Hit By a Pitch

The Colorado Rockies are a Christian organization. I’ve mentioned what I refer to as “Rockies 4 Jesus” before. That post contained a link to the USA Today article about the team and Christianity. I also wrote about Rockies Faith Day last year.

Back when the team was doing well, they gave a shout out to the man upstairs in the USA Today article:

While praising their players, Rockies executives make clear they believe God has had a hand in the team’s improvement.

“You look at things that have happened to us this year,” O’Dowd says. “You look at some of the moves we made and didn’t make. You look at some of the games we’re winning. Those aren’t just a coincidence. God has definitely had a hand in this.”

Yesterday, this year’s Faith Day game was a disaster. A crowd of 45,660, including many who attended with church groups, couldn’t get the Power of Christ to compel the Rockies to stop sucking.

I don’t know if new pitcher Livan Hernandez, who got lit up yesterday, is a raging heathen the likes of which the team hasn’t seen since my pal Jose Mesa. How do you explain the horrible Faith Day game? How do you explain this year’s extravaganza of suck?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it here, just to be clear: I have nothing against Christianity or Christians or religion or faith (unless you try to impose your view of what’s right on others, because that is incredibly disrespectful and just wrong). I will say that I just don’t get it. As someone on the outside of Christianity looking in, I don’t understand why, last year, O’Dowd said that God “had a hand” in the team doing well. Aside from the obvious questions (God really has nothing better to do? Why you guys? Proximity to heaven? Wait, what?), doesn’t a team doing well result from the actions of the players, not God?

On the flip side, if you give God credit when things go well, do you also blame God when things don’t? Will O’Dowd or Clint Hurdle come out this year and say, hey, God really let us down this season. As part of the Faith Day festivities, Charlie Monfort and Seth Smith gave “testimony,” we featured “Christian rock music superstar Steven Curtis Chapman,” and you couldn’t keep us from being pounded (16-7!) by the crappy Padres? Really God? What’s up with that?

I guess God is busy with the Angels this year.