Sports
Baseball Chapel spreads evangelical zeal in major, minor leagues
Christian chaplaincy group takes no stance on LGBT issues but doctrine murky
Baseball and evangelical Christianity have a long history in the U.S. (Photo by Bill Andrews via Wikimedia)
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.”
FIFA has announced Saudi Arabia will host the 2034 World Cup, despite concerns over its human rights record that includes the death penalty for homosexuality.
The Associated Press reported FIFA confirmed the decision on Dec. 18. The AP noted Saudi Arabia is the only country that bid to host the 2034 World Cup.
“This is a historic moment for Saudi Arabia and a dream come true for all our 32 million people who simply love the game,” said Sport Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al- Faisal, who is also president of the Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee, in a statement the Saudi Press Agency posted to its website.
Saudi Arabia is among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
A U.S. intelligence report concluded Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “likely approved” the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018. A federal judge in 2022 dismissed a lawsuit against Prince Mohammed after the Biden-Harris administration said he was immune to the lawsuit because he is the country’s prime minister.
Human rights activists have also criticized the Saudi government over the treatment of women, migrant workers, and other groups in the country.
“No one should be surprised by this,” Cyd Zeigler, Jr., co-founder of Outsports.com, an LGBTQ sports website, told the Washington Blade in an email after FIFA confirmed Saudi Arabia will host the 2034 World Cup. “FIFA, the International Olympic Committee, and many other world governing bodies routinely turn to authoritarian countries with terrible human-rights records to host major sporting events. There are simply few other countries willing to spend the billions of dollars it takes to build the needed infrastructure.”
Peter Tatchell, a long-time LGBTQ activist from the U.K. who is director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation, in a statement described FIFA’s decision as “a betrayal of the values that football should stand for: Inclusivity, fairness, and respect for human rights.”
“This is not about football; it’s about sportswashing,” said Tatchell. “The Saudi regime is using the World Cup to launder its international image and distract from its brutal abuses. By granting them this platform, FIFA is complicit in whitewashing their crimes.”
Qatar, which borders Saudi Arabia, hosted the 2022 World Cup.
Consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized in Qatar.
“Saudi Arabia was the only country to bid for the 2034 FIFA World Cup,” said Zeigler. “So, until FIFA, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and other governing bodies ban major human-rights violators from hosting, we’ll continue to see events like this in Saudi Arabia, China, Qatar, and other countries with terrible LGBTQ rights issues.”
The Blade has reached out to FIFA and the Saudi government for comment.
Sports
Controversy grows over member of Calif. university’s women’s volleyball team
Coach suspended, NCAA sued, more rivals forfeit
San Jose State University’s women volleyball team has collected yet another W by forfeit — its seventh so far this season — as controversy swirls around one player on its roster. She’s one of the seniors, and she has been dragged in the media by her own co-captain, who outed her as transgender.
The Washington Blade is not naming this student athlete since neither she nor the school have confirmed or even commented on her gender identity.
SJSU visited San Diego last weekend for a match before the Aztecs’ biggest home crowd of the season — including protesters waving “Save Women’s Sports” banners and booing one player on the Spartans team in particular: The woman who is reported to be trans.
Security was tight, with metal detectors and extra guards and police officers present. Video posted to YouTube by a right-wing sports media site — which names the player — shows an angry fan arguing with security about his First Amendment rights.
Video recorded during Nov. 9’s game shows a player for San Diego was injured following a spike by the player rumored to be trans, and had to be helped off the court. However, the video clearly shows that player was injured by landing poorly on one foot, not as a result of the spike.
The Aztecs defeated the Spartans 3-1, but San Jose has still punched its ticket to the conference finals, thanks to its record number of forfeits.
Wyoming was set to visit SJSU Thursday, but for the second time is joining other universities that have forfeited games against the Spartans, all without providing a reason. Boise State announced it will forfeit an upcoming match set for Nov. 21, its second forfeit against SJSU.
In September, the Spartans’ co-captain, senior Brooke Slusser, outed her own teammate, the player at the center of this controversy, in joining a federal lawsuit against the NCAA spearheaded by anti-trans inclusion activist and former college athlete Riley Gaines.
Slusser said in the lawsuit and in subsequent interviews that the player in question shouldn’t be on her team. The suit claims the NCAA’s policy on trans athletes violates Title IX by allowing “men” to compete in women’s sports and use women’s locker rooms where they display “full male genitalia.”
The NCAA policy for trans athletes participating in women’s volleyball aligns with that of USA Volleyball, which requires trans female athletes to suppress their testosterone below 10 nmol/L for a period of one year before competition. That is also how the NCAA determines eligibility. SJSU has stated repeatedly that all its players are eligible.
The lawsuit also asks the NCAA to revoke any titles or records won by trans female athletes in women’s competitions, which seems to be specifically aimed at stripping out trans NCAA champions Lia Thomas and CeCé Telfer of their titles in swimming and track and field, respectively.
Prior to this season, the player rumored to be trans did not attract any attention other than being a successful starter, like Slusser. But now that she is in the media spotlight, Slusser has come forward to tell right wing media, including Megyn Kelly, why she feels another woman two inches taller than she is poses a danger.
“I don’t feel safe,” Slusser said on “The Megyn Kelly Show” last month. “I’ve gone to my coaches and said I refuse to play against [her] … It’s not safe.”
In the video, both Kelly and Slusser refer to the player as “him” and a “man,” and name her.
Now comes another twist: San Jose State University suspended associate head coach Melissa Batie-Smoose with pay, indefinitely, after she filed a Title IX complaint against SJSU. She claims the player Slusser identified as trans conspired with an opponent to help the team lose a match and injure Slusser. Batie-Smoose named the player in question in her complaint and on Sept. 23, joined the same lawsuit that Slusser is now a part of.
“Safety is being taken away from women,” Batie-Smoose told Fox News. “Fair play is taken away from women. We need more and more people to do this and fight this fight because women’s sports, as we know it right now will be forever changed.”
Media reporting on the suspension, including Fox News, continue to name the athlete in question, with some also reporting what they say is the athlete’s birth name.
San Jose State released a statement following the suspension of Batie-Smoose: “The associate head coach of the San Jose State University women’s volleyball team is not with the team at this time, and we will not provide further information on this matter,” the team said.
SJSU Coach Todd Kress told ESPN that reports saying that any member of the Spartans colluded with their opponent are “littered with lies.”
The Spartans are currently among the top six finishers in the Mountain West Conference that will qualify to compete in the conference tournament scheduled for Nov. 27-30.
Sports
University of Nevada forfeits game rather than play possible trans athlete
Women’s volleyball team cites ‘not enough players to compete’
For the fifth time, a women’s volleyball team has chosen to forfeit instead of play against San Jose State University, because of rumors that one of its players is a transgender woman.
The University of Nevada, Reno, officially announced on Friday that it would forfeit Saturday’s game against the SJSU Spartans. This followed an announcement by Wolf Pack players who said they “refuse to participate in any match that advances injustice against female athletes,” without providing further details.
Originally, Nevada’s athletic department had said the program would not back out from the match, citing state equality laws, but also said that no players would be disciplined if they chose to not participate.
“The vast majority of our team decided this is something we wanted to take a stand on,” Nevada team captain Sia Liilii told Fox News. “We didn’t want to play against a male player.”
“In all of our team meetings it just kept coming back to the fact that men do not belong in women’s sports. If you’re born a biological male, you don’t belong in women’s sports. It’s not even about this individual athlete. It’s about fair competition and safety for everyone.”
Outsports and several conservative and right-wing websites have identified the player who is rumored to be trans, but the Washington Blade has opted to not do so since she herself has not come forward to either acknowledge or deny she is trans.
As ESPN reported, Nevada follows Southern Utah, Boise State, Wyoming, and Utah State in canceling games against the Spartans. Boise State, Wyoming, Utah State, and Nevada are all members of the Mountain West Conference, so those contests are considered forfeits and count as valuable wins in the league standings for San Jose State.
Riley Gaines, the anti-trans inclusion activist for the Independent Women’s Forum has joined the chorus in claiming the Spartans’ roster includes a trans woman.
If you're wondering why teams are forfeiting against @SJSU, here's the reason.
Last night another woman was smashed in the face by a kill from a man posing as a woman.
It's unfair, unsafe, and regressive, yet our "leaders" remain silent. pic.twitter.com/OS15AFxQsp
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) October 18, 2024
Despite this, neither San Jose State nor any of the other forfeiting teams have said the university’s women’s volleyball team has a trans player. SJSU issued a statement defending its roster.
“Our athletes all comply with NCAA and Mountain West Conference policies and they are eligible to play under the rules of those organizations. We will continue to take measures to prioritize the health and safety of our students while they pursue their earned opportunities to compete,” the statement read.
The governors of Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming — all of whom are members of the Republican Party — have issued public statements supporting the cancellations, claiming it’s in the interest of fairness in women’s sports. This week, Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee and former president, spoke at a Fox News televised town hall when asked about trans athletes in women’s sports.
“We’re not going to let it happen,” Trump said. “We stop it, we stop it, we absolutely stop it. We can’t have it. You just ban it. The president bans it. You don’t let it happen. It’s not a big deal.”
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