This is the memory palace.

I'm Nate DeMoeu.

The year Hank Greenberg hit 58 homers to lead the major leagues.

He batted 315, scored 143 runs, drove in 147, and had an OPS of 1.122, if that means anything to you.

If it doesn't, just note that it's very, very good.

He meant something close to everything to Jewish Americans.

Like Joe Damaggio with Italian Americans, but more so.

Hank Greenberg was the Hebrew hammer.

Despite suffering all sorts of anti-Semitic prejudice and abuse, he never ran away from his identity.

Even when people freaked out when his Detroit Tigers lost a game when he sat out for Yomkipur.

In every Jewish kid pouring over the box score in the Cleveland plain dealer while pouring milk over the morning cereal,

all the old-timers shouting about baseball and yiddish over the squealing breaks of the elevated trains and canalsery.

The only reason Hank Greenberg led the league in walks that same year was because no one would give him anything to hit,

because no one wanted a Jew to break Babe Ruth's home run record.

The year Hank Greenberg hit 58 homers.

There was another Jewish hero known for his own astounding athletic feats,

though his fame didn't extend much beyond New York.

But if you grew up in a cold water flat in flat busher,

or remembered waking up to the sounds of guys selling pickles and schmata outside your tenement window in Rivington,

you knew the mighty Adam.

The beginning of his story wasn't all that different from your own.

He was born Joseph Greenstein in Poland.

...