I know. That’s exactly why I used it.
So?
Dude, what athlete doesn’t think God is involved when they win?
So they’re Christian. And they want other Christians. Big whoop. The Braves try to recruit local talent; should I pit them because I, a West Coast native, want to play for them?
Either way, I’ll take a handful of religious people over the East Massachusetts Yankees anyway.
I agree. It was infuriating watching my hometown Mariners dithering about whether or not to get rid of relief pitcher Julio Mateo after he was arrested in New York for beating the hell out of his wife. “Oh, but he’s been effective in his appearances against right-handers, and he eats innings, and the bullpen is tired—” Fuck that, he punched and choked his wife, get him out of the org, period. I don’t care if you scrub the scum from your team because you’re a Jesus freak who’s following Biblical dictates about peace and justice or because you’re a Green Forest Power Wiccan who wants to Eliminate Bad Energy or just because you recognize the asshole for who he is. Somebody does something socially unacceptable, fuck the stats, dump him.
That said, there is definitely an aura of self-righteous price in those quotes. Sure, they may have kept it quiet before, but now that it’s out in the open, they are definitely preening and strutting:
Yeah, that guy needs a kick in the nuts.
All the same, for anyone who’s been following sports the last couple of decades, this stuff is really nothing new. There’s an irritating undercurrent of “we won the game, God must have preferred us to the other guys,” as if there’s a Pray-O-Meter and whichever team manages to tip the needle during the pre-game spiritual begging will wind up with the W. It’s annoying, but with some effort, I’ve managed to drive it down to the level of background noise.
There are more important things to get stressed out about, I think.
A player said that it was God getting involved - not the whole team. One blown call at the right moment (as opposed to all of the other blown calls over the course of a season). I already said that I have an issue with claiming that God is on your side of a baseball game.
There are plenty of people who consider porn to be immoral - that is why it is heavily controlled by the government. Keeping out of the clubroom is like keeping it out of my office. If someone has porn on their screen in my office, they are told to get rid of it. This is not that unique of a request, and is standard business practice.
Some rap music was used as an example of music with offensive lyrics. They keep that out of the clubroom. This is also the same as the porn example. Put it on your ipod if you want to, the rest of us don’t want to listen.
Where in the article did it state that players are **coerced ** into attending religous meetings?
This is a tough call for me: I loathe obnoxious Christians, but then again, they’re playing the Red Sox, who are sort of Grayface incarnate. And I figure they’ll only get more annoying if they win the Series. So, somewhat reluctantly- Go-diddly-o, Rockareenos!
Hey now, it could be that God wants a particular team to win. What if He’s got money riding on the game?
My high school baseball team had a uniform with “Satans” in big, blue, cursive letters across the front. I loved that nickname! Officially, we were the Blue Devils but we sometimes used “Satans”, too.
What a great school! How cool that some of our teams played games in uni’s like that!
I wish the Sox could get some special uniforms like that made up just for facing the arrogant GodSquad.
I hope the Cockies rot in their own imagined hell.
Other teams need encouragement to beat the Yankees (aside from the Blue Jays, of course)?
You do have a point, though - while God doesn’t have any favorites among baseball teams, he does want the Yankees to lose. It is written.
I can’t get too excited about the religious angle, though one of my baseball fantasies is to strike out an obnoxiously Jesus-promoting batter in a key situation, and then point dramatically downwards.
As for the Rockies’ Christian edge, it might be nice if the Red Sox win the Series thanks to a few key hits by Kevin Youkilis. 
It should be noted that there’s a pro hockey player named Miroslav Satan. Fans at one of his games held up a banner reading “Satan is God”.
Dio, thanks for the info. I wanted the Sox to win anyway, but now I really want them to win, and hope an interviewer asks the Rockies about it afterwards- I’m sure they’ll have some readymade excuse about it making them stronger or being a test or whatever.
:eek:
Not to mention that the front office and the Locker Room Snitch Squad are forcing those beliefs on the other players, many of whom–since the Rockies have emphasized youth of late–can’t get an equivalent job anywhere else unless they stick it out for a few years, and maybe not even then.
Sure, if “better level of behavior” means “reading the Bible in the locker room”. I know a lot of people think that way, but the idea that it’s actually enforced (on at least a de facto level, as it seems to be) gives me the willies, personally. They certainly have a right to, but doing that to a lot of young men who probably can’t get a comparable job anywhere else in the major leagues is, for lack of a better word, utterly immoral.
Seems to me, the article didn’t specify whether the players were prohibited from listening to immoral music on a boombox and listening to immoral music at all. The latter was the impression I got.
…because Coors fucking sucks.
I have no sympathy for poor kids who can’t get a job as a major league ballplayer anywhere else. You get paid to play baseball - pretty good deal.
As for the music - the feeling I got was that there are no copies of men’s magazines lying around, and no offensive music playing where it could be heard. If someone is checking what is on a player’s ipod, I am sure that would have come out.
Finally - they key time they dumped a player they blamed it on him soliciting a hooker. Others pointed out that there might be other reasons, but that one worked.
That article was one of the most disturbing things I’ve read in a while.
Anyone know if Kaz Matsui has converted yet? 
My wife’s hometown is called Devils Lake. Her high school’s teams were (officially) the Devils Lake Satans. There is nothing cooler than hearing a crowd of people chanting “SATAN, SATANS, SATANS…” in a high school gym.
Ironically it also happens to b the same town where the movie, Jesus Camp was filmed.
Well it is good to know your All-Powerful myth failed 26 times in less than 100 years. Whatever power is behind the Yanks is apparently 1/3rd as strong as God. Who knew? 
Preach it Bro! You said what I could not articulate.
Jim
Yeah…religious people. It’s disingenuou to say that they’re discriminating on the basis of “character,” not religion, when they’re defining “character” purely in religious terms. There’s nothing immoral about soliciting a hooker or listening to rap or looking at girly pictures unless you have a religious hangup.
Porn is controlled by the government? In what sense? There are some restrictions on what kind of porn can be made and distributed but those restrictions have nothing to do with “morality.” They serve to prevent victimization of children or non-consensual participants.
Ok, good point.
You might try to draw a distinction between “strong encouragement” and “coersion,” but I don’t. I wonder if they “strongly encourage” the Jewish dude to go to their chapel and their Bible studies. I wonder how he feels when he heqars sanctimonious pronouncements about how much Christians have had to “endure,” and why Christians are better than other people.
The thing about a professional sports team is that their victories are primarily enjoyed by the fans. There’s probably not a thousand people who work for the Colorado Rockies’ baseball operations, but there’s millions of fans rooting for them, most of whom are not fundamentalist nuts. Since it is likely that many Red Sox fans are Christians, probably far more than there are people who work for the Rockies, it seems silly to root against Colorado because you want Christians to not enjoy a World Series victory. Like it or not, in the USA, a win by any team will cause rejoicing and praising of God in some quarters. Except the Yankees.
My newfound rooting interest has nothing to do with wanting Christians per se to win or lose anything (I’ll be rooting for a BAC in game 2). I want these particular assholes in the Rockies front office to lose because they are saying their Christianity makes them morally superior to every other team. Also because they have the gall to pretend that they’ve ever had to “endure” anything.
It’s only in the last 7 years that God has decided to take an active hand, rather than letting fans attain enlightenment through suffering.
I should mention that all the Rockies work out down the street at The Anti-Gym as well.