Simon Rosenthal, 21, was nervous and excited as he trotted out to his left field position at Boston’s Fenway Park on a Sunday in September 1925.
The Boston native was to appear in his first major league game and by doing so would become the first Jew to ever play for the Red Sox. The youngest of five children of Phillip and Anna Rosenthal, who considered themselves Orthodox, he had his own rooting section that day.
Si, as he liked to be called, arrived early for the doubleheader with the Yankees and watched in awe as Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig took batting practice. Also a lefthanded batter, Si, who stood 5-9, chuckled as he realized the only thing he had in common with the Yankees sluggers was that they used the same batters box.
Rosenthal had a tough, cagey veteran pitcher to face in his debut. Bob Shawkey had already won 20 games in a season four times. Si managed a single in five trips to the plate in the first game and caught one fly ball.
He was busier in the field in the second game, catching five fly balls, but he went hitless in four at-bats. It was a disappointing debut as the Red Sox lost both ends of the doubleheader and Ruth and Gehrig combined for seven hits, with each hitting a long home run.
Si hurried to change clothes as he was anxious to get home and have dinner with his new bride, Josephine. She was the daughter of a rabbi and they’d met while he was playing for minor-league San Antonio. They had been married for only a few days before his first big league game.
Si went on to play in 18 more September games in 1925, compiling a .264 batting average in 72 at-bats. The following year he saw action in 104 games, batting .267 with four home runs in 285 at-bats.
In 1927 Rosenthal was back in the minor leagues and would end up playing with 10 different teams over nine years. He moved often but was in demand, as he hit for a high average (his career minor league batting average was a hefty .333).
Returning to Boston after the 1935 baseball season, Si went into business manufacturing tin cans. He kept in shape playing baseball for Wolf Clothiers in the Boston Park League and coaching youth sports teams.
The Rosenthals had a son, Irwin, known as “Buddy” in the neighborhood. Patriotism flowed through the veins of father and son. Si was 38 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and though he tried to enlist he was turned down because of loose cartilage in the knee and his age. The determined former ballplayer paid for expensive knee surgery to repair the old injury and had dental work done to make him look younger.
By 1943 both Rosenthals were serving in the armed forces. Both used chutzpah and bluffed about their age. Si was 40 in November and wearing a Navy uniform and Buddy, barely 17, was a proud member of the Marines.
The Rosenthals corresponded on a regular basis. But when Si’s ship docked in Norfolk in February 1944 he grew increasingly concerned because it had been a while since he’d received a letter from Buddy.
Then, to his shock, he learned that Buddy had been killed several weeks earlier, in the last week of 1943 during an assault on the island of New Britain in the Solomon Islands.
Buddy and his fellow Marines went ashore and waded through some tall grass. To ascertain where Japanese positions were located, Buddy volunteered to expose himself for an instant in order to draw enemy fire. The instant was too long and the Japanese cut him down. By the time the long battle was over, the Marines had lost 325 men.
Buddy was only a few months past his 17th birthday when he was killed.
Si would have his own brush with death nine months later. A German mine blew a hole in the starboard side of the mine sweeper ship on which Si was serving off the coast of France at Le Havre.
The explosion propelled Si from the deck into the water. His life jacket kept him above the surface until help arrived.
Permanently paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair, Si endured hospital stays in France, England, and the Boston area until 1947.
September 13, 1947 was Si Rosenthal Day at Fenway Park. Elated at the honor, Si chatted with fellow Navy veterans and Red Sox stars Dom DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, and Ted Williams prior to the on-field ceremonies.
Si recalled the details of the terrible incident that cost 58 of his shipmates their lives.
“After a while,” he said, “I could see our chief pharmacist swimming over toward me. He grabbed me and pulled me over to a life raft. He got me on it somehow, and I sort of half-landed, half-rolled onto a couple of other men. Both were dead.”
Si and his wife were positioned in the infield and a Marine Corps bugler played taps from the pitching mound in honor of the Rosenthals’ son. As the Rosenthals wept openly, members of the Red Sox lined up in tribute to the fallen young hero and his father. Many of the outwardly tough ballplayers dabbed at the wetness along their cheeks.
Everyone in the ballpark – vendors, groundskeepers, umpires, players, and fans – stood frozen in place. It was hard to find a dry eye at Fenway.
Everyone knew someone who had served in the war and many knew someone who never came back or was left permanently injured, like Si.
The somber mood lightened as the Rosenthal Day committee presented the Rosenthals with funds for a home specially fitted with wheelchair ramps and other appurtenances to help the handicapped.
As the years went by Si spent most of his non-working time devoted to charitable causes and served three terms as president of the New England Chapter of Paralyzed Veterans of America. In 1960 he was honored by a testimonial dinner that drew over 500 people including Yankees manager Casey Stengel to a downtown Boston hotel.
Because of his work with youth leagues, a Little League ballpark in suburban Boston bears his name. Though living with almost constant pain since his war injury, Si was always friendly and cheerful; his favorite expression was “Keep the Faith and Keep Smiling.”
Si died of a coronary occlusion on April 7, 1969, at age 65. He was buried at Beth El Cemetery in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.
Those of you in the area should visit the site. You’ll be honoring the greatest Jewish major league combat hero of World War II.