Al Rosen has been called baseball’s third greatest Jewish player, behind only pitching wonder Sandy Koufax and the awesome slugger, Hank Greenberg. The muscular Rosen played third for the Indians for ten big league seasons before back problems forced him to retire. With a deserved reputation as a tough guy, Al Rosen would back down from no one, and unlike Jackie Robinson, who had to bear the torrent of insults thrown his way, Al Rosen did not turn the other cheek. But when Al Rosen missed a Triple Crown in 1953 in one of the worst ways you could think of, he actually defended the umpire that looked as if he had cost him the honor.
Born as a leap year baby in 1924, Al Rosen acquired the nickname “Flip” as a softball pitcher when he was a kid. Growing up without his father, Rosen was raised by his mother, aunt, and grandmother, who moved the family to Miami when Al was three. Rosen fought asthma as a child, but did not let it keep him off the ball fields. He enlisted in the Navy after Pearl Harbor and spent time in the Pacific fighting the Japanese. After his discharge in 1946 he became a member of the Pittsfield Electrics, a minor league team that he played for, leading the league in homers and runs batted in. Now dubbed the “Hebrew Hammer”, Rosen advanced to Oklahoma City of the Texas League in 1947, where he had one of the best seasons in the circuit’s history, being named the MVP. The Indians brought him up briefly at the end of “47, but with established star Kenny Keltner entrenched at third, it would be a couple more seasons before Al Rosen would get his chance. He spent 1948 mostly with Kansas City of the American Association, where he was voted Rookie of the Year. Finally, in 1950, Al Rosen was with the Indians and starting at third.
It was tough to be Jewish and in baseball at that time, and there were occasions that Rosen wished his name was not so obviously Jewish, so as to avoid the inevitable insults and comments from players and fans alike. But Rosen, who had been an amateur boxer and had his nose broken eleven separate times over the years, would not back down, and defending his heritage at every opportunity. Any anti-Semitic remark to Rosen was followed by his invitation to settle things under the stands after the game. Rosen used to cut his shirt sleeves and let his huge muscles bulge out, which may have been enough discouragement alone for some. In his first full season, 1950, Rosen led the American League with 37 home runs, the most by a rookie at that time. Al recorded the first of five consecutive one hundred plus runs batted in campaigns, and had he gotten into a starting role sooner, it is possible he would have had the numbers to gain entry into the Hall of Fame.
1953 was Rosen’s best year, yet the way it ended had to leave him wishing things had turned out differently for the rest of his life. Rosen easily led the league in runs batted in, his 145 being thirty more than Washington’s Mickey Vernon. Al clocked 43 round trippers, one more than the Athletics’ Gus Zernial. But he lost the batting title by a single point to Vernon in as awful a way as you could imagine. On the last day of the season, in his final time up, Rosen hit a tough grounder to an infielder and hustled down to first, but was called out by umpire Hank Soar because he actually beat the play but missed first base with his foot. The batting race was as close as could be, and the crowd let Soar have it. Meanwhile, the Senators learned that Rosen’s game was now over and that he was at .336. Vernon stood at .337, but was certain to bat one more time, until a pair of Senators made outs on purpose. One got picked off second after a double and another singled but kept running, tagged out at second to end the game and insure that Vernon won the batting title. Rosen, for his part, defended the call by Soar, even though it cost him a Triple Crown. “Soar called it right, and I’m glad he did. I don’t want any gifts. Why, I wouldn’t sleep at night all winter if I won the batting championship on a call I knew was wrong.” The sportswriters, seeing how Rosen had been denied by the antics of the Senators, made Al Rosen the first unanimous MVP of the league.
Rosen clobbered a pair of home runs and collected five RBI in the 1954 All-Star Game. The Indians ran away with the American League that year, winning 111 games, only to be upset by the Giants in the World Series, where Rosen hit just .250. After a solid year in 1955, but not as good as the previous five, Rosen began having trouble with his back. Whiplash from a car accident didn’t help matters, and the fans began to get on him. Al Rosen decided to retire after the 1956 season, and he became a successful stockbroker. Years later he came back to baseball as a front office executive, helping turn around the fortunes of teams like the Yankees and Giants. Rosen was named the Executive of the Year with San Francisco in 1987.
His lifetime totals of 192 home runs and 717 runs batted in could have been much higher had his career played out differently. In 1980, Al Rosen was inducted into the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. Rosen used to sit out on the Jewish High Holy Days, and after wishing he hadn’t been named Rosen while in the minors, he later said this after he became a star. “When I was up in the majors I always knew how I wanted it to be about me….Here comes one Jewish kid that every Jew in the world can be proud of.”
