baseball and God

I have been a big time baseball fan my entire life.

When I was a kid, I would look forward to getting the sports section from the Sunday paper and pour over the batting averages from the major league players.

All of my favorite player's averages were memorized.

Favorite players?  Mickey Mantle.  Willie Mays. 

Favorite teams?  '68 Tigers.  '72 A's.  '78 Yankees. 

Here's what I know about baseball.

It is a game of trying to measure up to a standard of perfection and always falling short.

No one bats a thousand.  No one.  And no one ever will (for an entire season).

Baseball is like that.

Baseball is a game of measuring things up against impossible standards.  It is a game of numbers and stats.

Everything (and especially in today's game), everything is written down and added up.

There are RBI's and ERA's and feilding percentages and pitch counts.

It is all about precise measurements. 

You don't say about Paul Konerko, "he is hitting really well," you say, "he is hitting .327".

There is no way to "massage" or "fake anybody out" with a batting average.

And - to echo what I wrote above:  Nobody plays the game to perfection.  You can make millions of dollars getting three hits in every ten tries (try that at your job).

My boyhood hero, Mickey Mantle hit towering home runs as a switch hitter.  Yet he struck out 1,710 times in his career.  Great star - lots of strikeouts.

Yet there is another side to baseball that I also relish.

It is the fact that no matter how well or how bad you might be playing it "ain't over till it's over," as Yogi Berra once said.

In baseball, there is always a time for redemption.

Take Alejandro De Aza on Monday evening.

We as a church were at the game.  Great seats.  Wonderful time with our church family.  White Sox won 7 - 4.  The Twins lost, which Pastor Noah being a Twins fan, made the win just that more glorious.

Alejandro is the center fielder for the White Sox.  His stats for the game?  3 hits in four at bats (one of them a double), one stolen base and one error.

Adam Dunn might strike out three times in a game - but when he hits that one towering home run - all is forgiven and forgotten.

Life is like that - a mixture of hits and errors. 

Let me rephrase that - each day is like that.  Each day comes with some victories and some defeats.  Some wins and some losses.  Some hits, stolen bases and some errors.

Yet at the beginning of the next day - God gives us a brand new start.  The slate is clean.  It is a new "game."  He continues to love us.  He is your greatest fan.  He will never love you any more or less than he does right now.

Everybody falls short of perfection.  In fact, Jesus spent most of his life around people who made a lot of errors, people who had gone 0 for 4 in life.  People who often make errors.  People like me - people like you.

So take heart - and remember:  It ain't over till it's over.