What I Have Learned from Baseball

 For most of my life I have not been focused on the game of baseball. I never played it and never liked it. It was too slow, like watching the grass grow. There was way too much in the way of posturing and antics such as batters going through rituals of readjusting gloves. That has changed with the new league ruling of time restrictions around the batter stepping to the plate and the pitcher throwing the ball. Football was my passion. But my dad loved baseball and the Phillies. During the summer he had his small transistor radio up to his ear in his effort to never miss any plays.

I went to just one Phillies games with him, but it provided me with a “go to moment” that continues to inform my motivation. I have written about his devastating stroke when I was in tenth grade. He had to learn to talk, walk, and write. He was helpless but after a year of working out with my weights, he returned to work dragging one leg slightly behind him. My mother did not work so his disability insurance paid 60% of his low salary. It was hard times. He returned to work in the seafood department as his hands were too shaky to hold a knife. That was humiliating. He had to retire early.

I asked if I could take him to a Phillies game. He said that he could make it to the upper level. It was a huge effort, but he made it. During the game the Phillies must have made a great play. He stood with the rest of the crowd and forgot about his limitations and attempted to clap in a spastic fashion, the right hand missing the left hand. I just sat there and looked at him with great pride. For a moment

he was free at last.

In the spring of my retirement year the EA baseball team asked me to throw out the first pitch of their season. I hadn’t held a baseball in years. I didn’t prepare. My pitch fell to the ground a few feet from the batter. My students just said, “Hey Rev. don’t worry about it! You did fine.” They all signed a baseball and gave it to me. How important it is to feel unconditional positive regard. It is the heart of counseling. I could do no harm as they rallied around me on the mound. What a gift. The ball sits on my office shelf to remind me to be that unconditional regard for others who need help.

I invited the most famous Phillies player at the time to speak about character in Chapel. The community couldn’t wait to hear him. I knew the owners of the team as they were part of EA. I received a call the night before his scheduled chapel address from this player’s orthopedic surgeon who I also knew. He said that his patient couldn’t make it because he sprained his ankle but would come as soon as he could reschedule it. My students were required to play sports year around. The areas where they could meet between classes looked like a rehab center with limbs taped and crutches in hand. When they heard my explanation of why the player had to cancel, they were very angry. In essence, they indicated that they came to school with serious injuries and he couldn’t come with a sprained ankle? My students were gritty. The player came later and did a great job speaking about character. All was forgiven. It was a reminder that all anger is based in expectation.

I visited the mother of a faculty member as her mother was in her final moments of life. When I arrived, she was in her lounge chair in her bedroom clearly near the end. We prayed together. She wanted to watch a Phillies game which was her passion. I stayed with her holding her hand for a time. She was focused on the next pitch. You may think it strange. She reminded me again that we live life the way we view death. She was at peace and unafraid.

A friend, Dr. John Crosby, Superintendent of Radnor Schools, reads my blog. We had similar lives. He wrote, “Jim, education saved us!”  He was right so I was shocked to hear that Dr. Bart Giamatti had resigned as the youngest President at Yale to become the Commissioner of Baseball. It was his dream job. Why? He wrote about baseball in “The Green Fields of the Mind”, as a metaphor for life: “It breaks your heart because when the season changes from fall to winter YOU KNOW THAT NOTHING LASTS. It might as well be the state of being that is the game. It might as well be that in a green field in the sun.” He also wanted to restore integrity to the game which is why he suspended Pete Rose for a lifetime. I would encourage you to read that piece of his writing, “The Green Fields…” This writing helped me understand why he left the world of education which I value because it saved me. He was Commissioner of Baseball for five months when he died of a heart attack in 1986.

One of my Assistant Chaplains for twenty-one years, The Reverend Bert Zug, would challenge Dr. Giamatti that nothing lasts, not in this life but in the Resurrection of Jesus. Bert was the ultimate Phillies fan. I could care less about the sport, but as we talked or texted one another we talked about his faith and the Phillies. He was a whiz who knew everything about the team players. I knew nothing so Vicki and I began to watch the Phillies on TV so I would have something to talk with Bert about that did not focus on his terminal cancer diagnosis. Another priest and I blessed his marriage just weeks after he received his diagnosis and began chemotherapy.  He went through the most rigorous chemotherapy known. His wife cared for him throughout their new life together as she served as a CEO of a company and fulltime care giver. I thanked her multiple times for loving him so deeply.

Bert and I talked about the challenges of chemo which were brutal and the Phillies or Eagles depending upon the season. He had a large eagle tattooed on his back. I played and coached football so I was at home with those conversations, but baseball was a foreign language for me so I started to watch it as that was the best I could do. We prayed a lot. He wanted to live longer but said that he was prepared not to live long largely because of his faith. He was not worried about death. He was born in the world of the haves and was one of the most sensitive people that I knew who cared for the have nots.  I am still watching the Phillies from time to time. Now I know why. It reminds me to live from a deeper spot. The team has been an influence in my life without me even knowing it.