Good Sports: Weequahic alumni lead charge into JCC Sports Hall of Fame

by Ron Kaplan
NJJN Staff Writer

Four athletes from the heyday of Newark’s Weequahic High School were among the six sports legends inducted into the JCC MetroWest Jewish Sports Hall of Fame at a dinner ceremony held June 22 at the Crystal Plaza in Livingston.

In addition to the Weequahic quartet — Harold “Hesh” Cohen, Gerry Greenspan, Herb Kay, and Charlie Schneider — the Hall of Fame, now in its second year, also recognized Jerry Izenberg, the award-winning sportswriter with The Star-Ledger in Newark, and Moe Berg, whom Casey Stengel, one of the national pastime’s legendary characters, called “the strangest man ever to play baseball.”

The evening was full of the type of good humor brought on by reunions, with the accents and anecdotes making many of the 185 attendees sound like characters from the pen of Damon Runyon.

“This is quite an honor,” Cohen, 81, told NJ Jewish News prior to the festivities. “At this age, to get awarded, to be recognized as a Jewish athlete in the area, is fantastic.”

Cohen was a basketball and baseball star for Weequahic in the early 1940s, leading the hoops team to a 30-3 record and named All-State. At the same time, he earned All-Essex County honors as a third baseman and helped his team reach the 1942 state tournament. He continued amassing athletic achievements at Newark University, now Rutgers Newark, and Rider University, then Rider College.

The Springfield resident said he was especially grateful for “the friends I was able to make playing ball, that we’ve been friends for 70 years. We’ve been lucky; we’re still around — most of us are around —and it’s a rewarding experience.”

Cohen still works as an accountant and still plays “a little golf, as best as I can.” With the NBA pro-basketball finals winding down, he said, “I watch it. It gets a little late — I read about it the next morning. But it’s a different game than what we played. I was considered a big kid at six feet. [Today’s players] are six-eight, they run like deer, and they can shoot the ball.

“We were lucky,” he repeated. “We had a good era — we went through the war, came back, went to college…. No regrets.”

Cohen’s joy, however, has been tempered by a recent tragedy: His son Bruce died suddenly two months ago at 49. Cohen’s daughter-in-law and three grandchildren arrived well into the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, coming from his granddaughter’s middle-school graduation.

Sweet inside

Charles “Charlie” Schneider was known more for his work behind the scenes than on the field. Although he was a standout school player in football and basketball in the early part of the 20th century, he earned his reputation as an educator and coach. After a stint as a sports reporter for the Newark Star-Eagle from 1918 to 1919, Schneider became recreation and playground director in the Essex County Park System and the Newark public schools, supervisor of physical education and recreation for North Plainfield public schools, and supervisor of student teaching for then Jersey City State College in the health and science department. He was also a teacher and director of athletics for 45 years at Central and Weequahic high schools in Newark, retiring in 1963.

Steve Reichman was on hand to accept the award for his grandfather.

“I was thrilled,” he told NJJN, when he heard about his grandfather’s selection to the Hall. “He probably had the biggest effect on my life.” Schneider passed away in 1988. Reichman, 53, and a resident of Edison, has a prized possession from his grandfather.

“There is this little felt derby hat that I wear every day in the winter, and I always feel like I have a piece of [him] with me. It’s something that is very special, to the point where it’s falling apart and I’m afraid that it’s going to go bad and I have to figure some way to save it.”

While he knows there are specialists that can restore old hats, Reichman said, “I also don’t want to give it up.”

Reichman spoke of the lasting impression his grandfather had made as a role model for generations of students. “Not only is it something special…. In my acceptance speech, I’m going to refer to my grandfather as a sabra, which is an Israeli fruit, because on the outside he was one tough son of a bitch, but when push came to shove, he would give you the shirt off his back because he was so sweet inside. That’s just something that everyone remembers about him.”

Les Fein, an inductee last year in the inaugural class of the MetroWest Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, presented Reichman with Schneider’s plaque. Fein spoke of his own relationship with Schneider, which began in 1955. “I’m here today,” he said, “because Charlie took a shot and made me a coach at Weequahic.”

In his introductory remarks, Hall of Fame chair Jay Blumenfeld remarked how gratifying it was to notify the inductees, or their families in the case of Berg, Kay, and Schneider — who were inducted posthumously — of the honor.

WNBC-TV sportscaster Bruce Beck, a native of Livingston, served as master of ceremonies. He told NJJN that the Hall of Fame program was just one of 14 events he was “emceeing” in June. “This is how I give back to the community. I can’t say ‘no.’”

Old friends

Gerald “Gerry” Greenspan was another basketball powerhouse for Weequahic, winning All-Newark, All-Essex County, and All-State honors before his graduation in 1959. He played for the University of Maryland Terrapins, leading the team in scoring and rebounding to win All-Conference honors, and was drafted by the Syracuse Nationals, now known as the Philadelphia 76ers. Greenspan played alongside some of the game’s greatest players, including Wilt Chamberlain, Dolph Schayes, and Hal Greer, a fact that he admits hastened his departure from the NBA. He stayed in the game, though, playing in the Eastern League for several more years before finally retiring and going into the real estate business.

“This is great,” Greenspan told NJJN, scanning the room, still looking trim and fit and, at nearly six-and-a-half feet, towering over everyone in the room. The 63-year-old, who resides in New York City and Roseland, admitted, “I don’t think I was excited till I got here.”

It was good seeing all the old friends, he said. “I know them all, even though they’re not here just for me.”

After listening to the flattering introduction by Fein, who was his coach at Weequahic, Greenspan told the audience that time enhances a player’s greatness. “The older you get, the better you were.” He demurred at the notion that he was “a nice Jewish boy.” “I was the meanest, nastiest basketball player on the college scene,” he recalled. He cited a few incidents of anti-Semitism he faced while on the college hardwood, remembering how it made him all the more determined to do well.

Greenspan’s mother had been born a Christian but converted to Judaism. “Thank God,” he said. “I never would have made it into the Christian Sports Hall of Fame.”

‘A mensch’

The late Herb Kay, born Hebert Krautblatt was best known as a basketball star for Weequahic from 1940 to 1944, but was also named All-City and All-County in football. He was a graceful left-handed shooter with great leaping ability. As captain of his Rider College squad, he set the team record for scoring and became the only player in the school’s history to reach the professional ranks as a member of the NBA Baltimore Bullets in 1948 and 1950-51 and the ABL Trenton Tigers-Paterson Crescents from 1950 to 1960.

Kay, who lived in Springfield and South Orange, died in 1999.

Beck’s father, Felix Beck, offered introductory remarks about his friend. “As a gentleman, he was gracious and he was kind. Herbie was a mensch, and that’s the nicest thing you can say about anyone.”

Kay’s grandson, Robert Streit of Hoboken, accepted the award on his behalf. “My grandfather would be more than grateful,” he told the audience, recalling how, even in the throes of advanced Parkinson’s disease, Kay was still able to toss in a few baskets in the driveway. “His presence was truly admirable. If you didn’t know him, you wanted to.

He never asked to be in the spotlight; the spotlight found him.”

History and mystery

Sid Dorfman, inducted last year into the Hall of Fame for his achievements as a sportswriter, introduced the evening’s first honoree with characteristic modesty: “I gave the world Jerry Izenberg,” he said of his long-time friend and associate.

Izenberg has been a staple for sports page readers for decades. Before joining The Newark Star-Ledger in 1962, he also wrote for the New York Herald Tribune and was a weekly TV sports commentator on Channel Five in New York for eight years.

Such inductions are getting to be old hat for Izenberg, who is a member of eight other institutions of distinction, including the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame in Salisbury, NC. He is a winner of the prestigious Red Smith Award, which he called “the Pulitzer of sports writing,” and is a five-time winner of the NJ Sportswriter of the Year Award.

The author of nine books and hundreds of feature articles, Izenberg has attended every Super Bowl since its inception in 1967. But what he really takes pride in, said Izenberg in an interview with NJJN two weeks ago, is his role as founder and president of Project Pride, a Newark-based organization that provides kids with recreational opportunities, after-school tutoring, and college scholarships through proceeds from the annual Pride Bowl football game. The program has raised nearly $4 million and provided almost 1,000 college scholarships since its creation more than 25 years ago.

Moe Berg, the mysterious baseball player, has been the subject of several biographies, including Nicholas Dawidoff’s The Catcher Was a Spy. His award was accepted by Irwin Berg, a cousin from Manhattan and one of the honoree’s few surviving relatives (Moe Berg never married). He was introduced by Izenberg following a video presentation highlighting Berg’s colorful life.

“My cousin was a man of enormous mystery and contradictions and a man of enormous intellectual ability,” Berg said.

Born in Manhattan in 1902, Moe Berg’s family moved to Newark when he was four years old. An outstanding student, he nevertheless disappointed his parents, who owned a drug store, by his refusal to give up baseball as an avocation. He was a star athlete at Barringer High School in Newark and attended Princeton, where he majored in languages and was graduated magna cum laude. It is widely believed that he was able to handle himself more than adequately in a dozen languages, including Japanese, German, Spanish, Latin, French, and Italian. His linguistic talents would come in handy in later years, even though the knock on him was that “he can speak 12 languages but can’t hit in any of them.”

Berg signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1922 and used his bonus money to study at the Sorbonne in Paris. He spent 15 years as a major leaguer, retiring with a batting average of .243 in 663 games. Some may have wondered why a mediocre player like Berg went to Japan in the early 1930s with the likes of Ruth and Gehrig on an all-star traveling team. In fact, Berg was assigned to take espionage photos of Tokyo’s industrial facilities and skylines, pictures that were used to plan the bombing of that city during World War II.

After his baseball career, Berg made a name for himself as a spy in the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the CIA. Taking advantage of his multilingualism, the OSS sent Berg to Zurich to discern whether Germany was on the verge of building a nuclear device. If so, Berg was instructed to assassinate Werner Heisenberg, Germany’s leading physicist, and, if necessary, commit suicide via poison. After attending a lecture given by Heisenberg, Berg decided the Germans did not have sufficient knowledge to build the bomb, thus obviating the fatal alternative.

Berg declined the Medal of Merit for his wartime service and never wrote his memoirs after being angered by an assigned coauthor who confused him with Moe Howard of the Three Stooges

Legend has it that when Berg was criticized for wasting his intellectual talent on baseball, he replied: “I’d rather be a ballplayer than a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.” Irwin Berg said his cousin stayed in the game long after his best years were over because he loved baseball and the people involved with it.

Moe Berg died in Belleville in 1972. His sister, Ethel, with whom he lived during the last years of his life, took his ashes to Israel. To this day, no one knows where his remains are buried.

The next generation

“As an organization at the center of the Jewish community here in MetroWest for 128 years, the JCC wants to pay tribute to members of our community who have excelled in the world of sports or related areas over the course of their lives,” Jay Blumenfeld said prior to the event. “We are proud to be able to award these individuals this year’s honor and to celebrate their historic legacy.”

Sharon Seiden, chair of the JCC MetroWest board of trustees, introduced a group of younger athletes — and potential future inductees — who were about to participate in the Maccabiah Games in Israel. She bid them good luck in the upcoming competition, quoting tennis legend Arthur Ashe: “You are never really playing against an opponent. You are playing against yourself, your own highest standards. And when you reach your limits, that is real joy.”

The Maccabiah athletes included Liz Meltzer of Roseland and Jillian Carroll of West Caldwell, members of the field hockey team; Lisa Fischman, a basketball player from Bloomfield; Matthew Halpern, a Caldwell bowler; Nicole Halpern from Livingston, a student at Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union who will participate in volleyball; and Celine Pascheles, a tennis player from Livingston and a student at Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston who will compete for Switzerland.

Candidates for the MetroWest Jewish Sports Hall of Fame are required to be Jewish and either a native or current resident of the MetroWest community, which includes Essex and Morris counties and parts of Union County. They must be an outstanding amateur or professional athlete or coach or have contributed significantly to the world of sports through a related field or profession. Plaques commemorating each inductee will be on display in a new facility to be built at the Leon and Toby Cooperman JCC, Ross Family Campus, in West Orange sometime in the summer of 2006.

Ron Kaplan can be reached at RKaplan@njjewishnews.com.