For Americans, especiall, this column is a necessary reading
experience, I think:
Jesus is a Reds fan [PERMALINK]
If you've been wondering which baseball team has been anointed by God,
the answer is the Cincinnati Reds. At least that's the gospel according
to a Cincinnati sportstalk radio host named Andy Furman.
I wish I'd known this before I made my National League picks. But
reader Michael Vines only hipped me to the good news on Tuesday.
When the Reds opened their season at home against the New York Mets
Monday, Furman led into the game broadcast with a fire-and-brimstone
sermon extolling the virtues of God, U.S. troops, Pope John Paul II and
the Cincinnati Reds. You can hear it yourself at mlb.com, where you can
listen to either team's radio broadcast of every game all year if
you're inclined to pay $14.95.
The first Reds broadcast of the season starts with Furman talking over
"The Battle Hymn of the Republic." That ridiculous cliché, more than
the whacked-out nature of the sermon -- which at one point has the Reds
looking down from heaven -- is a clue the whole thing might be a joke.
But if it is, I don't get it. A transcript:
"Whether it's Vietnam, whether it's the Persian Gulf War or whether
it's Iraq, whenever American soldiers are marching around the globe:
God almighty -- God, who called home John Paul the Great -- will
determine once again the path and the mark, a great American victory
overseas in the Persian Gulf area now, in 2005.
"As God is my witness, as sure as there is a pope in heaven today, as
sure as the mighty Ohio River flows in between Ohio and Kentucky, as
surely as the Furman brothers sitting next to me now, circumcised, as
sure as I'm sitting here, once again, God will say, 'It is time for the
Reds to march.' From the Civil War to World War I to World II to
Vietnam to the Persian Gulf War, and to Mosul and to Fallujah, one
baseball team has been called by God to look down from heaven above,
and to represent him.
"It's not about football, Andy. It's not about basketball, Randy. It's
not about swimming. It's not about field hockey. It's not about
bowling. It's not about tennis. It's about one sport that God almighty
has determined to represent America, and that sport is baseball.
"And the one team, the one team that is best represented is the oldest
and the best franchise. Whether it's G.I. Joe or the Doughboys. No
matter what it is. Say it loud, Furman brothers, the Reds are No. 1.
God bless America, and God bless the Cincinnati Reds on 700, WLW."
Reds fans can take comfort that God's on their side, but would it be
blasphemous to ask why He can't do something about the pitching?
It's from King Kaufman's Sports Daily. Whew. Who could have known...
http://www.salon.com/news/sports/col/kaufman/2005/04/06/wednesday/
index1.html
Doug
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 Canada
(780) 436 3320
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
He saw the dark as a ragged garment
spread out to air.
Through its rents and moth-holes
the silver light came pouring.
Denise Levertov
|