Medal Saint Rita

Okay Sports Fans, Can you tell me why St. Rita is Patron Saint of Baseball?

I was wondering if anyone could tell me why St. Rita (the patron saint of abuse victims, against loneliness, against sterility, bodily ills, desperate causes, difficult marriages, forgotten causes, impossible causes, infertility, lost causes, parenthood, sick people, sickness, sterility, victims of physical spouse abuse, widows, and wounds) is connected to baseball. Some of the medals that can be purchased, have an option to have a baseball player on the back. Just wondering. Thanks!

Mighty fine question. According to an article on catholicherald.com:

"If there has been a run on St. Rita medals and holy cards at Catholic shops over the past few weeks, blame it on a family film released in April entitled "The Rookie." Based on a true story, and starring Dennis Quaid, it's a baseball tale that opens with a couple of nuns sprinkling rose petals from a basket while praying to St. Rita over the site of an oil well near the little town of Big Lake in west Texas in the 1920s.

According to the story's narrator, the nuns invested money in an oil well scheme that started to turn sour. When the nuns couldn't get their money back a Catholic priest advised them to pray to St. Rita, the patron St. of the impossible, and sprinkle rose petals on the well site. The Santa Rita well, named for its patron, not only produced oil but also (according to the film) a couple of major league baseball players. During the 21 months it took for the well to start spouting oil the Santa Rita crew built a baseball field near the well, and played baseball to while away the hours. Some of the crew got to be very good ball players.

Thirty years later the story of the Santa Rita well is told to a teenage boy who wants to be a major league pitcher. The teenager grows up to be the Quaid character, Jimmy Morris, a 30-something high school baseball coach who tests his arm at the old Santa Rita well and summons the courage to try out, late in life, for the big leagues."

The link is:

http://www.catholicherald.com/articles/02articles/strita.htm

Don't know if this is the right answer but thanks for peaking my curiousity! I learned something today!