COMMENTARY: An Answer to Prayer: Baseball Returns to Washington

c. 2004 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin, the American Jewish Committee’s senior interreligious adviser, is distinguished visiting professor at Saint Leo University.) (UNDATED) For most people, the recently announced return of a major-league baseball team to Washington is just another sports story. But for me, the move of the Montreal Expos to the nation’s capital […]

c. 2004 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin, the American Jewish Committee’s senior interreligious adviser, is distinguished visiting professor at Saint Leo University.)

(UNDATED) For most people, the recently announced return of a major-league baseball team to Washington is just another sports story. But for me, the move of the Montreal Expos to the nation’s capital has profound religious significance.


Growing up in nearby Alexandria, Va., automatically made me a zealous devotee of the original Washington Senators, owned in those years by Clark Griffith and later his nephew, Calvin Griffith. Sadly, in 1961 the always artistically and financially challenged Senators deserted faithful followers for a more lucrative locale. My beloved Senators morphed into the Minnesota Twins. It took years before the healing power of forgiveness finally allowed me to absolve the Griffith family of its sin of financial greed.

While the rest of the world mocked them with an ugly (but unfortunately true) litany of derision _ “Washington, first in war, first in peace, and always last in the American League,” I adored the Senators. As a youngster I regularly attended Sabbath services at Alexandria’s Temple Beth-El, and when the congregation engaged in a moment of silent prayer, I fervently pleaded, especially during baseball season, for the welfare of the Senators, which really meant winning some games.

Alas, my prayers were not fulfilled and as one losing season followed another, I learned at a tender age what is meant by the chastisement of God. I prayed as hard as I could in both English and Hebrew, but somehow the on field skills of the Senators of those years _ people like Eddie Yost, Mickey Vernon, Pete Runnels, Frank (Spec) Shea, Mickey McDermott, and even future Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew _ never equaled my prayerful hopes for the team.

But wonder of wonders! During my senior year in college, a miracle unfolded for me. Bob Wolff, who later became a well-known national sportscaster, hired me as his personal assistant. Back then Bob was the Senators’ radio and television announcer.

I was in charge of keeping statistics of each game, compiling the records of visiting teams, and making sure my boss had the proper advertising copy at the right time.

I was ecstatic because I was able to see the Senators’ home games at Griffith Stadium (hey, come on, what else could it have been called?). Because I had free run of the entire place, my glorious job with Bob permitted me to breathe the very air, albeit sometimes sweaty, especially inside the clubhouse, of my cherished team.

I would accompany Bob onto the sacred baseball diamond for his pre- and post-game shows. Standing on my personal “field of dreams” was a mystical experience. I was like a religious pilgrim who finally reached the heights and walked in the streets of Jerusalem.


While that season was heavenly for me, it was hellish for the team. As usual, the Senators finished in last place with a record of 53 wins and 101 losses. Attendance at the hallowed shrine dwindled to a paltry 425,000 fans, also last in the league.

It was the same year the fabled musical “Damn Yankees” came to Broadway. The show, of course, is a Faustian tale of how Joe Hardy, an extraordinary Washington Senators player, leads his team to victory over the hated New York Yankees. During that losing season, I learned another important religious lesson: the difference between the world as it is and the world as it ought to be.

The season mercifully ended, and I went off to rabbinical school. During the subsequent years, I rarely returned to Griffith Stadium to see the hapless Senators lose yet again. After all, when one has experienced a mountaintop spiritual experience, it is difficult to reproduce it.

When the Senators moved to Minnesota 43 years ago, it was time for closure; time to intone the sports equivalent of the traditional Kaddish, the Jewish prayer in memory of a deceased loved one.

A new team, also called the Senators, came to Washington and temporarily filled the spiritual and athletic void. I unsuccessfully tried to feel affection for the “new” Senators, but first love is always the sweetest. In 1972 they too fled Washington and emerged as the Texas Rangers.

Happily, the Promised Land is at last in sight. My Hebrew ancestors wandered in the wilderness for 40 years; my sojourn has lasted an additional three. I am older and more impatient now, and I want no more unfulfilled prayers, no more Kaddish. How about a World Series victory? As the Jewish prayer says: “May it come speedily and in our day.”


MO/JL END RNS

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