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Saturday, September 19, 2020

Rosh Hashanah more joyous than Yom Kipper

So less expectation that Jewish players will sit out. This begins with Hank Greenberg in 1934, who played (on advice of rabbis) on Rosh Hashanah but sat on Yom Kippur.

On Friday night (Erev Rosh Hashanah), Alex Bregman (Astros)  went 0-for-4 in a loss; Kevin Pillar (Rockies) went 2-for-4 with 2 runs scored in a loss;, and Ryan Braun (Brewers) went 2-for-2 in a win. Pitcher Max Fried (Braves) gave up a run on three hits in 5 innings in a blowout win, running his record to 7-0. And relief pitcher Ryan Sherriff (Rays) pitched a scoreless ninth to earn a save. That is a pretty good day. (H/T: Jewish Baseball News).

The Astros, Rockies, and Brewers play evening games on Saturday, beginning 7 p.m. or later. While Rosh Hashanah is two days outside Israel, fewer Jews observe the second day and so it is rarely part of the conversation about playing "on" the holy days.

This will be it for baseball on the holy days 5781. Yom Kippur begins at sundown next Sunday. That is the final day of the regular season; all MLB games are scheduled for afternoon and should be complete. Monday (Yom Kippur) is an off-day before the beginning of the post-season Tuesday. And MLB will not hold one-game tie-breaker playoffs during that off-day; any ties for division winner or wild-card spots will be determined by a series of tie-breakers.

Posted by Howard Wasserman on September 19, 2020 at 08:31 PM | Permalink

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