The Joy of Baseball

I don’t know exactly the first time I heard a baseball game on the radio. It was probably some time in elementary school. My family did not have a television in the home, at least until I was in college. But man, did I love radio. This was the 80’s and 90’s. There were no smartphones. We had some early PC’s—my dad had one in his office that had some cool programs like Joe Montana Football or a Centurion game where you could conquer the world. I also remember getting excited about an atlas and encyclopedia program with color maps!

So radio it was. I alternated between listening to the Chicago Cubs with, at the time, Thom Brenaman, Harry Cary, and Bob Brenly. Or the White Sox with John Rooney and Wayne Hagen. There is a magic to listening to baseball on the radio. Even today, while I subscribe to the MLB package and watch the Cubs when I can, I often listen if I’m in the car or washing dishes or something. Pure magic.

Baseball has such memories for me. Sometimes my father, a plumbing contractor with his own business, would take me with him. If we were in the vicinity of Buffalo Grove, a suburb of Chicago where my grandfather, Grandpa Darling, lived, we’d stop over. He’d be in the enclosed front porch of his house, reading the newspaper, and he’d have the Cubs game on his TV. WGN, of course.

My first ever baseball game was at Wrigley Field. My other grandfather, Grandpa Yagoda, sold Chevys at Sun Chevrolet in the city of Chicago. He had wealthy clients with season tickets. When I was about 9 or 10, he got two tickets to a Cubs game. Just me and him. It was on a Sunday, which produced no small amount of consternation with my mother, who finally consented to me slipping out of church early and jumping in Grandpa’s car to go downtown.

I remember the first time walking through the concourse at Wrigley, a scorecard in hand and a brand new baseball in the other hand. As soon as we walked through the tunnel and into the park, I was in love. If you’ve not been to Wrigley Field, it’s hard to describe for you what a glorious shrine to baseball it is. If you need some help, the great columnist George Will has a book that can get you up to speed.

Our seats were in the front row behind the Cubs dugout. We got there in time for batting practice and warm-ups, so I got to hear the crack of the ball on the bat. I got to hear the smack of a fastball hitting the glove of a catcher. Grandpa urged me to ask the players for autographs, so I did. I rolled the ball across the dugout to shortstop Shawon Dunston. It rolled down into the dugout. I thought I’d lost it, but he popped it back up, signed by him and a few of his teammates. I tried to flag down the great Andrew Dawson, but he was all game face. I’m ashamed to say that I lost that ball somewhere over the years. Sometimes kids don’t realize the little treasures they have until they are lost. That nurtured a lifelong obsession with the Cubs. Some years it has seemed like a burden. But still I kept trekking back to Wrigley, though it’s been several years—way too long—since I’ve been back. A picture of it, though, hangs in my office.

Baseball is a funny sport. If your team is not good—and I have a lot of experience with this—the season can lag. But if your team is good and as you head toward October, it’s exhilarating.

I’m a huge football fan. I love Saturdays and Sundays in the fall. For non-stop action and drama, you cannot beat football. Baseball is different. It’s a game of nuance and precision and artistry.

And your team plays almost every day. It’s a perfect summer sport for someone like me. I have it on while I’m working. So if there’s a day game and I’m writing or working on lectures or whatever, I have it on in the background. If I’m working at night and there is a night game, I have it on in the background. It’s a perfect background sport. It fits the summer rhythm.

I said earlier that it’s exhilarating when your team is good. Let me tell you about that. Ten years ago, the Cubs won the World Series. They hadn’t won in 108 years. You heard that right. More than a century had passed since they last won. My grandfather, who died in 2006, lived his entire life never seeing them win. In 2016, I happened to be back in Chicago for a speaking engagement. A friend of mine, Jason Romano, worked for ESPN’s Mike and Mike morning show. They were doing a live remote broadcast across from Wrigley Field. He got me tickets. I got to meet Ryne Sandberg. It was cool. But I remember a superfan dressed up like Teddy Roosevelt because that was the last time the Cubs won the World Series.

That year was magical. It came down to seven games, in extra innings. That game had ups and downs. I remember pacing back and forth in my Nashville home, agonizing. My wife, who isn’t into sports, stayed up with me in the wee hours of the night. My kids, who were supposed to be in bed, hid on the stairs watching. When third basemen Kris Bryant recorded that final out by throwing to first baseman Anthony Rizzo, we went nuts.

That’s the joy of baseball. It can also be a cruel sport. I had been married for a year when a very promising Cubs team was playing the Florida Marlins and on its way to the World Series. We were two outs away and, well, the Bartman thing happened.

Even in the years your team doesn’t go all the way, there is a certain joy. When Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire were chasing home run records (Yes, I know, but that year was still magical), every day while working on a construction site, we stopped and listened when Sammy got to the plate. Hearing Pat Hughes deliver another home run call was awesome.

This year my team is good. As of this writing, they are three games back of the hated Milwaukee Brewers for first place in their division, and they are the top wild card team. They have an electric MVP candidate in Pete Crow-Armstrong. And they made some great moves at the pitching deadline. It could be another magical year. Or we could end with more disappointment. But already this summer this team has brought me joy.

Updates:

• I’ve got two chapters left to write on my Christmas book for Moody Publishers

• A co-written book with Dennis Greeson on parenting and worldview is due out with Harvest House next spring.

• I’m attending a PhD seminar on Baptist Theology at Southeastern Seminary. So that’s where most of my reading has been.

• I’m gearing up for another exciting semester of teaching at Texas Baptist College. Two classes this semester: Intro to Ethics and Human Dignity

• I’m about to drop my son off at Samford University. I’ll try to keep it together, but I don’t think I will.

• I’m gonna be on Kirk Cameron’s TV show in October to talk about Christianity and patriotism. So that should be fun.

• I’m contributing to a study Bible co-edited by Nathan Finn and Benjamin Quinn. I’ll be doing the passages on community and government.

• I also have various articles to write, both academic and popular level.

• I’m getting good feedback on both Biblical Wisdom for Everyday Life and In Defense of Christian Patriotism.

That’s all for now