It is said that every Minister only has one sermon. One sermon that they continue to give over and over by changing the settings or the metaphors. For each Minister that one sermon is different.
Now lets be clear on one thing, a UU Minister I am not. I am a Worship Associate that is filling in while Reverend Elaine is away. But I have been thinking about what my one sermon would be. And I think I have it figured out. I am going to talk to you all about Baseball. J
Since mid-March it has been All Baseball All The Time in the Lipsitt house. Ryan has been playing Little League – of which I am his head coach and
One Sermon. Baseball
I happen to think Baseball is the greatest sport there is and it does not take me long to come up with a long list of baseball metaphors to build a sermon around. Of course there is the obvious choice – I could build a whole sermon around the idea that a baseball player who fails 7 out of 10 times he comes to the plate to bat is having a fantastic season. I could talk about how the rules of baseball have essentially been the same for over 100 years. The brilliance of someone determining that it should be 90 feet between bases more than a century ago – this distance is just long enough to allow double plays, just long enough so that hitters fail 70% of the time, and yet short enough so that you can actually steal a base sliding head first with inches to spare.
There are so many more options for writing a sermon on baseball. I have narrowed it down to three. Even if you are not a sports fan, I hope you will enjoy what I have picked.
Have you heard of a Perfect Game? In baseball, a Perfect Game is defined as when a pitcher wins the game by facing the minimum number of batters from the other team. No walks. No errors. No miscues of any kind. Three up and three down each inning for a total of 9 innings. It is perfection in baseball. Since 1880, a Perfect Game has only been accomplished in the Major Leagues 20 times. 20 times in 130 years. Pitching a perfect game does not make you a Hall of Fame player, but it does immortalize you in the sport. Your name is engraved forever at the most famous museum of baseball in
On June 2nd of this year, Armando Galarraga was pitching a perfect game for his Detroit Tigers while facing the Cleveland Indians. In the top of the ninth inning, the Tigers' center fielder executed an over-the-shoulder catch while running full speed to catch a long fly ball for the first out. The Tigers second batter quickly grounded out so Armando was now just one out away. The 27th batter of the game hit a ground ball to the right of the first basemen. The first baseman went over to get the ball and Armando Galarraga ran to cover first base. The Tiger’s first baseman threw the ball to Armando, he stepped on the base, and began to celebrate.
But the umpire, Jim Joyce, called the runner safe. Safe. That is it – Perfection is gone just like that. But even without any slow motion replay, it was obvious to anyone watching that the umpire had missed the call. The batter was truly out.
Now I don’t know about you, but as a baseball fanatic I have watched this replay over and over again. The umpire clearly made a mistake. But what struck me from the very first time I saw this video was the reaction of Armando Galarraga. This 28 yr old young man looked at the umpire and simply smiled. He did not argue. He did not scream.
Armando Galarraga had signed with a baseball team when he was 16 and had spent much of the last 10 years playing for all different types of minor league baseball teams. This year was only his second full season in the Major Leagues. This moment was the certainly the biggest moment of his baseball life.
The imperfect umpire made a mistake and the Perfect Game as gone. But what did Armando do – he looked at the umpire, smiled and said nothing. No argument. No theater. No wild waving of arms. He went back to the mound, got the next guy out and the game was over.
But the story does not end with just the grace demonstrated on the field. 45 minutes after the game ended, Armando met with the umpire. Mr. Joyce, knowing he had made a mistaken call, apologized to Mr. Galarraga with tears in his eyes. Armando accepted his apology and gave him a hug. Later that night Armando told a report, “I know I threw a Perfect Game.” He went on to say, that later in life he would show the video of this game to his kids. He would say to them, even though their dad is not in the record books, he knows he accomplished a Perfect Game.
In your life – when a decision does not go your way and a mistake is clearly made – how do you react? Do you react with the grace and dignity of Armando Galarraga? Do you smile and are you willing to hug the person who made the mistake?
Did you know that baseball is the only major team sporting event that has no clock. No time limits. The fastest baseball game took place in 1919 and lasted only 51 minutes. The longest 9 inning game should not surprise any of us here in
Just this season, Ryan’s little league team won a game in their last at bats and lost a game in the bottom of an inning. The beauty of the sport is the timelessness of the game. A World Cup Soccer game ends after 90 minutes, professional basketball game is usually 48 minutes, and the highest level of football is defined as 60 minutes. But not baseball. Baseball is over after 9 innings and there is no rule as to how long an inning can last.
Maybe you don’t enjoy baseball as much as I do, but we can all learn from the timelessness of the activity. Leave your watch off for a Saturday. Go play a round of golf and leave your cell phone in the car. Take a timeless walk on the beach. Sit in a garden. Whatever the activity is, try to get lost in it.
Our lives are full of commitments and time schedules. But we sometimes get caught up in these time schedules and forget to slow down. Sit and watch a baseball game – or you fill in the blank here but make sure you try to stop, sit and just slow things down some.
My little league team this year more closely resembled the Bad News Bears than the Boston Red Sox. It was a melting pot of kids; a group of 8, 9, & 10 yr olds that varied greatly in their baseball ability. (Setting all Father’s Day bias aside, our son Ryan was clearly the most dedicated and all around best player on the team.) But aside from Ryan and a handful of other good players, our team was short on talent. As the season rolled on, so did the consecutive losses.
0 – 5 turned to 0 – 6 and then on to 0 – 8. Here we are at the half way mark of a 16 game season without a single win. Ryan would say, “Dad, I really don’t want to go to school. The ‘chatter’ is no fun.” There were plenty of other teams with mediocre records but only one winless team. Kids at this age can sometimes be awful cruel all in the definition of friendly teasing. I was out and around town with Ryan one day and a kid yelled “Hey Oh and Eight, how are you?” Ouch!
I began to lay awake at night and wondering “was it me?” This is my 4th year coaching baseball and I am constantly learning ways to improve. But I had to ask – what were the other coaches doing that I was not? Did I practice too much or not enough? Was I taken the game too seriously and not having enough fun?
0 – 9. Lost another game.
Then we turned it around. Of the 7 remaining games in the season, our team went 4 – 3. There was a sense of satisfaction that I had gotten this group of mediocre players to all play as a team. What a lesson they had learned about sticking together and working to get better. We entered the season-ending playoffs on a roll!
Our first playoff game seemed like a metaphor for the season. By the bottom of the 3rd inning, we were losing 9 – 0. We entered the bottom of the 6th and final inning losing 13 – 8 only to score 5 run. Tie game – extra innings! As luck would have it, one of my best pitchers had not yet played that position all day. I am feeling pretty good – top of the extra inning and I am sending out easily our most consistent pitcher all season. If we hold them here, we can score one in the bottom of the inning and achieve a playoff win.
Not to be. This nine-year old, very consistent pitcher had his worst inning of the whole season. He threw balls in the dirt and balls over the batter’s head. Walk. Walk. Walk again. I will spare you the rest of the details, but the other team scored TEN runs in that extra inning.
All of a sudden, I was no longer a coach. All the laying awake during the season questioning my decisions did not matter. All of a sudden, I was simply a father watching his own son on the mound pitching the worst he had ever done.
No longer was it about baseball. I hugged him and we both shed a few tears after the game.
Over the course of the next day, I kept asking myself what was the lesson I was supposed to learn here? What was I to take away from this amazing little league season full of downs, then ups, and then down again? End the season with a loss, no problem. But end the season with Ryan on the mound, having his worst outing of the season. That seemed to be cruel.
The next day, I shared this story with a good friend of mine. She empathized, gave me a hug, and said, “well, at least it was only baseball.” And you know what? She was right. It was just baseball. My one sermon. Baseball. The sermon that had been mulling around in my head for weeks before this playoff game. It was just a game of baseball.
So? Have you figured it out yet? I am not the only one who understands the metaphor by now am I? I love the game of baseball. But this morning baseball is simply a metaphor that I am using to give MY one sermon.
Forgiveness. Taking time. Putting life’s events into perspective. And the love that comes from just being apart of other’s lives. That is really my one sermon.
Today, on this Father’s Day, and through out the next week I ask you to do these things for me:
First, to forgive. As you go about your daily activities remember to react to mistakes with the same grace as Armando Galarraga. Smile and be willing to give a hug to the other person who may have made the mis-step.
Next, slow down. Find some time in your busy schedule this week to appreciate the gifts of your surroundings.
Work to put the events of this coming week into perspective. When life’s daily events do not seem to go your way, remember that they are just that – life’s daily events. Count your blessings for what is truly important.
And finally, be there this week for someone else. Share your love by simply being there for other’s this week. Make the extra phone call. Give the extra hug to someone you care about.
Many years from now, I am sure Ryan will have quite a story to tell to his friends or his kids about his 2010 little league season. He may laugh as he talks about the ups and downs of that season. I hope he will talk about his love for the game. But most of all, I hope he remembers how we were there for him during that season. We coached him, we supported him, and we hugged him when it did not go his way.
So you have figured it out now. My one sermon is not really about baseball. I hope you liked it.