American Religion
I feel like I went back to church yesterday. I went into a large, publicly accessible building, engaged in arcane rituals, partook of, if not sacred, at least ritually specific food, and witnessed the public excoriation of the unfaithful.
Did I do this in a church? A mosque? A temple? Of course not, I did it in a ball park. I watched the San Francisco Giants take on the Chicago Cubs.
No one was called a sinner, but the unfaithful, the Cubs fans, were derided, shouted down, and then loudly booed when one of them caught a ball that had been hit into the stands.
There was music. There was the sacred sing-along to “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” There was the playing of John Fogerty’s “Centerfield,” which is surely a baseball hymn or there is just no justice in the world.
And there were call outs and responses, though I don’t remember what they were.
Now I don’t know much about baseball statistics, so I don’t have any clue which team was favored to win, but I can tell you the outcome was far from Biblical. In the Bible David defeats the Giant, but in this case the Cubs failed at the same task. Maybe they should have used a sling.
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