World Series Baseball Game to Be Played on Yom Kippur

This year–not for the first time–a World Series baseball game will be played on Yom Kippur. The 1970 series between the Cincinnati Reds and the Baltimore Orioles begins in Cincinnati this Saturday, which in addition to being the Day of Atonement is also the Sabbath. A spokesman for the Baseball Commissioner’s office here acknowledged to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that such scheduling, which prevents observant Jews from attending, watching (on television), listening (on radio) or playing in a game on Yom Kippur, “has been going on for so many, many, many years” that “there isn’t really much you can do about it.” The spokesman said the matter had been considered “very thoroughly, very carefully,” but that the team owners had accepted the predicament and decided not to make an issue of it. The owners, the source said, have consistently rejected the idea of World Series night games–scheduling, for example, this Saturday afternoon’s game for Saturday night–as being too radical a move. A special committee named by Commissioner Bowie Kuhn two years ago to recommend ways to improve the game apparently made no headway on the problem of series games on Yom Kippur.