Gods, Men, and Guys Who Hit Over .300

The only sport that interests me anymore is baseball. Sadly, the team I follow, the Phillies, are in a bit of a rut right now. Last night (a rare thing for me) I watched an interview with the manager, Charlie Manuel. (It's a rare thing, because, to me, there is nothing less interesting than hearing athletes or managers sum up a game by saying, "Well, we lost, because we didn't put runs on the board..." or, "We made key hits and plays tonight." Right. Got it.)

Charlie, explaining...

As I watched Charlie field the questions, I felt sorry for him. But then I thought: something has shifted. We are so arrogant. We think we can find the answers for everything.

Why did they lose? Because they lost. Baseball is a difficult game. Teams lose. Some players get hot while others go cold and then it switches. While baseball games are sometimes won by strategy, they are never won by studying the minutiae of a pitcher's delivery. A pitcher doesn't come out of a hole by changing his arm angle by .89933 of a degree. He wins by coming out of a mental place he is stuck in. And, when he comes out of it, he doesn't know why or how and he doesn't want to know. He goes with it.

Zen and Front Lawn Catches

My son loves to have catches. I love of have catches. Still, I find myself not wanting to have catches with him a lot of the time, even though I usually do acquiesce when he asks. The reason is as simple as the difference between two minds in two different stages of development.

If you wanted to, I would stand in my front yard or in my back yard and toss a baseball back and forth for hours on end. Nothing beats an orange evening sky, a cool/hot summer breeze, the sound of lawnmowers in the neighborhood distances and the warm crack of a baseball metronomically hitting glove leather. Nothing is more zen-like than the casual rhythm and the automatic reaction of catching the ball -- in front of the body; down at the side; scooped with a staccato da-blap from one hop on the ground.

Throwing and catching a baseball is one of my favorite meditations. But not with my son.

See, he is still gearing up to slay the dragons of the world. I'd rather sit on their backs and fly above the landscape.

He still wants to be the star on the stage. I'd rather watch, smiling, as someone else takes the accolades I helped him to achieve.

He still wants to land crippled airplanes; wander mysterious lands through forests lit up with the glowing eyes of night-creatures, and win the love of a beautiful princess. I'm comfortable in my little castle, with my queen and my two little knights-at-arms, sitting and soaking up the sweet sounds of laughter and the soft blips of a video game in the next room as I read.

Battle of the Brim



Christy Mathewson: "The Christian Gentleman"

 What the heck are our nation's English teachers doing? We are in the middle of a major cultural shift, I think: nothing means anything anymore, especially to our young lads and lasses. (By this, I am talking about things having meaning outside the obvious, not about general apathy.)

I just had a Facebook discussion with some friends -- some old friends and some young people who are former students of mine. It was light-hearted and stemmed from a status I posted. I am a Philadelphia Phillies fan and we have a pitcher named Vance Worley who is a great young arm with a bright future in the game. But he leaves his hat brim flat, which, to me, looks stupid. I have also joked about his apparent attitude in the dugout. Here is the status: