Why I Love Baseball

My year in Junior College baseball

Since I was nine years old, I have had a love affair with the game of baseball. From my very first game as a left-handed shortstop playing for S&M Electric on the baseball field behind Kaley Elementary School in Orlando, Florida, I have loved the game. I enjoy all sports but I have a special affection for baseball.

Awhile back I read an article by Nancy Becker pointing out some of the theological parallels to the game of baseball. It helped me crystallize an understanding of why I love baseball.

BASEBALL IS ABOUT STRIVING FOR PERFECTION BUT FALLING SHORT.

Baseball is a game of numbers and statistics. Everything is added up and written down somewhere. In any good Sunday paper you can find hundreds of numbers that refer to different teams and players. You can find the batting averages of all the players in the major leagues. You can read about RBIs and ERAs and fielding percentages compared against every other player in the league.  It's announced over the radio and flashed in bright lights on the big jumbotron scoreboard at every ballpark – and it’s carried out to three decimal points. Nobody says, "He's hitting pretty well." They say, "He's hitting .276." It's all about very precise measurements. There is no way to pretend success. There is no way to hide failure. The numbers are right there in the book to be compared with every other player on the team and in the league.

The interesting thing about this is that nobody does very well. The very best hitters get about three hits in every ten tries. That's not a very good percentage for most jobs. But if you get three out of ten in the game of baseball, they give you a multi million-dollar salary. If you do it several years in a row, they will put you in the Hall of Fame.

Take Reggie Jackson for example. He is known as “Mr. October” for his exceptional play in the post-season. He is listed in the top 50 baseball players of all time and inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on the first ballot in 1993. He is tenth on the home run list at 563. Even as great as he was, his lifetime batting average is .262.  But the one record he doesn’t brag about – he is the all-time strikeout king with 2,597.

You see, nobody is very good when measured against that absolute batting standard of 1000%. That's a tough standard to strive only to fall short of it with the whole world watching. But everyone falls short of it. No one has even come halfway to perfection over the course of the season. The greatest hitter of all time – Ted Williams was only able to hit over .400 once. Everybody has fallen short.

The apostle Paul also pointed out the futility of striving for perfection. In Galatians 3, he referred to the standards of perfection that are impossible to meet. To Paul, those standards were the Hebrew law. At the time of Paul’s letter, the Jews had developed a system of 613 laws with over 1500 variations of how these laws were to be carried out. Paul said the law is a curse, always reminding us of how inadequate we really are because there was no way we could keep each law perfectly.  The law, he said, was set up to show us that we cannot do it right; we can never be good enough because we cannot live up to its standards. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," Paul said in his letter to the Romans.

BASEBALL IS ABOUT THE GRACE EXPRESSED IN SECOND CHANCES.

Baseball is the fairest all other team sports in that it has no clock. You keep playing until a team wins, no matter how long that may take. Maybe this makes the game even fairer than life itself, because in baseball you don't run out of time prematurely.  As that great baseball theologian, Yogi Berra, said, "It ain't over till it's over." In baseball there is always the possibility that the unexpected will happen. There is always time for redemption.

Take the case of Bob Brenly. In 1986 he was playing third base for the San Francisco Giants. In the fourth inning of a game against the Atlanta Braves made four errors in one inning, two of them on one play. But then in the bottom of the next inning, Brenly hit a home run. Then in the seventh, he hit a bases-loaded single, driving in two runs and tying the game. Then in the bottom of the ninth, Brenly came up to bat again with two outs. He ran the count to three and two and then hit a massive home run into the left field seats to win the game for the Giants. Brenly's score card for that day came to four errors, four runs allowed, three hits in five at bats, two home runs, four runs driven in, including the game-winner.

Certainly life is a lot like that—a mixture of hits and errors. And there is grace in that. God, like Yogi, seems to say, “It's not over till it's over.”

There are still more surprises waiting in this opportunity for grace. Paul puts it like this: "for have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. They are justified by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” The ensuing verses explain that God provided Jesus as the sin payment and He restrained Himself, allowing us a second chance.

Even the apostle Paul made a lot of errors in his life. He was a Pharisee, the ultimate enemy of Jesus, the feared and hated persecutor of the early disciples; he had systematically attempted to destroy the church by annihilating its members. But Jesus found him and turned him around and set him on a new course, building a church in which the forgiveness of Christ was offered to everyone—no membership tests, no lines of birth or race or accomplishment, a church for people who have had made errors; for people who have gone 0 for four in their life’s at bats.

Through Christ, the scorekeeper cancels the errors, gives you another chance, a new start, a new beginning. Jesus looks past the errors to the possibilities of the future. With God it's not over till it's over. Nothing is finished until God is finished with it. No one is finished until God has completed them. One of the inevitables of life is that we will make errors which can threaten us to throw us out of the game. But with Christ, we always have another chance. We always have the possibility of a comeback. God's love is always seeking us, always following us, always willing to overlook the errors and give us yet another inning; still another chance at bat.

Remember, it ain't over till it's over.  So go grab a bat and take another hack at it.

 THINGS YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN ….

FOR CHURCH LEADERSHIP: Gospel. Life. Ministry: a free online webcast featuring a panel discussion on how the gospel intersects with life with Ed Stetzer, Matt Chandler, Louie Giglio, David Platt, Derwin Gray, Tony Evans, and others, May 11, 2015 - http://live.gospelproject.com/

FOR BIBLE STUDY LEADERSHIP: a video explaining what’s coming for adults in The Gospel Project/Chronological - https://vimeo.com/122668812

FOR BIBLE STUDY LEADERSHIP: The Gospel Project: Chronological Preview Event at Hebron Baptist Church in Dacula, GA, April 28^th, 6:30-8:00pm. Alan Raughton will introduce this chronological, Christ-centered Bible study that will be available to kids, students, and adults this fall. For more information, contact Alan at alan.raughton@lifeway.com.

FOR BIBLE STUDY LEADERSHIP: Groups Matter Event at Ridgecrest, NC, August 27-29, 2015, discussing issues like disciple making, DNA of healthy groups, responding to the homosexual question, missional groups, etc. - http://www.lifeway.com/n/Product-Family/Groups-Matter-Event?type=events

FOR HELP IN WRITING YOUR OWN BIBLE STUDIES: http://home.smallgroup.com/

FOR NEW BELIEVERS: The Beginning: First Steps for new Disciples - http://www.lifeway.com/Product/the-beginning-first-steps-for-new-disciples-workbook-P005685160

FOR DISCIPLESHIP/EVANGELISM: Life on Mission: A Simple Way to Share the Gospel - http://www.lifeway.com/Product/life-on-mission-a-simple-way-to-share-the-gospel-leader-kit-P005717346

FOR DISCIPLESHIP: Counter Culture by David Platt - http://www.lifeway.com/Product/counter-culture-leader-kit-P005703479?intcmp=Counter-MTX-Text-Kit-20150109

FOR DISCIPLESHIP: Fight Back with Joy by Margaret Feinberg - http://www.lifeway.com/Product/fight-back-with-joy-celebrate-more-regret-less-stare-down-your-greatest-fears-leader-kit-P005699446

FOR STUDENT MINISTRY: a video describing what’s coming for students in The Gospel Project/Chronological – https://vimeo.com/122668813

FOR STUDENT MINISTRY: Virtuosity: A 40 Day Devotional Guide for Guys - http://www.lifeway.com/Product/virtuosity-P005720882

FOR STUDENT MINISTRY: My 8, helping students understand the heart of evangelism - http://www.lifeway.com/n/Product-Family/My-8?intcmp=My8EmbraceSearch-MTX-Button-Details-20141230

FOR CHILDREN’S MINISTRY: a video describing what’s coming for kids in The Gospel Project/Chronological - https://vimeo.com/123430346

FOR CHILDREN’S MINISTRY: Start Planning NOW FOR VBS Follow-Up - http://blog.lifeway.com/vbs/2015/01/22/start-planning-now-for-continuing-the-connections-after-vbs/?emid=lcurtis-VBS-newsletter-20150218

FOR CHLDREN’S MINISTRY: Using Teenagers as Volunteers in VBS - http://blog.lifeway.com/vbs/2015/01/19/advice-from-the-experts-using-teenagers-as-workers-part-1/?emid=lcurtis-VBS-newsletter-20150218

FOR MEN’S MINISTRY: The Main Event, Nashville, June 19-20, 2015 with special speakers Mike Huckabee, Dr. Tony Evans, Jim Kelley, Derwin Gray and more - http://www.lifeway.com/event/mens-event-the-main-event-2015-nashville-tn?intcmp=TheMainEvent-MTX-Button-Nashville-20140803

FOR WOMEN’S MINISTRY: Freefall to Fly by Rebecca Lyons - http://www.lifeway.com/Product/freefall-to-fly-a-breathtaking-journey-toward-a-life-of-meaning-P005563243