Monday Musings on Sports - Munson, Memories and Memorials

As regular readers of this blog are aware, the Monday post was usually devoted to sports with highlights and analysis of the Max Kellerman show which formerly aired on 1050 ESPN Radio. As Max has resigned from 1050 and has not yet resurfaced on the NY area radio waves, I have decided to continue the tradition of linking sports to Torah which I believe was an undercurrent of the Max Kellerman show.

While driving in this morning, I heard an interesting discussion on the Mike and Mike in the morning program about how certain dates evoke memories. Examples of this are your birthday. When I see my birthday as the date that a decision was published or as the date of an event in a case I am working on, it evokes positive thoughts. Contrast that with September 11th, which always gives me chills when I see it as a deadline or a court appearance date. I actually still get strange feelings when I hear the newsman say the time is 9:11.

During the program, Mike Greenberg discussed how the date August 2nd will always stand out in his memory because that was the date that Thurman Munson died in a plane crash. I believe that he said that he stopped talking to a friend of his when he learned that her birthday was August 2nd.

The concept of dates having meaning beyond the actual calendar date also has its roots in Torah thought. The gemara discusses how Hashem told the Jewish people that since they cried for no reason on the 9th of Av (following the Meraglim's report on the Land of Israel), they would cry for generations on that date. The gemara then mentions multiple bad things which happened on the 9th of Av including the destruction of the First and Second Beis Hamikdash.

Of course, I would be remiss if I did not mention that August 2, 1979 (the date of the Munson crash) happened to be Tisha B'Av on the Jewish calendar that year. Yet another connection between sports and Torah.

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