Isidore "Izzy" Goldstein (June 6, 1908–September 24, 1993) was a right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball. He was born in 1908 in Odessa, Russian Republic (now apart of Ukraine) moving to the United States around the early 1920s and attended James Monroe High in Bronx, NY.^[1]

Early years

Goldstein’s family lived in the predominantly Jewish Soundview neighborhood in the Bronx, New York. Izzy’s life comes into focus around 1920, when he entered high school. Goldstein flubbed his first attempt at high school at George Washington High. Breaking from the Jewish immigrant stereotype, he was both inept and disinterested in school. This led Goldstein, who was a well-established local baseball player, to drop out of school and join a local semipro baseball team in an effort to jumpstart a professional career. Since he was too young and inexperienced to make baseball his career, this ill-advised move was doomed to failure from the start.^[1]

With his professional career floundering and the James Monroe High baseball team in need of a pitcher, Izzy decided to give high school another try. Tom Elliffe, the James Monroe baseball coach, was ambitious enough to try to lure Izzy back to school, feeling a desperate need for a pitcher to boost his team’s already considerable success. Treating the high school as if it were merely a bureaucratic hurdle, Elliffe and Goldstein brokered a deal that made Izzy the team’s star pitcher in exchange for members of the team doing his homework and taking his tests. Izzy re-enrolled in high school, joining future Hall of Fame slugger Hank Greenberg (who lived a few doors down from Izzy) as a core member of the team. Elliffe’s gambit paid off, as Goldstein, Greenberg, and the rest of the team made it all the way to the city finals, though they ultimately lost 4-1 at the Polo Grounds. Izzy picked up the loss.^[1]

After the tournament, Goldstein dropped out of the eleventh grade for the second time. A year after his ill-fated attempt at semi-pro ball, he decided to give a pro career another try. Goldstein, a right-handed, 6 feet (1.8 m), 160 pounds (73 kg) fireballer,^[2] appeared to have the right makeup this time, becoming a star on the Sea Cliff team that played out of Long Island.^[1]

Word of mouth about the talented youngster from Soundview quickly spread throughout the neighborhood as Izzy steamrolled his competition. He spent only a brief time toiling in semi-pro ball before he signed with the Detroit Tigers organization, beginning his professional career in earnest. Before the start of the 1928 season, Goldstein was sent to the Wheeling Stogies of the Class C Mid-Atlantic League. He displayed remarkable prowess in West Virginia, finishing with a 12-9 record and a 3.61 ERA.^[1]

Professional career

Minors

The Tigers were impressed and promoted Goldstein to their Class B team in Illinois the next year. Goldstein’s success with the Evansville Hubs of the Three-I League in 1929 — a 12-8 record with a 2.74 ERA — should probably have been enough to get him promoted to the Class A team in Beaumont. The Tigers decided to keep Goldstein in Evansville for another year, however. Izzy finished the 1930 season with another strong showing, compiling a 14-11 record and a 3.52 ERA.

A possible reason for Goldstein’s additional year in Evansville may be that he was pitching in the shadow of future all star Whitlow Wyatt. Despite his considerable success in 1929, Izzy’s numbers were not as gaudy as Wyatt’s 22-6 record and 3.04 earned run average. While the two pitchers ended up sharing the same locker room a number of times, first in Evansville (1929), and then in Beaumont (1931) and Detroit (1932), their professional careers were a study in contrasts. For the rest of Goldstein’s career, Wyatt would serve as a natural comparison, the contrast between the fringe player and the star.

Izzy’s 1931 season began with the Class AA Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League. Before he got a chance to pitch on the West Coast, though, he was once again on the move. Goldstein spent almost the entirety of the season with the Class A Beaumont Exporters of the Texas League. This was an important move that brought him back in contact with his old high school acquaintance Hank Greenberg and introduced him to future star pitcher Schoolboy Rowe.

In Texas Goldstein once again rose to the occasion. Showing that he was evolving as a pitcher, Izzy put up almost the same numbers with Beaumont as he had with the lower-level teams, collecting a 16-11 record and a 3.58 ERA. After four seasons of solid performances, the Detroit Tigers front office could not overlook Izzy much longer.^[1]

Majors

In 1932 the Tigers acknowledged Izzy’s talents with an invitation to spring training. It quickly became clear that the Tigers were not inviting him simply to fill out the ranks, but rather were hoping Izzy could win a spot on the big club’s pitching staff. He took a major step toward this end on March 16 when he teamed with veteran starter Vic Sorrell to beat the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League. Goldstein came into the game in the sixth inning and promptly loaded the bases, only to get out of the inning without surrendering run. Izzy breezed through the rest of the game and the Sorrell-Goldstein three-hit shutout gave Goldstein his first hint of big league recognition. Despite a strong showing in spring training, the Tigers sent Goldstein back to Beaumont to start the season. Not usually one to put up gaudy numbers, Izzy pitched like a man possessed, going 6-1 with a 1.58 ERA. This success led to his promotion to the Tigers in April. Izzy made his major league debut at Navin Field in Detroit on April 24, 1930.

Exactly one month later Izzy picked up his first win in the big leagues. At Navin Field, he started against the St. Louis Browns. Likely interested in seeing what Izzy could provide as a starter, Tigers manager Bucky Harris left him in the game for seven and one-third innings, in spite of the five runs and ten hits he surrendered. Whitlow Wyatt was brought in to finish the game, helping Izzy top the Browns’ Dick Coffman and attain his first career win.^[1]

Though Goldstein had secured a “W,” his performance didn’t indicate that the kid from Odessa had big league talent. A little more than a month after his first win, Izzy pitched the game of his life, perhaps trying to show his real talents. On June 27 the Tigers took on the White Sox and Harris handed the ball to Izzy. Goldstein responded with a thrilling outing, displaying both undeniable talent and unnerving wildness. The Tigers beat the White Sox 9 to 3 behind Izzy’s complete game, as he allowed three earned runs on just five hits, though he also walked five and hit two White Sox batters. Unfortunately, his breakout game showed both his strengths and weaknesses, including a propensity for walks, wild pitches, and hitting batters.

Izzy’s finest major league outing would also be his last. He was permanently demoted following the win. Goldstein’s final statistics with the Tigers are an interesting smattering of the good and the bad. In 16 games, including six starts, he went 3-2, throwing two complete games and finishing six others. Though his 4.47 ERA was marginally better than the league average and his .294 batting average (5 for 17) showed considerable talent, Izzy’s skills were not fully harnessed. He gave up 63 hits and 41 walks for an ugly 1.846 WHIP, and he accrued only 14 strikeouts over 56 1/3 innings.^[1]

End of a career

Goldstein finished up the 1932 season with the Class AA Toronto Maple Leafs of the International League, a spell that signaled the beginning of the end of his career. Suffering a major arm injury late in the 1932 season, Goldstein turned in a lackluster 1933 season with the Maple Leafs, going 9-7 with a 4.17 ERA. It is hard to say what proportion of Izzy’s worst season in pro ball can be attributed to his injury. It is tempting to believe his regression in Toronto was a combination of the physical and mental.

Izzy came to the conclusion that the 1933 season had been his last in professional baseball. He soon became dissatisfied with his choice and decided to attempt a return to baseball. Given his track record of minor league success, the Tigers invited Goldstein to spring training in Florida the next year, though Izzy found his residual arm troubles made a comeback all but impossible. While being technically demoted to the ClassAA Montreal Royals of the International League, Goldstein never pitched for them, deciding instead to retire for good.

Despite his arm woes and the crushing end of his once-promising career, Izzy returned to playing in the semipro leagues of New York. Unable to pitch regularly, he played as an outfielder, since he had always been an excellent hitter. From 1934 to 1938 Izzy stoked his passion for baseball by playing with the Bushwicks, the Carltons, and the Bay City Parkways.^[1]

Personal life

With the end of the 1938 semipro season, Goldstein retired from baseball. On April 6 of that year he had received his official release from the Detroit Tigers, severing his ties to major league baseball. Goldstein hung up his spikes and began working in a men’s wear retail business in New York City. Though he came to the field later than the many Jewish immigrants of his generation who dominated the business, Goldstein’s career selling men’s clothing once again firmly places him within the Jewish immigrant experience.

Izzy spent the next five years selling men’s wear. With the outbreak of World War II and the onset of the draft, however, he left his new career. The thirty-six year old Goldstein was drafted on September 4, 1943. Single and without dependents, he was sent to the dangerous [Pacific Theatre|South Pacific theater]] of the war, serving there from 1943 to 1945. With the end of the Second World War, Goldstein returned to America and slipped back into his pre-war life in the clothing business. Though Goldstein’s maturation was slow, his life after the war was that of a responsible adult and citizen. Gone was the rash youth who twice dropped out of school. Over the next thirty years, until 1975, Izzy continued working in men’s wear, retiring at the age of 68. Like so many Jewish immigrants of his and later generations, Izzy moved with his wife, Caroline Levine, to Florida to escape the bitter winters of the Northeast.^[1]

Izzy retired to anonymity until 1985, when Erwin Lynn interviewed him for The Jewish Baseball Hall of Fame: A Who's Who of Baseball Stars. With a rising interest in social histories of sport, Izzy had become a notable figure for Lynn and others who wished to document the history of Jewish baseball players. Recovering from open heart surgery and a stroke, Izzy reminisced for Lynn’s book, clearly missing the game he was now fifty-two years removed from. He ended his interview by humbly noting that, at the age of seventy-seven, “it is flattering that people still remember.”

On September 24, 1993, Goldstein passed away at Delray Beach, Florida, at the age of 86. He was buried at the Jewish Eternal Light Memorial Gardens in Boynton Beach, Florida.^[1][3]

See also

• The Jewish Baseball Hall of Fame: A Who's who of Baseball Stars, by Erwin Lynn, Shapolsky Publishers (1986). ISBN 9780933503175

External links

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball Reference
• SABR Biography

References

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