“Parking for Giants fans only,” reads the garage door placard not far from my house. “All others will be towed.” Variations of this sign are readily available in sporting goods stores. Smaller ones can be found on house doors: “Ranger fans only. All others use the back door.”
Such signs generate a chuckle and can serve as amusing gifts for the sports enthusiasts in our families. They decorate homes and offices alongside family photos and memorabilia from universities and travels. We think they are quaint, cute, and innocuous despite their triumphalist, intolerant, and exclusionary swagger.
How would passersby react if, instead of a sports team, such signs professed allegiance to a particular religion? “Parking for Catholics only” or “Jews only. All others use the back door” would be viewed not as a humorous expression of loyalty, but as a strange, even hostile, declaration of fanaticism.
Baseball enthusiasts in the nineteenth century were the first sports gurus to be branded “fans,” short for “fanatics.” Their exuberance, passion, willingness to pay to see their teams (a practice unheard of until the 1850s), and occasional misbehavior (often inspired by adverse gambling outcomes) earned them this seemingly ignominious title that is associated with, as the Oxford English Dictionary defines it, “a mad person,” “a religious maniac.”
We see the fanaticism of sports fans when their passion overflows into profanity-laced screeds on Twitter and talk shows, stadium chants that fleece the opposing team’s players and fans, and the occasional destruction of property in city streets after a team wins—or loses—a championship. In 1994, sports fanaticism turned deadly when an angry fan murdered Colombian soccer player Andres Escobar, whose own goal in the World Cup catalyzed his team’s elimination, and with it, his murderer’s losing bet.
Yet this fanaticism does not frighten Americans, who deem the verbal abuse harmless and the violence an irrelevant aberration. Devoted allegiance to sports teams is a normal part of American life. The sectarian nature of fandom is never blamed for dividing our country. No one calls for a separation of sports and state, no one screams that schools should not sponsor sports teams, no one files suit against a public municipality for permitting sports on its property. The FBI does not secretly monitor sports fanatics out of fear they pose a threat to the government.
The same cannot be said for American attitudes toward religion and those who are devoutly religious. Religion is divisive and therefore harmful to society—or so claim multiple groups: mainstream media, academia, Hollywood, government schools, teachers’ unions. Religions that make the strongest truth claims—Catholicism, Orthodox Judaism, Evangelicalism—receive the most scorn. Groups such as the Freedom from Religion Foundation act as a secular Board of Inquisition that polices governments, schools, and public entities lest they allow religion into their zones. The FBI was recently dispatched to monitor Catholics deemed a threat to the government for attending the traditional Latin Mass. The term religious fanatic carries as much scorn today as it ever has.
This juxtaposition of fanaticism is striking, given that today’s secular America claims religion doesn’t matter while spending billions upon billions of dollars on sports entertainment. Why aren’t major cities like New York and Los Angeles torn apart by the presence of two rival professional franchises per major sport, with millions of fans of each team protesting the other? Why don’t L.A. Dodger fans block the parking lots of the L.A. Angels’ stadium? How do the NY Giants and NY Jets share a stadium without rival fans preferring defacement to cohabitation?
Despite their virulent passion for victory, sports fans know, deep down, that the outcome on the field, court, or ice really does not matter. Their team demands nothing of them personally, and whether it wins or loses, their lives are not affected—they will still go to work (though perhaps more glad or sad depending on the big game’s outcome), still receive their paychecks, and still live their lives as they always have. Their teams and their allegiances may consume their hearts, but they cannot touch their souls. This is why sports fans typically do not proselytize fans of rival teams—though I remain ever grateful to my childhood friends on my block whose zealous preaching saved me from my nascent Yankee fandom.
The truth is, there is no salvation in sports, and the fans know it.
Religion, by contrast, makes a claim on hearts and souls. Acceptance of a particular creed requires changing one’s behavior to conform to it. And conformity is necessary for one’s soul to be saved. Hence, religious fanatics, unlike their sporting counterparts, are feared and fought lest their proselytizing compel an unwilling soul to change its ways.
This is ironic, as most Americans today do not believe that religions are salvific; one religion is as good as another, it is thought, just like one sports team is, though the fan is loath to admit it. But the way Americans react to strong religious claims, even in this seemingly secular age, proves otherwise.
Deep down, there is a fear that religion is true, that salvation is a matter of belief, and, worst of all, behaviors must be changed to receive that salvation. That is, America is not as secular as its intelligentsia regularly trumpets. The religious impulse towards the divine Creator remains innate within every person. If this were not the case, religious fanatics would be considered as harmless as sports fanatics, and no one would pay mind to whether governments or schools endorsed religion in certain capacities.
Sports and religious fanatics, united in passion for their respective interests, remind secular America of a lesson it has forgotten: for the things that really matter in life, we must “look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Cor 4:18).
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As a sports fan for life and “new American”, I thank you for this beautiful piece. I struggle with the increasing secularism in the world, which is sweeping through my family. I try to remain steadfast in my way of life and teach by example, but the lights of the world are too bright for them. God bless
Parking for liberals only – seems to be a growing trend.
Thought-provoking article.
Fear of religion/ignoring of religion/wishing it would go away so we could all just get along.
Very entertaining, insightful and well-developed, but then “falls the shadow” (T.S.Eliot): We read–“The truth is, there is no salvation in sports, and the fans know it.”
Do the fans really know it? Or, are the crowds, the arena, and the gladiators the substitute for both truth and religion, and is the “I” in high-decibel salivation the substitute for God in elevated “salvation”?
As St. Augustine observed of his friend Alypius at the arena:
“…He was no longer the man who entered there, but only one of the crowd that he had joined, and a true comrade of those who brought him there. What more shall I say? He looked, he shouted, he took fire, he bore away with himself a madness that should arouse him to return, not only with those who had drawn him there, but even before them, and dragging along others as well” (Confessions, Book 6, Ch. 8:13).
And then there’s the little secret that the pull of the arena is really all about the money. Even the chariot parking lot is overpriced. On the other hand, it’s team athletics that keeps a lot of the younger generation focused and out of trouble. Even on Sunday mornings…
Thank you – this was a very enjoyable and insightful article. I can’t help but add something regarding your mention of “stadium chants that fleece the opposing team’s players” —- years ago I was at a Red Sox home game against the Yankees when a Sox fan yelled out to the Yankees first baseman, “Hey Teixeira, your name has too many vowels!” Only in Boston!
Let’s be honest now.
Abortion Rights Activism is a religion. These activists would die for what they believe in.
Homosexual Rights Activism is a religion. These activists would die for what they believe in.
Climate Change Activism is a religion. These activists would die for what they believe in.
Transexual Rights Activisism a religion. These activists would die for what they believe in.
Open Borders Activism is a religion. These activists would die for what they believe in.
World Government Activism is a religion. These activists would die for what they believe in.
COVID-19 Vaccine Activism is a religion. These activists would die for what they believe in.
Leftist Political Activism is a religion. These activists would die for what they believe in.
As you can see, religious activism is alive and well in the world. What we have now is religion without God. Why, we even have touches of this within the Catholic Church…religions embedded within a religion.
Expanding on your last thought. A new type of martyrdom. Catholic anti-Catholic bigotry activism. These activists would die for what they believe in.
One can, perhaps, be forgiven that – through no fault of one’s own – modern seminary education is as often at odds with genuine Catholicism as not; perhaps even more so. In that, perhaps, can be found the root cause of Red Sox fandom.
Godspeed!
Well, we have to worship something. Bonagura is right. Deep down, way down to that place where thoughts begin, there’s a nagging sense of truth that undergirds conscience. We know we’ve replaced worship. Although that interior realization may be virtually, entirely subdued with layers of blanket rationalizations. Sports worship has a related dynamic of vicarious identity with the victors, their dash, bravery often what we find failing in ourselves. We don’t find ourselves measuring up to the world’s ideals.
Augustine in the Confessions speaks of the futility of misplaced energy in those devoted to the Roman sports events, a culture gone awry with absence of Christ. Why he admits he always hungered for something more seeking and not finding until he met Milan’s bishop Ambrose, a famed speaker, from whom Augustine wished to enhance his own efforts. Instead he found his efforts at self perfection were futile self idolatry. That this Jesus of Nazareth espoused something entirely opposite yet anomalously related to his search.
Persons today have heard of Christ, were taught about him, know of the bloody cross, retort with the bleeding hearts, of Catholics dripping rosary beads. So it’s more challenging to renew what was lost, or never really possessed although acquainted with. If the truth of what Bonagura is getting at has value, it’s as he says to remind America of what really matters. That reminder, besides argument, is best effected by prayer and sacrifice.
Religious Liberty necessarily includes freedom from GOVERNMENT RELIGION in any way, shape, kind or form.
Up to and including official mottos proclaiming masculine monotheism as the ‘officially correct’ theocratic doctrine.
Up to and including paying taxpayer dollars to clergy-folk from SOME but not ALL religious groups to perform religious rituals.
Up to and including ‘invocations’ as part of the official agenda of government meetings. (just which demons are you trying to ‘invoke’ anyway? 😉
I’d love nothing more than to ignore all religion. Maybe you guys could get out of every non-adherent’s life for a minute or two?