"O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world!That has such people in it!"
(From a speech by the character 'Miranda' in Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act V, Scene 1.)
I recently received an email from Strudel Boy, you know, the OTHER pope, over there in Rome; he was going on about how excited he was to see the CARDINALS in the World Series this year, and how unfortunate it was that the ANGELS were not represented. (Please keep in mind, SB comes from Europe, and their idea of big-time athletic competition is soccer. Yes, that's right, fans, soccer, the sports world's answer to the question of how best to treat insomnia.)
So I responded, and pointed out to him that, in this instance, CARDINALS refers to the red bird, not the Princes of the Church, as they're known. (Here at the All John All The Time World Church, we don't have "Princes"; all we have is me, your all-time favorite Pope Guy, and the Harley Dog. That's it. That's all we need to be a quick-responding, ready in any spiritual emergency EMT (Emergency Missionary Technician) team.)
I also pointed out to him that the ANGELS he was referring to were from Los Angeles of Anaheim, and were not the denizens of Heaven as he thought them to be, and that based on the way they played during the 2011 season, there was very little likelihood that any of the members of the team would see the inside of Paradise any time soon.
Anyway, SB, the Cardinals will prevail, in seven games, over the heathen Rangers from the great, heathen state of Texas, and all will be right with the Wide World Of Sports again. (Now, if the Bears can figure a way to win the Super Bowl, things would really be headed in the right direction.)
There must be something to this connection between religion and sports, other than how often the word "goddammit" is heard on the playing field; Tim Tebow, after engineering a come-from-behind win for the Denver Broncos in his first start at quarterback this past Sunday, thanked his personal Savior Jesus for the win, and the other night, in the Cards huge blowout victory over the Rangers 16-7 in Game Three of the WS, Albert Pujols hit three (as in 3) homeruns in that game, and made a "thanks much, appreciate the help" gesture to heaven as he crossed home plate each time.
"Lord willing", or "the Good Lord smiled on us today" or "I made a pact with Satan to get this win", wait, that really doesn't fit here, forget that one, or "I'm going to Disney World", boy, lot's of praying and beseeching going on just to score more points (or less, depending on the sport) than the other guy, who presumably is asking God for His help for his team at the same time.
Do you think that God might be a sports fan? I mean, why not? We already know he has a wonderful sense of the absurd (see: platypus, armadillo, Rick Perry, Republicans, the NBA and Rosie O'Donnell), so why couldn't he be an athletic supporter?
Yeah, okay, it sounds like a pretty dumb idea to me, too.
And speaking of great ideas, (we weren't, but it seemed like a good segue, which, when you consider how seldom I use segues, ought to earn your Pope Dude a few props, okay?), please check out the video below (down); I love these things.
Again.
This headline just in: the Chicago Cubs, in a last ditch effort to try and attain SOME relevance, hired former Boston Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein as their new GM. I guess they felt that was as close to God as they would be able to get, without making any REALLY long-term commitments. (Theo signed for five years at about 90 bajillion dollars per.)
Okay, so who will give me even money on what happens first; the end of Theo's five-year deal, or a World Series win for the Cubs? (I'm taking the end of the deal.)
So maybe there is something to this connection between the Almighty and major-league sports; the Cubs winning a World Series?
Yeah, that would qualify as a miracle.
Love and batting helmets,
PJTT
copyright 2011 Krissongs Inc.
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