Play Ball with the Mandell JCC Jewish Book Festival Jews In Sports Event, Featuring Authors Mark Kurlansky and Doug Stark, Sunday, March 11, 2012

Take a fan-friendly look into the past with Jews in Sports, part of the Mandell JCC Jewish Book Festival on Sunday, March 11, 2012 at 1:00 p.m. in the Herbert Gilman Theater at the Mandell JCC, Zachs Campus, 335 Bloomfield Avenue, West Hartford, CT. The event features authors Mark Kurlansky and Doug Stark, with moderator Brad Drazen, morning co-anchor of NBC Connecticut News Today.

Mark Kurlansky is the author of Hank Greenberg: A Hero Who Didn’t Want to Be One, which explores the truth behind the slugger’s legend, including the complexity of his decision not to play on Yom Kippur, and the cultural context of anti-Semitism in which his career played out. Kurlansky also wrote The Eastern Stars: How Baseball Changed the Dominican Town of San Pedro de Macoris, and contributed to twenty prize-winning books.

Doug Stark is the author of The SPHAS: The Life and Times of Basketball’s Greatest Jewish Team. His book is the first to tell the story of the only professional Jewish basketball team in the mid-1940’s through the late 1950’s from Philadelphia. Doug’s sports museum career includes positions with the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA, and the United States Golf Association Museum in Far Hills N.J. He is currently the Director at the International Tennis Hall of Fame & Museum in Newport, RI.

Tickets to the Jews in Sports Mandell JCC Jewish Book Festival event are $20 per person, $10 for students, and are on sale via mail, in person, fax, or online at the Mandell JCC Box Office, 860-231-6316, and the Member Services Center, 860-236-4571, or at www.mandelljcc.org. For more information, contact Jewish Book Festival Director, Elana MacGilpin, 860-231-6327, emacgilpin@mandelljcc.org. For updates, follow the Mandell JCC on Facebook and Twitter.