Major League Papists

Aaron Gleeman of NBC.com’s invaluable Circling the Bases passes along a story today about Oakland A’s outfield prospect Grant Desme, who has decided to hang up his spikes and put on vestments. Desme, who mashed across two levels of A-ball this past season (.288/.365/.568) is 23 years old and won the Arizona Fall League MVP just a few short months ago. On it’s face, to most, it’s a baffling decision. Baseball America ranks Desme 8th among A’s prospects, and it seems like the young man had a legitimate shot at a productive baseball career. But, of course, matters of faith often don’t make sense to outsiders.


Last year, at Confirmation, our Bishop (who The Common Man philosophically disagrees with on a number of issues) told us an important truth about the decision to become a priest. If you don’t want to be something else, you probably wouldn’t make a great priest. To be a priest, our Bishop said, required sacrificing some of our hopes and dreams for the betterment of others. If you didn’t feel like you were giving up an important part of yourself to serve God more fully, the decision (and your commitment) would not be as meaningful. It motivates you to make your sacrifice worth it. And so, from The Common Man’s perspective, it’s wonderful to see a young man so dedicated to his faith and to improving the lives of others that he is willing to make such a sacrifice.

But the point of this post is not to get all weepy and gushy over one man’s decision to hear God’s call to his vocation. Rather, in light of what Catholicism has denied baseball today (a prospect), it’s important to remember some of what Catholicism has given back to the game:

For instance, baseball’s early years were dominated by Irish-Americans, often first or second generation immigrants, who popularized the early professional game. Baseball offered Catholic immigrants one of the few ways to earn a decent salary at a time when many businesses refused to hire Irish (in particular) employees. According to the Encyclopedia of Ethnicity in American Sports, from 1876 to 1884, forty-one percent of players entering into the new National League were Irish. The vast majority of these players were Catholics. While the percentage of Irish in the league fell toward the start of the 20th Century, many of the game’s major stars, including ther amazingly mustacheoed King Kelly, Dan McGann, Ed Delahanty, John McGraw, and Connie Mack (Cornelius McGillicuddy) continued to draw Eastern-America’s working-class, immigrant, and yes, overwhelmingly Catholic, fans to the ballpark. It’s not a stretch to suggest that professional baseball’s early survival in America’s cities was due to the support of its Catholic players and fans.

While 19th Century baseball may well owe its survival to us mackerel-snappers, baseball’s evolution from the Deadball Era to the Modern Era also owes Catholicism a debt of gratitude. In 1895, as most of you know, George Herman “Babe” Ruth was born in Baltimore. His father was a saloon keeper and his mother was often ill, and so little George became incorrigible, running the streets at the tender age of six and becoming a the poster child for juvenile delinquency. Unable to care properly for the boy, and under increasing pressure by the Baltimore court system, George’s father placed him in St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys in 1902, and signed over custody of his son to the Catholic missionaries who ran it. There, under the tutelage of Brother Matthias Boutlier, the head of discipline for the school, Ruth learned to read and write, played in the school band, was involved in drama club, learned shirt-making, and, oh yes, learned how to hit, field and pitch. In 1913, in a game against a local college, Ruth impressed scouts and was signed by the Baltimore Orioles. Then of course, Ruth went on to be the greatest player in the history of the game, excelling first as a left-handed pitcher for the Sox before becoming baseball’s home-run king and ushering in the Lively-Ball Era. You’re welcome. Appropriately, apparently all of baseball’s single-season home run kings, Roger Maris, Mark McGwire, and all-time HR leader Barry Bonds were and are also Catholic. Perhaps the homerun itself is Catholic.

Italian-American Catholics, of course, became far more prevalent after the 1920s, as their waves of immigration mirrored that of the Irish in the 19th Century. Eager to adopt American customs and ideals, many Italian children migrated to baseball as a way to assimilate. Again, the large (and mostly Catholic) immigrant populations of New York and Philadelphia fed into the popularity of the new stars, and encouraged Catholics to support local teams. The next decades saw the rise of the DiMaggios, Phil Rizzuto, Tony Lazzeri, Yogi Berra, Dolph Camilli, Ernie Lombardi, and others who defined the ‘20s, ‘30s, and ‘40s (and particularly the budding dynasty of the New York Yankees). The growing Catholic sensibility of New York City was reflected in the construction of its teams, and indeed, as Lazzeri, Berra, Rizzuto, DiMaggio, Frank Crosetti, Billy Martin and others led the Yankees, the Bronx and Brooklyn were experiencing an influx of Catholic immigration, as middle-class industrial work fled Manhattan.

And, of course, it’s important to note the influx of Latin American talent that has become so steady into the Major Leagues. Most of these players, of course, are raised Catholic in their native countries, and bring their faith with them when they play here. Sammy Sosa (perhaps a bad example), Juan Marichal, Luis Tiant, the Alou brothers, Mariano Rivera, and Roberto Clemente serve as just a starting point of a laundry list of prominent Latino Catholics who played and still play in the game today. While there’s nothing to suggest this, The Common Man wonders if a common faith, in addition to common language and similar cultural backgrounds help these players identify with one another and support them during what is undoubtedly a very difficult transition.

Other prominent Catholics in baseball include: Mike Piazza, Mike Sweeney, Jeff Suppan, professional grit-manufacturer David Eckstein, Whitey Ford, Wally Pipp, Tommy Lasorda, Ivan Rodriguez, Joe Torre, Bowie Kuhn, Sean Casey, Leo Durocher. This list, of course, is nowhere near comprehensive. But very few websites or publications have such lists, for understandable reasons. For many people, their faith is private, and The Common Man respects that. This list just includes individuals who have been public about their faith in forums he could find.

But it’s not like baseball hasn’t given back to the church. For instance, at least two former major leaguers have preceded Desme into the priesthood. These include:

John Burke (NY Giants, 1902): Fr. Burke played in four games for the Giants that year, two on the mound and two in the outfield. Burke managed two hits in 13 ABs (both singles) and pitched 14 innings with an ERA of 5.79. He lost his only start that year, but did pitch a perfect game. His performance in 1905 is missing from his record, but Burke went 38-27 in the minors from 1903-1907, including 15-5 for the Lancaster Millionaires of the Tri-State League in ’07. Burke later became a priest (date unknown), and served as pastor of St. Joseph’s church in Keyport, NJ from 1929 until 1950, becoming a Monsignor before his death.

Al Travers (Detroit, 1912): Travers’ story is terrific. As many know, in May of ’12, Ty Cobb went into the stands and beat a no-armed man who had been heckling him with a bat. Cobb was immediately suspended indefinitely by Ban Johnson and Cobb’s teammates (for some reason) went on strike in support of the prickly Peach. American League President Ban Johnson ordered the Tigers to play, and so, on May 18, the team threw together a group of Philadelphia college players (and two coaches) to play against the World Champion Philadelphia A’s. Travers was the starting pitcher, and went the full 9 against the A’s, giving up 24 runs (14 earned) on 26 hits and 7 walks. He also went 0 for 3 at the plate. Travers ended his career with a 15.75 ERA and a .000 batting average, a combination of futility that’s hard to match. The next day, Johnson reduced Cobb’s suspension to 10 games, and the Tigers returned. Travers eventually graduated from St. Joseph’s University, entered the seminary, and became a Jesuit Priest.
Also, Tom Mulcahy, a former minor league player, and San Diego Padres scout and executive was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1968.

In all, as The Common Man said, this is in no way a comprehensive history of Catholicism and baseball, though The Common Man wishes one existed. So intertwined are the sport and the faith that it's hard to imagine baseball being the game we know today without it. Indeed, across all the immigrations and influxes into the game, Catholicism has been an ever-present part of the game's history, culture, and color. And The Common Man is very pleased and proud that, like Travers, Burke, and Mulcahy before him, Desme is helping baseball give something back.

Real Bad People

Today, Harvey Araton, in the venerable New York Times, writes,

"Nine more years. Nine long, bold-headlined years. That is how much longer the Yankees are contractually obligated to put up with always-something Alex Rodriguez. With his celebrity distractions, his need to be noticed, his clubhouse-integration issues, his Derek Jeter envy and, yes, his prime-time failures.... As much as anyone, he is a product of a decade in which the sport took a pharmaceutical path that, for too many reputations, has become the road to ruin." (h/t to Shysterball)

Another article in the Old Gray Lady, this one by Tyler Kepner, quotes an anonymous Yankee official, saying “'His legacy, now, is gone.... He’ll just play it out. Now he’s a worker. Do your job, collect your paycheck and when you’re finished playing, go away. That’s what it is.'”

The Palm Beach Post writes about father and A-Rod superfan Jose Mercado, who

"found himself driving to Dolphin Stadium struggling to explain to his two sons what they'd just heard on the radio - A-Rod allegedly used steroids. 'You see the look on their faces and it's disappointment,' Mercado said. 'I thought A-Rod was one of the good guys, one of the guys who never took anything. If the allegations are true, certainly it's heartbreaking.'"

Settle down, America. The Common Man understands that the news is somewhat shocking and that A-Rod is no one's idea of a good guy this morning. If these allegations are true, A-Rod is a cheater and a liar, like many other cheaters and liars before him (John McGraw, Ty Cobb, Whitey Ford, Gaylord Perry, Barry Bonds, and Rafael Palmeiro to name a few). But, please, keep some perspective. As a public service, The Common Man offers five people in the news today who are much more deserving of your revulsion and your attention than A-Rod.

5) Rush Limbaugh--The Common Man doesn't mind conservatives. He disagrees with them most of the time, but recognizes their inherent goodness, their desire to see America strong, and how respectful they are of opposing viewpoints. Rush Limbaugh is none of these things. He has consistently and willfully put his own interests ahead of the country, culminating in his recent announcement that he hopes Barack Obama fails to get the country out of its current economic crisis and its wars in the Middle East. He's made fun of Michael J. Fox for the side-effects of his Parkinson's Disease. He's suggested that black quarterbacks have an easier time than white quarterbacks because liberals in sports (what???) want black quarterbacks to succeed. He called soldiers who disagree with the Iraq War "phony soldiers." He's on record saying that feminism was invented "to allow unattractive women access to the mainstream." And that's not even mentioning his addiction to prescription painkillers, something that links him more closely to Alex Rodriguez than the famous fat man would probably like to admit.

And this man, according to today's Los Angeles Times, is again becoming the face and voice of the Republican Party, "While the GOP's star has fallen, Limbaugh's has soared. As party leaders struggle to find their voice, Limbaugh's baritone booms loud and clear three hours a day, five days a week on 600 radio stations across America. If a $400-million contract and the title of most influential talk radio personality -- as voted by industry pros -- aren't sufficient proof, consider President Obama's decision to pick a fight with him three days into his presidency." While Obama's decision to take on Limbaugh was a brilliant ploy to make the conservative more relevant and a larger face in the party (where he'll presumably turn off independents and moderates), the response from Rep. Phil Gingrey is more telling of Limbaugh's influence. When he had the temerity to suggest “It’s easy if you’re Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or even sometimes Newt Gingrich to stand back and throw bricks. You don’t have to try to do what’s best for your people and your party. You know you’re just on these talk shows and you’re living well and plus you stir up a bit of controversy and gin the base and that sort of that thing," he was forced to apologize all over the airwaves by angry conservatives who flooded his phone and in-box.

4) Whoever makes the decisions at Peanut Corporation of America--You'd think it would be difficult to screw up peanuts. After all, they come with their own protective coating. Yet, Peanut Corp. has done so royally. The salmonella outbreak linked back to the Georgia Company has made more than 500 people sick, and killed eight. But according to an FDA report obtained by CNN, "In some situations the firm received a positive salmonella test result, followed by a later negative result, and then shipped the products. In some other situations, the firm shipped the products [which had already tested positive] before it had received the [second] positive test results." Oops. To paraphrase a classic Kids In the Hall sketch, "Sorry we caused all that salmonella."

3) Anonymous Somali recruiter in the Twin Cities--According to several media reports, the most recent in today's Minneapolis Star Tribune, young Somali men are disappearing around the Twin Cities Metro Area. They are returning, it seems, to Somalia, recruited to fight in the ongoing civil war for local Muslim militias. According to the Minneapolis paper, "The FBI, which is investigating an alleged link between some in the Twin Cities and violence in Somalia, won't comment on how many Somali teenagers or young men have left to fight or possibly receive terrorist training. But several sources within the community say they believe Mustafa is one of seven to nine Somalis who have gone back since August." At least one of these men has been used as a suicide bomber. Many of the young men reportedly have had "religious awakenings" and have been heavily involved in Minneapolis mosques. The brother of one boy told the paper, "I'm 100 percent sure that there are people in there who have influenced him and those people are claiming to be sheiks." So, it would seem that someone in Minnesota, closely affiliated with radical-Islamic militias in Somalia, is recruiting Somali teens, providing them with passports, and sending them back to Mogadishu to fight and die. It's insidious and frightening.

2) Gene Orza--Normally, The Common Man would include SI scribe Jon Heyman in the list of people worse than A-Rod (since he proudly voted for Jim Rice, Jack Morris, and Andre Dawson, and proudly didn't vote for Tim Raines and Bert Blyleven), but today, The Common Man reserves his scorn for the subject of Heyman's article. Orza, the other big player in yesterday's news, was guilty of tipping players off ahead of time that they would be tested. And according to Heyman, Orza is also ultimately responsible for the leaked results, as he stubbornly refused to destroy the list of positive test results. Heyman reports:

"That list would have been long gone if not for the union, several baseball people say. Players union COO Gene Orza worked long and hard to try to pare down the list. Orza's mission, according to baseball people, was to find enough false positives on the list to drive the number of failures so far down that real testing wouldn't be needed in 2004 or ever.

Orza wanted to get the list down below the five percent threshold for testing to go away entirely. But try as he might, he could not drive it down quite that far. After months of trying, Orza couldn't do it, and baseball announced that a curiously amorphous 5-7 percent of players failed the 2003 survey test, enough to ramp up the testing in 2004, much to the union's dismay.

According to multiple baseball sources, Orza spent way too much time studying the results in hopes of lowering the number. And while Orza was playing with the paperwork, BALCO struck, foiling his grand scheme."

If this is true, Orza is guilty of a number of offenses. Most importantly, he purposely and willfully attempted to hide evidence of baseball's steroid problem. And in doing so, he ultimately caused the scandal that broke yesterday. Good for you, Gene. Hope your resume is up to date.

1) Bishop Richard Williamson--How bad was Orza's mistake? To top him, you have to be a Holocaust denier. Williamson was initially excommunicated from the Catholic church by Pope John Paul II in 1988. And given how awesome and cute JPII was, you know that Williamson was a bad egg. A member of an ultra-conservative wing of the church, Williamson was reconciled with the church by Pope Benedict a month ago. Yet, just a month before, Williamson told Swedish television, "I believe that the historical evidence is strongly against -- is hugely against -- 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler. I believe there were no gas chambers." While the Pope has ordered Williamson to distance himself from the comments, he has refused. German bishops have banded together to call for Williamson's re-excommunication. According to Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, the chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, "Mr. Williamson is impossible and irresponsible. I now see no room for him in the Catholic church."

Apparently, the Pope's vetting process is not as stringent as the process to become undersecretary of labor here in the U.S. Still, while The Common Man wants to fault the Holy Father, and urges him to be swift and decisive in his condemnation of Williamson, the ultimate fault here lies with Williamson. A despicable man with despicable beliefs who cannot effectively preach a message of love, peace, and tolerance while holding such extreme, wrong-headed, and inflammatory views.

So, America...priorities. Vent your spleen in some other direction, if you don't mind. Because when you all get outraged and angry and come around The Common Man's neighborhood hyperbolizing and saying things that don't make sense, it makes him cranky. Focus, people!

Hello...Newman

Since this past Easter, The Common Man has officially been Catholic (as opposed to a virtually Catholic, which is a little like being "near-beer" in that you get the same beer-belly of guilt but none of the benefits of consumption, such as beer buzz, the feeling of invincibility, and the miraculous ability to eat an entire pizza and a plate of cheese-fries at 3 AM). And he's proud to be Catholic. But before he became Catholic, stories like this kept The Common Man and the Church at arm's length from one another.

According to the Associated Press, a Greenville, SC priest, Jay Scott Newman, sent a letter around to his parishioners, telling them that they must do penance before receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama. Newman, obviously forgetting Kang's short-lived campaign slogan "Abortions for all!" (which he and his campaign team quickly changed to "Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others!") claims that Obama is "the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president." He went on to say,

Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ's Church and under the judgment of divine law. Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation.

What The Common Man has learned, however, is that while Newman is being terribly narrow-minded and dead wrong about the tenor of an Obama administration and the relative merits of an Obama presidency versus a McCain one (certainly a vote for John McCain would have violated one or several Catholic tenets), he is an outlier within the church. Already, his own diocese has contradicted the priest, saying "Father Newman's statements do not adequately reflect the Catholic Church's teachings. Any comments or statements to the contrary are repudiated." Indeed, whenever a priest goes off the reservation and says something ridiculous, it seems as though it gets picked up in the mainstream press. Meanwhile, obscure protestant bigots around the country are allowed to say what they will without media attention.

The Common Man doesn't know where the fascination with Catholocism and the Catholic priesthood has come from, and why the media's obsession with the laity is largely focused on Catholics. Perhaps it has roots in a 19th and early 20th Century anti-immigrant backlash that mythologized the Pope and popularized the idea that Catholics were somehow subserviant to the whims of the pontiff, like the orders of a Catholic George III. Or maybe it's that Catholics, for all their success in this country, are still a minority (though a growing and not a very marginalized one). Or maybe it's the Latin. Or the incense. Or the pretty robes. It doesn't matter. The Common Man doesn't necessarily need the media's hyper-focus on Catholocism to be rectified (because all powerful organizations should be watched and questioned), but wishes that others were subject to the same level of scrutiny.

Meanwhile, American bishops have indeed been active in drumming up support for the anti-abortion movement. Last Tuesday, according to the AP, "the nation's Catholic bishops vowed...to forcefully confront the Obama administration over its support for abortion rights." The Common Man hopes they do, and that their efforts bring about some kind of consensus between them and Barack Obama. Indeed, while reasonable people can and do disagree on the issue of abortion, surely all can agree that it would be better for everyone involved if there were fewer of them. And perhaps by working together, instead of throwing around heated rhetoric, these disparate groups can come together to promote more comprehensive and useful sexual education and to better educate parents on how to keep their children from having unplanned pregnancies. Anyway, that's what the Obama-supporting The Common Man is going to pray for before he takes Communion on Sunday.