The wife and I were in Fort Wayne last Thursday and Friday. The primary purpose for the two trips (although we did some other business) was to go to two minor league baseball games. I am sure that Marsha did this for me. Over the years she has come to understand the basic rules, but baseball does not sit high on her list of priorities. For me, though, it is the sport of sports.

          I have often been asked, usually by younger people, why I like the game so much. Basketball is faster with split second decisions and reactions. Football is full of hitting and speed and strategy. The other sports all have their crazy good points. Why, then, baseball?

          I don’t really know. I know I am not alone. Most major league baseball teams sell out their ball parks several times a year. With 81 home dates, the occasional sell out is to be expected. But, from June 12, 1995 through April 4, 2001 the Cleveland Indians sold out every home game, 455 in a row. Cleveland can be baseball crazy. One fellow I know made it to 10 games in 1997. I asked him how he managed that. He said that he and his wife did a three day trip to Chicago, two three day trips to Detroit and one game in Cleveland. They paid more for the one game in Cleveland, buying the ticket from a ticket broker (basically a scalper), than they paid for the three games in Detroit. It was just about the only way to see the Indians play live. We like our baseball in the Cleveland area.

          Around here, in Urbana, Indiana, kids play little league. Where I grew up, we also played little league. At that time, our little town was about the size Urbana is now. In Urbana, the kids play teams from other towns in order to fill their schedules. Where I grew up, Perry, Ohio, we had nine teams, all from Perry. Baseball was what we did. Still, each of us are individuals. So, why do I like the game so much?

          I thought about this driving home Thursday night while Marsha slept. I started playing organized ball during Lyndon Johnson’s first term as president, the term he inherited from John Kennedy. While I stepped up to the plate, scared to death, the war in Vietnam was heating up. The Civil Rights movement was taking place throughout the country. We were still having atom bomb drills in school (atom bombs, not nuclear weapons). The polio vaccine had only been being used for a few years. In that first time at bat I had two balls and three strikes and went back to the bench in relief.

          A few years later I was playing in the Pony League, which was what we called Senior League. A step up from Little League. For the first time ever the park we played ball at had erected home run fences. All the older kids were trying to be the first to hit one out. I had developed into a line drive hitter. I didn’t worry about power, just sharp contact. A couple of weeks into the season we were facing the hardest throwing pitcher in the league. He threw one down the middle to me and I swung, just looking to hit the ball hard and on a line. I did. It shot past the pitcher before he could react and gained altitude until it crossed the center field fence, for the first home run in the park. As I trotted around the bases the war in Vietnam was going full bore, riots were ripping our cities apart, politically we were a mess and we were just getting into the drug culture and ‘free love.’

          A few years later I was playing high school ball. By this time the deficiency in my eyes was making itself known. Curve balls in Little League and Pony League were rare. In high school, though, every pitcher threw one. My eyes could not pick up the spin of the curve so when a ball was coming at me while batting, I bailed out. If the ball then broke across the plate, I looked like an idiot. So, I decided that I was just going to assume that every pitch coming at my ribs or shoulder was going to be a curve and I would hang in the box. Well, high school pitchers can be wild. I stood in one every pitch. I got on base a ton, but it was from getting hit by pitches. My coach even sat me down and told me that while I was the gutsiest hitter he had ever seen, I needed to get out of the way sometimes. Not me. I took my lumps. While that was going on, the Vietnam war was winding down, the president was in trouble for bugging the Watergate Hotel, riots in the streets and on college campuses were calming down and we were fresh out of a decade that had seen three major assassinations and the first men on the moon.

          A few years later I started playing church slow pitch softball, something I kept up for the next thirty years. In slow pitch there are no worries as to the spin of the ball since there are no curves. Oh, that was fun! I always hit between .750 and .800, just making contact. I once hit eight doubles in one game. I hit for the cycle. I played third base, first base or the outfield, depending on what the coach wanted. I just loved it! Eventually, my eyes got bad enough that I had to quit. I also had to quit umpiring. But it was a great three decades. All the while there were armed conflict, the Berlin Wall fell, there was terror on 9/11/2001, AIDS became a plague. The world continued to revolve and writhe in its own agony.

          What does all of that have to do with loving the diamond sports? I have witnessed a lot of pain in the world. Even as a young boy I was a voracious reader of everything, including newspapers. I knew what was going on all around the world and in my neighborhood. Always this rush of information, this mounting confusion, this uncertainty in the world. But always, three strikes made an out, four balls were a walk, a diving catch in the outfield looked cool unless you missed. Then you just looked foolish. If a batter belted a long drive it was said to be ‘in his wheelhouse’ long after anyone knew what that meant. If fight breaks out it is called a rhubarb, for reasons unknown. In fact, the only real change in baseball was the designated hitter rule in 1973, which still disgusts me. Baseball is solid and dependable and always there. Always has been. In an uncertain world, baseball is peace.

          This is also what I love about the Gospel. It is always there, unchanging, perfect in its simplicity and strength. It never fails, it never wavers. We may fail the Gospel, but it will always be strong for us.

          I know that in sports there are more glamourous games than baseball. I know that in life there are more attractive things than the Lord and His Word and His message. And, even for all its strength, baseball still fails us. But the Lord? We fail Him and then we blame Him for our misfortune. But that is just us being weak and childish. Hebrews 13:5-6 says “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." So we can confidently say, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?" He will stay with me, and you, if you don’t walk away, forever. So, sure, other things may attract, but the Lord is better than all.