NFL

Original article was published on The Jerusalem Post

Eve Rosenbaum’s lifelong passion for baseball propelled her from Orioles fan to assistant GM, breaking barriers and driving the team’s resurgence.

Eve Rosenbaum, assistant general manager for Major League Baseball’s Baltimore Orioles, playfully traces her love for baseball and the Orioles to the first Orioles game she attended with her parents, twin brother, and older brother at just two months of age.

The family regularly made the 37-mile (60 km) trek from their home in the Washington, DC suburb of Bethesda, MD, first to Memorial Stadium, the Orioles’ old home, and then to Oriole Park at Camden Yards to see their beloved team play.

“We went to 60 games a year growing up,” Rosenbaum told The Jerusalem Post. “Baseball has always been in my blood!”

In 34 short years, Rosenbaum has progressed from fan to player on a boys’ Little League baseball team while in kindergarten, to catcher on her Walt Whitman High School team, and then to the Harvard University women’s softball team. Her journey continued with internships with Major League Baseball and the Boston Red Sox. Rosenbaum then veered slightly “off course” for a two-and-a-half-year stint with the National Football League before returning to jobs with her first love – baseball.

She worked for five years in the Houston Astros organization in various roles, including manager of international scouting, before returning to her childhood favorite team, the Orioles, in 2019. Rosenbaum initially served as director of baseball development and has been the assistant general manager for the past two years.

Baltimore Orioles starting pitcher Scott Feldman works against the Toronto Blue Jays into the eighth inning to pick up his first win as an Oriole during their MLB American League baseball game in Baltimore, Maryland July 14, 2013. (credit: REUTERS/Doug Kapustin)

As assistant GM, Rosenbaum notes that “there is no such thing as a typical day.” Her main focus is on day-to-day operations, which requires a great deal of planning and anticipation.

“I am constantly thinking of the team and the roster and what we will need, trying to think ahead.” Rosenbaum focuses on trades and transactions, on players being brought up from AAA [farm teams] or sent down to the minors. She stays in touch with coaches, trainers, and strength staff about players on the IL [injured list], monitors their rehabilitation, maps out their return, and juggles the overall 40-man roster. Rosenbaum also oversees international scouting, i.e. lots of travel.

Rosenbaum acknowledges that “the season is long, and it takes a lot of commitment and time – especially during these long summers when you have the draft in the middle of July, trade deadlines, and the normal day-to-day and roster considerations, players on the IL, rehab, and the playoffs!”

She admits that she “could use more sleep” and that “it is really a nonstop grind during baseball season,” but she loves her work, which often comes with perks.

On the day of our Zoom interview from her office at Camden Yards, Rosenbaum’s “to-do list” included bringing tickets to that evening’s Orioles/Washington Nationals game to the will-call window for family and friends from her years growing up in the DC area. Other perks of the job include interacting with two of her favorite Orioles players from her childhood.

“Cal Ripken and Eddie Murray are still revered here. Now I get to work with them sometimes at spring training and see them around the ballpark – that is surreal!”

In addition to Ripken and Murray, Rosenbaum credits Kim Ng, the first female GM in Major League Baseball, as a role model. Rosenbaum, who is the fourth woman to serve as an assistant GM in the major leagues, interned for Ng while in college. Ng served as GM of the Miami Marlins from 2020-2023.

“For any woman working in sports, she helped pave the way and will always be someone I look up to.”

Rosenbaum also credits her parents for all they have done over the years.

“It takes a lot to raise twins. I think a lot of my success can be attributed to my parents. They always believed in me and pushed me forward. Whatever I wanted to do, they were very supportive. They always told me that I knew how to throw a ball before I knew how to walk!”

While there are more men than women in senior leadership positions in Major League Baseball, Rosenbaum has observed a culture change.

“There are more and more women in baseball operations, whether it is serving as AGMs, VPs, directors, analysts, strength coaches, etc. [These days] you can enter the game not necessarily with a playing background, but with more of an analytical background, or by studying statistics or computer science, or being an athletic trainer or strength coach, or through working with a minor league team and slowly working your way through the ranks. You can do that if you are a man or a woman! There are definitely more women working in baseball.”

In addition to noticing more women in baseball, Rosenbaum reports that there are “a fair number of Jews in the front offices” of baseball teams.

“We don’t ask, but we just know it!”

She has encountered other Jews at baseball’s winter meetings, where they sometimes light Hanukkah candles together in the lobby.

“There’s quite a lot of us. We don’t necessarily explicitly acknowledge each other, but we know everyone’s last name.”

Rosenbaum also knows many of the current Jewish major leaguers, including Israeli Orioles pitcher Dean Kremer. She noted that she respects his role as a player and tries to keep a professional distance.

Rosenbaum spontaneously offers, “I don’t know what it is about the unique bond between Jews and baseball, but it doesn’t seem to exist in other major sports. I don’t know why that is. I have to study the history of it. But it is kind of just there – a proud tradition.”

Rosenbaum’s early life

Rosenbaum attended Hebrew school “like pretty much everyone else” and celebrated her bat mitzvah with her twin brother at age 13. Even the bat mitzvah party reflected her lifelong love of baseball.

“The theme for my half was baseball. We had a giant baseball cake, which every now and then I come across a photo of. It was a giant 3-D baseball! I am sure my parents still have a piece of it somewhere in their freezer.”

While Rosenbaum describes herself as not “particularly observant,” she is still in touch with many of her childhood friends.

“There is a large Jewish population in Potomac and Bethesda where I grew up. My old friends get together now and then on Jewish holidays and do things like play dreidel. We have our favorite bakery that makes the best challah here in Rockville – it is called Great Harvest.”

Rosenbaum has visited Israel twice.“We took a family trip when I was 3 or 4. I was very young, so I have no memory.”

In contrast, Rosenbaum remembers many details of her later-in-life Birthright Israel trip.

“Most of my friends went in college. Due to playing softball, I wasn’t able to go then. I went at 26 – right before you max out. I went with one of my best friends growing up. It was a lot of fun.”

Rosenbaum was taken by the history she experienced and by how much the group got to do over the course of the 10-day trip.

“It still amazes me how small the country is and how you can traverse it on a bus basically in a single day and be in all of these different environments.”

She recounted experiencing “bonfires in the desert, then hiking up a mountain where it is very hot, then going to the Dead Sea and eating ice cream while floating, and doing just a lot of fun things that you hear about… and also going to the Western Wall and Yad Vashem and meeting the soldiers and going to the museums and learning the history that I never learned about was really fascinating. It was a lot of fun. It was an incredible experience.”

Rosenbaum feels there is something very special about being Jewish.

“Something that has always stood out to me about Judaism is that it is always very accepting of people. It is not about what you can’t do – it is very accepting and welcoming of people. That is a nice aspect of it. It is a culture, a lifestyle, a way of life.”

In addition to her reputation as a young, up-and-coming mover and shaker in MLB, Rosenbaum is known for seeking out cold brew coffee both at home and on the road.

“It is very caffeinated and delicious and tastes like a milkshake.”

The cold brews should prove helpful as the Orioles enter the final stretch of the season. The Orioles were the first team in Major League Baseball to win 70 games and are in a very tight AL East pennant race with the New York Yankees with 29 games to go. Thanks to the efforts of Rosenbaum and Orioles management, the Orioles are on track to potentially win their first World Series since 1983.

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Original Article Published On The JNS

Dr. John Frank plans to attend Ramah Sports Academy in Connecticut—helping in the medical field and maybe telling some stories that other field with the NFL.

Some nice Jewish boys become doctors. One nice Jewish boy became a doctor while also playing in the National Football League.

When campers at Ramah Sports Academy in Cheshire, Conn., visit the infirmary this summer, they will get more than Band-Aids, throat lozenges and TLC from Dr. John Frank. They may also hear stories from the nice Jewish boy who began his medical studies while playing tight end with Joe Montana on two NFL Super Bowl San Francisco 49ers teams from 1984 to 1989. Campers may also learn that Dr. Frank was a founder of the Israel bobsled team.

Adam Benson and Graham Parker of New York City were thrilled when they learned their football-loving son, who is attending Ramah Sports Academy for the first time, would cross paths with Frank. Adam reports, “Max lives for football, and we think it is awesome that Max will be cared for by a camp doctor who is also a former NFL player.”

Camp director Rabbi Dave Levy could not be happier with Frank joining his staff this summer. “I was speaking with a pediatrician from Columbus, Ohio, whose two sons go to camp, and he said, by the way, I have a friend who might be up for coming to camp.” Frank, who splits his time between his practice in New York and his home in Columbus, is a board-certified otolaryngologist (ear, nose and throat doctor), as well as a diplomate of the American Board of Hair Restoration Surgery. He has treated more than 10,000 patients for hair loss and performed more than 2,500 hair transplants.

This summer, Frank, 59, will be attending camp along with his 12-year-old son, spending a week taking care of cuts and sprains, as well as oversee COVID-19 protocols. He will also coach flag football and share his wealth of stories about being a member of the NFL, sharing the importance of teamwork and his life as an observant Jew.

“I am excited to have him as a camp doctor and to use his football experience to create a positive experience for campers,” says Levy. “He will lead a multi-day flag-football experience and talk with the camp divisions about his NFL experiences, including what it was like being on a historic team in the 1980s and being Jewish in the NFL, and about whether it is worth the risk of playing football in its current form. I am excited to have the whole package; he is the embodiment of what our camp is about—Jewish life, sports and bringing those two things together!”

‘A strong legacy to uphold’

Frank grew up in Pittsburgh, attended Hebrew school and celebrated his bar mitzvah at Beth El Congregation of the South Hills. He reports, “I was into and not into Hebrew school, but was very much into learning for the bar mitzvah.”

He refers to his father, Alan, as “a celebrated athlete and Pittsburgh Jewish sports legend,” saying he “was a fantastic basketball player in college at Carnegie Tech,” which later became Carnegie Mellon University, and “a strong legacy to uphold.”

When it came time for John to become involved with sports, his mother was lukewarm at best with his desire to play football. His parents and grandparents insisted on examining his peewee football equipment to ensure they provided adequate protection. “I think my mother was terrified by the whole experience,” he recalls.

At every stage of Frank’s sports career, he was aware of just how good an athlete his father was. He feels his father “had it” innately, while he was “only an average football player until my senior year of high school. It just seemed to click.”

Frank attended Ohio State University, majored in chemistry and published academic papers while still an undergraduate. He always planned on attending medical school, even while playing football for the prestigious Ohio State football team.

The starting tight end at Ohio State from 1981 to 83, as well as a two-time Academic All-American, he caught more passes than any other tight end in the school’s history; became the team’s most valuable player; and was selected as a member of the All-Century Ohio State Football Team and Ohio State’s Varsity Hall of Fame.

Then Frank was invited to attend “the Combine,” the NFL’s major recruiting event and tryout in 1984, but he declined so he could study for final exams. Much to his surprise, he was drafted in June 1984 in the second round of the NFL draft by the San Francisco 49ers.

‘You know you are different’

In “NFL Films Presents,” Frank recounts the funny, somewhat embarrassing story of the telephone call from the 49ers coach. “Bill Walsh drafted me in the second round. I never anticipated playing in the NFL, so I didn’t know who he was. When I was in college, I wasn’t following the NFL—I was a chemistry major on the way to medical school. When the phone rang, he said it was the head coach to say congratulations. The only Coach Welsch I knew was the coach of Army at the time [George Welch]. I said, ‘Hi, Coach Welsh. He said, ‘No John, Coach Walsh. See you when you get out here.’

When Frank arrived at training camp, he was unfamiliar with the 49ers organization and didn’t know much about players on the team, though said he “had heard [quarterback] Joe Montana’s name since he was from Western Pennsylvania where I was from.”

He caught on to the organization and the team’s playbook quickly. His first catch in the NFL was for a touchdown at the Meadowlands in New Jersey during a Monday Night Football game.

Frank wasn’t the only Jewish player on the legendary 49ers team, which consisted of players from various religious backgrounds. “Harris Barton, the all-pro tackle, was the other Jew. We bonded. We had something special. We had fun on the team.”

While Frank says that he never experienced any difficulties being Jewish and notes that at the professional level, “it is a business,” and everyone is focused on the job, he observes: “When you are a Jewish athlete in the NFL, you know you are different.”

In fact, he recounts a touching story of Coach Walsh’s sensitivity. When Walsh read a story about anti-Semitic graffiti on a local San Francisco synagogue, he reached out to his player. “He pulled me aside, said he heard about the graffiti and said if you need to talk about the impact it is having, we are here. He was very sensitive,” remembers Frank.

During Frank’s first NFL season, he mostly worked as a reserve tight as the team went 18-1 and defeated the Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl XIX. He saw limited action due to an elbow injury. By his fourth season, he became the starting tight end. In his fifth and final season, he played in Super Bowl XXIII. He caught two passes, including one thrown by Montana during the winning touchdown drive. Following the game and to the surprise of many, Frank announced his retirement to devote himself full-time to medical school. During his five-year pro career, he caught 65 passes for a total of 662 yards.

Frank earned his M.D. from Ohio State in 1992 and completed his training in Chicago. He then established a plastic surgery clinic in San Francisco, specializing in cosmetic facial plastic surgery and hair transplantation. The NFL film, “Why John Frank, M.D., Choose Medicine Over a Career in the NFL” featured on Frank’s professional website shows his gentle touch and playful banter with a patient who consults with him for an ear problem. He notes that on occasion, patients learn his “back story” and ask about his NFL career.

As for his involvement with the Israel bobsled team, Frank recounts that years ago, he and a friend “were on a ski chairlift and were talking about the Jamaican bobsled team. We got the idea for an Israel bobsled team. It developed organically. It was really special.”

Frank, who also holds Israeli citizenship, notes that the bobsled team made it to the world championships in the early 2000s.

For now, he is getting prepared for and even excited about Ramah, just as campers look forward to returning after a year of too much time inside. “I am looking forward to being outdoors in the summertime, to be with my son, and to be around Jews and sports.”

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