SHAWN GREEN FOLLOWS IN TRADITION OF KOUFAX AND GREENBERG

At Yom Kippur, Green Opts to Miss at Least One Game
When Shawn Green made his decision three years ago, it was only half as difficult as the one he has to make now. In 2001, Green opted not to play in the Los Angeles Dodgers' game on Yom Kippur. This year, however, the Dodgers play two games on Yom Kippur, tomorrow night and Saturday afternoon.

The games in San Francisco will be critical because the Dodgers have to win to keep the Giants from supplanting them in first place in the National League West. The Dodgers have held first place since July 7, but their lead is down to a half-game after they lost and San Francisco won last night.

Yom Kippur, which this year runs from tomorrow at sundown to Saturday at sundown, is the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, and when Green last had a conflict, three years ago, he opted not to play. "It's something I feel is an important thing to do," Green said at the time, "partly as a representative of the Jewish community and as far as my being a role model in sports for Jewish kids, to basically say that baseball, or anything, isn't bigger than your religion and your roots."

Green had withheld a decision and had declined to discuss the issue before yesterday. But before the Dodgers' game in San Diego last night, Green said, "I will miss at least one game'' of the Giants series. "I'm totally committed to getting to the postseason and winning, and at the same time I'm committed to my religion and what I stood for in the past,'' he told The Associated Press. "I wish there was an easy solution, but there's not.'' "I wish Yom Kippur could be in April, but it's not," he added.

Green is one of 10 Jewish players in the major leagues. Among the group, he is in the most sensitive position because of the Dodgers' position in the standings and his importance to the team (he is their second biggest run producer behind Adrian Beltre). Gabe Kapler and Kevin Youkilis, two of the other nine, play for the Boston Red Sox, who play the Yankees tomorrow night and Saturday night, but they are not regular starters. At this column's request, Glenn Geffner, the Red Sox spokesman, asked Kapler and Youkilis if they planned to be available for the games. Geffner quoted Kapler as saying that "it's not as easy as a straight yes or no." Youkilis said he hadn't "figured it out yet and was still grappling with it," Geffner said. Theo Epstein, the Red Sox general manager, said yesterday that if the players did not play, "it would not be a problem for me." He added, "I believe in freedom of personal choice when it comes to religion." Epstein, himself Jewish, said he would attend the games at Fenway Park.

When Green did not play on Yom Kippur in 2001, he joined other Jewish players who have missed games because of religious observance. Hank Greenberg did not play on Yom Kippur in the 1930's, and Sandy Koufax did not pitch the opening game of the 1965 World Series for the Dodgers against the Minnesota Twins because it fell on Yom Kippur. Al Rosen was prepared to miss a game in the 1954 World Series for Cleveland against the New York Giants, but the Series never reached the game because the Indians swept in four games.

When players miss games, their practices differ. Some attend synagogue services, some don't. In 1934 Greenberg went to his synagogue in Detroit and received a standing ovation, in the middle of congregation prayer, when he walked in. "He said he was mortified," Greenberg's son, Steve, said yesterday, "but he called it one of the two most memorable moments in his life. Winning the World Series in 1935 was the other."

Ten days earlier, Greenberg was in a quandary over the two-day holiday of Rosh Hashana. The Tigers were in a pennant race, and Greenberg was their No. 1 slugger. "The big debate in Detroit was should he sit out," Steve Greenberg related. "The chief rabbi of Detroit studied the Talmud and found an obscure sentence saying 'the children of Jerusalem played in the street.' "
So with the rabbi's blessing, Greenberg played in the ballpark. On the first day of Rosh Hashana, he hit two home runs, and the Tigers beat visiting Boston, 2-1, the second successive game a Greenberg home run won the game.

The rabbi who cleared him to play added a cautionary note, Steve Greenberg said. "He said it doesn't apply to Yom Kippur," the younger Greenberg said. As it turned out, it didn't apply to Rosh Hashana, either. Years later, his son related, Greenberg received a letter from a rabbinic scholar. "What the rabbi didn't tell you," this rabbi wrote, "was it was the Roman children who were playing in the streets of Jerusalem."

Koufax, like Green, was not an observant Jew, but he nevertheless would not play on Yom Kippur. In Game 1 of the 1965 World Series, Don Drysdale substituted for Koufax, and the Twins knocked him out in the third inning, scoring seven runs in what would become an 8-2 victory. "I bet right now you wish I was Jewish, too," Drysdale supposedly said to Manager Walter Alston when he replaced him. Koufax pitched and lost the second game, but the Dodgers won the next three games, with Koufax pitching a four-hit shutout in Game 5. Then Koufax pitched Game 7 on two days' rest and won with a three-hit shutout. It was never determined if his decision not to play on Yom Kippur had anything to do with his last two games.