And that character from "Major League" is selling Allstate insurance these days on TV after a stint in "The Unit." Major League is a funny movie.

Dennis Haysbert also played President David Palmer on the TV series 24.

 

Reminds me of the movie "Major League" There was a character in there from somewhere in the Carribean who had practiced something like that.

That was santaria. Its huge in the Carribean and S. FL

Check this out I found about real santeria in the real MLB


CHICAGO — On a shelf in the office of Chicago White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillen, mixed in among the family photos, the Roberto Clemente bobblehead and the Napoleon Dynamite figurine, are four small but intimidating religious icons.

"If you see my saints, you'll be like 'Golly, they're ugly,' " Guillen had said before inviting a visitor to come in. "They've got blood. They've got feathers. You go to the Catholic church, the [saints] have got real nice clothes.

"My religion, you see a lot of different things you never see."

Guillen's religion is Santeria, a largely misunderstood Afro-Cuba spiritual tradition that incorporates the worship of orisha -- multidimensional beings who represent the forces of nature -- with beliefs of the Yoruba and Bantu people of Africa and elements of Roman Catholicism. And Guillen, born in Venezuela, is one of a growing number of Latin American players, managers and coaches who are followers of the faith.

How many major leaguers have converted to Santeria is impossible to say because most, aware of the stigma the religion has in the United States, refuse to talk about their faith.

"It's like the forbidden fruit," said one player. "It's something personal. It's something you don't talk about."

But among those who have acknowledged their devotion are Angels pitcher Francisco Rodriguez and Florida Marlins third baseman Miguel Cabrera -- both Venezuelan -- and the White Sox's Cuban-born pitcher Jose Contreras, all of whom have been All-Stars and won World Series rings. Others, such as Cincinnati Reds shortstop Alex Gonzalez and Chicago Cubs infielder Ronny Cedeno, have experimented with it.

"It's something beautiful," said Contreras, who became a babalao, or Santeria high priest, before defecting from Cuba in 2002. "And it helps me a lot. It gives me peace and tranquillity, but more than that."

Rodriguez, who points to the heavens after each save, also says Santeria brought him a calmness on the field.

"I'm not trying to do it to help me," he said. "I've been with [Santeria] for a while. I like it. [But] I'm Catholic too. You cannot do anything without God."

Santeria -- the name translates roughly as "the way of the saints" -- has long been derided (think Pedro Cerrano, the character in the movie "Major League" who turns to the gods to get out of a batting slump) and dismissed in Judeo-Christian society as a primitive cult based solely on bloody animal sacrifices and voodoo, both of which it has. But the syncretic religion is much deeper than that, focused primarily on the worship of orisha, or saints, who govern a specific area of life.

"Santeria always was a religion that was persecuted," said Miguel De La Torre, professor of social ethics at Denver's Iliff School of Theology and author of "Santeria: The Beliefs and Rituals of a Growing Religion in America."

"You had to keep it secret. For self-survival and to survive in this culture, you had to keep it secret because it was seen as a primitive religion. The U.S. culture has described Santeria as some type of a bloodletting evil religion. The media has really characterized Santeria as something that people from lower classes celebrate."

 

I'm still waiting to hear about the first scientific development to ever emerge from a country where hocus-pocus is a national religion. It will no doubt be a very long vigil.

 

Thats like waiting for France to win WWIII. Nothing scientific is gonna come out of a country thats had a 60 year embargo on it.

 

Thats like waiting for France to win WWIII. Nothing scientific is gonna come out of a country thats had a 60 year embargo on it.

Ha ha I hope no French men read this, because they are still smarting from that remark made by a US government official some years back, which characterized them as "croissant-eating surrender monkeys."