Life is a Baseball Game

“If God is for us, who can be against us?” --Romans 8:31

Dustin Pedroia of the Boston Red Sox is my favorite Major League Baseball player. At 5’8”, 170 lbs, he defies all the odds of a professional athlete. "His story is very much about overcoming adversity," says writer Edward Delaney, who is ghosting Pedroia's forthcoming book, Born to Play. "He was a great player at every level, but questions on his size and strength caused a lot of people to dismiss him too quickly." (Boston.com)

Despite his size limitations, Pedroia has never given up. He displays a confidence and a determination that is clearly the driving force behind his success. Harold Reynolds of the MLB Network recently asked Minnesota Twins Catcher Joe Mauer who the best “talker” in all of baseball was. Mauer, without even hesitating, mentioned Pedroia and told a story that happened just this year in a game between the Twins and Red Sox. Pedroia was at the plate and continued to foul off pitch after pitch. Finally, after Pedroia had fouled yet another close one down the line in left, Mauer said to him, “I don’t know what else to throw you.” Pedroia quipped, “That’s alright, no one else in Major League Baseball does either!”

You gotta love the non-defeatist attitude of Boston’s sparkplug of a second baseman. No matter what someone throws at him, he comes out swinging. Pedroia never gets cheated on a pitch. And that’s the way it should be in our Christian lives. No matter what Satan throws at us, no matter how many curve balls he throws our way, no matter how many times we get knocked down, we need to come out swinging. Just like the 5’8” slugger that no one believed would succeed, we may often feel small and overwhelmed with the challenges of life. We need that fireball mentality, that confidence Satan cannot defeat us, no matter what the odds may be. After all, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

. . . .

One of my favorite Dustin Pedroia interviews ever:
“A couple of years ago, I had 60 at-bats and was hitting .170 and everyone was ready to kill me. What happened? (Gets a smirk on his face)…Laser show.”

Mr. T: Boyhood Hero; Real Life Role Model

“I was so infatuated with Mr. T, known as B.A. Baracus on The A-Team, that my brother and I named our pet cow after him.”

Looking back on my youth, there weren’t many things cooler in life than a tough guy TV star who wore half a ton of gold jewelry, a mohawk, and fought for good over evil. Throw in an army theme with lots of action, guns, explosions, and a catchy theme song and you have a ten-year old boys dream show. The A-Team’s first episode ran on January 30, 1983 right after the Super Bowl, and regularly on Tuesday nights following. The show stayed in the top ten of the Nielsen ratings for three years before finally losing popularity in its fourth and fifth (and final) seasons, but it was always #1 in my world. I was so infatuated with Mr. T, known as B.A. Baracus on The A-Team, that my brother and I named our pet cow after him. Yes, B.A., which stands for “Bad Attitude” was certainly an appropriate name for our lone, spotted Holstein, who always looked mad and constantly broke out of his pen. I’ll never forget my mom chasing that cow around the yard, bucking and kicking like a bronco in a rodeo. My brother and I were scared to death of that cow. I’m pretty sure Mom just flat-out hated it.

I didn’t know much about Mr. T, the real-life person, at the time, but if I knew then what I know now, I probably would have admired him even more. Recently, Mr.T was interviewed about the new A-Team movie, which opened June 11th, 2010. Mr. T declined a role in the movie because he disagreed with the nature of the material in it. Here’s his response:

“[The new ‘A-Team’] was too graphic for me,” Mr. T, who played teammate B.A. Baracus, told the Express. “I’ve no doubt it will do big business at the box office, but it’s nothing like the show we turned out every week.”

He elaborates, saying, “People die in the film and there’s plenty of sex, but when we did it no one got hurt and it was all played for fun and family entertainment. These seem to be elements nobody is interested in any more.”

“We ran on TV for five years without having to sex-up the show. You can’t get away with that these days. It saddens me that our light-hearted approach has been replaced by gritty realism.”

Unfortunately, that “gritty realism” is what dominates American pop-culture anymore. It seems like you can’t turn on the television without being doused by a mix of sex, drugs, and violence. I give Mr. T two thumbs-up for his critical stance of the new movie. It’s rare to find Hollywood actors and actresses who hold good, conservative, Christian values. It’s just too bad that the flick will associate him with “a crime he didn’t commit.”

Did you know?
--Mr. T’s real name is Laurence Tureaud
--He is the youngest of 12 kids
--His dad was a minister
--He is a born-again Christian
--He worked as a bodyguard before acting. His business card read, “Next to God, there is no greater protector than I.”

The Important Things In Life

“While we try to teach our children all about life,
Our children teach us what life is all about.”
~Angela Schwindt

My family and I attended a wedding this past weekend, and during the ceremony I was thinking—“Is there any single event in life that produces a wider range of emotions than a wedding?” There’s the excitement the groom feels as he waits to see his bride. There’s the sadness a father feels as he gives away his daughter. There’s the nervousness of the wedding party, hoping everything goes smoothly. There’s the awkwardness of half the children in the church when the Pastor gives the ok to kiss the bride (my 8-year-old-son buries his head in his lap and refuses to look). Think about it—nearly every emotion imaginable is present in one way or another at a wedding.

A popular thing to do at weddings within the last ten years or so is to show a video of the bride and grooms lives from birth to present. And that’s the part that always gets me emotional. It’s not the vows, or the daddy giving away his baby girl, or the bride’s tears of joy (although someday when that’s my little girl up there, I will need six or seven boxes of tissues)--it’s the video. Why? Because it reminds me just how quickly my time with my children disappears. All those pictures of the bride and groom when they were babies, then toddlers, then teenagers. All those pictures of their special moments with their moms and dads and brothers and sisters, shooting baskets in the driveway, celebrating birthdays, taking vacations, and the like. It reminds me of the important things in life, that regardless of my selfish desires like my own hobbies and my career, I need to spend as much time with my kids as possible. It’s been said that when one is at the end of their life, they never wish they would have worked more, they wish they would have spent more time with their families.

My mother-in-law has a framed quotation hanging in her living room that I absolutely love. I thought about it a lot during the wedding the other day, especially during the video presentation. It says, “Don’t be too busy making a living that you forget to make a life.” It’s a great reminder the next time you’re having a bad day at work, or feel a little overwhelmed by the anxieties of life. Families are one of God’s greatest blessings. Enjoy every second with them!

Did you know???
--June is the most popular month for weddings.
--The wedding industry is a 70 billion dollar a year industry.
--The average cost of a wedding is $22,000…guess I better start saving for my 4-year old daughters wedding right now!!
--The average age for the bride/groom is around 26 years old.
--The average bridal gown costs $800.
--67% of women continue to wear the same fragrance they wore on their wedding day.
(All information taken from the National Association of Wedding Ministers)