpful — I will be paying closer attention to the little things, at least as much as the TV presentations will allow — it was still pretty complex. It’s almost as if there’s a club and they don’t want the regular people to get in, so they make it overly complicated. That’s one of the reason I prefer baseball. You see, (caution: naughty words at the very end of the clip)…

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Kaplan’s Korner on Jews and Sports © 2010 New Jersey Jewish News

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