The Peripatetic Preacher Goes to Spring Training

I am a huge fan of baseball. Oh, I know, that many of you find it slow and boring and the season interminably long; you prefer the violence of football and the pure and magnificently showy athleticism of basketball. I readily admit that I like those sports, too, though football’s physical and emotional toll on its players has begun to give me pause, and basketball has become a game only of huge players with even huger salaries and ego- driven mercantilism. I am barely 5’ 10” tall, and not blest with the shooting touch of Isaiah Thomas or the amazing vision and speed of Chris Paul, two relatively short players. The massive LeBron James—an astonishing physical specimen!—or any number of equally massive NBA players create in me more awe than any desire to play their game. But baseball—ah, baseball! There are of course large and powerful players— Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge (now on the same Yankee team—yikes!), among others, but I have conversed with any number of major leaguers who are no bigger than I. I can and did actually play that game!

And you who say the game is slow and boring in fact know nothing of the game at all. It is small wonder that some of our country’s leading intellectuals have been and are followers of baseball: George Will, Stephen Jay Gould, Doris Kearns Godwin, among many others. It is a subtle game, a game of inches, a game of finesse and great skill, but skills that may be honed beyond size and speed. I grant I was hardly the fastest runner, far less the largest, but I could catch—I played catcher when I played—and I could hit a little, very little, as it turns out, hence my reliance on my defensive catching skills. I learned very early on that one could be a catcher on a team as long as one could help the pitchers and block balls in the dirt and throw the occasional runner out attempting to steal a base. There are many starting major league catchers who will never hit more than 10 home runs in a season, will barely hit for a .220 average, and will throw out fewer than 30% of base stealers. Johnny Bench and Pudge Rodriguez are notable exceptions, but they prove the rule; few are like them. So, I could play baseball, and when my playing days ended, all too soon, I became an avid follower of the game.

I, as a boy, lived and died with the exploits of the Giants’ Willy Mays, in my mind the single greatest player ever to play baseball. Arguments about just who was the greatest are part of the fun of the sport. When we moved to Phoenix, AZ in 1953, I listened on my transistor radio to every Giants’ game; we received those games because the Giants’ AAA team played in Phoenix in a tiny, rusting stadium in my city. As a happy result of that fact, I saw many a Giant great move from the Phoenix Giants to the big club: Willie McCovey, Jose Pagan, all three brothers Alou, Joey Amalfitano, among many others. It was a feast for all baseball lovers! One night, I saw Willie McCovey hit a home run that travelled between the two towering palm trees that grew outside of the stadium, a drive estimated to have travelled over 500’. Such are the legends of baseball.

My son, Darius, showed little interest in sports as he grew up, being far more enamored with music—now his life profession. But sometime after he left our home to make a life of his own, he became increasingly interested in sports and especially adopted my new favorite team, The Texas Rangers, as his own. And about ten years ago, we began to meet each March in Phoenix to attend Spring Training games of the Rangers. I would usually fly from Dallas, and he would either fly or drive from LA. We would stay in a hotel, eat oceans of bad food, visit my mother, and take in 3 or 4 games. It was a special time for father and son to enjoy one another as adults.

Soon, he brought his wife, Caroline, with him, and my wife, Diana, decided to come along. Neither of the women had any special love for baseball, but they enjoyed the food and the fun, and did things they enjoyed while Darius and I relished the games. Now his two daughters come along, and since we all now live in LA, it has become a real family outing. One year, he and I even went to Kansas City, late in the season, to observe three games between the Royals and the Rangers. Unfortunately, the Royals swept the Rangers, knocking them from the pennant race for that year. We were saddened, but we did not feel at all cheated, because we had witnessed baseball at its highest level. And of course there was always next year!

And that is what spring training means for us. It is now next year, and our hopes are high for an improved season. We will anxiously watch Joey Gallo, our youthful slugger, who hit 41 home runs last year, but who also struck out far too often. We will watch Adrian Beltre, a sure Hall of Famer in the twilight of his career and hope that he has one more great year in his bat and glove. And we will track our pitchers, mostly a disappointment last year: will Cole Hamels regain his All-Star form; will Martin Perez build on what was his finest season as a Ranger; will our new hires prove useful to fill out our starters’ list; will Matt Bush, the convicted felon with the 100 mile-per-hour fastball return to form? These questions will not be answered in Spring Training, but we will begin to see how they might be answered.

Spring Training each year—yes, we have our plans already made for March, 2018—means for me hope and expectation for the team and for the season ahead. My Rangers have gone to the World Series twice and have come up short both times, the latest time coming within one strike—twice—of winning it all. Those were painful times, but they always led to the same cry. Wait until next year! Is this not the cry of every follower of Jesus? We come up short, sometimes terribly short, of what the Christ asks of us, but we hope for a better walk with him next year. Well, it is again next year! Play ball, and hope for a winning season. We can all play this game, and we can all follow the Christ as he leads us into the ways of justice and peace. I cannot wait for our Phoenix trip, now barely two months away. But I can follow the Christ now; next year has come.