Sunday Sneak Preview

I’m working hard on my book, Diamond in the Rough: The Gospel According to Baseball, and though everything’s still subject to the editing process, I thought I’d give a sneak preview of the introduction. I hope you like it!

I fell in love with baseball the same year I accepted Christianity as my faith of choice. I grew up in a family of six kids (three boys, three girls) and two loving parents, all of whom accepted Christianity as their faith of choice and all of whom played some form of baseball. Most summer evenings when I was a kid, our family could be found either at church being Christians or in our yard being softball players. I doubt the rest of my family saw these rituals as two forms of the same essential nature: a faith practice. A religion. But I did. Or at least I do.

The differences between the nature of Christianity and the nature of baseball are obvious. The reaction to not participating in baseball (or softball or tee ball or whiffle ball) would be a mild shrug at best. Staying home for church would be scandalous. My dad rarely joined in our evening softball games. In fact, it was somewhat of a novelty when he played. He just didn’t like sports very much. But he loved us, so he’d watch a lot and play occasionally. Absolutely no one ever questioned this. With church, on the other hand, there was an understanding that everyone was going. Every Sunday morning. Every Sunday night. Every Wednesday night. I can’t say that it was an unspoken rule, but it was never spelled out in its entirety. 

An outsider might describe the difference this way: Christianity was forced upon us while baseball was merely encouraged. That framing would probably be adjusted depending on the personal experience of the outsider. Duly noted.

Another essential difference between baseball and Christianity is that the participants of Christianity recognize what they’re doing as a religious experience, a practice of faith . . . sacred. They see their faith as a communal act with the creator of the universe, and just about everyone sees baseball as a sport, maybe a cultural phenomenon with extremely nostalgic significance. But a religion? Nobody thinks baseball is a religion or that it connects us to the source of all life itself.

Well, I think it might. But more importantly, there’s a lot more to baseball as a way of life than we give it credit for in earnest. I found this out after I left Christianity, though I don’t think you have to leave Christianity to see it. I no longer believe we all have a God-shaped hole in our hearts, but I know for certain leaving the church left a church-shaped hole in the structure of my life and in my brain and in my soul. Some people deconstruct their faith. I detonated mine, and it left a crater in me just in terms of how I operated as a human. I felt like I had lost my entire network of guideposts and my life’s very user’s manual when I set the Bible aside. It took me a decade before I realized there was a practical, even moral and spiritual framework I had practiced my whole life but had ignored after leaving the church.

It was baseball. I really haven’t played much baseball or softball in the last ten years (most of the teams I played on were, you guessed it, church teams). But I still love it. When I play, and I assume anyone who plays notices this, I have a crystal-clear sense of purpose, belonging, and identity. Why it took me nearly 50 years to see how that mindset need not be limited to the baseball diamond, I have no idea . . . at least, I’m not going down that road right now. But now that I see the connection, I can’t get it out of my head. It’s a whole different lens to see the world through, and I have to say . . . it’s beautiful.

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I think baseball . . . no, wait. I believe baseball connects us to the source of life itself, and I believe baseball can do as good a job (if not better) as any other religion does of informing us on the nature of life. I believe baseball shows us, if not how we should live, how we could live and thrive and enjoy life to the fullest. I believe a baseball way of life has the power to bring people together, to unify us and to strengthen the spiritual and emotional ties that connect us.

But more than any of that, I believe baseball gives us an extremely practical way to live. Anyone with any familiarity with baseball whatsoever has discovered for themselves the applicability of this truth. Baseball serves as a metaphor for so many aspects of life in a way that is universally understood: romance (he got to first base), success of any kind (that’s a home run), opportunity (it’s her turn to step up to the plate), heartbreak (he struck out) . . . I could go on until the fat lady sings. (I will—might even write a whole book about it.) I’m certain other people feel the same way about other favorite sports of theirs; I’m not here to judge. But I think in any culture in which baseball has a prominent hold, there’s an understanding of its rich and unique power to personify life itself.

What I hope to do in this book is to show just how powerful of a blueprint for living it can be.

As you may have read in the author’s note, I’m the furthest thing from a role model that you could possibly find. To draw a Christian comparison, I am, as Paul calls himself, the chief of sinners whether you’re talking about the religion of Christianity or of baseball. I have broken the rules and principles I’m about to lay out for you. I have broken them not just from time to time but for giant chunks out of my life. I may go so far as to say I have been an enemy to the Gospel of Baseball as pre-conversion Paul (aka Saul) had been to the disciples of Jesus. But, again like Paul, I have seen the light.

And now I invite you to join me (not follow me) in turning all of life into a game, a sport, a pastime, a creative act unlike any other. Baseball is an endeavor that, I have found, always gives to the participant more than they bring to it. The time, dedication, effort, and at times trauma both physical and emotional you bring to baseball is no sacrifice. Sacrifice involves giving up your best for the benefit of another. What you lay at the altar of baseball never leaves you. It lives and blossoms and multiplies. It is a part of your experience. Baseball is somehow both sacred from all other areas of life and seamlessly integrated into it. When people go to church, they set aside their worldly pursuits to focus solely on the object of their worship. You don’t talk about gossip or work or the Knicks game during a worship service. But when people go to a baseball game or watch one on TV, not a soul is expected to abandon discussion of all other matters. We juxtapose cries of “Go Cubs!” next to crude observations “My cousin got her boob job, and it’s a disaster,” without batting an eye. It’s glorious.

So please, join me in exploring the church of the diamond. While baseball’s collective chapel is robust and mighty, my local chapter is a bit rough (hence the title of this book). I think that’s okay. May I remind you that I am inviting precisely zero people to follow my example. All are welcome and encouraged, however, to learn both from my mistakes and my observations of the way of living that has always served me well when I have served it. I invite you to proceed with me through the turnstiles of the baseball way of life.