By DAVID EPPS
Pastor

Up until Tuesday evening, I hadn't watched an entire major league baseball game this season. The baseball strike pretty much ruined me for big-time baseball. Since the strike, I haven't bought a baseball ticket, haven't spent any money on caps, jerseys, or any of that other stuff, and haven't really cheered for any major league team. Not even Atlanta.

The strike soured me on professional baseball. To me, there was about as much excitement found in pulling for Coke against Pepsi, or America On Line against Mindspring. It's just hard to really get excited about being loyal to a business, which, as the strike demonstrated, is what professional baseball is all about.

Rich, young whiners, who still throw spit and sling snot in public, demanding to be even richer while rich, arrogant owners insisted on being even richer and more arrogant — to me that was major league baseball.

Yet, with all that, I still believe that baseball mirrors life more accurately than any other sport. In the other major sports, boxers can be saved by a bell, football teams can extend the time on a clock and play for a tie, while basketball teams can make three seconds last for an eternity with their endless time-outs.

But baseball... well, baseball is a bit like life. There are standouts, of course, but baseball is the only sport where you can be a failure and still be successful. A batter can go to the plate and strikeout six times out of 10, but if he is able to hit only four out of 10 consistently, he will be an all-star and a rich man.

Babe Ruth, the “sultan of swat,” was also the “strikeout king.”

I like a sport that teaches that one don't have to be perfect to succeed. Baseball, like life, often consists of long, boring, dull stretches of innings punctuated by incredible activity and excitement. One game, in a 164-game season, is really not all that important. One day does not usually a season make.

Yet, a string of bad days can sink a team for good while enough good days can put you in the playoffs. Life is like that. You can have a really, really bad day, but as Miss Scarlett once said, “Tomorrow is a brand new day!”

Like life, baseball is both a team effort and an individual accomplishment. A team can have eight great players but, if the pitcher is inept, the team will suffer and probably lose. Conversely, a Cy Young Award winning hurler is useless without the skills of infielders, outfielders, the catcher, and strong batters.

One can be a hero today and a pathetic loser tomorrow, as the New York Mets relief pitcher discovered on Tuesday night. In fact, if only one player, say the left fielder, is asleep for even one play, he can cost the team a victory if his mind is not on the task at hand.

And, also like life, unknown reservists who have spent their whole professional life on the bench can, in a glorious moment in history, come on to the field to achieve heroic heights and lead the team to sweet victory, before retreating back into the shadows of obscurity.

Fat guys can be outstanding pitchers and little runts can be power hitters. Baseball rewards hard work and dedication and terribly punishes the unprepared.

Yet, the thing I like most is that “it ain't over till it's over.” In football, basketball, hockey, and the rest, a team can get behind to the point that it is virtually pointless to continue the battle. In high school, a football team two touchdowns down is psychologically down for the count. It may take three touchdowns in college and more in the pros, but there reaches a point when, even the gamest of the game raises the white flag.

In baseball, the Mets can be down 5-0 in the first inning and battle back to take the lead 8-7. No lead is insurmountable in baseball; no victory is totally out of reach. The clock doesn't run out, the score doesn't get too high — you play until you win or lose. If a team doesn't quit, nothing is impossible — just like life.

And when it all comes down to it, a baseball player will not be judged on his personality, his wealth, his poverty, his education, or his color. He will, in the final analysis, be judged on his performance. He will be judged on what he has contributed to the game. And that's just like life, too.

Which is why I was back in front of the television last Tuesday, watching the Braves play the Mets. By the eleventh inning I was tense, hoarse, and overdosing on an adrenaline surge.

There I was, the old cynic, cheering for the Braves, mentally doing the chop, and forgetting all about the strike, the whining millionaires, and the fat-cat owners. All that mattered was baseball.

As the evening progressed, there were fantastic comebacks, heroics, impossible plays, cheers, and groans.

In the end, the game was won not by a grand slam, nor by a close play at the plate. A nervous pitcher, in an impossibly difficult situation, threw just a few bad pitches and walked in the winning run. Stupid mistakes in baseball can have awesome consequences — just like life.

Maybe next year, I'll buy a ticket or two. I might even purchase a Braves baseball cap. In the meantime, I will loosen up my “chopping arm,” practice the eerie chant heard in the Atlanta stadium, and park myself in front of the TV set. “C'mon guys! Stomp those Yankees!” Ah, this is the life!

[Father David Epps is rector of Christ the King Church, meeting at 10 a.m. each Sunday in the Carmichael-Hemperley building on Ga. Highway 74 in Peachtree City. He can be contacted online at CTKCEC@aol.com.

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