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The Shimon and Sara Birnbaum JCC in Bridgewater hosted "Day by Day in Jewish Sports History" with Bob Wechsler Feb. 22, as part of the JCC's Jewish LIFE (Learning is for Everyone) series.

Wechsler is a sports editor at the Express-Times in Easton, Pa. The book, which was published in 2008, covers every Jew that has played in any professional sport.

The first Jewish baseball player was Lipman Pike, who at the age of 25 broke into the league in 1871 with the Troy Haymakers, he said. Pike was also the first home run champion, Wechsler said.

"If you track the home run champions from Barry Bonds to McGuire, from Maris to Babe Ruth, going all the way back, the first home run champion was Lipman Pike," Wechsler said.

The first batter in Fenway Park was Guy Zinn, a Jewish ballplayer from the New York Highlanders, currently the New York Yankees, he said. Moreover, he scored the first run in Fenway after drawing a walk and scoring after one of his teammates drove him in. Hence, not only did a Yankee score the first run in Fenway Park, but a Jew did as well.

Wechsler said the first unanimous most valuable player (MVP) in baseball was Al Rosen, who played baseball in the 1930s.

When basketball first began in 1946, the majority of its players were Jews, Wechsler said. The first Jewish player in the National Basketball Association was Twister Steinberg. Wechsler said the reason there were so many Jews in the NBA when it first started was because many immigrants flocked to urban areas like New York, Chicago, Boston.

"In 1946, the New York Knicks traveled to Toronto -- it was the first NBA game there in history," he said. "Four of the five starters on the Knicks were Jewish. The Knicks had four forwards that year and by the end of the year all of them were gone because of anti-Semitism."

Currently, in the NBA there is one Jewish player, Jordan Farmar, who plays guard for the Los Angeles Lakers. Wechsler said Farmar is the first Jew to play in the NBA since Danny Schayes retired in 1999.

Many players converted to Judaism while playing, Wechsler said. On the other hand, many players converted out of Judaism while playing because they didn't want to be recognized as Jews, he said.

"If they convert out and they don't want to be identified as Jewish, they're not in the book," he said. "If they converted [to Judaism] while they were players, they're in the book."

Major League Baseball currently has the most Jewish players since 1938, he said. The majority of the Jewish baseball players have statistics such as their batting average, home runs, and pitching that are similar to most of the players in the league.

"The only thing we're a little short on is stealing," Wechsler said. "It was easier to make it as a manager."

Additionally, the first Jewish basketball All-American in collegiate sports was Ed Wineapple who played basketball for Providence College in 1929, Wechsler said. The first Jewish college football player was Moses Henry Epstein who played for Columbia University in the third college football game ever played, against Rutgers University. Currently, two of the most prominent Jews in collegiate athletics are Duke forward John Scheyer and Tennessee Head Coach Bruce Pearl.

Three of the major four sports have Jewish commissioners; David Stern the commissioner of the NBA, Gary Bettman of the NHL, and Bud Selig of MLB, he said. Today, in sports, the number of Jewish owners outweighs the amount of Jewish players. Some of the owners are: Mark Cuban of the Dallas Mavericks, Bruce Ratner of the New Jersey Nets, Jerry Reinsdorf of the Chicago Bulls, Dan Gilbert of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Ed Snider of the Philadelphia Flyers, Arthur Blank of the Atlanta Falcons, Daniel Snyder of the Washington Redskins, and Fred Wilpon of the New York Mets.

There are many athletes who do a great deal for the Jewish community, he said. Two of the players are Gabe Kapler, an outfielder for the Tampa Bay Rays, and Kevin Youkilis, the first baseman for the Boston Red Sox, he said.

Wechsler said one athlete he was surprised is Jewish is Olympic figure skating gold medalist Sara Hughes of Great Neck, N.Y. Prior, to her winning gold medals in 2002, it wasn't widely known that she was Jewish, he said.

"Nowadays everybody knows about the Jewish athlete," he said. "Somehow Sarah Hughes slipped through the cracks and after she won the gold medal, it came out that her mother was Jewish and her brothers were both bar mitzvahed. That one seemed to get by everybody."

Some of the current Jews in sports include: Jeff Halpern of the Tampa Bay Lightning, Mike Brown of the Vancouver Canucks, Igor Olshansky of the San Diego Chargers, Jason Marquis of the Colorado Rockies, Ian Kinsler of the Texas Rangers, Olympic swimmers Dara Torres and Jason Lezak, and skater Sasha Cohen.

Howard Pearlson of Somerset said he was amazed by the persistence and commitment of the Jewish basketball players that helped the formation of the NBA.

"I was amazed at all of the Olympic skaters that were Jewish," Andy Scheffrin, of Somerset, said.