Sports
Baseball Chapel spreads evangelical zeal in major, minor leagues
Christian chaplaincy group takes no stance on LGBT issues but doctrine murky
Baseball and white evangelical Christianity have a long history going back to the days of Billy Sunday (1862-1935), an outfielder in the game’s National League in the 1880s who went on to become widely accepted as the “most celebrated and influential American evangelist during the first two decades of the 20th century,” according to a 1955 biography.
Sunday converted to Christianity and in 1891 turned down a lucrative baseball contract to go into full-time ministry with a Chicago YMCA. Although Sunday was ordained by the Presbyterian Church and his revival meetings were nondenominational, he was a strict Calvinist and taught traditionally evangelical and fundamentalist doctrine such as the inerrancy of scripture and that one must be saved to avoid hell.
The links between white evangelical Christianity and “America’s pastime” continue today through organizations such as Baseball Chapel, a group that appoints team chapel leaders to provide chaplain-like services to players in both Major and Minor League Baseball to “bring encouragement to people in the world of professional baseball through the gospel so that some become discipled followers of Jesus Christ.”
According to the group’s website, chapel programs are established for all 210 teams in the major and minor leagues and many independent league teams. About 3,000 players, coaches, managers, trainers, office staff and other team personnel, umpires and members of the media attend. The agency was formed in 1973 when Watson Spoelstra, a Detroit sportswriter, approached Commissioner Bowie Kuhn with the idea of an organized chapel program for every major league team. By 1975, all major teams had a chapel program. The minor league component was started in 1978, according to the Baseball Chapel website.
All board members and staff, paid and volunteer, agree to the group’s statement of faith “without reservation,” its website notes.
White evangelical Christianity has evolved in the U.S. and there are varying views as to its origins, although it’s a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of the Christian faith. There was greater overlap of belief with mainline strains of the faith (e.g. Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopal) in the early 20th century but a starker line was drawn in the 1980s when Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority linked itself to the Republican Party. There was overlap with the Jesus Movement — conservative Christianity’s answer to the Woodstock era — where the born again experience was emphasized and eventually a full-on counterculture formed with books, movies, and especially pop- and rock-flavored gospel music created by and for this audience. These products existed to a far greater degree than anything comparable in mainline or Catholic Christianity.
Today, just 34 percent of white U.S. evangelicals support same-sex marriage (numbers are higher among 18-29 year olds but lower overall in the Bible Belt) compared to 67 percent of white U.S. mainline protestants and 66 percent of white U.S. Catholics, according to the Public Religion Research Institute. And white evangelical support of President Donald Trump is at an all-time high, according to the same group — in an April poll, 75 percent held a positive view of the president (81 percent of among white evangelical U.S. men). Trump won the white evangelical vote by more than 80 percent according to polling data.
Not all white U.S. evangelicals believe the same doctrine. There are charismatic and non-charismatic (i.e. “speaking in tongues”) strains, but there is much overlap of belief. Baseball Chapel’s statement of faith does not mention same-sex marriage or activity but reads much like those of other evangelical, anti-gay groups with language calling the Bible the “inspired, infallible word of God, inerrant in the original manuscripts.” It offers “daily devotions” with topics like “staying humble in success,” “thy will be done,” “remember God’s faithfulness” and many others.
Some LGBT activists say even if Baseball Chapel isn’t openly condemning LGBT people, the fraught history of LGBT people and the historically heavily heteronormative world of U.S. sports culture is cause for, at least, caution.
“Institutional religions have been part of the American sports story from the founding of this country,” says David McFarland, producer of the new sports documentary “Alone in the Game,” about the struggle of LGBT athletes. “I am very concerned for our LGBTQ athletes and their ability to fulfill their dreams in sports. Americans have habitually turned playing fields into praying fields. And more than ever, sports have also figured into the making of America’s civil religious discourse as athletic expressions of national identity. Extreme religious themes and ideas continue to attach themselves to sports in new and innovative ways keeping LGBTQ athletes off the playing fields and living in silence.”
But is there a danger of being too wary if Baseball Chapel has no anti-LGBT history to point to? If anything, it appears to have attracted more controversy for other reasons. Josh Miller, a minor league umpire for eight years, said the weekly services — always optional though held in the close confines of a locker room that made them difficult to avoid — made him uncomfortable because of his Jewish faith in a 2008 New York Times interview. In 2005, the Washington Post reported that a Baseball Chapel volunteer chaplain’s assertion that Jews are “doomed because they don’t believe in Jesus” inspired Major League Baseball to reevaluate its relationship with Baseball Chapel (it continued).
The group doesn’t appear to have attracted much controversy in recent years. McFarland says there are larger groups — some with annual budgets over $100 million — doing Christian outreach ministry at all levels. He says Baseball Chapel, in terms of size and scope, “doesn’t even compare” to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, a more explicitly anti-LGBT group whose statement of faith says marriage is “exclusively the union of one man and one woman.”
Baseball Chapel, which has eight staff members (three are part-time) and hundreds of volunteers, declined the Blade’s request for an interview. In an e-mail, Baseball Chapel President Vince Nauss said the group’s work is private.
“Baseball Chapel’s service to the teams are intended to be behind the scenes and thus we are careful to respect the private nature of our role with the players and staff members,” Nauss wrote. “I rarely grant interviews with media outlets and therefore decline the request.”
Local minor league teams say their chaplain services have been non-problematic. A spokesman for Maryland’s Hagerstown Suns says there are no openly gay players on this season’s roster that he knows of. He wasn’t sure if any of their current chaplains are with Baseball Chapel.
Geoff Arnold, director of broadcasting and public relations with Maryland’s Frederick Keys, a AA affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles, says he’s interacted with the Baseball Chapel folks “a decent amount.” There aren’t any openly gay players on the Keys, he said.
“They typically offer short services for players on Sundays regardless of whether the team is at home or on the road,” Arnold wrote in an e-mail. “To call it a religious group would be a stretch since they are more of a service for players who want to be able to practice their faith but can’t make it to normal services. … I can tell you that the services are non-denominational and inclusive to everyone regardless of age, race or sexual orientation. … Participation is 100 percent voluntary and it’s simply a resource. Everyone I’ve ever interacted with from Baseball Chapel has been first rate people who really care about the players and in some cases have played themselves.”
Arnold said it’s a “super low-key environment, the services are very short and nobody is pushy or makes you feel uncomfortable.”
But what about other groups? Are chaplain services offered for Catholics, Jews or even possibly Muslims? Do the leagues give those faiths equal time?
Arnold says he knows of “a bunch of Catholic guys who attend Baseball Chapel.” He was unaware of any Jewish groups offering comparable services and says there are few Muslim players in minor league baseball.
Rev. Anjel Scarborough, an Episcopal priest and LGBT ally in Ellicott City, Md., says she’s unaware of mainline, Catholic, Jewish or Muslim chaplaincies in sports settings. She says white evangelical chaplains are common in other sports as well. It’s not surprising, she says, since outreach efforts are part and parcel with evangelical belief.
While Pride nights in Major League Baseball are huge now (this year 24 out of 30 teams have Pride events planned), that only started in the early 2000s. Christian groups have been at it in baseball decades longer.
So is it any big deal for LGBT people if Baseball Chapel is that benign? Opinions vary.
Aside from LGBT issues, Scarborough said she has other concerns.
“Spiritual care from a group like this is very one-dimensional and only represents a narrow bandwidth of Christianity at that,” Scarborough, priest in charge of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Ellicott City, Md., says. “Evangelicalism operates on a view of the church known as the salvation model. … In essence, this view is the church exists to win souls for Christ, hence the effort to proselytize in alternative venues like sports teams. But that’s a pretty narrow view of why the church exists.”
She says the evangelical vs. mainline view of salvation also differs.
“The view in evangelical Christianity is all about salvation so you can go to heaven when you die,” Scarborough says. “In general, mainline Christianity sees salvation as a here-and-now reality, not exclusively about a future promise about what happens after death.
Matthew Vines, executive director of the Reformation Project, a group that offers a “Bible-based, gospel-centered approach to LGBTQ inclusion,” says groups that aren’t more unequivocal in their LGBT positions can still be problematic.
“They may not have any anti-LGBTQ language on their website, but given how many conservative Christian groups offer harmful advice about how to respond to LGBTQ people who come out,” Vines said, “a closeted player considering coming out would likely worry about the message the group would send to its members about whether or not to support an out teammate.”
Sports
Former UMD basketball player Abby Meyers discusses lesbians in sports, March Madness
Potomac native signed with the London Lions last August
Star basketball player Abby Meyers signed with the London Lions last August, but she called Maryland home before calling the shots in London.
Meyers, a lesbian shooting guard, grew up in Potomac and graduated from Walt Whitman High School in 2017. She played for Princeton in her undergraduate years and played for the University of Maryland during graduate school.
She began playing basketball in elementary school, and she was already showing an abundance of potential by the time she was in high school.
In her freshman year of high school, the school’s basketball coach sat down with Meyers and her family and showed them a list of universities with Division I basketball teams. Meyers circled the names of the schools that she was interested in attending. From there, the doors leading to a collegiate basketball career began to open. She began working towards her dream and ended up playing for Princeton.
“It was kind of like a mutual understanding between the two of us, me and basketball,” Meyers told the Washington Blade. “I took more individual lessons, and I just realized that the potential was sky high.”
She came back to her home state to attend the University of Maryland not only for its business program but also for its celebrated basketball team.
“I grew up watching Alyssa Thomas, Shatori Walker-Kimbrough and so many other legends that passed through that program,” Meyers said. “So for me, I knew that basketball-wise, it was the best decision I could make. … They definitely had all of the qualities to make me the best player I could be.”
Before shipping off to London, Meyers briefly played in the WNBA for the Washington Mystics in the summer of 2023. In fact, the aforementioned UMD alum Shatori Walker-Kimbrough was one of her teammates.
She described her time with the WNBA and in London so far as a “learning experience.”
“I got to relearn what it meant to be a rookie again,” Meyers said. “All of a sudden you enter a new team, a new level and you’re at the bottom, and you just have to let your actions speak louder than your words.”
Meyers publicly came out around 2019, and since then she has been a role model for many other lesbian women in sports.
“By coming out I’m actually being my authentic self, but I was scared that people were going to judge me and look at me differently when in fact, I was met with open arms, love, and appreciation,” Meyers said.
Meyers believes the journey one takes to coming out is an individual process that looks different for everyone.
“At the end of the day, it’s your own race; run it at your own pace,” Meyers said. “Never be apologetic for who you are. When you have to start compromising yourself and your values for other people like though that’s not the community you want to be a part of.”
She has not experienced much anti-LGBTQ stigma since coming out, but that does not mean that it does not exist in other sports communities. However, in this modern social climate, Meyers pointed out, people are much more accepting of gay women in sports.
Nina Hazra, a University of Maryland medical student, grew up playing basketball with Meyers. The two were on the same team in middle school, but they went to different high schools and would often play against each other.
Hazra did not play much past high school, but she remained close friends with her former teammate and rival to this day. She went to most of the home games during Meyers’ stint at UMD.
Though Hazra does not identify with the LGBTQ community, she noticed a tension in the sports world that affects all women, regardless of sexuality. However, with today’s shifting climate, it has become easier for female athletes to express their identities
“Women who express strong emotions in sports are often treated differently than men who do the exact same thing,” Hazra said in an interview. “I feel like as we’ve gotten older, there’s been a lot more celebration of womanhood in whatever form in sports, and I think that’s one of the places where you can then kind of go outside those societal norms.”
But Hazra still noticed the impact Meyers had on younger generations in sports who may be struggling with their identities.
“It doesn’t matter your sexuality, your gender identity, all that stuff. That doesn’t matter when you’re playing a sport,” Hazra said. “A lot of us didn’t have role models in those years growing up and just to get to see her being that for so many girls is so amazing.”
Elisa Pinzan, also a former Terrapin, is good friends with Meyers.
Originally from Italy, Pinzan played for the University of South Florida for four years before entering the transfer portal and landing at UMD. She now plays for Keflavik IF in Iceland.
Pinzan and Meyers formed a strong bond while playing for the Terrapins together.
“She was the first person I got close to; she is very open, smiley and friendly, and I felt comfortable around her from the first day,” Pinzan described. “I am glad to have met someone like Abby, with such a kind soul.”
Pinzan thought that fans should keep their eyes peeled for the Terrapins this upcoming March Madness season.
“They are a very young team with energy, enthusiasm and grit on the floor, and I think they are a lot better than the record they have,” Pinzan wrote about the Terrapins in an interview. “Despite being young though, they are learning a lot every game and I am sure they will be able to transfer these lessons for the best time of the year coming up.”
Meyers agreed that there is a lot to look forward to this March Madness. She said that with Coach Brenda Frese’s game plans and strong assistant staff, the Terrapins have a strong chance of advancing throughout the competition.
According to Meyers, March Madness will be different for women’s basketball this year, pointing out that it’s more popular right now than men’s games, as women’s basketball is selling out arenas.
“I only think it’s gonna get better and it’s going to grow even more,” Meyers said. “Just the marketing, the social media, the overall awareness of the women’s game. Fans are growing by the number.”
Meyers believes that female basketball players have to rely more on their skill than their athleticism, which she believes makes women’s games just as — if not more — exciting than men’s games. She said that over the past few years, there has been a strong shift in women’s viewership that has shrunk the gap between men’s and women’s basketball, including from a technical standpoint, given that men and women play with the same level of equipment.
Regardless of where UMD ends up this March Madness, Meyers will be cheering the Terrapins on from across the pond — especially the women.
Sports
Banned trans golfer Hailey Davidson: ‘Hate and bigotry will never win’
NXXT mandates players must be ‘biological female at birth’
Transgender pro golfer Hailey Davidson is pushing back against a policy change announced Friday by the Florida-based mini-tour, NXXT. From now on, competitors must be “a biological female at birth” in order to participate.
“Effective immediately, I have been removed (banned) from the next three NXXT tournaments that I had already signed up for and been approved to play,” said Davidson in a post on Instagram. “They changed their policy mid season, after signing me up already and being 2nd in the Player of the Year race.”
The three-time winner from Scotland has played nine times on the tour this season.
According to a statement by the tour’s CEO, Stuart McKinnon, the change underscores the organization’s commitment to “maintaining the integrity of women’s professional golf and ensuring fair competition.” NXXT Golf issued that statement on International Women’s Day.
“As we navigate through the evolving landscape of sports, it is crucial to uphold the competitive integrity that is the cornerstone of women’s sports,” said McKinnon in the statement. “Our revised policy is a reflection of our unwavering commitment to celebrating and protecting the achievements and opportunities of female athletes. Protected categories are a fundamental aspect of sports at all levels and it is essential for our Tour to uphold these categories for biological females, ensuring a level playing field.”
Davidson said the policy change in her social media post was discrimination, adding that the decision denigrates cisgender female athletes as well as trans athletes.
“You know what really bugs me is that people think I win just by showing up,” she wrote. “This is such a slap in the face to ALL female athletes being told that any male can transition and beat them regardless of the life of hard work those women put in.
“You think you’re attacking me, but you’re actually attacking and putting down ALL other female athletes.”
She concluded with a vow: “You can scream at me, threaten me, throw insults at me, and even ban me BUT I will ALWAYS get back up and keep fighting to the very end. Hate and bigotry will never win.”
Davidson also posted a message for the women she had planned to compete against: “I hope those NXXT players who are now in the top five are still able to earn those Epson Tour exemptions they were promised and continue to be reminded of in the previous couple of tournaments.”
Sports
Gay figure skater Colin Grafton shares his story and his dream
Boston native is contestant on British television’s ‘Dancing On Ice’
For a second year, Boston native and professional figure skater Colin Grafton is carving up the ice on British television’s “Dancing On Ice,” and now he’s doing it as his authentic self.
“I told my closest friends. I told the people around me and I eventually told my parents,” Grafton, 32, recalled in an interview with PinkNews, in which he discussed coming out as gay. “I was maybe 24 when all that happened. I know there’s a lot of curiosity about my sexual orientation and my love life, but I never actually came out to the public,” said ITV personality.
“I guess this is me announcing it to you guys.”
Grafton, who has been skating since he was 7, reflected on how watching Tara Lipinski win an Olympic gold medal at the 1998 Winter Games inspired him to pursue this career. But being a male figure skater was “really tough” in the 1990s and 2000s, he told PinkNewsUK.
“I remember feeling so nervous at various points in my childhood,” said Grafton. ”I’d be skating and the hockey players would come and bang on the side of the rink and shout words. That was something all male skaters had to deal with back then. It wasn’t easy but all of it made me stronger because I took it and focused everything on my sport.”
Grafton’s focus catapulted him to competing for Team USA, winning a bronze medal at the Junior U.S. championships in 2012, with his former partner Kylie Duarte. The memory of those who taunted him only fueled him to work harder.
“When somebody tells you, you can’t do something, or somebody makes fun of you, just prove them wrong.”
Grafton ended his competitive career in 2013 and transitioned to professional skating, leading several European tours, and even becoming a coach. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I feel very fortunate about the fact that I’ve been able to kind of dabble in so many different areas in the professional world, but tour life is quite hard, all the travel and being away for so long,” he said. “So, when ‘Dancing on Ice’ came up, I jumped on it.” That was in 2023.
The program is broadcast Sunday nights on ITV’s Channel 3 from studios in Bovingdon, a village in Hertfordshire about an hour northwest of London. During that first season, Grafton made history being paired with “RuPaul Drag Race” star The Vivienne, the first drag performer on the show and the first time “Dancing On Ice” featured a same-sex team. They made it all the way to the finals, finishing in third place.
“Being a part of that representation, being a part of that team, it was just wonderful,” he said. “The support we got from everyone was just fantastic. If I’m honest, I didn’t really understand the impact that it would make in the end.”
And at the conclusion of last season, Grafton finally found time to read the many messages of encouragement from fans, as well as from viewers who wrote, “Seeing us helped them and gave them the courage to either come out or be themselves,” he said. “It was truly something.”
And now, as a regular on the show’s 16th season, Grafton has decided he wants everyone to know who he really is, and in doing so, show others they are not alone.
“If I’m honest, I never really felt the need to announce it before, but the reason I am saying this now, is because I want to show that there is representation in any way I can”, the TV personality explains.
Along the way to self-acceptance, Grafton revealed he had a lot of “small steps and small triumphs” leading him to finally feel comfortable being himself in the public eye. “It was on my own terms,” he said, and feels “blessed” to have found support among friends.
“It’s been a long journey but now I am proud of myself and I’m proud of my sexual orientation and I want to let other people know that they should be proud of every part of themselves too,” said Grafton, acknowledging he had concerns about coming out publicly. “I was really nervous of doing that to myself. It was like, ‘OK, if I come out as gay then people are going to think I’m this or that,’ when in reality the human sexuality spectrum is so vast and it’s just one small part of the person you are.”
But appearing in primetime on such a popular TV show means that Grafton is the target of speculation about his personal life. He admits to having “lived and breathed skating” until finally getting in a relationship at age 24, around the same time he decided to come out to friends and family.
While that lasted two and a half years, Grafton’s frequent travel commitments and work on the ice left him no other chance for love. “I just didn’t really have an opportunity,” he said. “You might meet someone while you’re on a contract for six months and after that, you’re both off in different directions, so, I wasn’t really able to hold down a relationship because of that.”
But now that London is his home, Grafton told PinkNewsUK he feels ready to settle down. His perfect match? Someone local and appreciative of his business obligations.
“We live really crazy fast-paced lives as skaters,” he said. “Personally, I want to meet someone who is also fast-paced and able to keep up with that, but they don’t have to be a fellow skater. I just want someone who supports me and I can support them, too.”
“At the end of the day, we’re all just humans doing our thing on this planet and trying to find love.”
Until he does, Grafton said he is excited to keep skating on television.
“I absolutely love ‘Dancing on Ice.’ Every season that I’m asked to do it, I feel like I’m blessed and I feel very lucky to be able to keep doing the show. I would love to continue doing it while I can or while my body allows me to as well,” he said. And when it doesn’t? Grafton imagines he might try his hand at acting.
“I think that’s what life is all about,” he said. “Learning new things and pushing yourself to do other things.”