Opening Day Starters

Opening Day is upon us. Yes, even the Pittsburgh Pirates are on top of their division today. As usual my White Sox start the season in the hunt for a division title. And this year the Sox have Jake Peavy and Mark Buehrle, basically two starters worthy of starting opening day.

I noticed this year (thanks to www. Jewsinbaseball.blogspot.com) that Scott Feldman will be the Texas Rangers opening day pitcher. Which means this year there will be two Jewish opening day starters, the other being Jason Marquis for the Washington Nationals. That is really a huge moment for Jewish Baseball fans. It definitely adds to the idea that this is an exciting era for Jewish Baseball. That Sandy Koufax and Hank Greenberg legacies will continue. And we see that with the All Star caliber in players like Ryan Braun, Kevin Youkilis, and Ian Kinsler (unfortunately, Kinsler will begin the season on the DL).

With Feldman and Marquis atop their teams depth chart, we wanted to see which other MLB Jewish pitchers have started for their team’s opening game. Surprisingly, these two are the first since Steve Stone in 1981 for the Orioles to open the season for a team(Stone also opened for the White Sox in 1978). Below are some other opening day starters.

Dave Roberts – Tigers – 1977 and Astros – 1973-74
Ken Holtzman – A’s – 1972
Joe Horlen – White Sox -1968
Saul Rogovin – White Sox – 1953

You know I love White Sox Jewish pride.

So now you are all wondering about Sandy Koufax. I remind you that Koufax pitched with some other great pitchers including Don Drysdale.
Crazy enough, Koufax only started one opening day for the Dodgers in 1964.
As you can see this really is an honor and a day to be proud of our Jewish ball players. Hopefully, in the future others will join them, maybe Aaron Poreda will be an ace soon enough.

Enjoy the season. Lets Go Go White Sox.
And Let Us Say…Amen.
-Jeremy Fine

***Since writing this I have learned that while Marquis was brought in as an Ace he will not be the opening day starter.