Baseball is God’s game, in my opinion. I love the game and I especially like the Detroit Tigers (who are currently barely hanging on to a one-game lead in the American League Central Division). So you can imagine how excited I was to read about a future Jesuit who played briefly for the Tigers. It was back in 1912, the dead ball era, and the circumstances were very unusual, but Joe Travers really did play.
Is he the only Jesuit ever to have played big-league baseball? Jesuits have done almost everything, but I’ve never heard of another Jesuit who made it to The Show. There are plenty of Jesuit-educated big leaguers. Two that come to mind are David Cone (Rockhurst High School) and Pat Burrell (Bellarmine College Prep).
