Devil ... be gone!
For 10 years, they were a lousy team with a fiendish nickname: The Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Then the club exorcised the “Devil” from its name, and suddenly Tampa Bay is in the World Series.
Was it the hitting, the pitching, the coaching — or the hand of God?
“I told my wife before the season started, ‘Whoever is in that organization made, to me, a very interesting decision,’” said Les Steckel, a former NFL coach and head of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, an evangelical ministry. “Six months later, look what happens.”
Belief that dark forces are at work in all facets of life runs throughout many religions. And even though theologians universally will tell you that God takes no cheering interest in sports, fans often manage to find signs of damnation and redemption everywhere.
Until their 2004 World Series win, the Boston Red Sox were operating under the Curse of the Bambino, denied a Word Series win for trading Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees in 1918.
The Billy Goat curse still haunts the Chicago Cubs. In 1945, the Greek immigrant owner of the Billy Goat Tavern damned the team when he was kept out of a World Series game because he wanted to bring a goat to Wrigley Field. Chicago hasn’t been back to the World Series since.
How seriously does Chicago take it? This month, the Cubs had a Greek Orthodox priest bless the home dugout and spread holy water before their first-round playoff series with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Chicago didn’t win a game.
Still, when the suffering does end for some teams, fans insist it’s divine intervention lifting players beyond their limits.
Fast-forward to Tampa’s Game 7 American League Championship Series win last Sunday over the Red Sox to advance to the World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies.
The Rays won the American League pennant less than a year after they put the Devil behind them — although many fans in Tampa Bay still call the team by its old name which refers to a kind of manta ray — a fish with fins that look like horns on a demon.
Until this season, the Rays hadn’t even had a winning season.
“You take the ‘Devil’ out of the Devil Rays,” said Boston shortstop Alex Cora, pointing to the sky, “and Jesus helps them out.”
Casual use of “devil” in team names and elsewhere troubles Christians who literally interpret Old Testament passages against witchcraft and the occult, said Larry Eskridge of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College in Illinois.
Yet there is little outcry for change.
The NHL’s New Jersey Devils haven’t been cursed, winning the Stanley Cup three times — although the Buffalo Sabres lost the 1999 finals with star Miroslav Satan on their roster.
And a team with a nickname God might favor — the Los Angeles Angels — lost to the Red Sox in the American League first-round playoffs.
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