Saints deliver

BY MICHAEL DOBIE | STAFF CORRESPONDENT

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."

It's a theme sounded often by the Saints.

The teams exchanged lineups. The Saints included Glading, Conner, Nesbitt, Collins, Teisen. Ulster countered with Bones, Outlaw, Crime, Fever, Green Eyes.

Glading led off with a walk, Walter Nesbitt doubled, Bud Collins scored Glading with a sacrifice fly, and the 6-5 Conner, a power forward on the Saints' basketball team, hit a towering home run over the leftfield fence that garnered applause even from the inmates.

Conner, an elementary school teacher, homered again in the third inning and in the fourth launched a titanic blast. There are two fences at Ulster. The second is 20 feet high, not counting the coils of barbed wire on top, and 296 feet down the leftfield line. Conner's drive was to left-center and it disappeared into the lush forest on the other side.

The 150 or so inmate spectators screamed with delight. Many raised fists in the air. They root for their team, but they also appreciate skill, and they love -- absolutely love -- power. Conner was their guy.

The game was called after the Saints' lead grew to 24-7, and they promptly switched gears. They didn't want the crowd to disperse.

"If we lose , they're not going to stick around to hear what we have to say," Glading said. "It's very important to be competitive."

Business cards

Glading quickly set up a portable sound system. The rest of the Saints circulated through the crowd, handing each inmate a card that asked for his name, prison I.D. number and birth date. The card also presented the inmate with three options from which to choose: He has made a decision to accept Christ, he is uncertain but would like more information, or he already has accepted Christ.

Depending on his choice, the inmate will receive a packet from the Saints. Some inmates get a Bible study correspondence course, others more general information. Everyone will get a handwritten birthday card every year for the rest of his sentence. For many inmates, it's the only positive piece of mail they will receive, and it leaves a lasting impression. It shows them the Saints aren't coming just to play a game.

"I am writing to say thank you for never giving up and for always remembering my birthday," an inmate named Rickey recently wrote to the Saints. Rickey filled out one of the Saints' cards more than 10 years ago at a softball game at Sing Sing, another upstate prison.

Two years ago, the Saints began offering transition services -- clothing, food, job training, help finding employment -- to inmates being released. In the program's first year, 32 ex-inmates were involved; only one returned to prison.

As Ulster's inmates studied their cards, Hugh Dwyer stepped to the microphone. The Saints' first baseman is assistant executive director of a charter school in Trenton. The inmates cheered when he said he was born in the Bronx and booed when he admitted to being a Mets fan. Then Dwyer introduced Dan Owens, the youngish-looking outfielder who had been selected to give testimony.

Owens, who owns a painting business in Deptford, N.J., told the inmates of his blue-collar upbringing and said he wasted his college years by drinking heavily.

"If you don't know where you're going, I can tell you where you're going," Owens concluded. "You're going to hell. And there's no parole in hell."

The inmates applauded, and Owens handed the microphone to Collins. A middle school phys ed teacher in Pennsauken, N.J., Collins looks like a ballplayer -- short, powerful, impressively muscled -- and he carries himself with a certain swagger. That added to the impact when he told the inmates that God was the only reason he was not in prison.

"I've done drugs, I've got two DWIs, I'm a recovering drug abuser and alcoholic," Collins said. "Just because we're outside doesn't mean we don't sin."

Collins told the inmates they were going to pray together. Most took off their hats and dropped their heads. Several clasped their hands as they would in church. Collins prayed that "the Lord might bless these men that they come out and be changed men."

"Amen," the inmates responded.

Then the Saints moved through the crowd, collecting cards and, in some cases, renewing acquaintances. A knot of four inmates closed ranks and compared cards. They had arrived at Ulster only recently and were not even sure of their prison I.D. numbers. But they wanted to fill out the cards.

"Check the first one, right?" one asked, and they all agreed.

"Anthony, God bless you, you made a big decision," Dwyer told him.

Pay to pray

As a group, the Saints are a bunch of born-again Christians who love to play ball and found a way to combine those two passions. They pay for that, literally. Each man had to come up with $1,350 for the season's travel expenses, either from his own pocket or through fund-raising. They often take time off from work to fit in games and use vacation days for their multiple-prison crusades on the road.

Most are in their 30s or 40s. Some, like Nesbitt, have teenage sons.

"They're talking about being part of the ministry. Seeing their excitement gets me fired up," said Nesbitt, who works for a heating and air conditioning company in Moorestown, N.J.

"We're all trying to hang on until our kids get old enough to play together one or two years, and then they can take over," said Glading, whose sons are 13 and 14.

As meaningful as the games are for the inmates, they have a powerful effect on the Saints, as well.

One inmate player once asked outfielder Rob Brown for a drink from the Saints' jug of Gatorade.

"He said, 'What's that?' He hadn't had anything like that for 20 years," Brown said. "These guys are shut off. How would I feel being locked up for 20 years? We meet guys who are 40 or 50 years old and their son is in there with them."

The teams returned to Ulster's field and were about to start the second game when the lights went out.

"You trying to see if we can hit in the dark?" Conner called out.

"This is what I can't wait to tell my wife: That I was in the yard in the dark," catcher Jeff Marthins said.

Spectators and players from both teams hung around the diamond until the P.A. announced the yard was closed and the game canceled. The teams quickly shook hands, and the inmates were returning to their housing units when the lights suddenly switched on. Instantly, a roar erupted. The inmates rushed back to the diamond.

In the first inning, Collins cleared both fences with a monster shot even longer than Conner's blast. Immediately, inmates started calling for an inspection of "the Sammy Sosa bat."

"These balls are coming out of our commissary fund," the inmate umpire moaned.

Green Eyes, meanwhile, had been catching with shin guards and face mask but no chest protector. Murray said he had to fight for that much because guards were concerned the gear could serve as armor if they had to use their batons. So Marthins let Green Eyes borrow his equipment. The inmate strapped on the newer gear and grinned.

The Saints won again, 13-0, but they were more interested in the count of the cards. Twenty-two decisions for Christ, 16 requests for more information, 18 already in the fold.

Answered prayers?

Players from both teams, joined by some fans, gathered on the infield and made a circle, Saints between inmates and vice versa. Heads down, arms crossed, they clasped hands with the men beside them.

"We pray for the men here, that this has been a special night for them," Dwyer said. "And we pray for those who accepted God and for those who didn't."

After each prayer, some of the inmates murmured, "Amen." Then the circle tightened, everyone put a hand in the middle, one on top of the next, and yelled, "Jesus!"

Many of the inmates seemed moved by the show of brotherhood, by the fact Dwyer prayed for them, by the evening in general. They shared hugs with the Saints as each thanked the other for being there.

Then the inmates turned to go back inside the prison. The Saints packed their equipment for the four-hour drive home.

"Safe trip home, thanks for coming, guys," Murray said.

The night now was silent except for the clicking of cleats on pavement. As the Saints walked slowly toward the front gates, it was hard to tell whether they were exhausted, lost in thought, or both.

"It's all about them feeling like human beings," said Dwyer, breaking the silence. "We hear so many times: 'This is the only time here that I feel like a human being.' Take away the fences, take away the walls, this could be any ballfield in America."

But it was not. And every Saint knew that.

There was one last prayer back at the van. Then they unlaced their cleats, stowed the gear and pulled out of the parking lot at 10 p.m. They got home around 2 in the morning, another 18-hour day in a never-ending quest.

On that Saturday, the Saints played three games, posted three wins and, they hoped, a lot more saves.