In a remarkable article from USA Today last week, the Colorado Rockies went public with the news that the organization has been explicitly looking for players with “character.” And according to the Tribe of Coors, “character” means accepting Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior. “We’re nervous, to be honest with you,” Rockies general manager Dan O’Dowd said. “It’s the first time we ever talked about these issues publicly. The last thing we want to do is offend anyone because of our beliefs.” When people are nervous that they will offend you with their beliefs, it’s usually because their beliefs are offensive.
I admire people of faith who have the wherewithal to live their beliefs. There are too damn few honest souls like that around. Having said that, however, I find what the Colorado Rockies are in the process of doing to be offensive in the extreme. When you work to put together a winning ball club, most owners and general managers look for players who can hit, run, throw, and be a positive voice in the clubhouse. That’s generally how championship teams are built. Now the Rockies (currently in fourth place in the National League’s West Division) are apparently adding another qualification that has nothing to do with winning games or pennants: they’re actively recruiting born-again Christians.
I have nothing against Christianity or the practice of it, but when a team evaluates a ballplayer in terms of their faith, wouldn’t that seem to fall within the realm of discrimination? If the Rockies are presented with an opportunity to pick up player who could help them, but they discover that he’s Jewish (e.g.- Shawn Green), do they turn their back on him because is considered ideologically and philosophically incompatible with the Rockies’ goals and aspriations? Isn’t the job of Rockies management to win games? Or do they really value a person’s faith above their ability to turn a double play?
Surely, I’m not the only one who sees this hypocrisy for what it is: an attempt to cater to the narrow views and prejudices of an organization more interested in religious purity than winning baseball games. And you wonder why Colorado is the epitome of mediocrity year in and year out??
San Francisco Giants first baseman-outfielder Mark Sweeney, who spent 2003 and 2004 with the Rockies, said, “You wonder if some people are going along with it just to keep their jobs. Look, I pray every day. I have faith. It’s always been part of my life. But I don’t want something forced on me. Do they really have to check to see whether I have a Playboy in my locker?”
These are baseball players were talking about here, not choirboys. If you want a team of choirboys, go find yourself a church league softball team. You can pray all you want before, during, and after games, and NO ONE will care whether you win or lose.
Then there is manager Clint Hurdle and GM O’Dowd. Hurdle, who has guided the team to a Philistine 302-376 record since 2002, as well as fourth or fifth place finishes every year, was rewarded with a 2007 contract extension in the off-season. Hurdle also claims he became a Christian three years ago and says, “We’re not going to hide it. We’re not going to deny it. This is who we are.”
O’Dowd, who also received a contract extension, believes that their 27-26 2006 record has resulted from the active intervention of the Almighty. “You look at things that have happened to us this year. You look at some of the moves we made and didn’t make. You look at some of the games we’re winning. Those aren’t just a coincidence. God has definitely had a hand in this.” Or maybe the management that prays together gets paid together.
I think it’s a wonderful thing that these folks are trying to live their beliefs. What they seem to be forgetting, however, is that baseball is a secular undertaking. God doesn’t keep score, and I seriously doubt he really much cares about wins and losses. After all, He’s got bigger things, like wars, famines, tsunamis, killer hurricanes, and Pat Robertson to deal with.
I wonder how Rockies management can rationalize this sort of philosophy to their fan base, who pay Major League prices in the expectation of seeing their team win. While there are certainly some fans in Colorado (most of Colorado Springs, for example, is probably solidly behind this effort) who will heartily support the direction in which the Rockies are headed, what about the majority of fans who simply want to watch a successful Major League baseball team?
O’Dowd and company bend over backward in the article to say they are “tolerant” of other views on the club, but that’s contradicted by statements like this from CEO Monfort: “I don’t want to offend anyone, but I think character-wise we’re stronger than anyone in baseball. Christians, and what they’ve endured, are some of the strongest people in baseball. I believe God sends signs, and we’re seeing those.” Assumedly, Shawn Green (Jew), Ichiro Suzuki (Shinto) or any of the godless players from Cuba don’t have the “character” Monfort is looking for.
Also, there are only two African-American players on the Rockies active roster. Is this because Monfort doesn’t think black players have character? Does the organization endorse the statement of its stadium’s namesake, William Coors, who told a group of black businessmen in 1984 that Africans “lack the intellectual capacity to succeed, and it’s taking them down the tubes”? These are admittedly difficult questions. But these are the questions that need to be posed when the wafting odor of discrimination clouds the air.
Indeed, what of the Rockies organization’s views on tolerance? Is the fact that there are only two African-Americans on the team a reflection of pure coincidence, or something more sinister? What guarantees do Colorado players have that they will not be expected to march in ideological lockstep with team management? What impact does the organization’s public Christianity have on player acquisitions and the team’s desire to win? After all, fans aren’t paying to see a mediocre baseball team. This isn’t to say that Christians can’t be top-notch Major League ballplayers, but when you limit yourself to players who think, believe, and act in a certain way, you are not only practicing de facto discrimination, you are limiting your chances at success.
[Journalist Tom] Krattenmaker said, “I have concerns about what this Christianization of the Rockies means for the community that supports the team in and around Denver—a community in which evangelical Christians are probably a minority, albeit a large and influential one. Taxpayers and ticket-buyers in a religiously diverse community have a right not to see their team—a quasi-public resource—used for the purpose of advancing a specific form of religion. Have the Colorado Rockies become a faith-based organization? This can be particularly problematic when the religion in question is one that makes exclusive claims and sometimes denigrates the validity of other belief systems.”
True. If Rockies management views themselves as members and representatives of The One True Faith, do they not in fact denigrate those paying fans who do not subscribe to their form of Evangelical Christianity? Don’t fans have the right to expect ideological neutrality from a baseball team? After all, you’d think that team management would be doing all it can to attract as many fans as possible, not repel them or make them feel unwelcome because their beliefs lead them in different directions.
You might think MLB Commissioner Bud Selig would have something stirring to say about this issue. But Selig, who hasn’t actually registered a pulse since 1994, only said meekly, “They have to do what they feel is right.”
Yes, Bud Selig IS Satan. He’s also as weak and pusillanimous as any Commissioner Major League Baseball has had since the turn of the century. Selig/Satan is presiding over a system that is allowing one of it’s teams to a symbol of Evangelical Christianity. Again, it’s not the Christianity I have a problem with, it’s the way in which the team seems to be using it to squeeze out those who don’t follow the corporate religion or who simply choose to think and believe differently.
Rockies management is free to think, live, and believe as they see fit. What they are not and should not be free to do is to create an environment that marginalizes and devalues players and fans who do not think, live, and believe as they do. No business can reach it’s full potential when it engages in exclusionary practices. I suppose this would explain why the Rockies are, and are likely to remain, a fourth-place team.
