Faith Matters | Maybe the Rays are bad for baseball. Just as gospels are bad for religion

A few weeks ago I overheard a conversation between two parties, both intricately involved in the Major Leagues, seemingly griping about the Tampa Bay Rays somehow ruining baseball. One sardonically muttered, “Maybe they are just smarter than everyone else?” Maybe they are ...

While their conversation reeked of sour grapes or to an innocent, albeit nosey bystander, their sentiment has since gained plenty of sympathetic steam.

Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe added his grapes and gripes:

I hate them because they are run by analytics guys. They play spreadsheet baseball. They love platooning, defensive shifts, and four-man outfields. The cutting-edge Rays are all about the three true outcomes: strikeouts, walks, and homers. They make sure no pitcher ever faces a hitter more than twice in any game. Boring.

Maybe as a long time Rays fan, I dwell too close in proximity and admiration to have an unbiased, big-picture perspective? Perhaps the Rays really are bad news for baseball? Perhaps in the same way that the gospel is bad news for religion.

Now I don’t claim Christianity fails to check any boxes as a world religion. Instead I refer to the unique way God operates in relation to us, and vice versa.

Religions by nature operate according to some reward system for moral or ritual behavior. But the essence of Christianity relies not on a reward, but on a rescue. Alone among religions and philosophies, Christianity boasts an announcement of “good news” that Jesus came to do what we could not do ourselves.

Religion operates like a home loan: you pay your debt back to a deity, with interest, until you die. You hope or assume you don’t have any outstanding balance left.

But Jesus’ final words, “It is finished,” remind us that He left nothing undone or unpaid. As a result, what we do, why we do it, and how we do it all have their origin and operation in the unique gospel message.

You move from a karmic reward system to lovingly, freely, and creatively following Jesus in your respective setting.

I can see how grace is bad news for “good” or “fit” people and teams. If the essence of baseball lies in rewarding the fittest of the fittest with more money than they could ever spend in their entire lifetime, a la Zack Greinke’s gripes, then I guess that’s bad for baseball.

Yet the Gospel message and the Tampa Bay Rays remind us that money simply cannot buy championships, actual or existential. That remains bad news for those who have spent the most (or trust the most in their money), but good news for those who spent the least or can’t spend the most: the Rays have the 29th highest payroll. They serve as a reminder that God always does more with less, and keeping up with the Jones’, or Phillies and Giants for that matter (top 10 payroll but didn’t even make the extended playoffs) is not only exhausting, but unnecessary.

If big names comprise the essence of baseball, then I guess the Rays list of non-household names do it harm. In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he rebukes the elevation of “big names” that have led to big divisions in that church. Yet this new gospel system frees him up to lead the way back, claiming even he isn’t “anything” compared to Jesus.

As a result, in the church, as well as the Rays organization, you have a bunch of Average Joes who don’t rely on big names. Instead they prefer to have a big name together. In our overly self-absorbed and highly individualistic climate, could the Rays be pointing us to a better way forward than looking to “big names?” Is that bad for baseball, the church, humanity?

I leave you with the words of Someone both better and wiser than I. For those who don’t measure up to a religious standard, or whatever “standard du jour” thrown their way, check out these words from the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Corinthians, a nobody writing to a bunch of nobody’s about Somebody.

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” I Corinthians 1:18

Faith Matters is written by members of the Bradenton area clerical community. Geoff Henderson is pastor of Harbor Community Church (harborcommunitychurch.org) in Bradenton. You can reach him at geoff@harborcommunitychurch.org.