October Devotion

It’s October, the Red Sox are in the playoffs, Big Papi is heading out in a blaze of glory. What better time to reflect on the amazing and occasionally incongruous proximity, at least some of the time, between sports and religion?

Any thinking person knows that one realm—the one containing huge stadiums, celebrity players, non-stop action, winners and losers, fans who go crazy for their teams, huge sums of money— is completely different from the other, sacred one. And yet, the similarities are equally undeniable too. They keep popping up, like fly balls.

Growing up, I knew sports a whole lot better than I knew religion. It was one of the main currencies of our family life. Once I got married to somebody “in the process” a quarter century ago, however, my learning curve about religion (the Episcopal faith, in particular) began taking an upswing. I sure have a long way to go, especially if I really want to understand the tenets of other faiths, but at least now I’m on the road towards greater understanding, if not full enlightenment. This is a little hard to admit, but any knowledge I gain about all kinds of religions gets absorbed by a mental landscape characterized, for better or worse, by a certain familiarity (distinct from skill, mind you) with all kinds of sports. Again, this is definitely NOT the same as proclaiming them in the same category.

But, the fact is, plenty of other people—especially sportswriters and coaches—do make this comparison. I once went to a hockey coaching clinic where the speaker pounded the rulebook down on his podium and said, “THIS is your Bible!”

Back in mid- February, The New York Times presented a lovely spread of photographs depicting the constancy of baseball in a particular country in the Caribbean. It caught my attention particularly because I’m working with students who have roots in this place; many of their family members go back and forth between Lawrence and their former homeland frequently.

You can see the whole feature here. It opens this way:

Baseball is beginning again in the United States, with players gathering at spring training sites in Florida and Arizona. But in the Dominican Republic, the sport never really stops. It is a year-round religion, a potential ticket out of poverty, and the result is that the country produces more major leaguers than any other nation except the United States.

How many major leaguers? The last best count I could find was 83— or around 10% of all players. This sounds pretty upbeat. Of course, for a slightly different take, you can read an NPR story, broadcast last April, called “Baseball is a Field of Dreams—And Dashed Hopes—For Dominicans” right here.

Let’s back to the element of religion.

Used in the company of sports, the word “religion” is understood very broadly to mean something like “a pastime that elicits so much devotion, it becomes more than just a pastime.” Plainly, playing baseball is different from attending church in about a thousand ways. The connecting tissue is that both bring about a kind of fervor or passion, bring some release from daily cares, help make life worth living. No matter that people sit mostly quietly in pews, gathering themselves to pray, and in ball parks we hear the constant, “Get your beer heeeah!” No matter that religions hold up the virtues of spiritual strength, while sports reward those who are physically strong and agile.

Perhaps it is the Greek concept of koinonia – meaning communion, or joint participation – which most closely explains the pervasive spirit of being fully alive that can arise from both stadiums and houses of worship.

For Ortiz, our beloved slugger and clutch hitter like none other, it’s not over til it’s over. With the playoffs just beginning, not to mention the leaves doing their best to turn despite the drought, we’re right where we want to be.

In recent interviews, David Ortiz has waxed nostalgic about the World Series championships in 2004, 2007 and 2013 and how he came to believe, with the help of Boston fans, that it really was possible to “Keep The Faith.”

Reaching further back, he also remembers his hardscrabble upbringing in the Dominican. In his autobiography with the title Big Papi (co-written with Tony Massarotti and published in 2007 by St. Martin’s Press) he recalls how one particular church figured prominently in his life story.

Many people believe that baseball is a religion in the Dominican Republic, and in some ways it was the two together that brought me where I am today. Not far from Santo Domingo, in the town of Higuey, there is a basilica known as Nuestra Senora de la Altagracia, or Our Lady of High Graces. It is the most famous church in the Dominican Republic.

He goes on to relate how his father, who had excelled in the game himself, went to this church to pray even before David was born, saying to God, “Maybe you can bless me with a boy. And maybe someday he could be a major-league player.” (p.22).

America Enrique Ortiz — champion wish maker! Little wonder that Ortiz still visits this church every winter, “to thank God for what he has given me.” And little wonder, too, that we show appreciation, even devotion, for what Ortiz has given us through the years. Especially on those evenings when we’ve come home tired and bothered and had our spirits lifted by watching him at bat, staring down those pitchers and their heat, we feel it—Boston Strong.