From left, the Rev. Greg Larkin, Dodgers relief pitcher Jim Gott and Los Angeles Bishop Frederick Borsch pose for a photo at Dodger Stadium in 1993. Photo: Diocese of Los Angeles
[Diocese of Los Angeles] The Rev. Greg Larkin was born in the Diocese of Los Angeles, at Good Samaritan Hospital, and his father was a priest of the diocese before him.
“You don’t get any more Episcopal than that,” Larkin said.
And he has been a baseball fan nearly all his life. As a child, when his family lived for six years in central New York state, he would go to sleep listening to the baseball games broadcast by the local station, the only station his radio could pick up.
It wasn’t until the early ’70s, back in Los Angeles, that Larkin started rooting for the Dodgers. His math teacher had assigned some unconventional homework: Cheer for the Dodgers that night as they played the Giants to get into the playoffs.
In the early 1990s, when Larkin was serving as rector of St. Thomas of Canterbury Episcopal Church, Long Beach, he was a Dodgers season ticket holder and happened to be at a game on Methodist night. He talked to then-Bishop Fred Borsch, who signed off on the idea of an Episcopal Dodgers Night. Then Larkin wrote to the Dodgers, and in 1993 Episcopal Dodgers Night was born. Larkin has been organizing the event ever since and is known affectionately as “Canon Baseball.”
Through the years, attendance has ranged from around 800 Episcopalians to more than 1,200, and with the exception of a couple off years during the pandemic and the players strike, Episcopal Dodgers Night has continued as a yearly tradition. This it will fall on Aug. 29, with the Dodgers playing the Arizona Diamondbacks.
“We tend to lose more than we win, but it’s still fun,” said Larkin, who retired in 2022 after 22 years as rector of St. Columba’s Episcopal Church, Camarillo. “It’s always great to have people from all over the diocese.”
Larkin and his wife, Nancy, enjoy the event as a chance to see old friends and Episcopalians from around the diocese in addition to watching the game.
After a 2007 fire at Camp Stevens, the Episcopal outdoors camp in Julian, Larkin asked if some of the excess funds that had accumulated from years of Episcopal Dodgers Night could go to restoring the chapel at Camp Stevens, where Larkin served as a chaplain for a number of years. Now in the Camp Stevens chapel hangs a plaque that thanks those who helped in the restoration, including all those who attended Episcopal Dodgers Night.
In 2018, the 25th anniversary of Episcopal Dodgers Night, Larkin was honored with throwing the ceremonial first pitch. It had been years since he’d actually played, but with a little practice beforehand, and an effort to ignore the thousands of people watching him, he got the ball to home plate, where it was caught by Steve Nishibayashi, secretary of Diocesan Convention and a fellow Dodgers fan.
In recent years, the event has become Episcopal-Lutheran Dodger Night, in partnership with the Southern California Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. This year, more than 1,000 are expected from the Lutheran and Episcopal churches.