I had lunch one time with John Harbaugh, the newly embattled head coach of the Baltimore Ravens. Three of us were there. The only thing I remember was the pre-lunch prayer uttered aloud by Harbaugh, which was ostentatiously worshipful and Christian.
Harbaugh’s overt religious faith seems to be the focus of many who are now berating him for daring to consort with the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.
Whatever religious values Trump displays seem, as in many things declared by this president, utterly fake.
And that’s a theme repeated among readers of the Baltimore Banner, which broke the story last week that Harbaugh and his brother, Los Angeles Chargers Coach Jim Harbaugh, met in the Oval Office with Trump.
John Harbaugh “professes to be a devout Christian and then meets with a man with the cruelest, most anti-Christian agenda?” a Banner reader named Dawn B writes. “We want to know why he would go and rub elbows with someone who consistently denigrates our city and its people, whose administration is building concentration camps and disappearing people, whose Big Ugly Bill just took food out of the mouths of children, took away health care for millions and is actively working to take away constitutional rights.”
“John’s ‘deep Christian faith’ should have kept him miles away from Trump … Absolutely vile,” a Banner reader named Tracy M writes. “Maybe they should check in with what the pope has had to say about it.”
“The point is the hypocrisy of Harbaugh,” a Banner reader named Rich F writes, “because in public he preaches his Christian faith.”
There are more responses like this, and I don’t disagree with any of them, except they don’t go far enough.
For one thing, you don’t have to be Christian to loathe the politics and the personal history of Trump, who has spent a lifetime violating the moral code of every faith, including atheism.
The Harbaugh brothers should have noticed this somewhere along the way, and joined millions in their revulsion.
But there’s more.
John Harbaugh coaches the pro football team that represents Baltimore. Donald Trump is the president who called Baltimore “disgusting, a rat and rodent infected mess.”
Trump called Baltimore a place “no human being would want to live.”
Trump called Baltimore “the worst city in the USA.”
As with so much that this president says, the words were intended to inflict pain and divide people, and make us choose up sides instead of uniting us.
But there’s something more that bothers me about the Harbaugh visit.
Politics is real, politics is painful, politics (especially under this cruel and selfish man) is divisive.
Sports is supposed to be our reprieve from that reality.
We go to the ballpark and put the troubles of the day behind us. We’re there to enjoy the purity of human competition at its best.
I don’t want to want to watch Lamar Jackson pull off one of his miracles and wonder: “Is he on my side politically?” I want to root for him because he’s a Baltimore guy, which makes him extended family, which means — for a few hours on Sunday afternoons — we can enjoy him without the outside world and its troubles intruding on us.
Around here, we’ve watched 70 years of professional athletes and never heard a word from them about politics. It’s not our business. We want to root for them because they’re ours, unencumbered by any political beliefs.
John Harbaugh has now ticked off untold numbers of Ravens fans. And God (the deity of your choice) only knows how many of his own ballplayers he’s angered.
A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books, including “Journeys to the Heart of Baltimore” (Johns Hopkins University Press) and “Michael Olesker’s Baltimore: If You Live Here, You’re Home” (Johns Hopkins University).
Jmore Publisher Scott Rifkin, M.D., reacts to President Donald Trump's latest poll numbers and the real force behind the growing decline of the Trump movement.
Last weekend's Flower Mart once again demonstrated that there's nothing to fear about downtown Baltimore, writes Michael Olesker.
A junior at Roland Park Country School, Katie Grossman writes about a recent experience that spurred her to take action to fight antisemitism.
At a time when many Jews fear appearing Jewish in public, seeing Judaism depicted correctly onscreen is reassuring, writes Jewish content creator Rabbi Yael Buechler.