Athletes Pointing to the Heavens

Did this start with Barry Bonds, or even before: A guy hits a homerun and upon arriving at home plate, he looks up reverentially and points with both hands to the heavens. Or to loved ones who’ve passed on. Does he then turn to a teammate and say, “I crushed the #!%$# outta that one. Thank you, Jesus.”

Or do heavy hitters do it before they start their homerun saunter?

If baseball stadiums are becoming megachurches with expressions of reverence every five minutes, then maybe American pro sports needs an Establishment Clause, a wall of separation between Church and game. Because it’s not just homeruns anymore. It’s singles, sacrifice flies, a stolen base, scoring on someone else’s hit! I can only imagine this is huge in football, too. Fortunately, there’s no time for thanking God in basketball or hockey. The guy hitting the three-pointer needs to get back on D . . . now! God can wait.

You might argue that pros pointing to heaven are giving credit where credit is due, the ultimate expression of humility. But I suspect that with a great many, it’s more a matter of the athlete imagining that he’s among the “chosen” – those watched over and blessed by God . . . even in the games they play. Or, worse, for some of those who’ve tainted the game with their chemical additives, perhaps it’s an attempt to deflect criticism: “The steroids aren’t responsible. God is!” Or: “My grandmother is watching from above, so, please, let’s not talk about steroids now.”

And now, of course, I imagine we’ll see little leaguers pointing, with proper gravitas, to the skies after every small success . . . just so they can do what the pros do.

We all follow the lead of athletes. What about those middle-aged guys who wear jerseys to football games and cheer profanities with a maniacal exertion that makes them look as if an alien were about to spawn from their eye-sockets? If their heroes point to the skies to credit the Divine, will the fans reconsider their spleen-busting, child-awing profanities and instead quietly point to the heavens while singing Gregorian chant? How can we cheer profanely while our hero is pointing to heaven? It’s unseemly. Let’s consider Jesus and the money changers in the Temple:

Scene: Jesus kicks the tables of the money changers in the Temple.

Jesus: (kicking stuff): My house shall be called the house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves. (Matthew 21:13)

Followers of Jesus: Yeah, yeah! He crushed the #!%$# outta that money changers’ #!%$#! . . . JEE-SUS! JEE-SUS! JEE-SUS! JEE-SUS! JEE-SUS!

Of course, it didn’t happen that way.

Will these affectations of reverence spillover into the workplace, too, like high-fives, sports parlance, and team-building games?

Bob: Nice job on stacking that hay, Dave.

Dave: (points to heaven): Yeah, I stacked the #!%$# out of that hay. Thank you Jesus.

Or:

Joan: They never saw that takeover coming Phyllis. Masterful.

Phyllis: (points to heaven). Yeah, that was one #!%$#ing hostile takeover. Thank you Jesus. (High-fives Joan. Joan offers Pyllis chewing tobacco.)

Does God care about the Tigers-Yankees game? If so, does He have a favorite? Do we blame Him if our team loses? Do we get in God’s face if He gives us the game-tying, late-inning homer only to have someone on the other infernal team hit a game winning homer . . . just before pointing to the heavens himself?

Or is it loved ones the athletes point to? Heaven may be, for some, the very best, most comprehensive cable-satellite-online hookup where every player’s grandparents are watching every game, even in Spring Training.

Whoever they’re pointing to, the athletes seem to abide by an unwritten code more than they abide by reverence for the Divine. After all, correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t it be bad form for a pitcher to point gratefully to God after striking out a heavy hitter with men on base in a close late-inning game? Or for a shortstop to acknowledge heavenly grace after turning a double play cleanly? Frankly, I always hoped that a pitcher facing some heaven-pointer would point, quid pro quo, to the heavens after striking him out.

Of course, a pitcher is successful about 75% of the time against batters and it’s much easier to throw a ball to a sizeable target, even with juice, than it is to hit that curving, 90 mph sphere, squarely, with a cylinder. So a homerun might feel like divine intervention. But if athletes are thanking God for their dramatic successes, why not after every successful moment?

Doesn’t God care about strikeouts, especially strikeouts against the steroid-soaked, hubris-infected louts always seeking God’s attention? Is it true that inauthentic shows of reverence, bad as they are, fail to outrage athletes and fans as much as “showing up” an opposing team or player? There are even rules against it, right. Maybe that’s as it should be: Showing someone up would lead to a bench-clearing brawl. Chaos reigns. Satan wins.

I await your comments. In the meantime, I’m gazing, at this moment, toward heaven.