If I had to choose between my wife and my putter... well, I’d miss her.
The God squad
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Matt Sieger, Alive Book Publishing, 2023 ISBN 978-1-63132-207-5
The book tells the story of the 1978 San Francisco Giants, called the ‘God squad’ because of the number of Christian players in the team. This was particularly striking in a city known for championing abortion rights, gay rights, sexual freedom and the legalisation of drugs etc.
The Christian players are referred to as “born again Christians” which is hard to translate into UK English. ‘Evangelicals’ perhaps but without the association of modern US evangelicals with right-wing politics and creationism. Perhaps just “Christian” would be the UK terminology.
This is a really interesting book with one proviso. It is clearly written for people who follow baseball closely. All the statistics and most of the jargon went way over my head!
The book tells the story of the team and the impact of the Christian players, based on interviews by the author with players involved and journalists who covered it. There are copious quotes from contemporary newspaper accounts. We also need to remind ourselves that the period we are reading about was 46 years ago.
The most interesting question that the book addresses is whether it was a good thing or not to have so many Christian players in one team and whether it had a positive or negative impact. A secondary question – or the same question asked differently – was: did being a Christian make a player better or worse. No consensus emerges on either but the discussion confirms that these are important questions. One Christian player said that it seemed to him that when the team over-achieved in 1978 people said it was God blessing a Christian team but when performances dropped in the next two years that was suddenly the fault of the Christians! “What became popular then suddenly became unpopular".
The most interesting chapter focuses on a player’s post (defeat) game comment that the defeat was “God's will”. The chapter concludes that the player probably did not say it . However whether he said it or not is almost irrelevant as the quote has taken on a life of its own! It was quoted so many times as what Christians think and therefore as evidence that Christian players are less committed or less competitive than the rest because winning and losing had become less important to the players with their changed priorities. One, apparently non-Christian, player quoted, said that it had got to the point where guys were saying it was God's will if a pitcher lost a game and it was because that was what God wanted. If that was true it was an unhelpful fatalism.
Incidentally I recall a British pro footballer telling me that after he had become a Christian, his coach had a private talk with him accusing him of losing his edge because he had stopped swearing at opponents. The player replied that he was just as competitive but no longer felt the need to use foul language to prove it!
In1989 it was reported that 15 of 24 Giants players were regularly attending team chapel services with one Christian player saying that it became a “source of great unity on the team” while acknowledging that for the non-attending players the two camps became “a real struggle and then it can cause a division”. Another player referred to the danger that “chapel had become more important than baseball”, which it a sense it is - but equally players are paid to play baseball not to evangelize their team-mates and fans. One can understand the tension.
In terms of how being a Christian affected how you viewed competing etc players’ reactions were varied, including:
“I think the Christian element on this club is the number one key to our success this year… we feel we are playing for a purpose to glorify God”
The most important thing is “the opportunity to share his testimony with millions of people” because of his success in baseball.
One player quoted said that faith made him passive which was taken negatively in the media, leading the player to clarify that he just meant that faith helped him to keep success and failure in perspective.
One of the God squad claimed “God doesn't want you to lose, he wants you to be successful”.
Another that he “felt God was going to bat with me, I felt so confident…With God I felt I was the best ballplayer I could be”.
Another player expressed a balanced view: “I think our faith helps us handle situations more effectively and helps us to play to our capabilities, that's all”.
One of the management made a sensible assessment: “What Christianity does is unload some of the burdens a man can carry out to his position”.
Negative media comments included accusations in the press that the God squadders were too complacent because of their faith and players being described as Bible thumpers who constantly quoted scripture to explain success and failure. One newspaper suggested that the Giants should tell the Christian players firmly that their business is playing baseball not acting as amateur evangelists.
A quote from another player well illustrates the tension: “There is no doubt the Lord helps me in all aspects of my life… I read the Bible every day for at least half an hour and I always think on this one passage from the book of Philippians I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”. The first sentence is great but Philippians 4:13 is undoubtedly the Bible verse which is most misquoted by athletes. The context makes clear than Paul is saying that God can give him the strength to deal with success and failure. It is not a promise that God will help a mediocre pitcher to win the big game!
One newspaper wondered if the success indicated that “God was a Giants’ fan” while another suggested that if these players were a little smarter or more sophisticated, they would realise that God takes no special interest in baseball games”.
Finally, I was interested in an article quoted from the NY Times of 1997 that the landscape in sport had changed from Christians been seen as wimps, who would be embarrassed to talk about their faith, to having high-profile successful athletes in all major sport talking about Jesus being entirely normal.