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Only problem is, there are very few fellas on the wall. Sure, you've got your baseball heroes of old -- Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax -- and All-American poster boy Mark Spitz. But the rest of the mural space is taken up by significantly lesser figures; indeed almost a third of the names belong not to athletes but to coaches and local sportscasters, like Len Berman and Bill Mazer. (There's also a hilariously defaced Marv Albert, whose name has been scratched out.)

We Jews are not exactly renowned for our athletic prowess -- we're usually better at the management side of things. The four major professional sports leagues in North America know from what I'm talking about, as three of them have Jewish commissioners (Major League Baseball's Bud Selig, the NBA's David Stern and the NHL's Gary Bettman).

But recent developments in the sports landscape indicate that Jews are through wandering the athletic desert: Suddenly, bar-mitzvah boys are kicking ass on the diamond, the hardwood and the ice and in the ring. Soon, Mendy's might have to commission a new muralist.

Consider:

• There are currently nine Jews on Major League Baseball rosters -- almost enough for a minyan. Detroit outfielder Gabe Kapler enjoyed a much-heralded rookie season and three other chosen people -- Toronto outfielder Shawn Green and catchers Mike Lieberthal of Philadelphia and Brad Ausmus of Detroit -- were chosen for their respective leagues' All-Star teams, a religious record of some sort.

• Green is considered one of baseball's future superstars, and rumors have circulated in Gotham City that George Steinbrenner is eying Blue Jay Green in Yankee pinstripes, hoping to put Jewish fannies in his seats.

• Baseball will unveil its All-Century team next week during the World Series, and three Jews are on the ballot. Pitcher Sandy Koufax is a lock to make the squad, and this summer Koufax was a Sports Illustrated cover boy as the magazine's all-time favorite athlete.

• This summer, amusingly named Lenny Krayzelburg, a Ukrainian-born American, won the 100-meter backstroke at the Pan-Pacific Championships in Australia. He broke the world record and has his sites set on gold in Sydney 2000.

• Much has also been made of the up-and-coming young Orthodox basketball phenom in Baltimore, Tamir Goodman. Dubbed "the Jewish Jordan" by the national press, he was offered a basketball scholarship to the highly competitive University of Maryland Terrapins basketball program in his junior year of high school. Just last month Goodman rejected the offer, as he said the Maryland coaching staff frowned upon his refusal to play on the Sabbath. (Interestingly enough, the high school senior just transferred from his Talmudic yeshiva to Takoma Academy, which plays a tougher hoops schedule. It's also a Seventh Day Adventist high school.)

Next page | Sports that would never meet with a rabbi's approval, let alone a mother's