Saturday, April 26, 2025

Major League Baseball

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Culture War Night at Kauffman Stadium: Kansas City Royals draw criticism for anti-abortion ads

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"Thank you, God, for the Kansas City Royals," my friend Cheryl said on Facebook recently.

Like me, Cheryl is a devoted and long-suffering Texas Rangers fan. Sadly, our team is off to a rotten start this season. But at least the Rangers are doing better – but just barely – than the Royals, who have the worst record in the American League. (Except, as my friend Murray will be quick to point out, Kansas City won the World Series in 2015, something Texas never has done.)

But forget that baseball religion angle for a minute. This week, the Royals are receiving a bit of national media attention unrelated to their 25-32 record.

A welcome diversion perhaps? Probably not. Yes, there is a non-baseball religion hook here, too.

It seems that Tuesday turned into a sort of unofficial Culture War Night, as USA Today reports:

A national women's advocacy organization says it will fly a banner over the Kansas City Royals’ Kauffman Stadium on Tuesday, protesting the team’s advertising agreement with an anti-abortion group. The banner will appear before the Royals’ game against the Houston Astros.
The advocacy group, UltraViolet, is calling for the Royals to cut ties with the Vitae Foundation, an anti-abortion group based in Jefferson City, Mo., that has branded ads on video boards at Royals games and is advertising on the team’s radio broadcasts.
The banner, which will read, “ROYALS FANS DESERVE TRUTH — DROP VITAE,” comes as a result of the Royals’ continued affiliation with Vitae.

Since we focus on journalism here at GetReligion, I have three questions about this story. I'll try not to swing and miss, but I can't promise that.

1. Is this really national news?


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Baseball ghostbusters: Digging deeper into the faith of Texas Rangers third base coach who beat cancer

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In the fourth grade, I discovered Topps baseball cards. I’d buy as many I could afford, chewing the crunchy bubble gum inside each 20-cent pack and memorizing the stats of all my favorite players. I eventually sold my card collection, but I remain a passionate fan of Major League Baseball.

In my teen years, my family moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and I fell in love with the Texas Rangers. As an adult, I’ve experienced America’s favorite pastime at 19 of the 30 big-league ballparks. I eventually hope to make it to all of them, including the one at the top of my bucket list: Wrigley Field in Chicago.

My work as a journalist has taken me inside clubhouses at Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Calif., Comerica Park in Detroit, Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, Globe Life Park in Arlington, Texas, Minute Maid Park in Houston, Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., and Progressive Field in Cleveland.

Like me, GetReligion's editor, Terry Mattingly, is an avid baseball fan, so we sometimes compete to see which one of us can write the most baseball-related posts with the fewest number of readers. I kid. I kid.

But seriously, our sports posts (with a few notable exceptions) don't typically go viral. Based on this journalism-focused website's analytics, most of our readers tend to be more interested in holy ghosts tied to politics and the culture wars. However, we believe it's important to keep pointing out God-sized holes in media coverage of college and professional athletics.


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'He did it!' -- MLB coach beats cancer, but media remain vague on faith that sustained him

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"People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.” — Rogers Hornsby

• • •

Is it time yet for pitchers and catchers to report?

I've mentioned a time or 500 how much I love baseball. Since I was a 14-year-old boy going to see my first major-league game, the Texas Rangers have been my favorite team.

Last week, I was pleased to see some wonderful news on the Twitter feed of my beloved Rangers. This news was enough to warm a fan's heart in the cold of winter: After an 11-month battle with cancer, Texas third-base coach Tony Beasley received a clean bill of health.

And yes — just in case baseball isn't a spiritual enough undertaking for you in its own right — there's a religion angle to Beasley's recovery.

That Fort Worth Star-Telegram headline — "Faith deepens for Rangers coach Beasley during bout with cancer" — gave me hope about the potential contents of the story.

As some GetReligion readers — particularly the baseball fans — may recall, I voiced frustration last summer about vague treatment of Beasley's faith by sportswriters:


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Battling cancer, major-league coach puts faith into action — but what exactly does that mean?

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This is an inspiring story.

For those concerned about holy ghosts in the mainstream press, it's also a frustrating story.

I'm talking about a heart-tugging feature from the Dallas Morning News on a major-league coach battling cancer.

As a longtime Texas Rangers fan, I'm particularly drawn to this emotional profile by one of my favorite baseball writers. The subhead on the print version noted that third-base coach Tony Beasley sees his cancer ordeal "as a chance to put faith into action."

ARLINGTON – This is how he has spent his season: chemotherapy treatment during spring training, five weeks of radiation in April and May and, in the next week, a five-hour surgical procedure to remove the remnants of a tumor from his bowel.
And this is how Tony Beasley describes the year: "My most rewarding in baseball."
Beasley is the Rangers' third-base coach in title, but he's had to move into more of a quality-control role for this season during a fight with cancer that is stretching into its eighth month. The disease may have turned his role upside down, but he'll be damned if it's going to do the same to him.
"It doesn't sound right to [call it rewarding] when you are dealing with a disease; you don't relate that to a reward," Beasley said. "But there has been so much good on so many fronts.
"Somebody once told me not to see obstacles, only opportunities. And this has given me the opportunity to be the man who I said I am. I've always said I'm a man of faith, but we can say things and not live it. This has given me a chance to live it. I'm thankful if people have had a chance to see it."

That's powerful writing, but I want to know more about Beasley's faith.


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Ghost of Darryl Strawberry: Impossible-to-miss (or not) explanation for a star's return to glory

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From time to time, we at GetReligion reference our "guilt folders."

These imaginary folders are where we stuff all those stories that we'd love to analyze but — for whatever reason — never seem to get around to.

I may set a new record for longest wait to highlight a story with this post as I call attention to one published on July 12, 2013. For those not good at math, that's more than three years ago. I called "dibs" at that time. But something else came along because I never wrote about it.

So why do I mention it now? Because of a new story on the same subject matter that I just came across.

This one is a recent Los Angeles Times interview with former major-league baseball star Darryl Strawberry on his rise and fall — and his rise again:

If Darryl Strawberry didn't exist, a screenwriter would need to invent him.
Enduring a hardscrabble childhood in South Los Angeles with an absentee alcoholic father, Strawberry found escape — and greatness — on the baseball field, thanks to a slinky swing that could quickly dispatch balls to the far side of outfield walls.
Strawberry arrived in New York as a teenage sensation in the early 1980s with a shiny future. He would go on win a rookie-of-the-year award and then, in 1986, help lead the hometown Mets to a World Series title.
That high was soon followed by a series of lows that included a long battle with drugs and alcohol addiction, jail time, an arrest on suspicion of domestic battery and multiple cancer diagnoses. Strawberry was one of the purest talents the game has ever seen. He was also one of its most tabloid-prone.
In recent years, Strawberry has rebounded, finding sobriety a‎nd a stable marriage. He's even started a Christian mission devoted to others' recovery.


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'Thank u Lord for the game of baseball' -- A religion ghost in LaRoche exit? You think?

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Here is a heart-strings tugger for you as we move closer to Opening Day in major-league baseball (an event that should receive Upper-Case status as a cultural holy day, as I am sure our own Bobby Ross Jr. would agree).

So Adam LaRoche walked away from his Chicago White Sox contract worth $13 million rather than yield to demands by management – as in team president Ken Williams – to drastically cut the amount of time his 14-year-old son Drake spent with him and the team during workouts and in the clubhouse.

Sports fans, you have to be blind as a bat not to see the religion ghost in this one.

I suspect that many sports-news scribes see the religion element, but they are hesitating to suggest that it may have been a factor in this buzz-worthy clash between this dad and the leaders of his team. Here is a chunk of the relevant report from the frequently faith-lite ESPN team:

LaRoche, 36, announced his retirement Tuesday, hinting at the reason behind his decision with the hashtag #familyfirst in a tweet posted that day.
When news of the reason became public Wednesday, Williams addressed the issue with reporters and said that kids are still permitted in the White Sox clubhouse, but they shouldn't be there every day, saying no job would allow that.
"Sometimes you have to make decisions in this world that are unpopular," he said.
The White Sox have always encouraged players to bring their kids into the clubhouse and onto the field, according to Williams. But he said he thought Drake LaRoche was there too much.

That #familyfirst tag is a clue, don't you think? And this tweet referenced in the ESPN report?


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Dude, the St. Louis Cardinals' chaplain is doing awesome, generic religious stuff with team

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Yes, it's Super Tuesday, but let's take a break from all the divisive political talk and focus on something noncontroversial: sports.

Wait, what!?

I kid. I kid.

But with spring training started and the sweet smell of fresh-cut grass in the air, I wanted to call your attention to a recent St. Louis Post-Dispatch column on the team's chaplain:

JUPITER, Fla. — As he promenaded about the Cardinals clubhouse Sunday, this guy had some sort of a magnetism to him, like a popular ex-ballplayer, back to see the boys. But I didn’t recognize this guy from the mental packs and stacks of baseball cards in my brain. Still, the current Cardinals seemed so comfortable chatting with him; clubhouse employees, too.
Who is this guy?
“We’ve got strength coaches, we’ve got hitting coaches, we’ve got pitching coaches,” he’d tell me later. “I just want to be the guy who’s kind of a spiritual coach, really.”
His name is Darrin Patrick, and he’s important to your favorite players.
He’s the Cardinals’ chaplain, and he’s carved a niche for himself here. He’s a disarming dude the players relate to and still admire. He wears jeans. He sports stylish gray glasses that complement his salt-and-pepper stubble.


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Faith of Kansas City Royals' Ben Zobrist: 'a missionary in the big leagues'

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I first became aware of major-leaguer Ben Zobrist's Christian faith when I watched the movie "Ring the Bell" on Netflix a while back.

It's one of those cheesy, relatively predictable faith-based films that I enjoy (much to the chagrin of my wife, Tamie, who cringes at the less-than-Oscar-worthy dialogue and storyline).

In this case, a high-powered sports agent finds God and redemption while attempting to sign a top prospect in a small town. Zobrist, a two-time All-Star, appears as himself in the movie, along with retired major-leaguers John Kruk and Rick Sutcliffe.

Zobrist and his wife, Julianna, a Christian singer, also wrote a 2014 book, "Double Play: Faith and Family First."

In tonight's opening game of the World Series, the super-utility-man is playing second base and batting second for the American League champion Kansas City Royals.

As part of its postseason coverage, a Kansas City Star writer traveled to Eureka, Ill., and interviewed Zobrist's parents:


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Feature on inspirational Texas Rangers fan is a joy to read, except for a holy ghost

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I shared the story of how I fell in love with the Texas Rangers in a 2006 Christian Chronicle column titled "For love of God, family and baseball":

The stadium felt like a furnace — think obnoxious Texas heat in early July — when I walked into my first major-league baseball game at age 14.
By then, of course, I was already a big baseball fan, with thousands of baseball cards, an autographed picture of Pete Rose and a dream of growing up to do radio play-by-play. For all the hours I had spent watching televised games and poring over newspaper box scores, though, I had never actually been to a game.
But in 1982, my family moved to Dallas-Fort Worth, and a heaven with the greenest grass I had ever seen beckoned us.
We made it to our bleacher seats in the bottom of the first inning, just as Texas Rangers slugger Larry Parrish stepped to the plate with the bases loaded. That Saturday was “Bat Day,” so 10,000 wooden bats banged thunderously against the concrete and the crowd roared at an obscene decibel as the ball sailed over the fence — a grand slam!
A young lifetime of rooting for the Cincinnati Reds suddenly vanished. I fell in love with the Rangers that day. (They have won exactly one playoff game since.)

In the decade since I wrote that column, my Rangers have provided me with more than a few postseason thrills. They advanced to the World Series in 2010 and 2011 (please don't mention Game 6). And they rode a #NeverEverQuit mindset to an improbable American League West Division championship this season.

Alas, the 2015 season ended in brutal fashion Wednesday in Game 5 of the AL Division Series against the Toronto Blue Jays:


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