RIP, Sister Damian Kuhn

This is the sweetest story you’ll read all week.

One spring season when the Astros were in a particularly bad slump, Sister Damian Kuhn made her way to owner Drayton McLane’s office, dressed in her traditional blue habit and veil.

“She was our No. 1 fan, and she always took it personal,” recalled McLane. He told her it was time to start praying.

After a long sigh, she replied, “Drayton, my knees are bloodied. It’s going to take more than that!”

Now McLane and the baseball team’s players are struggling over a different loss — the death of Sister Kuhn on Monday, just months shy of her 90th birthday.

She, as a good Roman Catholic, and McLane, as a good Baptist, connected after he noticed the nun’s unabashed enthusiasm for the team whenever she managed to snare a ticket for a game at the Astrodome that otherwise would have gone unused.

“She was hard to miss in a crowd,” McLane said, since her head was covered with a habit instead of a ball cap.

Thinking it was unbecoming for a nun to shout, she once told the Houston Chronicle that she tried hard to just clap and give high-fives. She never jeered or heckled, and always believed that next crack of the bat might be an Astros’ home run.

It just tickles me that she thought shouting was unbecoming, but high fives were okay. Not that I’m arguing with a nun, mind you – I’m a good Catholic boy, I know better than that. Go read the whole thing, you’ll be glad you did. Rest in peace, Sister Damian.

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3 Responses to RIP, Sister Damian Kuhn

  1. Danil says:

    High Fiving Nuns is a pretty good name for a band.

  2. Lillian Kainer says:

    I have always diliked any sports but since reading what Drayton McLane and the Astro’s did for Sister Damian Kuhn was awesome. I am born Catholic and I have always admired the Nuns who taught in school and having Nuns in my husbands family I really admired them even more. I think that Jeff Bagwell was a great friend to Sister Damian. Thank you Draton McLane for all that you didi for Sister Damian Kuhn.

  3. Dud says:

    Dear Charles: The Catholic Church has been a supported to Major league baseball for as far back as I can remember, and remember how old I am! In grammer school in the 1940’s/1950’s we always listened to the world series. Then, remember that wondeful story that Doris Kearns Goodwin tells about her entire Catholic school saying a Novena for Gil Hodges of the Dodgers to break his batting slump and taking the kids to a supermarket opening where Hodges was to cut the opening ribbon. And last, Joe Torre’s Nun sister and her news story about her having the children pray for the Yankee to win the league and the world series.

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