Ah, Those Devil Rays

By now, baseball fans will have picked up on the not-so-subtle name change of the team from Tampa. Formerly known as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, the team that slugs it out in the Florida heat is now called the ‘Rays’. Invigorated by their new moniker, the team has actually won a few starts in the early season. Originally named after an aggressive fish, the devil ray, the team thought they would put the fear of the Fish into the opposition with their name if not their bats. Not so, it seems. In fact, the owners of the team began to see the attendance slipping, not because of the dismal pitching, fielding and hitting of the crotch-scratching, spitting boys of summer, but because of the team name!

Down in the southern States, the home of the Bible Belters, people do not take kindly to references to their book of creed that may give credit to the Devil. These Christian baseball fans could not, in good faith, cheer for any team of the Devil’s. Forgetting that the team was named after a fish, attendees began to worry about Devil worship. How, in a clean conscience, could a person wear a shirt with a logo and name that supported the devil? Sales of memorabilia fell to a new low at the Tampa stadium.

Thankfully, the owner did not name the team the Holy Rays. A winning record would have had more baseball teams across America changing to religious names. Already we have the Los Angeles Angels, the San Diego Padres and the St Louis Cardinals. Who would be next – the sinful beer-drinking Brewers, the bully Giants or those nasty Pittsburgh Pirates?

A few years ago other clubs in the American baseball leagues faced a different ‘ethical’ issue: some teams were named after Native Americans and this, when the teams were losing, was an affront to all first nation peoples. Was it not bad enough to be shot up on the cinemas screens, but also to be beaten on the playing fields? The politically correctness crossed into other sports and the Chicago Black Hawks were challenged on their name. The Black Hawks, Braves and Redskins survived the PC uproar, but not so the Devil Rays. The American Indian movement just does not have the clout of the Christian Right.

This superstitious nature of Bible Belters does offer some opportunities for those people not so dogmatic in their Dark Ages thinking. In a subdivision we visited last winter, there was one empty building lot in a row of beautifully landscaped homes. The view was the same, the land as well-drained (for Florida), the postage-stamp sized lot the same area as its neighbours, and yet the lot remained unsold. The owner finally understood the problem and has made application to the planning board for a change in the legal description of the lot, but he has run into a non-sympathetic Head of Planning, who happens not to be a Christian. The lot number, you see, is 666, the sign of the anti-Christ, according to the Book. Not a single Christian would buy the lot, and in fact even a secular person will have trouble with his or her neighbours as they will no doubt be viewed with much suspicion.

Chances are that up here in Canada someone would grab up that lot right after they bought lot #13! Not that we are not as suspicious as our neighbours, but we are perhaps a little more enlightened about the world about us. Creationism had been put to bed by most of us, other than the folks at SSHRC who are sticking to their guns in defence of Intelligent Design as a scientific theory, not a religious belief. South of the border, religion and science continue to battle it out in the classrooms but religion and sport seem to have come to a mutual understanding, at least in Tampa.

It makes me wonder if some Canadian teams are not watching the new Rays. If the political correctness thing starts to pay off for the Rays maybe the Ottawa Senators will change their name. They need to do something – and heaven knows, the Senate is politically incorrect! Just ask Stephen Harper.