Leon Feingold
Born	Leon A. Feingold (1973-05-01) May 1, 1973 (age 51) New York, New York
Education	State University of New York at Albany ('94) Hofstra University School of Law ('98)
Occupation(s)	Professional baseball pitcher, co-founder and Executive Director of The House of Good Deeds, attorney, and real estate broker
Height	6 ft 6 in (198 cm)[1]
Spouse	Yuanyuan Wang (m. 2016–d. 2017)

Leon A. Feingold (born May 1, 1973) is a former professional baseball pitcher, an advocate of responsible polyamory, a competitive eater, and co-founder and Executive Director of the House of Good Deeds, an altruistic organization focused on helping others.

Feingold has had varied pursuits in his life. He pitched in the Cleveland Indians minor leagues organization, and was the 2007 Israel Baseball League Player of the Year. As a competitive eater, he has been ranked #12 in the world by the International Federation of Competitive Eating. An advocate of responsible polyamory, he helped launch New York City's first openly polyamorous residence. In 2017 he co-founded the House of Good Deeds, an altruistic organization focused on helping others by picking up all manner of donated items and delivering them for free to others, and he serves as its Executive Director.

Feingold was born in Queens, New York City, grew up middle class in Oceanside, New York, and is Jewish.^[1][2][3][4] He played baseball in the NCSY chapter at the Hewlett-East Rockaway Jewish Center on Long Island.^[4] He also played soccer as a goaltender for the Oceanside United Soccer boys travel team, "the Algonquins."^[5][6]

Feingold attended and graduated from Oceanside High School in New York ('90), the State University of New York at Albany ('94), and Hofstra Law School ('98).^[7][4][8][9] As of 2018, he headed the Greater New York City chapter of MENSA.^[10] He has since lived in Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan in New York City.^[1]

From 1990–94, Feingold pitched for the Albany Great Danes baseball team of the State University of New York at Albany.^[11]

A 6' 6" (196 cm) right-handed pitching switch-hitting pitcher, he then pitched in the Cleveland Indians system, for the Butte Copper Kings in the Pioneer League in 1994, and the Burlington Indians in the Appalachian League in 1995.^[1][12][13] He subsequently pitched in the independent Atlantic League in 1999, and also played for the Pleasantville Red Sox in 2005.^[14][4][12] Former Major League player and Indians coach Billy Williams described him as: "The nicest guy I've ever met in baseball."^[8] His career was cut short by a series of shoulder injuries, culminating in a torn labrum and two surgeries.^[4][1][15]

With his shoulder feeling better, in 2005 and 2007 Feingold pitched in the Westchester-Rockland Wooden Bat League, one of the top ten U.S. semi-pro leagues.^[4][14][16] In 2010, he pitched for the New York Longhorns of the New York City Metro Baseball League.^[9]

Feingold, with his shoulder healed and throwing a 93 mile-per-hour fastball, was the first pitcher drafted by the Netanya Tigers in the former Israel Baseball League (IBL).^[1][17] He said: "Getting a chance to play baseball again on the same level is getting a second chance at something that most people don’t get a first chance at."^[18] In 2007 he pitched in 11 of the team's 40 games alongside Team Israel pitcher Shlomo Lipetz, 7 as a starter (2 of which were complete games), pitched in the IBL All-Star team, and was the IBL Player of the Year.^{[19][12][8][20][21][22]}

He has also gained repute as a competitive eater. Known as "Justice," Feingold reached the rank of #12 in the world by the International Federation of Competitive Eating.^[23][8][18]

In June 1999, he won the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest in Oceanside, defeating 300-pound-plus titleholder Eric Booker.^[24] In the 12-minuted competition, Feingold ate 15.5 hot dogs, winning by half a hot dog.^[24] Asked to comment on his victory, Feingold said: "The only thing is I keep a Kosher house, and I just won a year supply of hot dogs."^[24]

In 2005, he came in third in the Nathan's Famous World French Fry Eating Championship, behind winner Edward "Cookie" Jarvis and silver medalist Tim Janus.^[25] He won the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest Regionals three times, and competed in the July 4 World Championships at Coney Island three times. He was the second person in history to successfully complete the Carnegie Deli Challenge (two 3½ pound sandwiches of turkey, corned beef, Swiss cheese, and toppings in one sitting), doing it in just under two hours (Ed "Cookie" Jarvis completed the challenge the same day an hour later, after three hours of eating).^[26] He has appeared on several televised eating contests, including the US Open of Competitive Eating^[27] and The Glutton Bowl.^[28]

Feingold is an advocate of responsible polyamory, and has spoken on the subject in the media.^[29][10][30] He has appeared solo and with others to discuss responsible nonmonogamy as a guest on The View,^[31] Huffington Post^[32] The Atlantic,^[33] Quartz,^[34] and others, plus featured spots in the HBO documentary Americans in Bed,^[35] and an episode of Season 2 of Vice Media's television documentary series Slutever.^[36]

In May 2014, Feingold helped launch New York's first openly polyamorous residence in a Bushwick, Brooklyn, three-story, 15-room brownstone, as the building's spokesperson, broker, and attorney.^{[37][38][10][30][39]} It was for people open to responsible polyamorous relationships or who are willing to live in a judgment-free environment that accepts others' lifestyles that may differ from their own.^{[38][10][30][39]} Feingold said that the polyamorous community sometimes found it to be difficult to finding space where the lifestyles of all involved would be accepted.^[39][30] He noted that it would not be a “swingers” pad, and that “It’s not a sex-fest. It’s not a place to come and get your freak on. It’s a place to come home to."^[38] He also noted that the house was not limited to people who were polyamorous, saying you simply have to be respectful of other peoples' life choices.^[40][41][42] He added that: "We’re not advertising. We’re not looking for other people. This is just friends, and friends of friends."^[30] Two years later he noted that while the decision generated a good deal of publicity, often from journalists who expected that the building would essentially be a “sex house,” many of the tenants had one or more outside partners, and "in-house hookups are pretty rare."^[43]

He gave a TED Talk on polyamory at TEDxBushwick on March 21, 2015.^[44]

Feingold became engaged in October 2016 to Yuanyuan Wang. Days later they learned that Wang had metastatic endometrial cancer, with 70 tumors throughout her body.^[45][46] After she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, in January 2017 they co-founded the House of Good Deeds (formerly the Church of Good Deeds).^[47][48] They married in November 2016; Wang died in March 2017 at 39 years of age.^[49][47]

The House of Good Deeds is a humanist, altruistic organization focused on helping others.^[48][47] The goals of the organization are to help those in need, and to rescue usable items from being discarded into a landfill.^[47][50] Unlike other organizations, it puts free donations directly into the hands of people who need them, rather than giving them to charities that primarily sell the merchandise and use the proceeds to fund their work.^[2] It developed into a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit with a board of directors, hundreds of volunteers, three company vehicles, and storage units in Queens and Long Island, New York.^[46] Feingold said, "This is one way of keeping my wife's memory alive, because this was her idea and it's something we both really enjoyed, volunteering together." ^[47]

Feingold is the Executive Director of the organization.^[51][50] He runs and works for the organization, a network of hundreds of volunteers, and does not draw a salary.^{[2][48][45][47]} He picks up donated food in the organization's bus and brings it to a local family shelter each week, collects boxes of clothing, toys, books, housewares, refrigerators, air conditioning units, electronics, toiletries, cleaning supplies, and other donations for the organization’s monthly free giveaways, and he and other organization members take part in neighborhood clean-ups and educational workshops and sponsor blood drives.^{[46][45][47][2]} The organization announces its giveaways on social media pages, such as its Instagram page.^[47][2] The organization picks up and delivers items in the five boroughs of New York City.^[2] In its first four years it took in and disbursed – for free – over 150,000 pounds of items.^[2]

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer said that the organization makes a huge contribution.^[2] Jackie Tian, the manager of the Levain Bakery on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, donates unsold pastries and said: "Leon has no hidden agenda. He helps everybody.... It’s like ‘what does he get out of it?’ Nothing, except that he wants to help people.... He says, ‘Just pay it forward.'"^[2]

Feingold works as an attorney and a real estate broker.^[4][10]

• 2007 Israel Baseball League Player of the Year.^[21]
• Spectrum News NY1 named Feingold "New Yorker of the Week" on March 6, 2023, for his founding of his organization that connects people to volunteer opportunities.^[45]

• Tsoulis-Reay, Alexa (2015). "What It's Like to Be a Polyamorous Genius". New York Magazine.
• Leon Feingold (June 9, 2015). "Polyamory," TEDxBushwick