There's No Crying in Baseball Advertising

Shortly after announcing its promotion to evangelize using bases next month, the Mission and Ministries Planning Council has called a balk on itself and has abandoned its plans to evangelize on the bases of Minor League Baseball. The ads, featuring the COB logo and the "Continuing the work of Jesus" tagline were to have debuted at the July 3rd game between the Charleston Alley Cats and the DelMarva Shorebirds.

"It isn't worth, frankly, having a debate about," chair Stan "Babe" Noffsinger said. "I'm a traditionalist. The problem in sports marketing, particularly in baseball, is you're always walking a very sensitive line. Nobody loves tradition and history as much as I do."

Under the original plan, black-and-blue ads were to appear on bases - but not home plate - during games from July 3-7. The plan began to crumble when the Everett AquaSox said they would only allow the ads on bases during batting practice - and only for one game that weekend.

"The bases were an extremely small part of this program," said Chris Bowman, Annual Conference's Moderator. "However, we understand that a segment of our worshipers was uncomfortable with this particular component and we do not want to detract from the worshiper's experience in any way."

While the logos will not be put on bases during games, it's still not certain whether they will appear during warmups.

"We listened to the worshipers," said Donna Shumate, General Board Chair. "We never saw this coming, the reaction the worshipers had. It became a flashpoint - the reaction was overwhelming."

Shumate said the MPCC had approached baseball about pulling the bases promotion.

"We don't want to do anything that takes away from a worshiper's enjoyment of the game," she said. "Some people thought it was a great idea, but others saw it as sacrilegious."

"I think they made a good decision to change their minds," District Executive Donald Booz said. "I don't think it makes any sense at all. It's a clutter. It’s not simple living."