Mormon Baseball

Archive for the ‘Religion’ Category

Mormon sports fans are likely tired of the all to frequent arguments over who should play baseball on Sunday and under what circumstances. Anyone who is an active member of the Church and who pays attention to lessons on how to keep the sabbath day already knows all the arguments. This post isn’t about those arguments. Instead, it is about history: specifically rumors about Sunday baseball and members’ reactions to that rumor.

Apparently, in 1913 at least, there was just such a rumor going around, claiming that Heber J. Grant, then an apostle, had told a group of church members that they could play baseball on Sunday.

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While injuries prevented the Mormons on last year’s All Star teams, Roy Halladay and Jacoby Ellsbury, from making this year’s team, almost as if it were destiny a last-minute injury led to the selection last Friday of National League rookie Bryce Harper as an All Star. Since Mormons don’t believe in predestination, but in ‘fore-ordination,’ which requires effort and merit and allows for agency, Harper must deserve the spot, right?

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The Deseret News covered the event:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865558552/President-Uchtdorf-throws-first-pitch-at-Dodgers-game.html

I know that these events have happened at a number of stadiums around the country, and I’d love to hear where they are happening currently and where they have happened in the past.

The 25-year-long record at Dodger Stadium is impressive, isn’t it?

Should we be encouraging these events elsewhere?

Perhaps we need a guide for how to put on these events elsewhere?

This past week, baseball phenom Bryce Harper briefly topped twitter’s trending topics when he characterized a reporter’s question as foolish. The Toronto-based reporter had asked Harper (who, in case you don’t know, is a 19-year-old LDS player in his rookie year) if he was going to take advantage of Canada’s more liberal drinking laws (which allow drinking at 19 instead of 21) to celebrate his home run during the game, and if so, what brand of beer he would drink.

Harper replied, “I’m not answering that. That’s a clown question, bro.”

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Last weekend I went to the penultimate game in Yankee Stadium, and the next night watched the last game on television, complete with its post-game wake. Over nearly 20 years I’ve attended meetings there, letting a place and a culture become an almost religious part of my life. Its a Temple of baseball.

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