Phil Weintraub: A Jewish Ballplayer in the 1930s

Image credits: Find a Grave

Outfielder/first baseman Phil Weintraub was one of the few Jewish ballplayers in the major leagues during his intermittent seven years between 1933 and 1945 with the New York Giants, Reds and Phillies.

A wartime first baseman for the Giants, he batted .316 with 13 home runs in 1944. In 1986 I called him at his home in Palm Springs, California, and asked him if his religion had been a lightning rod for bench jockeys.

A lot of things get said in the heat of battle. I think they weren’t actually knocking my religion. They were looking for the most vulnerable spot to knock me down, get my goat, so I would get angry and not play as well.

They did it more to hit a vulnerable spot than anything else. The ones who did it, when we became teammates, we were good friends. It always got me fired up and I tried to answer them in the best way I could, with the bat. 

I was a power hitter in the American Association. The Milwaukee manager told his team, “If you mention anything about religion to him, it’ll get him fired up. So don’t disturb him. Let him alone.”

I heard anti-Semitic remarks as much from teammates as opponents. If you were quiet and a pussycat, you had no problem, but I stood up to it and got involved. I knew that many of them were raised saying those things. They had heard them during their raising in the south, or in Polish neighborhoods like the one where I grew up.

Phil Weintraub’s religion was used to get a rise out of him on the field. Image credits: Find a Grave

Some fans would give it to me as a Jew. Sometimes I wanted to go after them, but that’s the worst thing you can do. Most of it was inspired by my hurting them with the bat.

[Weintraub’s last year in the majors before the war was with the 1938, 45-105 Phillies, who finished 25 games out of seventh place.]

We had a real imbalance in Philly: more people on the field than in the stands. On a last-place team like that, you dread going to the ballpark. Hardly any of the players talked to each other. You didn’t want to know your teammates. You just wait for the season to be over.

The old joke was somebody is always saying, “We gotta have harmony on this team.” Then you lose twenty straight and you start asking, “When we going to get that guy Harmony?”