Lessons from Baseball

We spent much of the past few days at a ballpark.

I took the kids to watch my teenage cousin play Thursday night. The breeze made for a relaxing evening, even though the allergens in the air made my head throb.

We gave our tickets for Friday night’s university baseball game to my cousins and aunt and uncle. We made sure we were at yesterday and today’s games, though.

With a 9 month old we rarely make it through an entire game. We usually miss the beginning or have to leave early for baby girl’s nap. I’m constantly wishing each inning would hurry up and be done so we could see more of the game.

Sadly, this is a direct reflection of my tendency to rush through life. At each game I’m too often annoyed with how slowly they progress than to enjoy them.

However, after hearing Bob Scheiffer, one of my favorite news correspondents and one of the most accurate political reporters of today, offer his insight on a game he dearly loves, I was able to come to the weekend games with a slightly different outlook.

Here is part of what Scheiffer said in a commentary on Face the Nation last week:

“To those who speak of golf as a religious experience, I say no - that's why we have baseball. So I was delighted to read in The New York Times yesterday that not only have others seen the light, so to speak, but New York University is offering a for-credit course taught by NYU's President John Sexton called "Baseball as a Road to God." Some criticize the game for being slow, but Dr. Sexton told the Times that its slowness allows us to notice the specialness of life - and even what may be beyond. Well, of course it does. To me, baseball's great lesson is how to deal with failure. In baseball as in life, even the best fail more often than they succeed. The .300 hitter fails to get a hit seven out of 10 times! But baseball teaches that over the long season, if you put your daily losses aside, go back to the ball park the next day and play the game right, you'll win your share of games.”

While I can’t claim to have had a religious experience at a ballpark, I can attest to the lessons learned from the game. Our team had been in a serious slump. One co-worker called their horrible luck with hitting someone in when the bases were loaded “the curse of the loaded bases.” She suggested burning, burying and replacing all the bases.

But this weekend saw a turn-around. Not only did the team win the series, but swept its opponent. For those unfamiliar with college baseball, each school plays other teams in its division three days in a row. Two wins out of three and the team wins the series. Three wins and it's a sweep.

Yesterday, the curse was broken; today, the sweep. 

Just when it looked like the season was going down the tubes, the team played it right.