Is baseball (or other sport of your choice) a religion?
(1) Does the religion have a founding prophet and an origin myth?
There is the origin myth of Abner Doubleday (which really is a myth, since Doubleday didn’t create the game). Other sports have their own founding prophets and origin stories: James Naismith in basketball, Walter Camp in American football, the Marquess of Queensberry in boxing, etc.
(2) Does the religion have scripture and an accepted canon?
The rule books are scripture and canon, as are the records of major professional and collegiate organizations.
(3) Does the religion have a unifying belief system? Does it offer salvation?
Kids who grow up in the projects and have no future can, if they’re good enough, get out of the projects and get a good college education. If they’re among the very best, they can become millionaires and provide for their families for generations. I think that qualifies as salvation. Certainly more so than anything Star Trek offers.
This notion of IDIC as a “unifying belief system” is particularly retarded, or at least very ignorant. It’s a philosophy that some fans find appealing, not something that all fans subscribe to. There are also philosophical lessons many sports fans infer from the games. Many people consider sports a useful tool to teach valuable life lessons.
(4) Are adherents of the religion sometimes stigmatized by nonbelievers?
Yes; with some sports more than others. Boxers are generally seen as thugs. Scandals among athletes in other major sports tarnish their colleagues; many see professional athletes (in some sports more than others) as arrogant, selfish, and ungrateful. An often-heard rhetorical question is a resentful, “How come this jerk gets paid $3 million a year to put a ball through a hoop, which changes nothing in the grand scheme of things, but a teacher who can have a profound impact on the lives of her students gets only 1/100th that amount?”
Are sports religions, or is this article just nonsense? I’m leaning toward the latter.
