Christian Family Day Throws a Flag on the Cardinals

This summer would have marked the 20th anniversary of Christian Family Day at Busch Stadium.

The event, which brings thousands of evangelical Christians and disadvantaged kids to Busch for a Cardinals game each summer, was the oldest, organized mass Christian outing in the area. The event's popularity has spawned similar ones by the Blues, the Rams and at Gateway International Raceway. Other Major League Baseball teams have followed St. Louis' lead through the years, and now hold their own Christian events.

But earlier this month, the Cardinals told Christian Family Day officials that the team would be organizing its own Christian event this year. In effect, the Cardinals are taking over the evangelism from a Christian organization, while risking the wrath of its greatest player.

"The long and short of it is the Cardinals are doing CFD on their own without us," Christian Family Day founder Judy Boen wrote to her board members after a meeting with the Cardinals Jan. 4. "They own the stadium. They own the players. They want to make all of the money on tickets instead of giving us a rebate on tickets. They want to plan the program. They want to make it more secular in music, etc. They think that it is too Christian-oriented. They are losing money on us. They don't like the Christian bands. Their records show that over 30 percent of our at-risk kids are no shows at the stadium. They don't like the stadium to look empty. It comes down to $ signs." 

In an interview Friday, Boen said everyone involved in the event was "devastated." 

Christe Mirikitani, Boen's 36-year-old daughter, has been on the Christian Family Day board since she was a teenager. 

"This is something I grew up with," she said. "It feels like part of our family now missing."

Joe Strohm, Cardinals vice president of ticket sales, confirmed in an interview that the Cardinals would be taking over the event, but he said he still hopes Boen and her team will participate by bringing the "at-risk" kids to the game as they do each year. 

In the past, the Cardinals allotted up to 20 percent of its tickets for one Saturday game each year to the organization. Those tickets were then sold to churches or other religious groups. Organizers got the word out by holding a luncheon at Busch for pastors each spring.

Christian Family Day received a rebate of $2 or $3 per ticket, Boen said, for each ticket sold. The more tickets the organization sold, the more money they'd get back from the Cardinals. That money was then used to buy more tickets for between 1,500 and 3,500 children from impoverished families.

Strohm said the Internet has changed the way the Cardinals sell tickets and the old model used to sell tickets to the event no longer made sense.

"The way tickets are sold now is different than when Christian Family Day started, when we didn't have the Internet and the ability to reach fans as easily as we do now," Strohm said. "What we're looking at changing is to have the Cardinals take a more active role in selling tickets and not rely on outside individuals. Something the Cardinals do well is sell tickets."

Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols and his wife, Deidre, are major Christian Family Day supporters. 

"DeeDee & Albert are upset," Boen wrote in the letter to her board. "They plan to talk to Joe and the Cardinals next week." 

Strohm said the Cardinals had talked to Pujols, and that "Albert is still supportive of the day."

The Pujolses could not be reached for comment.

Boen first approached the Cardinals in 1990 about organizing a Christian event at Busch. At first, she was gently rebuffed. Then Marty Hendin, the Cardinals' late vice president for community relations, who died in 2008, took up Boen's cause, and became her champion inside the club. At last year's Christian Family Day, the staff wore black arm bands bearing Hendin's name.

Hendin, who was Jewish, used to jokingly call the event "Judeo-Christian Family Day," but anyone who has been to a Christian Family Day game knows how very Christian it is. Before the game, volunteers hand out baseball cards with photos of those Cardinals players, like first baseman Albert Pujols, who are evangelical Christians. 

After the game, thousands of fans stick around for the main event: typically a big-name Christian rock band plays some tunes, then several Cardinals' players describe how they became born-again Christians. At the end of the event, a pastor asks that those who are not yet evangelical Christians pray for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Strohm said the Cardinals will also take over the postgame portion of the Christian Family Day program. He said he hoped to bring in a speaker, possibly a famous Christian athlete, and said while there would be Christian music, the new Christian Family Day may not feature a band. 

Boen intends to keep the Cardinals from using her brand. In a letter addressed to Strohm, Boen's attorney said the organization, "does not give the Cardinals permission to use the name 'Christian Family Day' or its logo or a confusingly similar name or logo."

Strohm said the Cardinals "may still call it that. It's still to be determined."

Boen held the group's first Rams Christian Family Day this year, and Boen said the organization will now focus on that annual outing. 

In a letter to churches and supporters, Boen said it had been her dream "to be able to introduce to less fortunate children two of my passions: baseball and Jesus. ... I will always be grateful to the St. Louis Cardinals for the many years they made this possible."

Strohm said the change had nothing to do with money. "If this was strictly about money, we wouldn't have the event at all," he said. "We sell out Saturday games anyway."

He said his goal was "to have everyone focus on what they do best." 

"What we do well is tickets and events," Strohm said. "One of the visions and missions of Christian Family Day was to bring kids to the game. That's what we'd like to have them do."

Mirikitani said it was unlikely that the Christian Family Day board members would be happy narrowing their responsibilities to organizing one facet of the day. The board, she said, wants to run Christian Family Day the way they've run it for two decades. 

"It feels like the door has been shut," Mirikitani said. "Unless their hearts change. If so, we'd be ready and willing to do it for the 20th year."