Way back in March, we spotted holy ghosts in an otherwise terrific ESPN the Magazine profile of highly touted pitcher Daniel Norris, then with the Toronto Blue Jays.

Readers had alerted us to the story's blatant avoidance of religion.

In my critique of the ESPN story, I wrote:

Given how much Norris talks about his faith, there's no way ESPN missed the religion angle. The magazine obviously chose to ignore it, and that's a shame.

Granted, ESPN still produced a fascinating story — a solid double off the wall.

But the magazine missed a chance to hit a straight-down-the-middle fastball out of the park.

Fast-forward more than six months, and Norris now pitches for the Detroit Tigers (he's the scheduled starter vs. the Chicago White Sox tonight). Detroit obtained Norris in late July in a deal that sent former American League Cy Young Award winner David Price to Toronto.

Typically at GetReligion, we are not in a position to ask the actual source of a story about the handling of the religion content.

But on a recent reporting trip to Detroit, I interviewed Norris, a member of the Central Church of Christ in Johnson City, Tenn., for The Christian Chronicle.

Time flies.

Five years and roughly 675 posts ago, I made my GetReligion debut on March 8, 2010.

In my introductory post, I wrote:

For a faithful GetReligion reader such as myself, joining the team of contributors is like a baseball fan invited to sit in the press box and share his opinions during the World Series. Although it's not quite in the same league as my beloved Texas Rangers, I'm a big fan of this weblog and its endeavor to pinpoint and expose the religion ghosts in the secular news media.

During GetReligion's 10th anniversary celebration last year, I shared my list of "Five things they didn't tell me."

But for my own GR-versary, the boss man Terry Mattingly — aka tmatt — suggested that I critique ESPN The Magazine's recent "Man in the Van" feature as a tribute to all 10 of our readers who care about religion and sports.

"Sure thing," I replied, welcoming any excuse to write about baseball.

Revisiting ESPN's Man in the Van: Why was this pitcher baptized in his baseball uniform?

Man in the Van: ESPN makes solid contact but fails to hit easy fastball out of the park