Saturday, October 06, 2007

God and baseball

I Was physically present to watch Cub fans in Phoenix wretch as their beloved losers, lost yet again. Kissing the Billy Goat? Pucker up. At Chase Field in Phoenix we had several Cub fans sitting around us. They were sharing stories of how much they paid for their tickets, $100 a seat, $150, $250, that’s a lot of money. I didn’t mention that my dad is a season ticket holder and paid the face value of $40. Oh yea, he gave me the tickets. I wondered to myself about the value of capitalism. Of course I also wondered about my own ethics of reveling in the joy of watching Cub fans once again squirm as they watched their hapless team struggle for the 99th year. As one blog suggests, God is a Cubs fan – God must be – God is all about suffering and who suffers more than the Cubs? Actually, I have a theory that the Cubs are losers by design – for them losing is profitable – the theory eases my guilt over feelings pains of capitalism. I’m a socialist and think Christians are socialist by the nature of Jesus’ teaching. Profit sharing is good for baseball because its a good socialist practice – and God must be in there somewhere.

Making it to second base with God and other musing from the dashboard light – I read a blog titled “God hates Cleveland sports.” Not! Cleveland just beat the Yankees in the bottom of the 11th and how did they do it? Canadian Soldier bugs that came in from the lake caused Joba Chamberlain to throw two wild pitches in the 7th inning – otherwise the Indians would have lost. Canadian Soldier bugs have a life of 48 hours. They actually hatched early because of the warm humid day in Cleveland. They showed up in the 8th inning because the wind died down. Sounds like Moses and the plagues on Pharaoh. Remember that? Yeah, gnats that swarmed the people forcing the oppressor to re-think long term slavery and captivity. The Yankees as oppressors? Cleveland the chosen people of God? Well I don’t know about the chosen people of God but clearly the Yankees and their oppressive “Boss” with too much capitalistic money lives in the house of Pharaoh. God hate Cleveland? He just sent the Canadian Soldiers as your savior.

No comments: