Best Public Prayer

Everyone knows Royals slugger Mike Sweeney is a big Christian -- the fact that everyone knows is what makes it all sort of annoying. Hey, we support everyone's right to practice his or her own religion, but why do some people always have to flaunt it? Yeah, yeah, there's that whole thing about spreading the gospel and all. Whatever. As proselytizers go, Sweeney is relatively tolerable -- probably because his bat works better than his mouth. The two collided, though, on Sunday, June 15. The Royals were trailing the Barry Bonds-blessed San Francisco Giants by a single run when they had one last chance in the ninth. Angel Berroa had made it to third, but there were already two outs when Sweeney stepped to the plate. "I closed my eyes and I just said a prayer," Sweeney later told a Star reporter. And just when we thought, Fine, say your damn prayer -- just don't tell everybody about it -- he went on to recite the entire prayer for the benefit of newspaper readers. Oddly, though, it was sort of a nice prayer: "Lord, I haven't felt great today. I'm banged up. Give me strength, give me confidence, give me your peace. Just to be the best that I can be." If we have no choice but to listen to athletes deliver public prayers, we'll take this sort of benign, humble, sweet invocation any Sunday. And, yeah, he smacked a two-run homer immediately afterward.