intersection set[Christianity, Arena Football, Baseball, America]

click: bigger is better

It's Sports Time on Vleeptron!
All the Sports from Vleeptron!
We've got the latest Qx'ii scores!
All the games from
the Dwingeloo League!
Bear-baiting, fish-shooting,
cockfighting too!
Bare-knuckle boxing from 1902!
A fifth of our Sports
all take place in the Zoo!
Get your Sports on Vleeptron!
Get your Sports on Vleeptron!

= = = = = = =

The New York Times
Friday 2 June 2006

Sports and Salvation
on Faith Night at the Stadium

by WARREN ST. JOHN

It has long been noted that in certain parts of the United States, a fine line separates sports from religion. But at a minor league indoor football game last month in Birmingham, Alabama, fans may have witnessed as transparent an attempt to merge football and church as had ever been tried.

Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber of VeggieTales threw out the first pitch before the Somerset Patriots played the Camden Riversharks.

Before kickoff, a Christian band called Audio Adrenaline entertained the crowd. Promoters gave away thousands of Bibles and bobblehead dolls depicting biblical characters like Daniel, Noah and Moses. And when the home team, the Birmingham Steeldogs, took the field, they wore specially made jerseys with the book and number of bible verses printed on the back.

Donnie Rhodes, a children's minister at Gardendale's First Baptist Church near Birmingham, took 47 sixth graders to the game by bus and said it was the perfect outing. "It was affordable, safe and spiritual," he said. "And the kids just thought it was the coolest thing."

Mr. Rhodes and his students were at the latest in ballpark promotions: Faith Nights, a spiritual twist on Frisbee Nights and Bat Days. While religious-themed sports promotions were once largely a Bible Belt phenomenon that entailed little more than ticket discounts for church and synagogue groups, Faith Nights feature bands, giveaways and revival-style testimonials from players. They have migrated from the Deep South to northern stadiums from Spokane, Washington, to Bridgewater, New Jersey.

Third Coast Sports, a company in Nashville that says it specializes in church marketing and event planning for sports teams, has scheduled 70 this year in 44 cities, and many teams produce Faith Nights on their own.

They are about to become even bigger. This summer, the religious promotions will hit Major League Baseball. The Atlanta Braves are planning three Faith Days this season, the Arizona Diamondbacks one. The Florida Marlins have tentatively scheduled a Faith Night for September.

The religious promotions are spreading because they offer something for fans and for teams. Churches get discounted tickets to family-friendly evenings of music and sports with a Christian theme. And in return, they mobilize their vast infrastructure of e-mail and phone lists, youth programs and chaperones, and of course their bus fleets, to help fill the stands.

"Religion is a very big component of people's lives around here, and churches are very well organized," said Derek Schiller, a senior vice president for sales and marketing for the Braves, whose first Faith Day is scheduled for July 27. "If they decide they're going to have an outing and it's going to be an Atlanta Braves baseball game, rest assured there will be a big participation."

The mixture of sports with old-time religion is not to everyone's liking. Officials of arenafootball2, a minor league of the Arena Football League, threatened to fine the Birmingham Steeldogs for wearing their biblically themed jerseys during the game last month because they violated league policy. To comply, the Steeldogs wore the special jerseys before and after the game, but not during play.

"The league quite frankly didn't have the temperature for it," said Scott Myers, a managing partner of the Steeldogs. "They'd just as soon stay out of politics and religion."

Organizers of the promotions said they were mindful of fans of other faiths. Brent High, the president of Third Coast Sports, said he went out of his way to avoid what he called "ambush evangelism."

"If we were doing something that was controversial, that would defeat the whole business purpose," he said. "If we'd had resistance, the teams would run from it."

So far the promotions seem to be working where they count the most, at the box office. Attendance at Faith Nights organized by the Nashville Sounds, a Class AAA baseball team, are 59 percent higher than the team's average attendance.

The Steeldogs average around 5,200 fans; Faith Night last month brought in just under 6,200.

Glenn Yaeger, the general manager of the Sounds, said he knew of only one promotion that was more effective than Faith Night: fireworks. Not one to let an opportunity pass, Mr. Yaeger now caps off Faith Nights with a fireworks display.

"Teams are always looking for ways to put fannies in the seats," Mr. High said, "and this is just a creative way to reach a certain demographic of people."

That demographic was out in force on May 25 in Bridgewater, New Jersey, for a Faith Night at the minor league baseball game between the Somerset Patriots and the Camden Riversharks. Star 99.1, a Christian radio station, broadcast from outside the stadium, as a contemporary Christian band called 9 Feet Tall played.

Before the game, Jamie Damm, a youth pastor at the nearby Zarephath Christian Church, gave a short speech from the field about the need for connecting with Jesus, and he threw out the ceremonial first pitch.

Patrick McVerry, the general manager of the Patriots, said the team was trying to accommodate church groups without altering the experience too much for other fans. Beer sales, for example, were not affected, he said. "We don't want to go over the top," Mr. McVerry said.

The Braves are taking a similarly careful approach. They plan to sell a special voucher for their Faith Day in July. After the game, officials will clear the stands, then readmit those with the voucher, who will be treated to an hour and a half of Christian music and a testimonial from the ace pitcher John Smoltz.

"Faith days will not interfere with our regular course of business," Mr. Schiller of the Braves said. "It's somebody's choice to participate."

Much of the spread of Faith Nights can be attributed to Mr. High, an avid baseball fan and former youth minister from Tennessee. In 2003, as the church and youth programs manager for the Sounds, he began reaching out to the roughly 3,000 churches within 75 miles of Nashville.

He brought in sponsors to fund Bible and bobblehead giveaways, and he joined forces with VeggieTales, a popular line of Christian-themed children's videos, books and music featuring animated vegetables. VeggieTales' slogan is "Sunday morning values, Saturday morning fun," and Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber have become fixtures at Faith Nights around the country.

For the Braves, support from churches could translate into increased ticket sales. There are some 5,400 churches within 75 miles of Atlanta, Mr. Schiller said, and the team will use its advertising budget to get the word out to those congregations via television, radio and the Internet.

While Faith Nights may be good for the box office and perhaps even the soul, there is one area where all that spirituality does not seem to have much effect: the scoreboard. On Faith Nights over the past two years, the Nashville Sounds have compiled a record of 15-17.

"On Faith Night, God cares a lot more about what's happening in the stands than about what happens on the field," Mr. High said.

- 30 -

Copyright © 2006 The New York Times Company

===============

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

William Ashley "Billy" Sunday (19 November 1863 - 6 November 1935) was noted first as a professional baseball player, and then more famously as an evangelist.

Background

Born in Bina, Iowa, Sunday grew up the son of a single mother, and the family endured significant poverty during his childhood. His father, also named William, enlisted in the Iowa Infantry Volunteers four months before Sunday was born. He died a month after Sunday was born, of an unknown disease contracted in Patterson, Missouri while on duty. Sunday's mother was left a widow and mother of three sons. She later remarried and had another son and a daughter.

At the age of 13, Sunday and his older brother were sent to Soldier's Orphanage in Glenwood, Iowa. He ran away from the orphanage two years later and worked for Colonel John Scott in Nevada, Iowa as a stable boy tending shetland ponies. Scott gave Sunday a home and the opportunity to attend school. (The 4-H baseball field in Nevada, Iowa is named the Billy Sunday field.)

Sunday left high school before graduating and moved to Ames, Iowa to play on the baseball team. Shortly thereafter he moved to Marshalltown, Iowa. There he worked at odd jobs: was a runner on a competitive track team and played in the outfield for the local baseball team.

Marshalltown native (and future Baseball Hall-of-Famer) Cap Anson saw Sunday play after being told by the Marshalltown coach that he should come see Sunday play. Anson signed Sunday on to the league-leading Chicago White Stockings. Although Sunday struck out his first thirteen times at bat he was acknowledged to be the champion sprinter of the National League. At one point Sunday raced Arlie Latham, champion sprinter of the American League, and Sunday beat him by fifteen feet. Sunday played professional baseball for eight years for the Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia teams.

In 1887, after a night of drinking with some of his teammates, Sunday was invited to attend a service at the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago, Illinois. He began attending services at the mission regularly, and it was after one of these services that he accepted Jesus Christ as his saviour and was "born again." Sunday married Helen A. Thompson in September 1888, and in 1891 he quit baseball to devote his energies to the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA). Sunday spent time as an assistant to another evangelist before embarking solo in 1896. He was ordained as a preacher in the Presbyterian church in 1903. Sunday was one of the first prominent preachers to make use of the then-new medium of radio.

Billy Sunday is most noted for his "fire-and-brimstone" approach to evangelism. Holding a strictly fundamentalist view, he would often preach fiery sermons against political liberalism, evolution, alcohol, and so forth. His energy and vitality won many converts. This in turn led to his accumulating a small fortune through contributions at his sermons.

Sunday is noted as being one of the major social influences in the temperance movement leading to the adoption of Prohibition in 1919. One of his most famous sermons was "Booze, Or, Get on the Water Wagon," which convinced many people to give up drinking. As the tide of public opinion turned, he continued to strongly support Prohibition, and after its repeal in 1933, Sunday called for its reintroduction. He said "I am the sworn, eternal and uncompromising enemy of the liquor traffic. I have been, and will go on, fighting that damnable, dirty, rotten business with all the power at my command." Sunday preached that "whiskey and beer are all right in their place, but their place is in hell."

Death

His popularity waned in his later years and he even became the subject of derision. One of his revival songs, ‘Brighten the Corner Where You Are,’ became a drinking song in the blind pigs [speakeasies] that prospered during Prohibition. One line,

"Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar"

called the waiter for another stein of beer.

In "Chicago," a song written by Fred Fisher, Frank Sinatra sings

"Chicago, Chicago
the town that Billy Sunday could not shut down"

He died a wealthy man in 1935 at the depth of the Depression when about one-third of the population was unemployed. He left a large estate as well as trust funds for his children. But, true to his word, Sunday continued to preach against alcohol until his death.

External links

* Selected sermons
* Revival takes a bite out of crime
* Huge database of Sunday images and content
* Billy Sunday's grave
* Audio Sermons by Billy Sunday
* National Prohibition of Alcohol in the U.S.
* Billy Sunday at The Internet Movie Database

References

* Nevada Community Historical Society Inc. (2003). Voices from the Past: The Story of Nevada, Iowa, Its Community and Families. Unknown press (Nevada Community Historical Society, Inc., PO Box 213, Nevada, Iowa 50201-0213; 515-382-6684)
* Allen, Robert. "Billy Sunday: Home Run to Heaven." Mott Media: Milford, MI. 1985
* Ellis, William T. Billy Sunday: His Life and Message. Philadelphia, PA: John C. Winston Co., 1914.

* This page was last modified 08:14, 10 May 2006.