יום שני, ז׳ תמוז תשפ״וMonday, June 22, 2026
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Author, columnist, public speaker Irwin Cohen headed a national baseball publication for five years before accepting a front office position with the Detroit Tigers where he became the first orthodox Jew to earn a World Series ring. Besides the baseball world, Irwin served in the army reserves and was a marksman at Ft. Knox, Ky., and Chaplain's Assistant at Ft. Dix, NJ. He also served as president of the Agudah shul of the Detroit community for three decades. He may be reached in his dugout at irdav@sbcglobal.net.
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By Irwin Cohen
Cox racked up 2,504 career victories, fourth best in baseball history among managers. The respected and beloved baseball lifer was 84 when he died.
By Irwin Cohen
Having a minyan with a siyum for firstborn guys like me Wednesday morning, erev Pesach, with a terrific breakfast was a big selling point for me, but the thing my old legs appreciated the most was there wasn't a single step for me to negotiate as everything was on the first floor.
By Irwin Cohen
People who were born that year and would go on to great fame included Fidel Castro and Norma Jeane Mortenson.
By Irwin Cohen
The American League Rookie of the Year should be Tigers infielder Kevin McGonigle. The left-handed batter, who can play shortstop, third base and second base, is expected to be among the leaders in batting average and is also expected to hit 20 or more home runs.
By Irwin Cohen
The spring training memories that mostly pop up in the television of my mind are from 50 years ago in 1976.
By Irwin Cohen
Another great place to consider, as housing is much cheaper than up north in the East and down I-95, is Jacksonville, at the northern end of Florida (a two-hour drive south of Savannah). It has a community a bit larger and is also worth considering for a move and visit.
By Irwin Cohen
Every person is important and welcoming. It's a great place to be a big fish in a small pond. The shul also has a great caterer, and you can eat in a big social hall or takeout.
By Irwin Cohen
The bonus baby rule allowed teams to sign amateur players for over $4,000, but the player had to stay on the big-league roster for two years. It prevented the richer teams from stocking up on young talent in their minor league systems.
By Irwin Cohen
Lucky for us Jews, Tisch will stay on in her current title under Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. She wants to add 5,000 police officers, to beef up the force from the current 35,000 to 40,000.
By Irwin Cohen
Once, while chatting in the late '80s, he eyed my World Series ring. I took it off and he looked at it closely and said softly, I don't have one yet.
By Irwin Cohen
The Series winning Dodgers were outscored by the Blue Jays over seven games 34 to 26, but the final score in each game, of course, is what matters.
By Irwin Cohen
Because of the timing of Yom Tov a couple of weeks ago, the local Orthodox community was shut out in catching football and baseball in person, but about 20 people I know took in the opening night game of the Detroit Red Wings hockey season.
By Irwin Cohen
Harold is saving the best for last. He wants to have a bar mitzvah next year at 103. After all, it's only 90 years past due.
By Irwin Cohen
First thing that impressed me about him was how he spoke about October 7. He was filled with compassion for the Jewish people and for the soldiers defending Israel. He bought protective vests, armored vests, for soldiers so they should be safer when they go into battle.
By Irwin Cohen
Rabbi Wein moved in many fields and was superb in all of them. What a resume he had.
By Irwin Cohen
The Orthodox community in Harrisburg is under 100. Some wear their tallis over their head while davening and some don't.
By Irwin Cohen
The six-foot-six left-handed pitcher's career spanned 19 seasons and he racked up a career record of 251 wins and 161 losses with a pretty good earned run average of 3.74. C.C. won 19 games three times and once won 21 in a season.
By Irwin Cohen
This year's Superman version stars David Corenswet, a 31-year-old actor with a Jewish father, a lawyer, from a well-known family in New Orleans.
By Irwin Cohen
Of course, with games played daily, several teams, by the time you're reading this, have won 60 or more, but the Tigers had the best record and were the only team with 60 wins at the 100-game mark.
By Irwin Cohen
When the season began, I wouldn't have believed my Detroit Tigers, of the American League Central Division, would start the second half of the season with the best record in the big leagues.
By Irwin Cohen
I root for all of the Detroit teams and Detroit has been energized by the recent success of the Tigers baseball team and the football Lions. But now basketball has become my third favorite and the Brooklyn Nets have replaced the Detroit Pistons as my favorite hoopsters.
By Irwin Cohen
After Mr. Ploni finished telling his story, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef said, Now I know why I smell Gan Eden on you. The neshamos you buried are clinging to you.
By Irwin Cohen
There were demographic disabilities within, as well as without, the new state. The Jews were less than three-fifths of the population; the Arabs, more than two-fifths.
By Irwin Cohen
While American Jews tried to help, they were also surrounded by signs of growing antisemitism at home and disturbing admiration for Hitler in unexpected places.
By Irwin Cohen
Moments like these remind us that leadership on the world stage is not only strange, but often deeply troubling – especially when it comes to Israel.
By Irwin Cohen
Without the Babe in April and May, the Yanks were close to the bottom and finished the season in seventh place in the eight team American League.
By Irwin Cohen
As Jewish fans may know, Israel will field a team also. The WBC takes place every three years, and Israel did fairly well, but the roster was filled with Jewish minor leaguers, a couple of recently retired players, and the biggest Jewish stars stayed with their major league teams during spring training instead of representing Israel.
By Irwin Cohen
Insurance prices have skyrocketed and many companies have stopped offering insurance to multi-unit buildings in Florida. My rate for a ground floor 786-square-foot (not counting an enclosed porch) went up over 80 percent.
By Irwin Cohen
I had several conversations with Yogi during my years on the baseball beat. I always found him wearing a serious face. I never heard him say anything funny. He was soft-spoken and easy to talk to.
By Irwin Cohen
This is the first year I actually watched a full college basketball game during March Madness. Specifically, the game when the University of Michigan was playing with Danny Wolf on its team.
By Irwin Cohen
Are the players better today? They are certainly bigger and the pitchers can throw harder.
By Irwin Cohen
Once a week or so an afternoon baseball game was televised. However, there were no captions showing the name of the player, or his batting average, and 75 years ago, the black and white games were covered by mostly one camera in the upper deck behind home plate showing the pitcher, batter, catcher and most of the umpire.
By Irwin Cohen
I wasn't bored as I cut out articles from The Jewish Press to read while waiting for appointments or at simchas. After all, my table neighbors spent a lot of time playing with their phones.
By Irwin Cohen
Unlike Florida, no one wore a costume and all the men dress as they do year-round, black suit, white shirt, black hat and grayish to whitish beard. Until the grass gets greener, the flowers bloom and the trees grow leaves, living in Country Place is like living in a black and white movie.
By Irwin Cohen
I really admired the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivas Ohr Someach. As one of the founders of the baal teshuva movement in the 1960s, he affected many future generations.
By Irwin Cohen
My shidduch advice to you is be open as the second time around can work out well no matter how old you are. Even if you're 83, wrinkled and somewhat saggy like we are.
By Irwin Cohen
I first got to hear him at the big beautiful Beth El shul in Boro Park when I visited my sister and brother-in-law, Shmuel Kunda. I also got to know him personally over the last few years, as he also had a place in Century Village in West Palm Beach.
By Irwin Cohen
During my Fox interview I pointed out many facts that many overlook, such as history unfolding during his playing career. Greenberg began his playing career with the Detroit Tigers in 1933, the same year as Hitler, leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party, became chancellor of Germany.
By Irwin Cohen
I know the readers are more intelligent than I am, but I may have experienced more than most in my 80-plus years.
By Irwin Cohen
Uecker ended his major league playing career with a 200 batting average in 297 games. He had some big moments, including a hit off Sandy Koufax. And he could boast that he caught two of the best pitchers in the game in Warren Spahn of the Braves and Bob Gibson of the Cardinals.
By Irwin Cohen
Many Jews lived in his neighborhood and he picked up many Yiddish words and phrases that stayed with him. His vus machst du? was perfect and while he was a very religious Catholic, he knew more about Judaism than many Jews.
By Irwin Cohen
On Sunday nights, my father was glued to the radio when Drew Pearson and the news came on and he hung on to every word coming out of the radio regarding Israel as the new Jewish state founded on the biblical Jewish homeland of the Jews, repelled most of the invading Arab armies of Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Egypt still remained a threat to the tiny nation of an estimated 650,000.
By Irwin Cohen
The coming days and weeks provided even better post World Series news. I would be getting a World Series ring with my name on it and a check with a nice amount and my name on it.
By Irwin Cohen
The Duke hit the last home run in Ebbets Field history in 1957 and moved to Los Angeles with the Dodgers, getting a couple of television gigs in Hollywood.
By Irwin Cohen
Come on Mr. Commissioner, do what you have to do to get the station carried on cable again, at an affordable price. You'll make the oldsters happy again and will gain some youngsters as lifelong fans.
By Irwin Cohen
In 1924 as he celebrated his bar mitzvah people called him Hyman. Hymie or Hy. He excelled at playing baseball and basketball and saw his first major league game in 1924 with his father at the Polo Grounds as the New York Giants won a Sunday double header.
By Irwin Cohen
After being hospitalized with heart issues for three weeks Ken Holtzman was 78 when he died.
By Irwin Cohen
After more than 70 years of watching the Detroit Tigers what team do I get to see now. Lakewood has the Blue Claws, the low minor league team of the Philadelphia Phillies, but I don't expect that their games are televised.
By Irwin Cohen
The best Jewish hitter over the past few seasons has been Houston Astros third baseman Alex Bregman. The 29-year-old Bregman is in his last year before possibly leaving the Astros as a free agent.
By Irwin Cohen
It was a great game and the Tigers held on to win 7-6. We had a good view of 19-year-old skinny rookie Al Kaline in right field. Kaline singled in four attempts and Harry Agganis and Ted Williams each had three hits. The second game was even more interesting.
By Irwin Cohen
While I never attended a religious service in a non-orthodox house of worship, I spoke in every synagogue and Temple in the Detroit area. Some more than once. I also did some radio and television there, besides writing for some local publications, too. I was born in Detroit; it was my home my whole life.
By Irwin Cohen
It was a sad day for me when I learned of the firing of Chaim Bloom, who had the title of the Chief Baseball Officer of the Boston Red Sox.
By Irwin Cohen
The Yanks can easily be back in the playoffs next season if the young talent – which there is – can prove they’re ready for the majors.
By Irwin Cohen
You put the little fork at third base, she said, the big fork at shortstop, the knife at second base, and the spoon at first base. That was my guide every time I set the table.
By Irwin Cohen
The Yankees won their first World Series as they downed the New York Giants, four games to two. Ruth was the biggest star of the Series as he batted .368 with three home runs.
By Irwin Cohen
We knew which batters were hitting well and which ones were in a slump. We memorized what the batters did in the few days before we faced them.
By Irwin Cohen
A chance phone call to a sports call-in radio program would change the course of my life. But it wasn't by chance. It was orchestrated by Hashem.
By Irwin Cohen
You see me hittin' the ball and they cut the scene and you see Tab Hunter runnin' the bases. Every time I watched it with the family I say, 'Yeah, that's ol' dad hittin, in that movie there. Sievers said of his part in the movie.
By Irwin Cohen
On the subject of the World Baseball Teams, we had a chance to see Jacob Steinmetz pitch for Team Israel against several major league all-star players representing the Dominican Republic.
By Irwin Cohen
This season, when a pitcher begins his motion, all four infielders must be stationed on the infield dirt and two must be on both sides of second base.
By Irwin Cohen
The fan who caught the ball that Judge hit for his 62nd home run of the 2022 season on October 4, while watching the game between the Yankees and Texas Rangers in suburban Dallas, sold it through an auction house for $1.5 million.
By Irwin Cohen
At the time the first player with the last name Cohen was playing in the major leagues. Pitching under the name Harry Kane, he made his big league debut a year earlier in 1902 with the St. Louis Browns of the American League.
By Irwin Cohen
The big news took place one day before the 22 inning game started as Willie Mays returned to New York via a trade between the San Francisco Giants and New York Mets.
By Irwin Cohen
The night before the perfect game, Larsen dined with the Richmans and told the future writer that he was going to pitch a no-hitter the next afternoon. He pulled out a dollar from his wallet and instructed Milt to give it to his mother for a donation to her synagogue.
By Irwin Cohen
Greenberg threatened to retire rather than play for the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates, considered the worst team in the National League with no hope of reaching the World Series in 1947. Entertainer Bing Crosby one of the team of new owners on the Pirates lured Greenberg to Pittsburgh by making him the first player in baseball to earn $100,000.
By Irwin Cohen
La Guardia was a rabid New York Giants fan, but also rooted for the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees when they weren't matched against the Giants. His favorite mayoral duty was throwing out the ceremonial first pitch on opening day to kick off a new season for the Giants at the Polo Grounds.
By Irwin Cohen
Max Patkin had a long career in baseball as an entertainer. His trademark was wearing a baggy uniform with a large question mark on his back instead of a uniform number.
By Irwin Cohen
It's hard enough to be a good player in the major leagues, But Robinson had to listen to racial taunts from other teams and fans in the stands when the Dodgers played on the road.
By Irwin Cohen
Babe Ruth was missing from the Yankees' lineup for the first six weeks of the season after Commissioner of Baseball Kenesaw Mountain Landis suspended him for taking part in a 15-game barnstorming tour.
By Irwin Cohen
The Dodgers had him hone his skills as a third baseman and catcher in the minor leagues and brought him up to the major leagues in 1943 when he was only 19.
By Irwin Cohen
Richie Scheinblum had an eight-year big league career spanning 1965 to 1974 with six different teams (Cleveland, Washington, Kansas City, Cincinnati, California Angels and St. Louis).
By Irwin Cohen
All of the players respected him. There wasn't a finer player or finer man.
By Irwin Cohen
Al Schacht quickly became a fan favorite with his before-game entertainment imitating the mannerisms of other players.
By Irwin Cohen
While Jewish fans were concentrating on Hank Greenberg's efforts to pass Babe Ruth's single season home run record of 60 in 1938 Jewish baseball history was made on August 20, 1938.
By Irwin Cohen
While you'll have the respect of the players and the coaches and managers, you still have to be on guard. There's always a jokester or two who may want to take you off the religious pedestal.’
By Irwin Cohen
On the last day of spring training in 1960, Colavito, his fans and the baseball world were shocked as he was traded to Detroit for Harvey Kuenn.
By Irwin Cohen
The next day, I opened the paper to the first page of the sports section where Falls' column appeared several days a week. I was surprised to see my picture below his usual masthead.
By Irwin Cohen
The host never mentioned that when Aaron would pass Ruth's mark, he would have many more at-bats than Ruth had. I decided to call in and state the facts.
By Irwin Cohen
I saw pictures of him in the sports section of the newspaper delivered to our house, and I devoured any story and box score with his name.
By Irwin Cohen
Gone are the days of the big games between the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox as the BoSox are more in a rebuilding phase and have their best pitcher, Chris Sale, out for the season because of surgery.
By Irwin Cohen
While I don't remember him playing in a game I attended, I can recall opening up packs of baseball cards and getting more Porters than I wanted.
By Irwin Cohen
One celebrity fan that stands out in Rosalie's mind all these years later is Danny Kaye. "When Herbie came to bat, Danny would stand up and yell, 'Give it a klop, Herbie, give it a klop,'" she said.
By Irwin Cohen
Jewish baseball fans were still missing Sandy Koufax, who retired after the 1966 season at the age of 30 because of risk of permanent damage to his arthritic arm.
By Irwin Cohen
Greenberg was the biggest Jewish hero in America at the time, but the Tigers actually had a second Jewish player in 1938.
By Irwin Cohen
We're going to see only a few pitchers this season winning more than seven games and only a few players hitting more than 15 home runs. But we could see a player batting over .400.
By Irwin Cohen
"I consider baseball a very good thing for the population during the war," Roosevelt stated.
By Irwin Cohen
For the most part, it was a frustrating day for batters on both sides. Only two players had three hits.
By Irwin Cohen
The sign stealer could be on the phone with his accomplice and relay what pitch is coming by raising the beer to his lips for a fastball, adjusting his cap for a curveball, etc.
By Irwin Cohen
He was intelligent and a commanding presence, though much softer than his reputation as a player.
By Irwin Cohen
The biggest name who died in 2019 was a superstar as a player and a trailblazer as a manager.
By Irwin Cohen
Martin broke into the major leagues with the New York Yankees in 1950, the same year I started following baseball as a youngster in Detroit.
By Irwin Cohen
I was surprised the Nats won Game 6 and was rooting for Houston to pull out a win in the final game before the home crowd.
By Irwin Cohen
In 1985, I became the answer to a trivia question: Who counted each and every seat in Tiger Stadium?
By Irwin Cohen
Last month, I wrote about a 22-inning game in June 1962 between the New York Yankees and Detroit Tigers that lasted seven hours and ended during the Ed Sullivan variety television program. Some New Yorkers e-mailed me afterwards to let me know they remember flipping channels to follow both the game and the star-studded 14th […]
By Irwin Cohen
New York scored another run in the second; the Tigers added three in the third and another in the sixth, tying the score at 7-7. Neither team scored for another 15 innings.
By Irwin Cohen
Baseball keeps the older people younger and gives the younger people something to look forward to.
By Irwin Cohen
While Jews in Europe didn't know which way to turn, American Jews found entertainment by turning the radio dial.
By Irwin Cohen
President Woodrow Wilson sent a mission in September 1919 to investigate atrocities against Jews in Poland and Russia.
By Irwin Cohen
Shai Abramson, chief cantor of the IDF, belted out the national anthem while Mets and Cardinals players stood at attention.
By Irwin Cohen
In 1943, Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis had actually forbidden training south of the Ohio and Potomac Rivers or west of the Mississippi River.
June 21, 2026 
