Brad Ausmus led a long and respectable career as a Major League catcher. He ranks among MLB's all-time leaders for games played, hits and RBIs. Among Jewish ballplayers.
“I wasn’t raised with the Jewish religion, so in that sense I don’t really have much feeling toward it,” “>newly hired manager of the Detroit Tigers.
Replacing the “>constant search for sports heros. (Might I recommend looking into ““>subtract one for “>The Forward explains:
In fact, before now there had only been five Jewish skippers in the entire history of the major leagues: Lipman Pike, who in 1874 hit .355 as the player/manager of the Hartford Dark Blues; Lou Boudreau, who led the Cleveland Indians to their last World Series championship in 1948, and later managed the Boston Red Sox, Kansas City Athletics and Chicago Cubs; Norm Sherry, who managed the California Angels during the second half of the 1976 season and the first half of 1977; Seattle Mariners/Arizona Diamondbacks/Oakland Athletics skipper Bob Melvin (whose A’s lost to the Tigers in this year’s ALDS); and Jeff Newman, who served as the Oakland A’s interim manager for 10 games in 1986. Ausmus is now number six.
Beyond the Team Israel experience, Ausmus has never managed a club. But part of his role with the Dodgers in 2009 and 2010 was as a veteran leader, a guy who rarely played — 57 total games — but served as a mentor to younger players.
He also has the fortune of taking over a stacked squad that was a pair of well-time Red Sox grand slams from appearing in the World Series last month.
