Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Religion and baseball. Really.

Watching the Diamondbacks game tonight and I saw a really bad call, which is having some impact on the game.  I'm not sure why, but it suddenly struck me that the situation was distressingly similar to some issues with the church.  It really isn't even much of a stretch.

One of the things that bugs me most about baseball is its reluctance to just make changes that need to be made.  They knew about steroids for years before they addressed the problem.  They complain about the length of games but they won't enforce rules to speed up the game.  And, in the most glaring example, they won't address the issue of replay in a timely manner.  Umpires are not allowed to review anything outside a very narrow band of calls.  The review tonight would have taken ten seconds, but the powers that be are more interested in following some rule than they are in getting it right.

This is where the similarity to the church comes in.  Too many church leaders are interested in following some rule about who can get married, etc., and they are totally disinterested in doing what is right for actual human people.  This bothers me more daily in two of my favorite institutions: Major League Baseball and the church.

Thanks for reading.  I'll try to do better next time.