SALVATION THROUGH BASEBALL [W, 2-15-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—SALVATION THROUGH BASEBALL [W, 2-15-23]

 

Today is the first day of spring training. I am excited. That will surprise anyone who knows my baseball inclinations, for I am a Cincinnati Reds fan. Of the 30 major league baseball teams, the Reds have a chance this year, if they are lucky, of finishing 31^st. For a Reds fan, “Wait ‘til next year” means 1990. Still, I am excited, for baseball was my salvation.

Yes, I know, we are saved by grace through faith, by God through Christ. But the resurrection means that the Christ spirit is available everywhere. So, if God chooses to save through baseball, well, as Martin Luther said, “Let God be God.” Or in the words of the Psalmist, if he were a current teen, “The FOMO of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” [Psalm 111:10] FOMO, the Fear Of Missing Out.

 

I spent the first ten years of my life just being afraid. FOBW, Fear of Being Whacked. Along about third grade, my school principal whacked me across the face for coloring wrong on my art project.  My parents whacked on me, too. Sometimes my mother would give me a whack as I walked by and I would protest. “Hey, I didn’t do anything.” “That’s for when you did something and I didn’t see it,” she would say. So, I learned not to do anything at all. FODA, Fear Of Doing Anything.

More importantly, the only sport anyone in the Englewood neighborhood of Indianapolis knew about was running, specifically running from the bullies. FONB, Fear Of Neighborhood Bullies.

 

Then we moved 115 miles south to the little farm near Oakland City. The boys on the school bus talked about baseball. Everyone was required to have a team. I declared that I was a Reds fan. I knew about the Reds because Grandma Mac was a Reds fan. I was the only Reds fan on the bus, which meant the Cubs and Cardinals fans were merciless in pointing out the deficiencies of my team. It was wonderful. I learned trash talk, like “Oh, yeah?” But no one whacked me for being a Reds fan. No FOBW. No bullies chased me. No FONB.  I was included. No FOMO.

 

More importantly, Uncle Johnny, my mother’s bachelor brother, would close up his hardware store and drive the five miles to our house after supper and hit flies to me in our sloping orchard/pasture field. I would glide through the long weeds in my clodhopper farm shoes and arrive at the right place just as the ball was ready to plop into Uncle Johnny’s old baseball mitt on my left hand. I wasn’t fast, but I understood arcs and angles. [1]

 

Whenever the boys of the Forsythe Methodist neighborhood would gather in the field in front of the Buyher’s house to play flies and grounders, they were amazed at the ability of the new kid to be in the right place before the ball got there. I was good at something! No FOBI, Fear Of Being Incompetent.

When you’re chasing a fly ball, you can’t be shy, try to stay out of sight. I was saved from FOBW and FODA and FONB and FOBI. Salvation from fear. At least most fears.

 

Now it is only FOMO. I don’t want to miss out when the Reds win the World Series this year.

John Robert McFarland

1] Much later, when I was the oldest pickleball player in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, I was known as St. John of the Angles. Apparently if you’re born with that kind of eye-hand coordination, it stays with you, even if it’s a different sport.