Category Archives: Sports and Leisure

The Running Animal

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To move things in a completely different direction, maybe human beings are the “running animal.”  We’re not used to thinking of human beings as physically superior to other animals – e.g. cheetahs are faster, elephants are stronger – but it turns out that human beings are the best long-distance runners in the world. So says Daniel Lieberman of Harvard and Dennis Bramble of Utah. In another article, Lieberman notes that:

Once humans start running, it only takes a bit more energy for us to run faster, Lieberman said. Other animals, on the other hand, expend a lot more energy as they speed up, particularly when they switch from a trot to a gallop, which most animals cannot maintain over long distances.

They also point out that human beings are the only animals in the world that run long distances – like a marathon – voluntarily.  Which reminds me of the scene from Back to the Future 3 in which some cowboys are laughing at Marty McFly’s “running shoes.”  

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Does God Care About My Baseball Game?

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It’s common to hear athletes credit their success to God or thank God for a victory.  Occasionally, sportswriters will question whether God cares about a particular athlete’s success or failure.  After all, whether some player hits a three-pointer or catches a ball does seem far less important than Darfur, North Korea, or Iraq.  Continue reading →

America's Pasttime

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There is a good review at the NY Times today about “Reel Baseball,” a DVD collection of early baseball films. It includes this remarkable plot summary for “His Last Game,” a movie from 1909:

[T]he story is unusually pointed: a Choctaw Indian, the star pitcher of his local (integrated!) baseball team, is plied with drink by a pair of gamblers who want him to throw the game; in an argument he kills one of them and is immediately sentenced to death by firing squad.

But as he is digging his own grave, the townspeople show up and press him into service for a game. He pitches, wins for the home team and then returns to the open grave, where he is summarily executed.

Wow.

Why I Hate Sports (or How is this Christian education?)

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The NY Times is reporting that the NCAA is no longer accepting transcripts from 4 high schools, including Luther Christian Academy in Philadelphia. Some of the key factoids about Luther Christian from the article:

  • The basketball coach, Daryl Schofield, is also the only teacher.
  • Four students told the NCAA that they are not required to attend class.
  • Schofield bragged that the school is adding a library next year (so, up until now, they did not have one).
  • The NY Times paraphrases Schofield saying that most of the students have already graduated high school, but “need another year of exposure as players.”
  • To come into compliance with the NCAA, Schofield – again, the basketball coach and only teacher – said that he’s planning to attend a conference on Christian education.

This isn’t the only basketball team-disguised-as-a-school that calls itself “Christian.” I’m also reminded of incidents from the past couple of years in which “Christian” high schools used over-age football players in order to win games against rivals.

Are these schools part of a trend of Christians breaking rules and compromising students’ education for the sake of sports success, or is it more of a general societal trend? Does it have anything to do with the idolization of Christian athletes as role models for the faith?

IMHO, Christians need to develop a theology of sports – I’m completely serious about this – that unpacks the meaning of sports and competition within the Christian life. This is an opinion I’ve had for a while. Sports is a HUGE factor in American culture, but there are rarely sermons that address sports as more than a metaphor or example of some other point. Without a theology of sports, which puts sports in the proper perspective and explore how they can be a fruitful part of a Christian’s life, it’s so easy for their importance to become overblown.

Why I Love Sports :)

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It’s quotes like this one, today’s lead sentence from Tom Verducci’s Inside Baseball:

One year after Game of Shadows, one of the most important books of our time…

Well, no, it’s not “one of the most important books of our time,” but in the world of sports, it is. And in the world of sports, nothing matters except sports.

If you hate sports, that’s one more reason to hate everything about sports: the inflated sense of self-importance that takes for granted that hitting a ball with a stick and/or catching said ball with a glove is worth millions of dollars per year.

If you love sports, it’s one more reason to love them: the real problems of the world can be laid aside for a few moments so that we can argue about who’s best at hitting that ball with a stick and/or catching said ball with a glove.