Comparison of religion to baseball

Which is more important, religion…or baseball? Or is baseball the ultimate religion? It’s a tough call. I grew up as a Jew (but not as a Red Sox fan) in the leafy East Midwood section of Brooklyn. Until the first time my father took me to Ebbets Field I’d only seen the Dodgers on the grainy TV in our living room. In black and white. I gasped for breath in astonishment when I saw the real thing. The vastness of the perfectly mown green outfield grass, the brown of the base paths, the sparkling white uniforms of the Dodgers, all a foretaste of heaven, I thought.

When the god-like players poured out of their dugout and ran to their positions, Hodges to First, Gilliam at Second, Pee-Wee at Short and Robinson at Third, the deep uncompromising ebony of Jackie’s skin made me feel proud to be a Brooklynite because, even then, I knew that we’d been the first to allow black people to play. We did that wonderful thing and changed the world. In the back of my mind I assumed that all the players were Jewish. I still do.

That the greedy unspeakable son of Satan, Walter O’Malley, would bring the team to Los Angeles was one thing (what could you expect from such a bottom line bottom feeder) but that my heroes would actually go was jaw dropping, bone shaking, stomach wrenching. We were betrayed; the joy of our lives was stolen. One hero remained pure though. Jackie. When he was traded to the hated NY Giants at the end of the ’57 season, he refused to go; instead he retired from baseball, pure as pure could be.

In later life I became a Red Sox rooter by choice, but in fact it wasn’t much of a switch at all. Ebbets Field and Fenway Park are very similar; the Yankees are still the archenemy. Like the Dodgers, the Sox have only reached the Promised Land of World Series victory once in my lifetime, in both cases having to defeat the Yankees to do it; like the Dodgers the Sox have heroes of the past, godlike figures who walked the earth (Smokey Joe Wood, Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski); we both have our traitors (Harry Frazee, Walter O’Malley) but only Boston had an official curse (of the Bambino). The Red Sox religion has uniforms (hats and jerseys); we have our priests (managers and coaches); we have our songs (Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” and the risqué “Dirty Waters” whenever we win at home); we have our epic stories, of Buckner’s bumble in ’86, of Fiske’s home run in ’75, of leaving Pedro in for just too long in 2003; we have our sacred space, Fenway Park, hallowed be its halls.

My other religion is a form of Judaism possibly unique to me. I attend synagogue, but don’t generally pray. I wear the uniform (tallit, tephellin and kippah); I sing songs in half understood Hebrew. I maintain a kosher diet, more or less, mostly more; I behave in what I hope is an ethical manner. I believe that God created the world and man, except when I believe that chemical forces interacted and KABOOM! there was the earth. Either way, it doesn’t particularly matter.

As I sing the songs in a language I only half understand I am in communion with my ancestors of a hundred or more generations, and, I hope, with my descendants for an equal amount of time; as I think about the half understood forces of nature being slowly unraveled by struggling human science I continue to wonder if the Almighty is the originator of the Big Bang. God only knows, but He’s not talking. Of this, though, I am certain: The whole thing is designed so that if we use our minds, not depend on revelation, we’ll figure out His physics. I read the bible. It has some powerful stories and some interesting perspectives on life and love as does Shakespeare, both being divinely inspired, and I go on with my life.

I wonder if those who insist that America is a Christian nation (in Kentucky the governor is demanding that textbooks refer to BC and AD, not to BCE and CE) intend to keep us non-Christians around once they’ve transformed our country into their theocracy. Religion ought to be like being a Red Sox fan. It should be uplifting; it can be community building. Only better. No one gets excommunicated; no one’s ever burned at the stake.

Go Sox! (=Amen).