This column won First Place in the Humorous Columnist category in the 1994 Florida Press
Association competition.
Ray St. Louis
8/24/94
BETWEEN THE LINES
I wish they wouldn't do this to me.
I'm speaking of USA Today. They pull these seemingly inconsequential statistics out of a hat and
stick them in little illustrated boxes at the bottom of the page for the sole purpose of messing with
the minds of those of us who bother to read those things. Try this one out:
"Those who believe there is baseball in heaven:
Ages 18-44...62%
45-older...46%"
That's it! No explanation. No corresponding story. Nothing. Don't they realize the questions they
raise? Thorny questions. Theological and philosophical questions.
For example, if baseball truly is played in heaven, do they play American or National League
rules? In other words, do they allow a designated hitter?
Would you even want a position like the DH, which was designed for aging ballplayers who can
still hit, in a place where nobody ages?
Do they have major and minor leagues or do only the guys who were stars in this life get to play
in the afterlife? It would seem to me to be not quite fair if some obscure minor leaguer who
struggled all his baseball playing career to make it to the big leagues and otherwise lived an
upright moral life didn't get to play in heaven.
And what about the guys like Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth and the other legends of the game whose
personal lives were anything but moral? You couldn't really ban them for their off-the-field
transgressions without drawing the ire of the fans.
I mean, when I get there I want to see Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth playing ball, that's all there is to it.
Do baseball players go on strike in heaven? I would say probably not. What would they strike for,
better playing conditions? Certainly not for higher pay. The number of zeros on a paycheck would
be moot in a non-physical world where one cannot buy anything nor does one need to buy
anything. It's the ultimate salary cap.
Can you get a hot dog and a beer at a ball game in heaven? Do you have to pay for it? I say they
would have to be free. We've already established money is a meaningless concept. The problem
is, once you have a hot dog and beer in hand, can you actually consume them, or consume
anything for that matter?
Does one even have hands in which to hold them and a mouth in which to put them? And if
they're free, can you have as many as you want? Who cooks all those hot dogs? Do they have
onions and relish or just mustard and catsup?
Do they keep statistics? It would stand to reason that the players who have been dead a long
time would be way ahead in stats like lifetime home runs. How is a player like Roger Maris, who's
been dead only a short time, supposed to catch a guy like Ruth, who'd been dead a much longer
time?
I wonder if the 62% of people 18-44 and the 46% of people 45-older who believe baseball is
played in heaven have given even a moment's thought to the ramifications of their beliefs? There
are a lot of details to be worked out here. Who do they think does that, the Almighty?
My guess is that God has installed someone really competent as heaven's commissioner of
baseball, someone like St. Peter.
Or maybe a philosopher like Aristotle or St. Augustine would be better. Perhaps one of history's
great thinkers could solve once and for all the problem of the designated hitter.
I would think the Almighty doesn't take much of an active role except for occasionally throwing out
a first pitch and placing the call to the locker room to congratulate the winner of the World Series.
Of course you couldn't call it the World Series, could you? Would players really need a locker
room? Would they need to shower after a game if they don't have physical bodies? Does a soul
sweat?
You see how one sticky question leads to another...and another...and another...
I'm going to have to give this a lot more thought.