Gary Carter is dying.  He is 57.  Carter, number 8 in the photo, was the catcher for the New York Mets in ’86, a great year for New York sports fans.  In the center of the maelstrom of fast-living, hard-partying young Mets, with Conie and Strawberry and Doc and Nails and so many others, Carter was the goodie-goodie, uber-exuberant, giant eight-year old.  His nickname back then was Kid. 

They got Kid from the Expos and Kid delivered, big-time.  The Mets owned New York in those days, as Real New Yorkers know.  But the Mets changed and the team exploded and then the 90s came and they got Saberhagen and Vince Coleman and a bunch of big-salary, low-impact guys, and the Mets, well, they lost me.

But Kid, he was special.  And now, as his family determines whether to discontinue treatment for the cancer that has riddled his brain, Kid — as do many athletes in this time of Tebow — invoked the G word in reference to his circumstance.

Now, Kid was always religious.  And this is a city where there are approximately 33,000 Holocaust survivors, and citizens of virtually every race, color and creed.  In New York, religion — and the collateral damage caused by religion — is a part of daily life.

Carter is who Carter is, and his was not the typical, end-of-game-interview shout-out to an athlete’s “personal savior.”  No doubt Kid’s faith provides comfort in this time of great pain and emotion.  I do believe in forces larger than those in this temporal world of ours, if not in “invisible friends” and bearded Almighties high in the sky.

And I do believe that religion is a powerful force.  It is so powerful, in fact, that is feared and loathed, by some.  Like kids in the schoolyard, taunting “my dad can beat up your dad,” religious followers of every calling have, over the centuries, gone to war over the “my God is better than your God” battle.

Which brings me to Brooklyn.  Central Brooklyn, Borough Park and Midwood in particular, is the Land of the Babka, and home to tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors.  Here, some miscreant recently sprayed painted doors, walls and homes — even the side of a religious school on Avenue L — with swastikas, even writing “Die Jew” on one garage.

To some area residents, with autumn in their hearts and memories long enough to recall their childhood in middle-Europe, this is how it was at the beginning of the Nazi occupation.  Could it happen again, here?  This continues to be a very real question to these Real New Yorkers. 

Beatings.  Blood.  Graffiti’d walls.  This is how it starts, they trembled to news reporters.  Today, they live for the kinder and repress the “thoughts of Auschwitz, the crematorium, the smell,” as one woman said to The New York Times.

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Last year, the NYPD investigated 104 cases of anti-Semitic crimes.  Two per week.

Religion has power.  To heal.  To comfort.  And, also, to incite fear aggression or, just plain aggression.

To those who terrorize others of a different faith, simply because they can, simply because they are bullies or have other psychological issues, I say this:  never again.

To Kid and his family, I wish you love and strength in this time of peril and pain.

For athletes in general, I say this: the world of sport is wonderful entertainment that provides fun and solace and inspiration for millions, young and old, around the world.  As a result, your words as sports icons hold remarkable power.  Choose these words with care and sensitivity and remember the power of restraint.  Your religious faith, if you have chosen that path, should buoy you with a deep, personal meaning that can only be demeaned and trivialized by posturing and banal post-game shout-outs to your “personal savior.” 

Your higher power, no doubt, is in the center of the maelstrom, like Carter on the ’86 Mets. Consider, though, the existance of your higher power in the context of calamities –such as our earthquakes, famines and diseases — not just your winning hit in the big game, watched far above, no doubt with bemusement, in the ultimate skybox.