Baseball season is upon us and Hank Greenberg: The Hero Who Didn’t Want to Be One ,“a wonderful book”, according to the New York Daily News, is the newest addition to YUP’s Jewish Lives series, masterfully written by New York Times bestselling author, Mark Kurlansky.

Matters of personal choice easily become the defining qualities of celebrity scrutiny. When Hammerin’ Hank Greenberg decided not to play in the 1934Yom Kippur game against the Yankees, baseball went into an uproar. American Jews loved him, and many fans were furious. That Greenberg was to be identified with religiosity was peculiar, Kurlansky writes, because Yom Kippur “is a solemn day of fasting and prayer that is so significant in the Jewish religion that it is often observed by secular Jews—so-called Yom Kippur Jews. Greenberg was not even a Yom Kippur Jew. And yet his Jewish observance had become a national issue.”

This becomes the lens through which Kurlansky investigates Greenberg’s life, looking at his character both on and off the field to arrive at a portrait that wholly encompasses the at times conflicting demands of Judaism, athleticism, and heroism. When asked what quality most defined Greenberg as a man, Kurlansky responded: “his humility, without a doubt.”

Tomorrow at the 92^nd Street Y, Mark Kurlansky will appear for a talk about Hank Greenberg in conversation with David Margolick. And on April 8, Kurlansky will begin a national  twenty-city radio tour. For more news and updates, be sure to follow Hank Greenberg: The Hero Who Didn’t Want to Be One on Facebook.