Baseball is still America’s game

A speaker at the influential Values Voters Summit had a theory about why there has not been a major attack on U.S. soil by Islamic extremists since Sept. 11, 2001. And it isn’t just the hard work of U.S. intelligence agencies or the efforts of the thousands of U.S. forces who have risked their lives for 10 years.

According to Bryan Fischer, a director of the evangelical Christian American Families Association,  baseball can take at least some of the credit.

Fischer told an audience at the meeting that he believes there has not been another such major attack on the United States for a decade because Major League Baseball started singing “God Bless America” during the seventh-inning stretch break during games instead of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” after 9/11.

By singing “God Bless America,” baseball audiences are praying, and God has been hearing their prayers, Fischer said.

“Major League Baseball has converted our stadiums into cathedrals,” he told the summit, a gathering of the socially conservative voters who will play a large role in selecting the Republican Party’s nominee to run against President  Barack Obama as he seeks re-election in 2012.

All of the leading nominees for the Republican nomination describe themselves as conservative and all of them agreed to address the convention. Texas Congressman Ron Paul and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney addressed the meeting on Friday, before Fischer spoke.

PICTURE CREDIT: Men in colonial costumes wave their hats at the Values Voters Summit in Washington, October 7, 2011. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst