My latest: Meet Chaim Bloom, VP of the Tampa Bay Rays
Even if you don't like baseball, you'll like this one
At the end of March, while much of the Jewish world was in Washington D.C. attending or covering the AIPAC conference, I traveled many miles away to Florida to engage in far more important work: attending pre-season baseball games. Why? Well, here’s the opening of my new feature, which drops today in Tablet to mark the first week of the season:
When you walk into the office of Chaim Bloom, the senior vice president of baseball operations for the Tampa Bay Rays, one of the first things that stands out is a large jar of gefilte fish.
It has been there for over a decade, a testament to one of the most unusual—and certainly one of the most Jewish—bets in baseball history. As Bloom explains, the fish is a holdover from Passover circa 2006-2007. Thanks to the holiday’s dietary restrictions, Bloom subsists throughout on jars of store-bought gefilte fish that he brings to the office. That year, one of the team’s longtime employees was passing through and asked about the stuff.
Did Bloom like it? The man inquired dubiously. “I said, ‘No, I actually think it’s sort of gross, but it’s just kind of what you do,’” Bloom recalled, “Which I do—I think it’s sort of gross.” Bloom promptly offered his interlocutor a taste, who declined. “He said, ‘No way, that sounds terrible.’” Then, however, came the challenge: “He said, ‘I’ll tell you what, if we win the World Series, I’ll eat that jar of gefilte fish.’”
“So now we’re still waiting 10-plus years later, but I have not gotten rid of the jar,” said Bloom. “I don’t know if it’s actually still edible. But we’re gonna find out.”
Because if there’s one thing Bloom intends to do, it’s to win that World Series. At age 36, the Yale-educated executive oversees some 200 employees at what the New York Times calls “baseball’s most innovative think tank,” the Tampa Bay Rays. Last season, the team had the sixth-best record in the American League, despite running the lowest payroll of all 30 teams in the sport. The Rays’ ability to outperform their resources and expectations has put Bloom in high demand. Over the summer, he was runner-up for the position of New York Mets general manager, and he has been courted by many other clubs looking to integrate the techniques that have bolstered the Rays.
How did a Jewish day school kid from Philadelphia rise to the upper echelons of baseball? What are the secrets to his team’s success? And does anyone actually know how to pronounce his name? I spent some time shadowing Bloom as he oversaw the end of spring training to find out.
Read the whole thing. You will not be disappointed.
(Photo by me of the eerily empty Tropicana Field, where Bloom and I talked while watching the Rays do their final pre-season drills.)
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