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?”

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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.”

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