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The 1978 Giants Had Nine Born-Again Christians and a Media Storm · Crosswalk Talk: Celebrity Christian Interviews

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Life Audio.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Hey, Matt, thanks for joining me.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, Michael. I appreciate it.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Matt Seeger, author of The God Squad, The Born-Again San
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  Speaker 2: Francisco Giants of 1978. It's the story of the giant
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  Speaker 2: squad that was filled with Christians and was bold in
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  Speaker 2: their faith decades before such boldness was popular. Eventually, local
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  Speaker 2: media turned on them. We'll learn about that in a
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  Speaker 2: moment here. Matt, I believe you're a retired sports writer.
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  Speaker 2: You are a person of faith as well. Tell us
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  Speaker 2: about this Giants team. For those who don't know anything
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  Speaker 2: about this Giants team, with just many people in our audience,
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  Speaker 2: who were the God Squad and how unusual was it
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  Speaker 2: at that time to have, you know, outspoken Christians on
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  Speaker 2: a pro team like that?
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  Speaker 1: Sure. Sure, Michael. A little background on the 1978 Giants team.
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  Speaker 1: They did not win the pennant that year. So people
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  Speaker 1: are wondering, well, what's so great about the 1978 San
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Francisco Giants? Well, for people out here, we suffered with
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: the Giants in the 70s because they weren't very good. 1971,
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  Speaker 1: they won their division. They made the playoffs. They lost
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  Speaker 1: to the Pirates, and the Pirates went on to win
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  Speaker 1: the World Series. So they were good in 71. After that,
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  Speaker 1: they were pretty terrible. And their attendance kept dwindling in
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  Speaker 1: Candlestick Park, which is freezing cold and not a nice
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  Speaker 1: place to watch a ball game. And in 1977, their
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  Speaker 1: attendance was around 700,000 for the year. It rated 25th
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  Speaker 1: out of the 26 major league teams. 1978, they had
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  Speaker 1: an infusion of some talent, which they didn't have before.
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  Speaker 1: The main thing was they acquired Vita Blue. who had
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  Speaker 1: been a world champion with the Oakland A's for 72
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  Speaker 1: through 74 and was still a great pitcher. So they
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  Speaker 1: got Vida Blue at the beginning of the 78 season.
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  Speaker 1: They also had gotten Willie McCovey back. McCovey, of course,
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  Speaker 1: had been a mainstay with the Giants, had gone with
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  Speaker 1: the Padres, but they got Willie McCovey back in 77.
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  Speaker 1: And they had a great pitching staff. Guy named Bob Knepper, left-hander,
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  Speaker 1: They had John, known as the Count Montefiusco, Ed Helicki,
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  Speaker 1: Jim Barr, and Vida Blue, and great relievers in Gary
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  Speaker 1: Lavelle and Randy Moffitt, lefty and righty combo. And so
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  Speaker 1: they began to win in 78. And San Francisco was
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  Speaker 1: not used to this and started coming to the ballpark.
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  Speaker 1: And game after game, they had miraculous come-from-behind wins. And
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  Speaker 1: By the end of the season, they had increased their
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  Speaker 1: attendance over the last year by 1 million. So they
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  Speaker 1: had over 1,700,000 in attendance in 78, and they were
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  Speaker 1: fifth out of the 26 major league teams in attendance.
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  Speaker 1: So there was all this excitement about the team, and
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  Speaker 1: they were in first place pretty much throughout the year
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  Speaker 1: until mid-August when the Dodgers overtook them and then the
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  Speaker 1: Reds overtook them to Powerful teams. And the Giants had
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  Speaker 1: a September swoon. And they finished in third. But it
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  Speaker 1: brought a lot of excitement back to the city. Well,
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  Speaker 1: concurrent with this is we had what was called the
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  Speaker 1: God Squad. And what had happened is reliever Gary Lavelle,
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  Speaker 1: he went to Winter Ball in 1976. And he met
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  Speaker 1: a guy, Tom, I can't remember his last name. Anyway,
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  Speaker 1: this fellow led him to the Lord. And Gary came
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  Speaker 1: back in 77 and began to share his faith quietly
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  Speaker 1: with teammates when they were interested. And by 78, he
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  Speaker 1: had several who would come to Jesus, and then others
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  Speaker 1: who'd come to Jesus independent of Gary's witness to them.
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  Speaker 1: But by 78, I count 9 to 10 out of
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  Speaker 1: the 25-man roster who were born-again Christians, and began in
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  Speaker 1: post-game interviews to thank God, not for winning, but for
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  Speaker 1: the ability he gave them. And they were just grateful
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  Speaker 1: for this opportunity he had given them. But they began
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  Speaker 1: to share quite openly, which hadn't been the case in
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  Speaker 1: Major League Baseball. Baseball Chapel had started earlier than that.
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  Speaker 1: You had some professing Christians, but it wasn't quite the
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  Speaker 1: same And you have to understand the culture at this
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  Speaker 1: time also, Mike. Well, this was on the heels of
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  Speaker 1: the Jesus Revolution, which had swept up from Southern California
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  Speaker 1: and into Northern California and San Francisco. And so these
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  Speaker 1: young believers were very enthusiastic about their faith. It was
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  Speaker 1: like they had turned from darkness to light and were
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  Speaker 1: eager to share. And the drama centered around the fact
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  Speaker 1: that this explosion of faith was happening in San Francisco,
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  Speaker 1: which was open to the gay community. And because San
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  Speaker 1: Francisco was so open in that sense, many young people
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  Speaker 1: had traveled to San Francisco and were part of that culture.
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  Speaker 1: And they had quite different views than the born-agains in
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  Speaker 1: terms of issues like drug use, sexual preference, abortion, all
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  Speaker 1: those things. And so, I think there was a fear
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  Speaker 1: in the community that these guys were judging them when
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  Speaker 1: in actuality they were not being judgmental at all. They
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  Speaker 1: were just happy about Jesus and declaring their faith. Well,
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  Speaker 1: this sat okay with the community and the media in
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  Speaker 1: 78 because the team was winning. And so if a
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  Speaker 1: guy wanted to talk about Jesus after the game, the
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  Speaker 1: reporters are, that's fine. You know, you guys, it seems
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  Speaker 1: to be helping you. You guys are doing great. And
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  Speaker 1: there wasn't really a conflict. But in 79, they opened
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  Speaker 1: up the season losing. And they kept losing. And into May,
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  Speaker 1: and they weren't doing well. And the press began to
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  Speaker 1: blame the born-again Christians. And their thesis was that the
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  Speaker 1: coming to God had made them passive because they accepted
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  Speaker 1: a loss or a bad performance as God's will. And so,
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  Speaker 1: that was the accusation. And the press began to play
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  Speaker 1: off of that to a degree, and stop me if
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  Speaker 1: you have questions, but I'll just go a little longer
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  Speaker 1: here on what developed. And there were a couple of
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  Speaker 1: prominent colonists for the San Francisco Chronicle, Glenn Dickey and
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  Speaker 1: Lowell Cohn. And Glenn Dickey really had a problem with
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  Speaker 1: the God Squad. And he was telling management to break
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  Speaker 1: up the clique, that this was not good for the team.
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  Speaker 1: You should trade away some of these guys, or you
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  Speaker 1: should separate them from each other in the clubhouse. Don't
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  Speaker 1: have their lockers next to each other. He was really strident.
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  Speaker 1: Lowell Cohen, on the other hand, who I've gotten to know,
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  Speaker 1: he's a great guy. And I should say, we're also
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  Speaker 1: both of Jewish backgrounds, Lowell and I. I'm a Jewish
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  Speaker 1: believer in Jesus. He's Jewish, not a believer in Jesus.
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  Speaker 1: But We've become good friends through this book. But Lowell
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  Speaker 1: was a satirist, and he enjoyed doing that to anybody.
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  Speaker 1: He was equal opportunity. So with the Giants, he wrote
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  Speaker 1: a column called Can Satan Save the Giants? And in it,
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  Speaker 1: he proposed that since God didn't seem to be helping
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  Speaker 1: the team in 1979, 1980, when they were still losing,
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  Speaker 1: one of them should sell his soul to the devil.
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  Speaker 1: And if you're familiar with the the old movie Damn Yankees,
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  Speaker 1: when Joe Hardy of the Washington Senators, who were always
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  Speaker 1: losing to the Yankees, sold his soul to the devil
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  Speaker 1: and became a great baseball player for the Senators so
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  Speaker 1: that they could beat the Yankees. So Lowell proposed that
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  Speaker 1: the Giants do this. Well, the Giants' Gordigan players didn't
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  Speaker 1: find this very amusing. And so Lowell and them had
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  Speaker 1: some discussions in the locker room about this. So the
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  Speaker 1: thing is, this became a national issue because other columnists
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  Speaker 1: who read Lowell or read Glenn Dickey, they just, without
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  Speaker 1: investigating on their own, decided that all these accusations about
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  Speaker 1: them being passive were true. And so you had major
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  Speaker 1: columnists like Peter Gammons of the Boston Globe. You had
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  Speaker 1: the Daily News, trying to remember the name of the columnist,
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  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Dick Young. So these guys were just spewing
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  Speaker 1: out these myths about them being passive to a national audience.
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  Speaker 1: One of the chief myths, the pitcher Bob Knepper, one
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  Speaker 1: of the board against, the story was that he gave
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  Speaker 1: up a home run to a weak hitting player on
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  Speaker 1: the Padres. And when the manager, Dave Bristol, came to
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  Speaker 1: take Nepper out of the game, that the manager asked,
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  Speaker 1: what happened with that home run? And Nepper said, it
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  Speaker 1: was God's will. Now, I interviewed Nepper for the book.
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  Speaker 1: He says he never said that. And when Dave Bristol
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  Speaker 1: was asked, he said, no, he never said anything like that.
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  Speaker 1: And so this story was just inventive. And Knepper to
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  Speaker 1: this day says, I would never say that. I never
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  Speaker 1: would think that it's God's will just if, you know,
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  Speaker 1: I give up a home run or even if I
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  Speaker 1: hit a home run. He said, I would never say
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  Speaker 1: something like that. But that story got It followed Bob
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  Speaker 1: Knepper around when he was with the Houston Astros. And
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  Speaker 1: so anyway, the point is these kind of stories spread,
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  Speaker 1: and the God Squad was painted with that brush nationally,
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  Speaker 1: and it became a big deal. And I don't think
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  Speaker 1: that the press was used to dealing with Christians being
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  Speaker 1: that open about their faith, especially in San Francisco. It
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  Speaker 1: was new to them. and the press reacted badly. And
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  Speaker 1: I feel that because the God Squad took the brunt,
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  Speaker 1: the brunt of the criticism and the brunt of the blowback,
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  Speaker 1: and they got a lot of it. In fact, just
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  Speaker 1: to elaborate a little bit, Gary Lavelle was interviewed by
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  Speaker 1: the New York Times by a guy named George Vexey,
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  Speaker 1: who was a prominent columnist for the New York Times.
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  Speaker 1: And he interviewed, he wanted to know more about the
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  Speaker 1: God Squad and he interviewed Lavelle and asked his feelings
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  Speaker 1: about homosexuality. And Lavelle said, I have friends who are homosexual.
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  Speaker 1: I love them, but I tell them it's a sin.
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  Speaker 1: I tell them what the Bible says. Well, Vexey reported
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  Speaker 1: that in his column, but as Lavelle pointed out, the
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  Speaker 1: column said Lavelle's statements. For example, Lavelle said that that
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  Speaker 1: San Francisco is considered a, that he feels it's a
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  Speaker 1: satanic region. And Vexey quoted him. But the reason Lavelle
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  Speaker 1: said that is the Church of Satan was founded in
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  Speaker 1: San Francisco by a guy named Anton LaVey. So there
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  Speaker 1: is a factual basis for Lavelle saying it. But the
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  Speaker 1: way Vexey wrote the column, it made Lavelle sound like
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  Speaker 1: he was against the homosexuals, that he was condemning them.
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  Speaker 1: And so, when that came out, Lavelle began to get
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  Speaker 1: death threats from some in the homosexual community and letters
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  Speaker 1: that were written to him. So, like I say, Lavelle said, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I said those things, but the column didn't include the
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  Speaker 1: questions that I was asked. So, there was no context
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  Speaker 1: to my statements. So, anyway, I feel that because they
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  Speaker 1: took the brunt of this, that other Christians were began
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  Speaker 1: to feel like if they're going to talk about it,
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  Speaker 1: we will too. And in other communities, that's much more accepting.
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  Speaker 1: If you're down in Texas and you're talking about Jesus
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  Speaker 1: and you're a ball player, you're kind of preaching to
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  Speaker 1: the choir down there, you know? Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And so, and so that was kind of the controversial
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  Speaker 2: part of it. I'm assuming perhaps if they'd been the
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  Speaker 2: God squad in Houston or, or Atlanta, it might not
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  Speaker 2: have been as controversial, but it was, This was the
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  Speaker 2: God Squad in San Francisco. And by the way, this
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  Speaker 2: is not a phrase that was invented by you. They
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  Speaker 2: were called the God Squad, I'm assuming, back then.
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  Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah, and so this.
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  Speaker 2: Is not something that was just recently invented.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I investigated, Michael, the origin of the term. The
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  Speaker 1: first guy to use it was Art Rosenbaum in a
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  Speaker 1: column he wrote. He also wrote for The Chronicle. And
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  Speaker 1: he used it in a friendly sense. He thought it
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  Speaker 1: was funny. And for people who remember the TV show,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: The Mod Squad, okay, that took place in San Francisco
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  Speaker 1: in the 70s. So it was funny. We'll call him
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  Speaker 1: The God Squad. And so he did not have any
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  Speaker 1: ill will in phrasing that. But then In 79, when
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  Speaker 1: they began losing, the other reporters used it derisively. It
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  Speaker 1: became a term of derision rather than one of endearment.
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  Speaker 2: It's really amazing, Matt, how they were criticized by just
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  Speaker 2: members of the media. This wasn't atheists picking at the ballpark.
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  Speaker 2: This is members of the media criticizing them just for
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  Speaker 2: their faith. It's amazing to me how it does seem
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  Speaker 2: like we've come a long ways in terms of at
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: least how faith is portrayed in the media. And people
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  Speaker 2: just kind of, most of the time, let people of
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  Speaker 2: faith just say what they want to say. So how
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  Speaker 2: do you think, I think it's easy for us to
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: think that the current faith movement began with Tim Tebow,
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  Speaker 2: but my goodness, this is 50 years ago, you know, 50, 50. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: and so how did they kind of set the stage
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  Speaker 2: for maybe what we're seeing today?
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  Speaker 1: Well, I think what happened, Michael, is There's been some
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: organizations that have been very active in allowing Christians to
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  Speaker 1: share openly. I mentioned Baseball Chapel, which was founded in
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: the early 70s, and then Commissioner Bowie Kuhn officially approved that,
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  Speaker 1: and so you have Baseball Chapel services to this day
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  Speaker 1: in all the major leagues. The other group, the Fellowship
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  Speaker 1: of Christian Athletes, has been very active and they really
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: have had like a grassroots movement where they encourage athletes
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  Speaker 1: beginning at the high school level and into the college
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  Speaker 1: years to openly share their faith. And it's become commonplace.
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  Speaker 1: I also think that because of movements like FCA, that
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  Speaker 1: the young Christians have become better at expressing their faith
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  Speaker 1: in maybe a less controversial manner I think some of
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  Speaker 1: the God squatters would admit that they're pretty fervent, and
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  Speaker 1: that's not a bad thing, but it's not always understood
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  Speaker 1: by the media. And so I think the Christians now
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: are a little more media savvy, but also, as you say,
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  Speaker 1: you look at Tim Tebow, by the time Tim Tebow
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  Speaker 1: had come around, it had become more and more common
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  Speaker 1: for young high school and college athletes to openly talk
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  Speaker 1: about their faith. I don't think that the press has
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: a problem with it. They're more used to it. I
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  Speaker 1: have one little story to tell. I interviewed Gary Carter,
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  Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame catcher, who's now gone to be
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: with the Lord. I interviewed Gary a couple of times.
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  Speaker 1: Great guy. I believe it was after the Mets had
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: won the World Series in 1986 against the Red Sox,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: and they interviewed Carter. Bob Costas interviewed Carter after the game,
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  Speaker 1: and he said, first thing I want to do, I
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  Speaker 1: want to thank the Lord Jesus Christ for giving me
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  Speaker 1: the ability. And Costas was kind of shocked, you know,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: because this was nationally. And so that was 1986, not
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: too long after the God Squat. And so even a
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: reporter like Costas, he's a seasoned reporter, was a little
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: bit taken aback by that kind of openness. But now
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: you hear it all the time. You just, you know,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: you watch a college game there, you know, Tebow used
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: to kneel, other college players pointing to the sky. I mean,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: it's become accepted, pretty commonplace. But I do think a
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  Speaker 1: group like the God Squad, who had to take some
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: abuse on it, kind of set the stage and and
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: kind of educated the media that, hey, this is a thing.
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  Speaker 1: This is going to become a thing. Athletes are going
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  Speaker 1: to start talking about this. How do we handle it?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Amen to that. And I think some people wonder why
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  Speaker 2: faith is so prominent among sports. I think a lot
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  Speaker 2: of these athletes just find that it brings them peace.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, not only is it true, but there's this
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: side benefit of they have peace in the midst of
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: a society that worships sports and thinks that everything that
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: they do is the end all be all. And they,
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: and they realize that, you know, faith is a way to,
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: to kind of put everything in perspective. And I think that's,
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: that's what, what's really good right now about the players
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: who are professing Christ is that it's giving them peace
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: and they can retire knowing that if they lose, it's
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: not the end of the world. So it's really good.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: I love that about it. I was going to ask you,
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: for people to get more information about the book. This
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: is available, I'm assuming, where, as they say, all great
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: books are sold.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, all the
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: major retailers. You'll find it online. You just put Matt Seeger, S-I-E-G-E-R,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: God Squad, Google that, it'll come up.
• 19:19
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• 19:22
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• 19:28
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• 19:32
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• 19:37
  Speaker 1: See you next time.