Scorecard

SERMON ON THE MOUND

Seattle Mariners general manager Dick Balderson has created a holy furor with some cautious but pointed comments about God's place in the locker room. "We will not restrict anyone from practicing their beliefs, and we will not alter their thinking," Balderson told Jim Street of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "But changes have to be made with the idea that when they come to the park, they will be thinking baseball."

Balderson's remarks were directed at a Christian community of 16 to 18 Mariners who routinely held chapel services before games. First baseman Alvin Davis, the group's assistant chapel leader, responded, "I think it's nothing we players have not heard before. We had a little problem with our chapel on several occasions this year. It probably ran too long and did interfere with some things that were going on on the field. We tried to...move it to the hotel, but attendance just didn't seem the same." Davis admitted that, before one game in Milwaukee, an overlong service cost the players 15 minutes of warm up time.

What tweaked the Christian athletes more than Balderson's attitude toward chapel were his theological comments on church and sport. "I think we have too many [players] who think that if we lose, that's the way the Lord meant it to be," Balderson told Street. "But I can't perceive God being on the mound in the ninth inning and saying [a loss] is the way it should be. I perceive Him as being an individual who would beat you any way He can as long as it's within the rules."

"From the philosophical standpoint," answered Davis, "I don't think religion was responsible for a single one of our losses." George Toles, a Seattle businessman and board member of Pro Athletes Outreach, a Christian sports organization, dismissed Balderson's criticism as "a blip on the screen of eternity" and added, "What Mr. Balderson doesn't realize is that life is made up of wins and losses.... I suggest maybe he spend a little time on his knees and ask for some divine guidance on how to get some W's on the board."

There were precious few W's for the cellar-dwelling Mariners last season—in fact, there were 95 L's—and that seems to be at the heart of the problem. Cynics speculated that there would be no quarrel with the deity if Seattle could shuck the stigma of being the only modern baseball team never to have had a winning season. Steve Largent, the Seattle Seahawks' All-Pro wide receiver, who has never been criticized for his devout Christian beliefs, said. "It doesn't surprise me that the Mariners want to get God out of their locker room. They've gotten rid of all their other good players, too."

OF GOOSE AND MOOSE

Two hunting seasons in the Northeast have created curiosities. On Oct. 20 a 12-day season on migratory waterfowl started in Massachusetts, and for the first time the 100 Canada geese who frequent Crystal Lake reservoir in Gardner, 50 miles northwest of Boston, were deemed fair game. Town fathers, concerned that the geese would pollute Gardner's drinking water, opened season on the lovely birds, which had come to be regarded as unofficial town pets. The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals cried foul, arguing that there was no evidence of contamination and that other methods of ridding the area of geese—including nylon netting spread over the water and hawk decoys—hadn't yet been tried. The MSPCA said there was simply no need to shoot the favored flock of geese.

As it happened, they might have been right. For no known reason, most of the geese were in hiding during the hunt. Hunters were even scarcer; either they sympathized with, or were scared off by, MSPCA activists who were on hand to protest. Gardner city treasurer Michael T. Smith, a hunter himself, told The Boston Globe, "A hunter would have to be insane to face the press, the police and the anti-hunting crowd." During the waterfowl season fortnight, only one goose was taken at Crystal Lake.

Meanwhile in Maine, 233 moose fell on the first of six days of open hunting. But one of them, an 800-pound bull, was shot out of bounds and was confiscated by state wildlife officials. This is good news for several needy families in Maine who will get to enjoy an illicit bounty of moose meat.