Toronto Blue Jays vs. Texas Rangers: A Religious Experience
Artifact Analysis
If we look at the functional approach to religion, it tells us there are three functions of religion: the social function, the meaning-making function, and the transcendent function. These functions help us understand that many people live religiously in a way that doesn’t necessarily fit the ideas of a traditional religion. Quite often, the way people show religious behavior is through an interaction of worship with some artifact of popular culture. This kind of behavior provokes the cultural approach to popular culture: what is the encoded meaning intended by the producer and distributors of the artifact, and how do people decode this meaning in their use of the artifact? (Klassen 2014) Baseball brings society together to worship as if it were a traditional religion itself. Not only does it create social cohesion, it brings meaning to their lives and gives them the transcendent experience as well. Baseball has become so much more than just a sport over the years: it has become a religion. Producers and distributors of different companies have discovered this and have come together to heighten consumer experience, making them more passionate and connected to the religion than ever before. These approaches to religion and popular culture help us understand why, looking at the seventh inning of the fifth game in the series between the Toronto Blue Jays and Texas Rangers on October 14th, 2015, we can see an experience between the fans, the players, and the inning that demonstrate Forbes’ interaction of popular culture as a religion (Klassen 2014).
The Inning That Changed Everything
In this deciding game, the Jays were down until the bottom of the sixth, where they tied up the score 2–2. Going into the seventh inning, everyone at the Rogers Centre stadium was feeling pretty good because at this point, it was anyone’s game. However, the seventh inning is where everything shifted and this particular game became memorable to everyone who was watching. At the top of the seventh, Rangers’ player Odor was on third base while his teammate Shin-Soo Choo was up to bat. Russell Martin (Jays’ catcher) attempted throwing the ball back to the pitcher, but instead it accidentally hit Choo’s bat, putting the ball in play as it bounced towards third plate. However, no one knew what was going on because they had never seen a play like this before. That didn’t stop Odor though because he ran to home plate, ultimately scoring the Rangers another run. This bizarre play created an eighteen-minute delay in the game and after it was decided that the run would count, the Jays played the rest of the game under protest.
While they were in the bottom of the seventh, Jays fired up with anger and Rangers gloating, more bizarre things happened. When Russell Martin, Kevin Pillar, and Ryan Goins hit the ball, the Rangers made three catching errors in a row, which consequently put the Jays on all three bases. Ben Revere hit the ball next and Jays got a run, tying up the score (once again) to 3–3. Next, José Bautista stepped up to the plate and hit a 442 ft. home run. With players on first and third base, Bautista’s homer scored three runs, leading the Jays 6–3. This was the home run that perpetuated the Jays out of the American League Division Series and into the American League Championship Series against the Kansas City Royals. Therefore, this was the home run that restored Jays fans’ faith in the game, their team, and José Bautista once again (Fidlin 2015).
The Social Function of the 7th Inning
Religion functions as a way of bringing social cohesion (Klassen 2014). It brings together a group of people so they can worship together. In the case of game five, Jays fans came together to worship this sport and their team. The fans were not only united in the Rogers Centre, but they were also united all over the country: watching the game at home, in restaurants, in the library, listening to the radio etc. This one event brought millions of people together through a common love and support for the Jays. The seventh inning, however, demonstrated this cohesion on an even greater level, particularly when the bizarre run (scored by Odor) counted. That’s when everyone in unison started going ballistic.
People in the stadium were screaming, chanting “Send him back!” (Odor, that is), and some went as far as throwing garbage (including beer bottles and beer cans) onto the field. Those who were not in the Rogers Centre were expressing their anger via social media. This was because someone had made a call against the team that they worship, on a play that had never been seen before, so they began to retaliate as a defense mechanism. Fans lost it while the Jays’ players took it as a personal attack on them and fought with the umpires, to the point where one of them (Brett Cecil) got kicked out of the dugout. This kind of behavior is irrational and impulsive but perfectly reflects the protective emotion that one has when defending their traditional religion. And when the comeback happened, the Jays fans demonstrated the same kind of love people show when their traditional religion inflicts positive emotion. People were hugging each other, some were crying happy tears, and some were posting to social media outlets about the joy they were experiencing. No one was thinking about class differences, racial differences, or the horrible things going on in the world today. It created a national identity and unity not only because this was the team they worship, but it was Canada’s team, the only Canadian team in the playoffs, and they were achieving something remarkable. Everyone felt connected to each other through the experience of this one incredible inning.
The Meaning-Making Function of the 7th Inning
Religion functions to provide meaning of why the world is the way it is. This meaning-making function is the way in which people make meaning, the way in which world views are aligned with an ethos (Klassen 2014). During this inning, an insane call was made against the Jays, and every Jays fan could not figure out why this was happening to their team. Every Jays player felt the anger, especially because they had finally put themselves back in the game. People were praying left, right, and center.
Then, when every Jays player was hitting in the bottom of the seventh and the Rangers kept making error after error after error, they were all finally given an answer to their prayers. There was meaning behind these errors. Everyone was in agreement that the Rangers had brought it on themselves for insisting that Odor’s run had counted. Especially because the errors made by the Rangers were so careless and so out of character, it didn’t make sense. It was as if something had “turned their gloves to stone” (Fidlin 2015).
When the Jays kept hitting and the Rangers’ errors kept occurring, players and fans were thanking whatever higher power could be responsible for this. In those moments, faith was restored and players felt as though they were meant to win the game. It didn’t matter anymore if the Rangers had done everything they could to get ahead in the game, it was now coming down on them twice as hard. People who don’t even follow a traditional religion couldn’t deny that there was some sort of active force responsible for this. The announcer even said, “You can only play with fire for so long and its gonna burn you,” implying that you can only mess with what the baseball gods want for so long before they fight back (Róbert 2015). For all the crazy, unexplained things that went on, the religion of baseball provided meaning of why the inning was the way it was — it was for the Jays’ redemption and for the most epic comeback of the season.
“If the function of religion is to delineate special times and places and to produce ecstatic communal feelings, then sport (especially big-time, spectator sport) can be described as a religion.” — Joseph Price
The Transcendent Function of the 7th Inning
The transcendent function of religion provides an encounter with something bigger than oneself. This function of religion doesn’t necessarily have to engage with a higher being, it just has to engage with something that transcends the individual or the group (Klassen 2014). However in this inning, it was José Bautista who became both the higher being and the thing that transcended the group. In that moment when he got the home run, it felt supernatural. I felt it, Bautista felt it, everyone in that stadium and those watching from outside the stadium felt it. He achieved something that was very unlikely, he became a “kind of fated, heroic human striving against the infinite” — he was their savior (Hart 2010).
Even a month and a half later, there are still pictures and conversations popping up about José Bautista’s “epic bat flip”. There is even Christmas sweaters, advertising the bat flip, currently on the market. While some outsiders of this connected Jays group argued that Bautista should not have paused and admired his home run, many disagree with this. Mainly due to the fact that it wasn’t just a regular home run — it was other-worldly. Because in that moment, everyone felt the miracle, everyone knew that regardless of the two innings left, they had just won. By doing so, they had just achieved something that hadn’t happened for the Jays, or their fans, for twelve years.
The crowd started chanting Bautista’s name, his teammates fleeted onto the field, and everyone in the crowd was dancing, jumping up and down, or crying happy tears. It gave the crowd a sense of power, the kind of power Emilé Durkheim ascribes to a kind of religious person, “In one world the religious person languidly carries on his daily life; the other is one that he cannot enter without abruptly entering into relations with extraordinary powers that excite him to the point of frenzy. The first is the profane world and the second, the world of sacred things” (Blazer 2012). It was an encounter bigger than anyone present in that moment.
Producer Encoding and Consumer Decoding
The heightened behavior of the Jays players and fans did not come out of nowhere. Over time, the producers and distributors involved in the popular culture of baseball have created an environment that heightens people’s emotions. These producers and distributors are not directly involved with the game, but instead, they are involved with everything surrounding it. The Rogers Centre is known for having a giant dome ceiling that opens up, depending on weather conditions. They know the fans are coming to experience baseball and that now includes enjoying a beverage and some type of food (ex. hot dog, pizza, cotton candy, popcorn, etc.), so they hike up concession prices. They provide entertainment through the Jay Force — a group of dancers who cheer and execute contests for fans. During the playoffs, they handed out “playoff rally towels” as a way to tempt more people to come to the games, especially because no one knows the next time Jays will be in the playoffs.
They sell Jays jerseys and any other attire so that, by wearing the logo, people will feel more connected to the team and to each other. When people show up to this stadium, it is like they are coming to worship at the church of the Toronto Blue Jays. Producers and distributors know people want to be part of this worship at the highest level they can, which is why they sell the things they do. Scalpers understand this too, which is why they purchase the tickets and target their sales to people desperately wanting to be part of the experience. Another way that producers and distributers reach out to their consumers is through social media. They want to draw people in, so they extend the community to everyone. When the Jays made it to the playoffs, they created the hashtags #BlueJaysNation and #ComeTogether, which brilliantly brought everyone together. This hashtag began popping up everywhere and by the time it was the seventh inning of game five against the Rangers, every Jays fan knew the hashtag and was using it. It became a mantra for the players and the fans/consumers. It was something for them to use through the bad and more importantly, the good. Producers and distributors knew that by heightening the experience in every way possible, fans would become even more attached. While consumers are pretty aware of how this popular culture is being distributed to them (ex. high prices on concessions and Jays attire), they are not concerned with the intent of the producers and distributors. This is because to them, the experience of worshipping their team, and the meaning it will bring to their lives, is more important.
Popular Culture as a Religion
This inning demonstrated every function of religion because in those 50 minutes, it was a religion. Everyone was bonded together, they were given meaning to something that did not initially make sense, and above all else, they were transcended beyond themselves. Even though this inning of a particular game was just an artifact of popular culture, it became something more. It demonstrated how popular culture can be something more to its consumers. It can be more than physical dimensions, perfectly calculated plays, and sales of product. It can “reach down into the soul’s abyss” and give someone meaning in their life (Butterworth 2011). It can restore a person’s faith, even if it is just faith in a game, a team, or a player — it can be a religion.
“The only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, and day out, is the church of baseball.” — Bull Durham
References
Blazer, A. “Religion and Sports in America.” Religion Compass, 2012: 287–297.
Butterworth, L. Michael “Saved at Home: Christian Branding and Faith Nights in the “Church of Baseball”.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 2011: 309–333.
Fidlin, Ken. Toronto Sun. October 14, 2015. http://www.torontosun.com/2015/10/14/live-jays-vs-rangers-game-5 (accessed November 12, 2015).
Hart, B. David “A PERFECT GAME.” First Things 2010: 51–55.
Klassen. Religion and Popular Culture. Oxford University Press Canada, 2014.
“MLB ALDS Game 5 10/14/2015 ● Texas Rangers vs Toronto Blue Jays.” YouTube video, 3:01. Posted by “Milánkovics Róbert,” October 16, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDm3RdEbStU.
