blogs/rabbi-huberman

I recently received a call from a friend letting me know what one of the greatest baseball games ever pitched was being re-broadcast on ESPN.

Moments later, my eyes were fixed on an historic event which occurred on October 8, 1956. On that day, journeyman pitcher Don Larsen, 27, pitched what would become the first and, to this date, only perfect World Series game.

There they were in their glory-fifteen future Hall of Famers, among them Mickey Mantle, Duke Snyder, Jackie Robinson, Yogi Berra-rattling round the bases in their baggy flannel uniforms.

As I kicked back in my chair watching those ill-fitting old uniforms, I couldn't help but think, “Those were the days.” In 1956, baseball was about the game, before logos and decals splashed across jerseys. Before professional sports turned into a tournament of egos.

As Jackie Robinson stepped to the plate leading off the eighth inning-days before he ultimately retired from baseball-the camera panned across Yankee Stadium.

There was not a single tank top, t-shirt or pair of shorts in the crowd of more than sixty four thousand. All I could see were suits and top hats.

So neat, stylish, respectable. And then I thought, “When did the way in which we present ourselves in public stop mattering?”

Did we lose something important during the '60s and '70s, when it became more important to focus on personal expression than on the dignity of a given event?

This week, reading what some consider the most boring Parashah in the Torah got me thinking about that game again, and of uniforms - both then and now.

Tetzaveh sees God further instructing the Israelites how its priests, the Kohanim, should be dressed as they cared for the Ten Commandments and the Tabernacle.