|
Henry Benjamin "Hank" Greenberg (January 1, 1911 – September 4, 1986), nicknamed "Hammerin' Hank," "Hankus Pankus" or "The Hebrew Hammer," was a former American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) primarily for the Detroit Tigers as a first baseman in the 1930s and 1940s. A member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, he was one of the premier power hitters of his generation and is widely considered as one of the greatest sluggers in baseball history. He served over four years in the United States Army and in World War II which took place during his major league career. Greenberg played the first twelve of his thirteen seasons in the major leagues on the Detroit team. He was an American League (AL) All-Star for four seasons and an AL Most Valuable Player in 1935 (first baseman) and 1940 (left fielder).〔 He had a batting average in nine seasons over .300, and he was a member of four Tigers World Series teams which won two championships, in 1935 and 1945. He was the AL home run leader four-times and his 58 home runs for the Tigers in 1938 equaled Jimmie Foxx's mark for the most in one season by anyone but Babe Ruth, and tied Foxx for the most home runs between Ruth's record 60 in 1927 and Roger Maris' record 61 in 1961. Greenberg was the first major league player to hit 25 or more home runs in a season in each league, and remains the AL record-holder for most RBIs in a single season by a right-handed batter (183 in 1937, a 154-game schedule). Greenberg was the first Jewish superstar in American team sports. He attracted national attention in 1934 when he refused to play on Yom Kippur, the holiest holiday in Judaism, even though he was not particularly observant religiously and the Tigers were in the middle of a pennant race. In 1947, Greenberg signed a contract with a $30,000 raise to a record $85,000 before being sold to the Pittsburgh Pirates where he played his final MLB season that year. He was one of the few opposing players to publicly welcome Jackie Robinson that year to the major leagues.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=TRUE BASEBALL HEROES : JACKIE ROBINSON, AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN, AND HANK GREENBERG, A JEW, SHARED A SPECIAL FRIENDSHIP AS TWO MEN WHO ENDURED YEARS OF UNIMAGINABLE BIGOTRY. )〕 ==Early life== Hank Greenberg was born Hyman Greenberg on January 1, 1911, in Greenwich Village, New York City to Romanian-born Jewish immigrant parents David and Sarah Greenberg, who owned a successful cloth-shrinking plant in New York. He had two brothers, Ben, four years older, and Joe, five years younger, who also played baseball, and a sister, Lillian, two years older. His family moved to the Bronx when he was about seven.〔Greenberg, Hank, with Ira Berkow. The Story of My Life, Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 1989. pp. 4–5〕 He attended James Monroe High School in the Bronx, where he was an outstanding all-around athlete and was bestowed with the long-standing nickname of "Bruggy" by his basketball coach.〔Rosengren, p. 16.〕 His preferred sport was baseball, and his preferred position was first base. In high school basketball, he was on the Monroe team that won the city championship. In 1929, the 18-year-old 193-cm (6-foot-4-inch) Greenberg was recruited by the New York Yankees, who already had Lou Gehrig at first base. Greenberg turned them down and instead attended New York University for a year, where he was a member of Sigma Alpha Mu, after which he signed with the Detroit Tigers for $9,000 ($ today). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hank Greenberg」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|