The Spirit Of Sports

Back in the days of depression the mighty Babe Ruth was asked

to take a salary cut for the first time in his career. He didn't go for

it, but insisted on his customary $80,000 contract. "But Babe,"

protested an official of the Yankee Ball Club, "These are trying

times. That's more money than Hoover got last year for being

president of the United States." "I know," persisted Babe, "But I

had a better year than Hoover." And indeed he did, and many

sportsmen have better years than the president. We have come to

the age of the affluent athlete. The ancient Greeks and Romans

loved sports, but they could never imagine an athlete who was

wealthier than the Emperor.

The reason this is the case today is because people are wild

about sports, and they are willing to pay to be involved. The

American people spend more on sports each year than is spent for

national defense. Anything this big is bound to come under

criticism. Many feel that we are over doing it, and we are giving

sports to big a role in our culture. Too much time and energy are

being given to sports, and this keeps people from doing more

important things.

Before we look at the positive side we must admit that sports

can become an idol, and many outstanding Christian athletes have

given testimony to this fact in their own experience. Millions are

more enamored of the sermon on the mound than by the Sermon

on the Mount. One of the great empires in the history of baseball

was Bill Klem. He said, "Baseball is more to me than the greatest

game in the world! It is a religion." He was not alone, for one

writer said he was amazed that the sick were not being brought to

home plate to be healed during the World Series.

Sports and religion have this in common-they both spawn

fanatics. In 1969 the referee awarded a late penalty to El Salvador

in their World Cup football match against their neighbor

Honduras. El Salvador won the match. When news of the results

spread riots broke out in both capitals as fans refought the match

in the streets by beating up the opposition supporters. As a direct

result war broke out between the two neighbors, and before it

ended 2,000 soldiers were killed. Both nations suffered serious

food shortages. This was a case of idolatry, for "idolatry is

investing undue significance, even reverence and adoration, in

temporal objects and pursuits." When a sport becomes a matter

of life and death it is idolatry and not merely a game.

Sydney Harris says, Karl Marx made a mistake in his famous

saying that, "Religion is the opium of the people," for the fact is,

sports are the opium of the people. Sportianity has captured the

hearts and zeal that Christianity once had. Sports draw the

biggest crowds, and players are the best known, highest paid

personalities in our culture. Sydney Harris wrote, "Sport is as

necessary, as useful, as nourishing to humans as any other natural

activity-but it is no longer a natural activity; in its cancerous form,

it has displaced religion, dislodged citizenship and even further

dislocated communication between the sexes."

People can become fanatics about sports. They are like the

Yankee fan who complained, "What a day. I lost my job, my wife

ran away with a salesman, and the Yankees lost to the Senators.

Imagine that-leading by 3 in the 8th and they blew it." The

negatives are real, and no doubt many a wife lives in frustration

because her husband appears to have more interest in one kind of

game or another than in her. On the other hand, there are those

Christians who see sports as a golden opportunity. The Fellowship

Of Christian Athletes is making a tremendous impact on the whole

world of sports. Best selling books are available with their

Christian testimonies by famous sportsmen. Several films have

been produced sharing the fruits of being a Christian athlete.

One high school youth in North Carolina went to a conference

where some of the great athletes were speaking, and when he came

back he gave this testimony-"I went to this conference to see my

gods in the athletic world. When I got there I heard my gods

talking about their God, and before the week was over, their God

became my God." Hero worship of sportsmen has been going on

ever since Heracles started the Olympics in 776 B.C. Modern

Christians have discovered that hero worship can lead to worship

of the hero's Hero and Savior if the hero points the way. And the

only way he can get to be a hero is to do his best until he is a great

athlete and a winner. Men with this conviction loves sports, and