On a day when the San Francisco Giants made three errors and Philadelphia Phillies center fielder Kenny Lofton played more like Kenny G — i.e., rather awfully — perhaps the only man in SBC Park not to drop the ball was Robert Scher.
In the third inning of Jewish Heritage Night at the ballpark Wednesday, Aug. 24, the Kol Emeth congregant proposed to girlfriend Elise Levenson (whom he met at synagogue) via the big board at the ballpark. He produced an engagement ring from the center of a hollowed-out baseball, and, thankfully, she said yes.
“I’ve been planning this about five weeks. She’s been planning this for a little over two years,” deadpanned Scher of Los Altos.
Jarrod Dillon, the team’s special events manager, said the Giants sold 1,307 ticket packages for the night, and hundreds of traffic cone-orange T-shirts emblazoned with “Go Giants!” in English and Hebrew dotted the crowd of 36,812, who root, root, rooted for the home team, but saw the Giants drop yet another home contest, 7-4.
The event was one of several heritage nights the Giants have held this year; Asians, Italians and the Irish also had their nights at the park. This was the team’s first Jewish Heritage Night.
In addition to Congregation Kol Emeth, San Francisco’s Adath Israel, Congregation Sherith Israel and Congregation Beth Am (from Barry Bonds’ hometown, Los Altos Hills) sent contingents. A number of Jewish organizations chipped in as well, as members of Hadassah, the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation, j. weekly and the Northern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame took in the game.
Many of the organizations announced their presence on the field’s big board (located, humorously, next to a permanent advertisement for Catholic Healthcare West), with Hadassah trumpeting its status as the No. 1 Jewish women’s organization in j.’s best of the Jewish Bay Area poll.
Kol Emeth’s Rabbi Sheldon Lewis leads a contingent to the promised land — SBC Park, that is — every year. When he called to make this year’s arrangements, the operator asked him if he’d like to bring the synagogue group to the park on Jewish Heritage Night. After determining that his was a serious query, he readily agreed.
“We make in our congregation two kinds of aliyah — one to Jerusalem and one to SBC Park,” said Lewis, bedecked in a black-and-orange, Hebrew Giants cap, with a laugh.
“My father was a minor league player. And we grew up with mitts before we could walk.”
An arm’s reach from Lewis in the left-field bleachers was Rabbi Yitzchok Feldman of Palo Alto’s Orthodox Emek Beracha, dressed in a gray suit and tie with a black kippah (not a black and orange kippah).
Flanked by two of his eight children, Feldman, who’s one kid short of fielding his own team, enjoyed the night — but, he can’t hide it, he’s a Cubs fan.
“Teams do gimmicks, perhaps for a series that wouldn’t necessarily be so popular. Last night was Italian night. Last night they sang Vic Damone, tonight it’s ‘Hava Negillah,'” said Feldman, a native of Evanston, Ill.
When asked why he wasn’t sporting a Giants cap, Feldman’s 8-year-old daughter, Tzipporah, bailed him out, noting the rabbi “left it in the car.”
Jewish Heritage Night wasn’t just for the paying crowd. One of the “ball dudes” — the older men and women the Giants station along the foul lines in lieu of kids — was Dr. Richard Cohen, a clinical professor of medicine at U.C. San Francisco and a practicing oncologist. Between the lines, Phillies catcher Mike Lieberthal, the only Jew on either roster, went 1-for-4 with a double and a run scored.
Back in the bleachers, out in left-center field, perhaps the most unlikely group of folks in orange, Hebrew shirts was a party of 18 Japanese teenagers from Osaka, many sporting Goth makeup, multiple piercings and hair in colors just as loud as the garish T-shirt.
Esther Casco, the executive assistant to the San Francisco board of education and the group’s leader, said the kids would probably be the only ones in all Japan with Hebrew baseball shirts.
The Japanese teens were unable to comment due to the language barrier and a preoccupation with steaming hot Gilroy Garlic Fries.