Earlier this year, the grounds crew for the St. Louis Cardinals began drawing a number “6” along with a cross on the pitcher’s mound before home games in honor of former Cardinals star Stan Musial, who passed away in January. When the team’s general manager learned about the practice, he asked the grounds crew to stop doing it, saying that it is “not club policy to be putting religious symbols on the playing field or throughout the ballpark.”
And that, of course, has outraged Matt Barber and Steve Crampton, who apparently feel that not having a cross etched on the pitcher’s mound is some sort of attack on their religious freedom, as Crampton declared that God is now “the dirtiest word that can be spoken in public” while asserting that ending the practice is “an embarrassment for our nation” and an insult to the God-fearing people of St. Louis.
“We are going to find ourselves,” Crampton warned, “in grave danger. And so our being embarrassed by a cross on a pitcher’s mound is shameful and you can bet that the Creator of Heaven and Earth is not turning a blind eye to what is going on in America today”:
