I love baseball. It’s a metaphor for life. Here’s a few reasons I think so…
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-There’s no real ‘clock’ governing the time that each game will take. It’s over when it’s over. And not one minute earlier.
-Everything and every player in a game matters; there are no insignificant roles, and no inconsequential people.
-The very best hitters still fail 70% of the time, even when they’ve given everything they know how to give.
-Self-sacrifice (the sacrifice bunt, sacrifice fly, and moving the runner over by grounding behind him) is greatly appreciated and vastly undervalued.
-When times are hard with your team, its imperative that a fan looks for bright spots, the silver lining of the clouds if you will, rather than focus on the negative. Because what you look for, you’ll find.
-Enjoying an ice-cold beer and ballpark dog at the park with your girl is one of this life’s truest enjoyments.
Part of my baseball on the brain comes with the advent of Spring training & the exhibition games have begun in earnest. The season is just around the corner.
The start of the season makes me feel both nostalgia and hope – from all the years of Spring training that I’ve experienced, the memories of listening to games on my little transistor radio, the baseball biographies (& fiction) that I incessantly devoured, (the Jackie Robinson story is still a favorite), and the series of old movies that I inevitably found a way to watch at this time of year, like “It Happens Every Spring”, and “Angels in the Outfield” – the original, though my kids loved the Disney adaptation.
My team, the World Champion San Francisco Giants, (that never gets old) won the 2010 World Series – something that had never happened in my life time. SF won series – hope deferred; hoping beyond hope that this would be the year. 2010 it was. Makes this year’s spring training more fun.
Spring training brings hope; to me it’s new life and new opportunities – a veritable clean slate. I ponder what I want to be true of me… less insistence on needing to be heard, to be right. To want to listen better, to understand. To speak my mind, in truth and love… to function at a ground-level in relationships rather than leaving them layered in unexpressed deep thoughts & feelings. To value what is truly important. To love well. Full of grace. Quick to forgive. Hoping the best. Celebrating life & relationship.
On that note, me & theBean aim to be at more Aces games – a lot more. We’re partnering with friends on some season tickets… should be finding out in the next little while when the joy starts.
30 more days til Opening Day.
I am a little bit excited right along with you. I heart baseball MUCH. Did you know there are lessons to be learned at baseball games? I took Eli to a game last season- like a date :) he learned from the lady next to him, that if he had boobs, he could have been the one to get that loose fly ball. I am not sure, but I feel like this requires a “that’s what she said.”