By Scott Barancik/Jewish Baseball News

When Philadelphia Phillies prospect B.J. Rosenberg made his Major League debut last week (6/9/2012), Jewish baseball fans around the world dropped us a line to ask: Is he one of ours?

We asked the diligent researchers at Jewish Sports Review, and their answer was clear: Absolutely not, despite Rosenberg’s Jewish-sounding name.

Determining a player’s religion is an awkward enterprise, but there’s no room for guessing. That’s why we at Jewish Baseball News have launched a resource called Not a Jew. A complement to our catalog of Jewish ballplayers, the Not a Jew page lists the names of players frequently mistaken as Jews.

Categories on the Not a Jew page include “Players with Jewish-sounding names” (such as Rosenberg), “Players with Jewish ancestry who don’t consider themselves Jewish” (such as Cleveland Indians 2B Jason Kipnis, a practicing Catholic whose father is Jewish), and “Players rumored to be Jewish who aren’t” (such as Carew).

For updates to the list, click the new “Not a Jew” tab in our menu.

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