Thursday, December 21, 2006

What If Jesus Was A Ballplayer?

Say, he and his apostles challenged the Cincinnati Reds to a game. One would naturally favour the Reds, but I'm sure many would pick Team Jesus due to divine intervention. But Jesus was the only one with (for lack of a better term) superpowers --- wouldn't the Apostles be terrible? Wouldn't they get their asses kicked by a team of Major League professional players? One man cannot single-handedly lead a team to victory, as Ichiro has taught us over the last three years. I could see the Apostles scraping out a few hits, since the Reds pitching staff sucks, but overall it would be a total rout.

Who's to say Jesus would even use his powers to help aid an Apostles win, anyway? I can totally buy Jesus letting his hair down for an impromptu barnstorming game in Cincinnati, but doesn't he seem like the kind of guy who would frown on cheating to win a game? He would do everything to help his team in conventional ways (and maybe unconventional, i.e. making the wine for the post-game party), but would draw the line at using his abilities to give the Apostles an unfair advantage. Homey don't play that, Jesus might say. In my world, Jesus is an In Living Color fan.

What living ballplayer would Jesus play like? Hard to say. Someone classy. I'd vote for Paul Molitor or Alfredo Griffin. Jesus wouldn't hesitate to stretch a single into a double or slide hard to break up a double play, but he would draw the line at spiking guys and stuff like that. If he was a pitcher, Mark Eichhorn. For some reason, I've always pictured Jesus as a side-armer. Perhaps this is why the guard pierced his side.

Jesus would lead the league in VORM (Value Over Replacement Messiah).

* = I went with this over the cliche 'Jesus leads the league in saves' joke, plus I'm pretty sure that the Pope is into SABRmetrics.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Are you trying to say Jesus Christ couldn't hit a curveball ?!