Though seventeen years in Chicago made me a Cubs fan, I’ve been a Dodgers follower since 1955, when, as a seven-year-old, I rejoiced that they’d finally bested their nemesis Yankees in the World Series. I was a newcomer to the 3 R’s, but I could reel off the roster populated by Podres, Gilliam, Hodges, Snider, and Furillo. Thanks to my Detroit grandfather, I got to see Hall of Famers Mantle, Berra, and Kaline at Tiger Stadium, but those Dodger heroes remain more deeply embedded on my hard drive. (And thanks go to Roger Kahn, whose book on The Boys of Summer helped seal that placement.)
Back in the day, we celebrated Dodger pitching ace, Clem Labine; now we find Skippy Supine in the front office, lying down for the worst in our culture to roll right over him.
I was shocked by Roy Campanella’s car crash in January, 1958, a wreck that left him paralyzed, and disoriented by the team’s move to Los Angeles that year. (By the way, as a Baptist preacher’s kid, I had trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that Campy ran a liquor store.) It blessed me to learn that Orel Hershiser sang hymns to himself in the dugout in the midst of his two, 1988, World Series victories, with a reprise on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. (And, again, my little Baptist heart was troubled when I later saw Orel playing professional poker on TV.) That same series, I enjoyed an episode of what philosophers of sport call “kinesthetic sympathy” in game one, when my arm muscles felt right along with Kirk Gibson arm-pump as he rounded the bases with a walk-off homer.
One of my favorite books, The Joy of Sports by Michael Novak, opens with his puzzling over the fact that he, a serious scholar up San Francisco way, a Catholic philosopher/theologian devoted to deep questions, would find himself on a Saturday afternoon, eating lunch in his car parked on the driveway. Turns out, the vehicle had their only radio that could pick up Vin Scully’s play-by-play as Sandy Koufax worked his pitching magic down in LA. (The book goes on to say that sports give us a taste of heaven, with “sacred space,” “sacred time,” the display of perpetual youth, etc.)
Through the years, I kept crossing paths with Dodgers and Dodger stuff. When my dad did Navy chaplain duty at Camp Pendleton, he took us to LA Coliseum to see the recently-arrived team play the not-yet-relocated Milwaukee Braves (the latter with Del Crandall, Eddie Mathews, Del Rice, and Hank Aaron). After the game, my dad maneuvered us to a spot where we could get some autographs, and I fielded a Duke Snider and a Stan Williams (a pitcher in those days). Three decades later, when I lived in Indianapolis, a friend from Anderson, Indiana got me an autographed baseball from Carl Erskine, who pitched two no-hitters in the 1950s. Last June, Sharon and I got to take in a night game at Chavez Ravine, and there we saw Mookie Betts, who went to Overton High School, about four miles from our home in Nashville.
When I taught at Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, I’d jog and bike along Pee Wee Reese Road, bordering Seneca Park. And when I was gathering field videos for my seminary course on work and leisure, I situated myself in Wrigley Field not far from the infamous Steve Bartman seat, from where I recorded Clayton Kershaw in a losing effort on the mound against the Cubs. And in 2020, I took a mini-pilgrimage to Camp Breckinridge (now a Job Corps facility) in Western Kentucky, where Jackie Robinson, while serving as an Army officer, met former Kansas City Monarch, Ted Alexander, who put him in contact that team, who ushered him into professional baseball. (Thanks for indulging my self-indulgent walk down memory lane.)
Back in 1896, the players and fans for the new Brooklyn baseball team had to dodge the electric streetcars running on tracks near the ball park, so the name Trolley Dodgers emerged, later simplified to Dodgers. They had to step lively, glancing left and right, lest they be bashed by tokens of progress. Today’s franchise continues in that tradition, but in reverse, for these Dodgers sweat tokens of social regress. They’re afraid they’ll be run over by those keen to celebrate the LGBQT+ Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, whose motto is “Go forth and sin some more.” When the Catholic League, Senator Rubio, and others cried “Foul!” over this year’s Pride Night, they dodged one way. But when the ACLU, local politicians, and their own employees had a cat, they dodged the other way.
Never mind that the drag Sisters degrade Christianity with a “Hunky Jesus” event and a pro-abortion, “Free Choice Mary” award; that they note proudly on their website Sisters Anal Receptive, Dana Van Iquity, and Porn Again. Besides, they’ve raised a bunch of money for AIDS research. Well, let’s imagine that a group mocking Islam or the NAACP gave a million dollars to the Audubon Society or the March of Dimes. Perhaps they’ve put Mohammed in a dunking booth or slammed a pie in MLK’s face. But they’re philanthropic too. Could they also enjoy a big night at Dodger Stadium?
Where’s Branch Rickey when we need him? He was the Dodger president and general manager whom the Baseball Hall of Fame commemorated with these words:
A conservative and religious man who notably refused to participate in Sunday ball games as a player and a manager, Rickey was anything but traditional in the way he approached baseball as an executive. He invented the modern farm system and the batting helmet, was an advocate for expansion into new markets and most notably broke the color barrier when he brought Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.
If Pride Night had surfaced on his watch, we’d have moaned, “Say it ain’t so, Branch. Say it ain’t so.” But today with controlling owner Mark Walter and his gay senior executive for marketing Eric Braverman at the helm, there’s no reason for surprised dismay. For these men are all in on the march of destructive perversion that’s trampling our Judeo-Christian civilization. They don’t give a rip so long as their bottom lines and ideological fantasies and posturings are served. Back in the day, we celebrated Dodger pitching ace, Clem Labine; now we find Skippy Supine in the front office, lying down for the worst in our culture to roll right over him.
Team names are fun, particularly at the Minor League level, where they serve up the Burlington Sock Puppets, the Savannah Bananas, and the Wichita Wing Nuts. As for the Dodgers, it’s been over a hundred years, so maybe it’s time for them to follow Cleveland in a name change. I’d suggest they take a look at the Los Angeles Invertebrates (for their spineless submission to godless pressure), the Los Angeles Quislings (for their cooperation with toxic ideological invaders), or the Los Angeles Dullards (for their inability to discern the spiritual and social peril they’re enabling).
