(CHICAGO) — Aligning with the 50th anniversary of Sandy Koufax’s perfect game against the Cubs and Koufax’s iconic decision to not pitch Game 1 of the 1965 World Series because it fell on the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur, founder and CEO of Jewish Baseball Player.com Greg Harris stopped by Sports Feed Tuesday to share the story of the roles Jews like Koufax played in baseball.
Harris came up with the idea of a Jewish Baseball portrait after seeing a similar one in Cooperstown depicting Negro League stars. He shares the story of how he started the project and traveled more than 13,000 miles and 12 states to get current and former baseball players and executives like Koufax, Steve Stone, Theo Epstein and Jerry Reinsdorf to get involved.
The project has raised more than $150,000 for various charitable causes thus far, with a goal of reaching $500,000.
