By Geoff Holsclaw: pastor and professor, and baseball fan. Baseball is the American pastime, marking our collective consciousness like no other sport. And it can help us remember what spiritual disciplines are for.

- She hit a home run!—means something went really well.
- Get it in the ballpark.—means to offer an estimate.
- He has two strikes against him. —means the odds are against you.
- He struck out!—means to fail.
- She threw me a curveball.—mean to do something unexpected.
- Swinging for the fences.—means giving extra effort.
- Playing hardball—means going to extreme measures.
Baseball as Spiritual Discipline
But beyond influencing our speech patterns, baseball also exemplifies formative spiritual disciplines. Here are at least 5 reasons baseball trains us into spiritual disciplines.1) Baseball is all about getting home.
The goal is to round the bases, and return to home plate. But you aren’t just returning to the beginning, but you return transformed—rewarded with a run. Likewise, spiritual disciplines are all about reconnecting with God, our true home—changed and transformed in the process. Life isn’t just about winning. it is about returning to a place of belonging. As Augustine says, “We are restless until we find our rest in God.”2) Baseball embraces failure.
On offense, the batter—even the very best of batters—fails around 70% of the time. Their success of reaching a base is just around 30%. And the likelihood of scoring is even lower. In football, if a quarterback only completed 30% of his passes, or if a receiver dropped 3 of 4 passes, they would be out of the league. And the same for basketball. That level of failure would be unacceptable. But baseball is predicated on expecting and managing failure, embracing human limitation. Likewise, spiritual disciplines help to humble us by highlighting areas of failure and limitation, helping us to embrace that these as places where God’s grace and goodness to flood in.3) Baseball is focused on preparation as much as execution.
Baseball is all about focus and preparation between plays. The mind games going on between pitchers and batters are enormous, as each is trying to figure the other’s weaknesses, tendencies, and capabilities. One pitch is used to set up the next pitch. A long lead at first helps the man on third steal home.4) Baseball is slow.
There are a lot of gaps in the action. The big events—hits and home runs—are few and far between. Fielders need to keep their edge between pitches. Batters need to keep their focus as the pitcher prepares. And all the fans need to wait.5) Baseball has a really long season.
Baseball isn’t just slow within the game. It is a slow, long season. The longest season of the major sports. It is a marathon of sorts, requiring pacing, resting, and mental as much as physical fitness. Likewise, spiritual disciplines prepare us for the long haul of life. They keep us spiritually fit through the twists and turns of life, rounding out our weaknesses and building on our strengths. Spiritual disciplines remind us that character and Christ-likeness are built over a lifetime, not just over the course of a month or two.Watch a game or two—or 50 this spring and summer.
