Ketel Marte, Heckling and the Case for Christian Values

Heckling at a professional sporting event is far from new, but Tuesday’s ejection of a Chicago White Sox fan for insulting Ketel Marte of the Arizona Diamondbacks garnered an unusual amount of attention.

It all unfolded in the top of the seventh inning inside Chicago’s Rate Field. 31-year-old Ketel Marte was up at the plate when a fan began launching insults that apparently included taunts about his late mother.

The second baseman’s mother, Elpidia Valdez, was killed in a car accident in the Dominican Republic back in 2017.

Video from the incident makes clear the heckling upset Marte, whose manager, Torey Lovullo, eventually came to his defense. Calling out the fan, Lovullo helped security personnel identify the 22-year-old, who was then removed from the stadium.

On Wednesday, it was announced the young man has been banned indefinitely from all Major League ballparks.

Diamondback teammate Geralo Perdomo told reporters after the game just how disgusted he was over the incident.

“That can’t happen,” Perdomo said. “Everybody knows how Ketel is. He’s fun. He plays the game hard. I feel bad for him. I feel mad about it.”

The word “heckle” first appeared in 1300, but referred to a flax comb, a tool featuring metal teeth or spikes. It was used spin flax fibers into linen, especially in Scotland. Hecklers were well compensated, and their shops became a real beehive of activity for political conversations and community activism.

Nearby England became known for their robust political jabbing where politicians would often “heckle” one another to either make or undermine an argument.

Writing of the political theater in Great Britian, one commentator suggested, “There is widespread acceptance, by audiences and politicians alike, that a good orator and a good heckler make for a good show.”

Except when the heckler is heckling a player about his deceased mother.

We find ourselves in a unique cultural moment. Radical leftists regularly lament any imposition of biblical values, instead advocating for a “live and let live” approach. They take great offense to anything they deem as moralizing or judgmental.

Until they don’t.

“The heart of the wise makes his speech judicious and adds persuasiveness to his lips,” wrote King Solomon (Proverbs 16:23). Israel’s ruler also observed, “He who loves purity of heart, and whose speech is gracious, will have the king as his friend” (Proverbs 22:11). The apostle Paul shared similar sentiment when he wrote, “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person” (Col. 4:6).

There is very good reason why even secularists have long respected the Old and New Testaments. Strong believers make for good citizens, because when the wisdom and counsel offered in God’s Word is heeded, everything else tends to go better. When His counsel and caution are ignored, chaos inevitably follows.

When anti-Christian groups and individuals agitate for the scrubbing of Christianity from culture, we get more hecklers and harassers like the dolt who demeaned the memory of Ketel Marte’s mother.