Baseball is religion; there is no doubt about it. The game, as well as the community and industry that envelop it have all the mystery, beauty, and horrors of the religious life and religious history.
If you need convincing just visit Chicago and talk to a Cubs fan. I was there three years ago, arriving the day of the Cubs loss to the Dodgers in game four of the National League Divisional Series. By the time I touched down at O’Hare the game was over but the atmosphere was thick with a martyr’s agony and voices could be heard with a collected lament of Cubby fans, “My God, My God why have thou forsaken us again!”
I have to admit I was even feeling a bit slighted. I mean after all, imagine my disappointment as a baseball fan and at the least a Cubby sympathizer, having the fortune of being scheduled to be in Chicago during game five of the divisional series on a year when the Cubs looked poised to break a World Series drought of biblical proportions. I knew I couldn’t afford or acquire a ticket that would get me into that Holy of Holies, Wrigley field, but I could at least hang outside the temple gate in some bar in Wrigleyville and watch the game. It promised to be, beer in hand and greasy food in gut, an ecstatic experience with all of the movements of a pilgrims journey from despair to hope and back again.
On the day of game four I boarded a plane for Chicago, hoping and praying that the Cub’s would extend the series. Alas, I found myself at a local haunt in the Lincoln Park neighborhood having a $10 steak at 10:30 at night, sharing drinks and disappointment with the remnant of Cub’s fans just hours after their fleeting hopes of World Series redemption were brought to an end.
Cub’s fans talk about their pain and suffering with ease because they are so well acquainted with it. The Cubs, by their failure, exemplify the game of baseball far more then say the New York Yankees with all their success. I say this because baseball unlike any other game is marked by failure. What I mean is that even the elite hitters in the league still fail 2/3 of the time. This is one of the ways in which baseball is religion. Contrary to some ideas, it is often the inexplicable and universal suffering of humanity that draws people to worship, pray, and seek – the problem of suffering is not just a deterrent to faith but is also a portal into faith, finding their way through it, and creating hope out of despair.
The only thing worse than being a Cub’s fan is not being a Cub’s fan although White Sox fans would argue that point I’m sure. It is undeniable however that as a Cub’s fan you are a part of something unique and the solidarity and community created, not by victory but by defeat always in the shadow of victory, is as strong perhaps stronger than that of any dynasty.
There are many other reasons that baseball is religion. I mean, what other sporting event do you attend where the entire “congregation” of fans raises and sings together a hymn to that which they’ve come to worship?
There is of course the fact that it is a meditative game that moves slowly; a game in which careful nuances and scrutiny are often unnoticed and unexamined by the novice and which cost the game customers to the faster moving and blunt forces of other sports like football and basketball and ridiculous things like professional wrestling and ultimate fighting. It is the same as religion in our world. Whether it’s the fancy trappings of the evangelical mega churches or the latest in Oprah’s new age philosophers like Eckhart Tolle, we like our enlightenment “gift wrapped” and our religion served with convenience and a double short latte.
Baseball is like good food and God; it takes time. It takes repetition. Swing after swing, pitch after pitch, ground ball after groundball and they play almost every day. Baseball players are the monastic’s of sports. Their lives have a rhythm that defines them; a daily offering of devotion, practice, and prayer that shape and form them.
As I wrote this essay the first time the Phillies had a 3-1 series lead on the Rays and though the Cub’s weren’t in it there was still enough of the human stories to make it a religious experience. The improbable run of the Rays; going from worst to first, is a radical and powerful story of baseball redemption. Jamie Moyer, as old as Moses in baseball years, leading the Phillies towards the promised land – “who am I” you can almost hear him say; his slow pitches being used like Moses slow speech to lead a community out of the slavery of mediocrity.
It seems whatever happens it remains true that baseball is a religion unto itself and that is perhaps why it is the holiest and most spiritual of the games. Former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent said it well,
“Baseball teaches us or has taught most of us, how to deal with failure. We learn at a very young age that failure is the norm in baseball and precisely because we have failed, we hold in high regard those who fail less often – those who hit safely in one out of three chances and become star players. I also find it fascinating that baseball, alone in sport, considers errors to be part of the game, part of its rigorous truth.”
Let’s not forget the experiential truth of baseball; it has all the smells and bells of the most elaborate Easter Orthodox service. There is the murmur of the crowed that swells in hopeful prayer, devastated lament, and ecstatic thanksgiving. The sharp edges of the temple defined by green, brown, and white lines illuminated by thousands of lights shining the same on the common folks in the cheap seats and the luxury boxes; our noses filled with the incense of freshly cut grass, oiled leather, hot dogs, roasted peanuts, and beer.
“Is this heaven”? No, it isn’t Iowa either Mr. Costner, this is baseball which has endured and will continue to endure through steroids controversy, high priced salaries, and over commercialization because it alone has failure and error as a part of its rigorous truth; a part of the beauty of the game. We can all relate with the ball through our legs, the swings that never connect, and what it feels like when for that brief moment we succeed. We know the pain and the hope and to know it together unites us and envelops us in the most concrete form of grace; a community that shares a love and pursuit of something bigger than ourselves.
