Jesus is a Yankee fan.

"I believe in the Church of Baseball. I've tried all the major religions, and most of the minor ones. I've worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I heard that, I gave Jesus a chance. But it just didn't work out between us. The Lord laid too much guilt on me. I prefer metaphysics to theology. You see, there's no guilt in baseball, and it's never boring... which makes it like sex. There's never been a ballplayer slept with me who didn't have the best year of his career. Making love is like hitting a baseball: you just gotta relax and concentrate. Besides, I'd never sleep with a player hitting under .250... not unless he had a lot of RBIs and was a great glove man up the middle. You see, there's a certain amount of life wisdom I give these boys. I can expand their minds. Sometimes when I've got a ballplayer alone, I'll just read Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman to him, and the guys are so sweet, they always stay and listen. 'Course, a guy'll listen to anything if he thinks it's foreplay. I make them feel confident, and they make me feel safe, and pretty. 'Course, what I give them lasts a lifetime; what they give me lasts 142 games. Sometimes it seems like a bad trade. But bad trades are part of baseball - now who can forget Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas, for God's sake? It's a long season and you gotta trust. I've tried 'em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball." - Annie Savoy - Bull Durham

Religion and Baseball. Two of my favorite subjects. Well, the second one is at least. Like Annie, baseball IS my religion and playoff time is the closest I've ever been to the Allmighty. Why do I bring it up? Because of a conversation that I had with Gia today.

You see, I've been openly pushing for the Colorado Rockies to make the playoffs this year. I truly try to root for no other team than the Yankees, but occasionally I find no harm in pushing for the little guys in the National League...just as long as they aren't playing the Bombers. Gia, likewise, has been pushing for the Cubbies...and I respect that. The Cubs are the lovable losers that the Red Sox never were. The Red Sox were/are just losers. My favorite t-shirt in 2005 was "What Curse? They just sucked for 86 years!" Good times.

Back to our story: Why do I root for the Rockies? I really can't tell you. They play out west, so I never see them. They play in the National League, so I could absolutely care less about them. They play in a ridiculous ballpark that inflates all of their hitter's stats and kills the careers of any free agent pitcher stupid enough to sign them. Actually that's it. Those are the reasons that I kinda root for them. Because no one else will.

Then Gia told me about how the owners and management have created some kind of weird religious cult around their organization. I had never heard of it, so I looked it up. You can read about it here, or here, or here...if you like. Oh, and by cult I really meant Christianity. My bad.

Now most of what has been written about the organization and it's policy concerning religion (or the fact that it may not have a policy concerning religion. Blah blah blah!) is all over a year old now, or at least that's what I found in my 30-second Google search. The story doesn't seem to dominate the airwaves. But when conservative, religious leaders of a corporation start throwing around watch words like "character" when defending their choice of employees, and you see that most of those employees are white Christians...I really start to wonder.

I dunno how this is going to affect my decision on who to root for in the Colorado/Philly series starting tomorrow. I'm really not sure it should. Because the only religion that belongs in baseball is voodoo. As in curses, because that stuff with Pedro Cerrano's bat in Major League was hysterical, yo! And I'm not even sure if that is a religion!

Note: Please don't be offended by my labelling of Christianity as a cult. I do what I do to make myself laugh most of the time. Seriously...you should see me with a ball of string.