Saints deliver

BY MICHAEL DOBIE | STAFF CORRESPONDENT

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NAPANOCH, N.Y. - The game started with a prayer. Right after warm-ups, just before the inmates took the field, the visitors gathered in a tight huddle.

"We pray that we might reach these men tonight," manager and second baseman Dale Glading said. "Let's take care of business on the field so the Lord can take care of business off it."

The team broke the huddle with a raucous cry of "Jesus!"

Glading threw down his glove, put on a batting helmet and stepped into the batter's box of the well-groomed diamond in the main yard at Ulster Correctional Facility, a medium-security state prison located in upstate New York.

The inmates were the home team. The visitors were called the Saints.

The contest was a game of softball. The real battle was for souls.

Glading's team was part of a ministry based in southern New Jersey. The Saints have three softball teams and also play inmates in basketball, soccer and volleyball. Their goal is simple: Use sports to bring faith to felons.

"Ball is our foot in the door," Glading said. "Eighty percent of the prison population will not attend what they consider a conventional religious program -- Bible study, chapel. What they will attend is a sporting event."

So the Saints play and preach. Doubleheaders, with prayer sessions between games, are popular in softball. In basketball and soccer, services are held at halftime.

There are more than 2,400 prison ministries in the United States, according to the Web site of International Network of Prison Ministries. The Saints are among the busiest and most successful of the ones that use sports. Since Glading founded the organization in 1987, they have played in nearly 200 federal and state prisons in 17 states, returning to many of those facilities year after year. Their inmate mailing list has more than 21,000 names.

The game in Ulster was the final of 49 games last season for Glading's team. Up to then, 695 inmates had made what the Saints call "decisions for Christ," a total the Saints were hoping to pad.

They had played a game earlier in the day at Wallkill, another state prison 45 minutes away. The Saints won, 6-5, in a game that was stopped after six innings because of time constraints. The Saints' postgame prayer service was interrupted by a stern announcement on the public-address system: "The yard is closed."

Fall classic

The Saints were more optimistic about Ulster. There would be more time, and the nearly 900 inmates there usually turn out in droves for softball. It was a beautiful autumn evening. The air was cool. Gnats and mosquitoes were everywhere.

Heavy rains had charged through the night before, leaving the field unplayable at daybreak. But recreation supervisor Tom Murray and an inmate grounds crew had worked on the dirt infield for four hours, and it was smooth, dry and ready to go.

Visits by teams such as the Saints are rare. Inmates generally do whatever it takes to make sure the games are not canceled. Outside teams, especially basketball teams, have been increasingly reluctant to play inside prisons because of their fear of such diseases as tuberculosis, hepatitis and AIDS.

That doesn't stop the Saints, but players making their first trips inside often are uneasy.

"I definitely had some misgivings," said Don Conner, stretching before the game. Conner was in his 11th year with the Saints.

"There was some nervousness. I don't think I ever worried about getting into any confrontations. I thought the inmates would be well-behaved. I think it was the idea of going into an institution where some of these guys have done some pretty cruel things, from murder to rape to whatever. It was the discomfort of being with these kinds of lowlifes," Conner said.

"And then he found out they're no different from us," Glading interjected. "They just made some bad mistakes."