The L.A. Dodgers’ anti-Catholic bigotry should remind us of how members of the Church have influenced America’s sport.
The L.A. Dodgers’ anti-Catholic bigotry should remind us of how members of the Church have influenced America’s sport.
T he Los Angeles Dodgers are in danger of striking out.
A grotesquely anti-Catholic “performance” group, known as the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, was slated to receive the Community Hero Award as part of the club’s tenth annual LGBTQ+ Pride Night on June 16. After opposition from Catholics, the team rescinded the offer, only to apologetically reverse course and, once again, honor the organization.
In response, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has called for “all Catholics and people of goodwill to stand against bigotry and hate in any form,” while Bishop Robert Barron, former auxiliary bishop in Los Angeles and founder of Word on Fire, encouraged Catholics to boycott the team.
This Dodgers fiasco is one aspect of a new trend in which large companies seemingly do not understand their audience (like the Bud Light/Dylan Mulvaney controversy), as 32 percent of Los Angeles residents identify as Catholics — which is the most of any religious denomination, let alone any Christian sect. Even members of the team do not hide their Christianity, such as future Hall of Fame pitcher Clayton Kershaw, whose Twitter bio consists simply of a verse from the New Testament (Colossians 3:23).
Although Jesus Christ teaches that disciples will inherently face persecution, advising to “turn the other cheek,” the Sisters’ degradation of Catholic rituals, the crucified Lord, and those in religious life goes beyond the pale. They are not seeking tolerance, but mockery.
How fans will react is still unknown. While the Dodgers have failed with conflicting public-relations messages, they also continuously fail to understand the Catholic foundation in baseball: not in a metaphysical sense (i.e., how baseball mirrors the spiritual life), but practically.
The game of baseball — as we know it today — would not be the same without Catholics. From Babe Ruth to Roberto Clemente to even the Knights of Columbus, the largest Catholic fraternal organization in the world (which has released a four-part online exhibit about its influence on the game), Catholics forged the records and standards that every player has since chased.
What better place to start than at the beginning.
The Dodgers are a franchise in the National League, the oldest active professional baseball league. While the Brooklyn Grays (the team’s previous name) would not form until 1883, the first NL game was held on April 22, 1876, between the Philadelphia Athletics and the Boston Red Stockings. A crowd of more than 3,000 attended to witness Jim “Orator” O’Rourke knock a single against A’s pitcher Lon Knight, becoming the first man to hit safely in league history. A future Hall of Famer, O’Rourke later became active in the Knights of Columbus Park City Council 16 in Bridgeport, Conn. He was also a great man of tolerance, helping minorities in baseball before the turn of the 20th century by hiring Harry Herbert — a black man — in 1895 for the minor-league Bridgeport Victors. With the hire, Herbert became the first African American from Bridgeport to play professional baseball and, quite possibly, the first African American in the minors.
O’Rourke is one of many early baseball heroes and standard-bearers who were Catholics. Among the best hitters of the dead-ball era were “Wee Willie” Keeler and Hugh Duffy. Keeler once held the record for the longest hitting streak, 44 games, which he set in 1897 and which Catholic Joe DiMaggio broke in 1941; and he famously taught that his hitting method was to “hit ’em where they ain’t,” which is still quoted in dugouts from the Little League to Major League Baseball. Duffy, meanwhile, held the MLB record for a single-season batting average at .440 from 1894 until the integration of Negro League statistics in MLB records several years ago.
Additionally, Ed Walsh, a pitcher for the White Sox, still holds the record for the lowest career earned run average; Joe Tinker and Johnny Evers not only led the Chicago Cubs to World Series titles before the 100-plus-year drought but also were immortalized as one of baseball’s most notable double-play combinations; Napoleon Lajoie won five batting titles and even had a team named after him (the Cleveland Naps); and Roger Bresnahan popularized shin guards and rudimentary batting helmets, which still influence every catcher to this day.
But the two titans of early baseball were managers John McGraw and Connie Mack; the latter holds the record for most career managerial wins. Between the two of them, they amassed nearly 6,500, combined for eight World Series titles and 19 pennants; both are still considered among the top ten greatest managers ever, according to Bleacher Report.
Yet baseball would be nowhere near the game it is today without one man: George Herman “Babe” Ruth. The man transcended the confines of the diamond, becoming a worldwide icon by popularizing home-run hitting. Ruth credits learning how to play the game as a child from Xaverian Brother Matthias while at St. Mary’s Industrial School for troubled boys in Baltimore, Md.
“He used to back me in a corner of the big yard at St. Mary’s and bunt a ball to me by the hour, correcting the mistakes I made with my hands and feet,” Ruth wrote in a reflection in Guideposts, published days after his death. “Thanks to Brother Matthias, I was able to leave St. Mary’s in 1914 and begin my professional career with the famous Baltimore Orioles.”
The Great Bambino was also a member of the Knights of Columbus, often collaborating with local councils during barnstorming tours, bringing the game west when no MLB team existed beyond the Mississippi River. (The Dodgers would move to Los Angeles in 1958, the same year the New York Giants relocated to San Francisco.) This exhibition spirit extended overseas to Japan in 1934, when Ruth and other MLB stars helped solidify that country as a hotbed for baseball (which, no doubt, later influenced players like phenom Shohei Ohtani).
While the Sultan of Swat struggled with faith until he made a full confession later in life, Hall of Famer and St. Louis Cardinal legend Stan Musial was known to never miss Sunday Mass — as he amassed seven batting titles, three MVPs, three World Series titles, and 24 All-Star Game appearances (which is tied for the most of all time with Hank Aaron and Willie Mays). Other prominent Catholic ballplayers of the mid-20th century included Yogi Berra, one of the winningest catchers in baseball history; Roberto Clemente, a pioneer for Latin American players, who often did charitable activities in the off-season and was even rumored at one point to have a cause for sainthood opened; and then there is Hammerin’ Hank Aaron, a Catholic convert whom fans still regard as the “clean” home-run king.
The laundry list of Catholic talent is extensive and still looms over the game, even to this past season with Aaron Judge chasing Roger Maris’s 61-home-run record (Maris was a regular Mass goer, attending the 10 a.m. Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral before hitting his 61st homer on October 1, 1961).
And within the Dodgers organization, prominent positions were held by Catholics such as Tommy Lasorda, who managed two World Series–championship Dodgers teams in 1981 and 1988, and Gil Hodges, who, as first baseman, helped the club win its first World Series title in 1955 and whom Jackie Robinson referred to as the “core” of those squads. Vin Scully, the voice of baseball for generations of Dodgers fans and baseball fans nationwide, was an active Catholic who worked with Catholic Athletes for Christ and even recorded a two-CD set of praying the Rosary. It’s likely that if Scully were still alive, the Dodgers’ kowtowing to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence would never have seen the light of day.
Yet here we are. Not only are the Dodgers clearly ignorant of their fan base’s religious affiliation, by honoring the anti-Catholic group, but also of the game’s Catholic heritage, one that is deeply rooted even in their organization.
Without Catholics, the game would be woefully different. One day, hopefully sooner rather than later, the Dodgers will see this truth and maybe even honor the Catholic ballplayers on whom the club’s existence depends.