ROCHESTER, Minn. – It’s back to the Mount – err, “the mound” — for the bishop of the Winona-Rochester Catholic diocese. Robert Barron will throw out the honorary first pitch on August 9 for the Minnesota Twins game against the Cleveland Guardians at Target Feld. Time: 7:10 p.m. Tickets depending on where you sit: $39 to $1,019. This isn’t the bishop’s first time. He threw out the first pitch at a Los Angeles Dodgers game in 2016 when he auxiliary bishop in Los Angeles. A native Chicago, Barron grew up a Cubs fan. He still recounts when the Cubs ’ blew a 10-game lead to miss going to the World Series. “A terrible loss,” he says. And don’t get him going about his childhood heroes Jack Brickhouse and Harry Caray at microphones in press box.
Ever the fan. “I’m an evangelist for baseball,” Barron says. “You love something, and you want to share it.”
Sins of the past
The baseball industry seems to have forgiven Barron for his 2023 call on Catholics to boycott the Los Angeles Dodgers. He saw sacrilege in the team’s invitation to a queer and trans drag group, Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, for a Dodgers’ pride event. Barron didn’t take kindly to the group’s spoofing of a mythical order of nuns. He called Sisters an “anti-Catholic hate group.” The Dodgers didn’t budge.