Giants of the Faith

I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1978 when the baseball team, the San Franciso Giants, had an outstanding season. But what was especially noticeable was the team’s spiritual journey. Many of them became outspoken Christians. Matt Sieger was a local sportswriter covering the Giants and has written an excellent book on the team’s spiritual awakening. Following is a column by Matt with a link at the end for purchasing his book. Enjoy!

Depending on your spiritual bent, you may have been either thrilled or turned off by

University of Connecticut women’s basketball star Paige Bueckers talking about her Christian

faith in post-game interviews on her way to the semi-finals of the 2024 NCAA tournament.

“I’m a living testimony. I give all glory to God, “she told ESPN. “He works in mysterious

ways. Last year [after injury], I was praying to be back at this stage. He sent me trials and

tribulations, but it was to build my character. It was to test my faith to see if I was a believer. But

I just kept on believing. I did all I could, so God could do all I can’t.”

Some probably feel, as Beneatha Younger put it in Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in

the Sun, “I'm just tired of hearing about God all the time. What has He got to do with anything? .

. . I just get so tired of Him getting the credit for things the human race achieves through its own

effort. Now, there simply is no God. There's only man. And it's he who makes miracles.”

The media and the public are now accustomed to hearing athletes thank God for the

abilities he has given them. But that wasn’t always the case. In baseball in the 1950 and 1960s it

was extremely rare to hear such pronouncements from athletes. Then in the 1970s in San

Francisco, one of the great culture clashes between religious athletes, the media and the fan base

erupted over a group of born-again ballplayers on the Giants who became known as the God

Squad.

Giants’ relief pitcher Gary Lavelle became a born-again Christian in the winter of 1976.

When he returned to the club the next year, he gradually and quietly began to share his faith with

his teammates when they showed an interest. Several, including Bob Knepper, Jack Clark, Rob

Andrews, and Randy Moffitt (brother of tennis great Billie Jean King) came to faith, and by the

1978 season there were eight or nine professing Christians on the team.

The Giants, who had suffered through several losing seasons, came to life that year and

led the National League West for much of the season, only to fade in a September swoon and

finish third. In post-game interviews, the players frequently thanked God for the ability he gave

them, and the press raised no objection.

But when the Giants’ fortunes faded on the field in 1979, the media was quick to blame

the born-again players, claiming their newfound faith had made them passive. The press

derisively referred to them as the God Squad.

The cornerstone of that accusation was a quote attributed to pitcher Knepper, who

supposedly told manager Dave Bristol it was “God’s will” when he yielded a home run that lost a

game. Knepper and his Christian teammates have always denied the quote, as did Bristol. But the

false story continued to hound them for years.

The media was merciless at times. San Francisco Chronicle columnist Glenn Dickey

wrote, “It may be that the Giants will have to trade one or two of the most obvious born-agains

on the club, to break up the clique. At the very least, their lockers should be separated in the

clubhouse.”

Another prominent Chronicle sports columnist, Lowell Cohn, told me recently that he

disagrees with Dickey on that score. However, Cohn, known for his biting satire, penned one of

his most provocative pieces, “Can Satan Save the Giants?” in which he recommended that one of

the Giants sell his soul to the devil since God didn’t seem to be helping the team too much!

Not only did the media blame the God Squad for losing, it also alleged that the Christian

athletes caused division in the clubhouse and got two managers fired. These false claims spread

to the national media, where prestigious columnists Peter Gammons of The Boston Globe and

Dick Young of the New York Daily News repeated them. One of the more ridiculous accusations

was that the Giants had two team buses to take players to the field, one for the God Squad and

another for the others,

Mike Ivie, one of the God Squadders, returned to the club from a stint of mental

exhaustion and sounded much like Paige Bueckers, who had made a comeback from physical

injury.

“He’ll put you through trials and tribulations and He’ll use every resource to help you

find happiness in your heart,” said Ivie. “It would have been twice as hard for me to come back if

I hadn’t believed in the Lord.”

Ivie and his teammates commonly made such pronouncements in a liberal San Francisco

atmosphere and era that was not conducive to talk about faith. Cohn felt the tension and in his

memoirs made this fascinating statement, “Until that day, I believed I was covering a baseball

team. I was wrong. I had wandered into the middle of a deep religious debate, one that defined

the Giants at that time.”

The God Squadders were spiritual pioneers who bore the brunt of attacks by the media.

They paved the way for Paige Bueckers and other Christian athletes to speak boldly about their

faith.

Matt Sieger has a B.A. from Cornell University and a master’s degree in magazine journalism

from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School. Now retired, he was a sportswriter and columnist

for The Cortland (New York) Standard and The Vacaville (Calif.) Reporter, where this column

first appeared.

Here's a link to Matt's book: https://www.amazon.com/God-Squad-Born-Again-Francisco-Giants/dp/1631322184/