By Rob Charry and Gabe Friedman
The Arizona Diamondbacks drafted Jacob Steinmetz 77th overall in the third round of the Major League Baseball draft on June 12. A Woodmere, New York, resident, Steinmetz is the first known practicing Orthodox player to ever be picked in the league’s draft.
“I always thought to myself that why can’t I be the first? There’s no reason why not,” he said.
The following day, the Washington Nationals selected Las Vegas native Elie Kligman with their final and 20th round pick, making him the second observant Orthodox player ever drafted into the league. According to MLB.com, Kligman, 18, has moved toward becoming a catcher but has also played shortstop and thrown the ball 90 miles an hour as a pitcher. Kligman switch-hits as well, a skill that boosts his future value.
Steinmetz, 17, was chosen far earlier than expected because MLB.com ranked him the 121st best major league prospect.
A 6-foot-5, 220-pound right-handed pitcher, Steinmetz spent the past year at ELEV8 Baseball Academy in Delray Beach, Florida, honing his mound skills while attending via Zoom the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway in Long Island. His fastball has reportedly reached as high as 97 miles per hour.
He recently received a scholarship offer from Fordham University.
Steinmetz keeps kosher and observes Shabbat, but he also pitches on the Sabbath. To avoid using transportation on Shabbat, he has booked hotels close enough to games that he can walk to them, the New York Post reported.
“It’s never been frustrating to me,” Steinmetz told the Post. “It’s just something I’ve always done. It makes me who I am. It’s definitely made [his life] different, but in a good way.”
Of keeping kosher in Arizona or on the road, he told JTA, “For food, I bring stuff. Now, with a lot of the attention I’ve been getting, it might be a little easier to find different places and different spots. I know Arizona has a big Jewish community, so there’s going to [be] a bunch of kosher food. Once I start moving up … the plan is to either ship food there or bring my own food or however I do that. It shouldn’t be that difficult for me.”
Starting pitchers in the Major Leagues only pitch every five days, so his schedule could theoretically be planned to skip Shabbat.
“The plan is to keep doing what I’ve been doing my whole life, where I’ve stayed nearby to the field and walk to the game on those days,” Steinmetz said.
Kligman does not play on Shabbat. “That day of Shabbas is for God. I’m not going to change that,” he told The New York Times in March.
His father, Marc, is a lawyer and licensed baseball agent who represents his son. Marc Kligman was traveling with Israel’s baseball team, currently on a pre-Olympics road trip full of exhibition games across the Northeast, when he heard the news about the drafting of his son.
“Here’s a kid who won’t put God second,” Marc Kligman told the Times. “But he believes that the two can coexist. He’s got six days of the week to do everything he can to be a baseball player, and if colleges and Major League Baseball aren’t inclined to make any changes, then we’ll take what we can get.”
Steinmetz comes from an athletic family. His father, Elliot Steinmetz, played basketball at Yeshiva University and is now the New York college’s basketball coach. He had coached the team to record success before the pandemic.
Among the Orthodox athletes that Steinmetz has consulted with is Tamir Goodman, a Baltimore native and former Talmudical Academy student. In 1999, Goodman was dubbed “the Jewish Jordan” by Sports Illustrated and considered one of the best high school basketball prospects in the nation.
“When I look back at it and hear stories about what Jacob’s doing, it just makes me so happy because it makes me feel that these ups and downs I went through [happened] so the next generation — Jacob’s generation — could be a little smoother for them,” Goodman, now 39 and living in Jerusalem with his wife and five children, told the Post. “Maybe he doesn’t need to explain as much, or God forgive he doesn’t have to go through some of the things I went through. It’s very exciting for the Jewish community.”
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