Everyone in the sports world is trying to explain the remarkable rise of the Colorado Rockies. The team was won 21 of its last 22 games and is 7-0 in the playoffs. This would be big news no matter which team was doing it. That it is coming from a team that no expert or analyst predicted would be in the World Series a month ago makes it, in the words of some, miraculous.
Here's one theory. They are winning because they are the religious team in baseball. Even the British are writing about it.
When one of the poorest, least fancied teams in professional baseball suddenly races out of nowhere and qualifies for the World Series playoffs, you might call it, well, a miracle.As it turns out, that's exactly how the Colorado Rockies – a team who previously seemed to be little more than a punching bag for the bigger, better, more lavishly funded organisations who play America's favourite sport – view their nail-biting, against-the-odds, come-back-from-way-behind progress into this autumn's post-season.
The team's chief executive is a born-again Christian. So is the general manager and the team coach. Their two star players, along with many other members of their regular line-up, are not only believers but attend team-organised Bible studies.
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Serendipity - coincidence - mathematical probability - God. Four explanations for the unexplanable. One of the interesting sorts of speculation regards "holons". Now, as I recall - a holon is anything that is connected to another. Particle somehow connected to particle. Coincidental coming together of those who have lost one another - holon. A seemingly unconnected set of coincidences - holons. Now, if everything is a holon - there is connection to the great wholeness of God - than we cannot be disconnected except by our own failure to recognize our connection to God. Great mystics seem to come to that understanding (I'm thinking of St. Teresa of Avila here). Perhaps it is necessary to see the small connections, the small moments in order to begin to understand that we are created to be connected. Original sin is simply the disconnect that we assume is true. Redemption is the recognition that we are not alone - ever.
I think of the films - Crash and Grand Canyon. Both tried to make that point - sort of.
Donny:
Why do you constantly change your poster names? Just curious.
Thinker:
I hardly think of Crash as a religious film (though Grand Canyon, IMHO, might be slightly more in that direction ...).
Crash was interesting enough, mind you, but I lost respect for it as a great film during the turnabout is (un)fair play revelation of a second connection between Thandie Newton's and Matt Dillon's characters ...
So I suppose that all those other teams that have "born again" Christians in coaching, management and player positions must have not prayed properly???
If we believe that the Rockies succeed, in part, because of the faith of their players and management, then we must also believe that other teams fail, in part, because of the faith of their players and management.
Why is it that Christian athletes never thank God for losing?
I think we'll see the extent of the Rockies' true Christian commitment by what they do when they lose games. And if they act differently from other groups should they win.
Curt Schilling is a loudly professed Christian (and Bush supporter). According to him, this accounts for his role in winning the 2004 World Series. But he made no mention of either thing when he gave up six runs this past Friday, and for practical purposes lost the Red Sox the likely key game of the present series. Curious that.
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