Football Teams and Church Commitment

More good stuff from Mark DeVries’ Family-Based Youth Ministry, Rev. Ed., pp. 148-49 (emphasis added):

“I have often wondered what would happen if football coaches approached their work like most youth ministers are expected to. For example, I wonder what would happen if, when a player was too busy to show up for practice, the understanding coach simply said, “We’ll miss you. I hope you’ll be able to make it next week sometime. ” Imagine the players leaving practice and hearing the smiling coach say, “Thanks for coming. I hope you’ll come back tomorrow.” 

If a football team operated like a typical youth ministry, we might expect concerned parents to call the coach, saying, “Can you tell me what’s been going on in practice? My son says it’s boring, and he doesn’t want to come anymore. I was wondering, could you make it a little more fun for them? And by the way, you might want to talk to the coach at the school across town. He seems to have the right idea.” The coach might send out quarterly questionnaires about what the players would like to change about the team. (I can just imagine the answers: “shorter practices,” “more winning”).  

Responding like a typical youth minister, this coach might first feel guilty that the practices were not meeting the boy’s needs, and he would try to adjust his program to suit this boy (and every other boy who complained). Between trying to keep everybody happy and giving every student a good experience, the coach would squeeze in a little football practice. And what kind of season would this coach have? It’s a safe bet that the coach wouldn’t be the only one who felt like a loser. 

But this is the very way that most churches expect to run their youth ministries. To expect that youth be committed to the church with the same level of commitment that would be expected of them on an athletic team would draw the charge of legalism and insensitivity. Our culture has been so carried away by the current of religious individualism that the expectation of commitment to the church has become implausible to most Christians in our culture. Because the god of individualism pressures us to program to the lowest common denominator, we seldom raise the expectations high enough for teenagers to experience real community. 

Real community means real responsibility for each other. It means a commitment to be there for each other even when the schedule is tight and the motivation is low. But the typical Christian adult in our culture knows little about commitment to community.”

How true this is! I would love to be able to count on the same sort of commitment that a football coach expects. An unfortunate by-product of the extreme individualization of Christianity is a de-emphasis on the importance of Christian community, specifically in the context of the local church body.

The Christian life was never meant to be lived in isolation. 

Daring and Determination in the Christian Walk

As any regular readers of The Doc File know, I am a huge fan of Jackie Robinson. In addition to being a world-class athlete, Hall of Fame baseball player, and, behind Martin Luther King Jr., the most influential player in the American Civil Rights Movement, he was also a man of great personal character.

I recently came across the photo at the top of the page of Jackie on the base paths. It’s a picture I love because I think it so well captures two of Jackie’s characteristics which were integral to his success and are also necessary in the daily life of the Christian: daring and determination.

Daring

Integrating Major League Baseball left Robinson open to constant torment and abuse. Racist fans heckled and berated him constantly, opposing managers would threaten not to play the Dodgers if Jackie was in the lineup, and baserunners from other teams would try to spike him with their cleats. None of that was a surprise—Dodgers GM Branch Rickey had warned Robinson in detail of the kind of abuse he would face if decided to take part in the “Great Experiment” and become the player to break the color barrier in Major League Baseball—but Jackie Robinson was willing to take the risk.

In addition to his daring in integrating the big leagues in the first place, Robinson was also daring in the way he played he game. Bringing the style of the Negro Leagues to Major League Baseball, Robinson was a terror on the basepaths, stealing bases, distracting pitchers, and stealing signs.

Christians need to be daring as well. To a large degree, I believe a Christian’s influence in the world is nullified when she or he refuses to be daring. Doing things that make you feel uncomfortable like sharing your faith with a friend or co-worker or taking an unpopular moral stand when others refuse to requires daring. Being willing to attempt great things that you’re not sure you are capable of doing like adopting a child or teaching a Bible class also requires daring. Attempting to fulfill the mission given to us by Christ of seeking and saving the lost requires a great deal of daring!

Author John Augustus Shedd once famously said, “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” It is a great quotation! Too often, I think that Christians look at the church as a safe harbor, and because they like the safety, they fail to venture outside of its (figurative) walls. Certainly the church is a safe place, but it should be a place where Christians are equipped to engage, change, and save the world, not where they can hide from it.

It’s not “safe” out in the world, but it is where our light is most needed. Christians must be daring!

Determination

In the picture above, the look in Jackie’s eyes oozes focus and determination. On the basepaths, he was completely locked in to his psychological and physical battle with the pitcher, and was determined to defeat him.

It’s interesting—baseball really wasn’t Robinson’s best sport. In college at UCLA, Jackie lettered in four different sports. In track and field, he won the national championship in the broad jump in 1940. In football, he led the nation in punt return average in 1939 and 1940 and led UCLA in rushing, passing, total offense, scoring, and punt returns in 1940. In basketball, Robinson led the Southern Division of the Pacific Coast Conference in scoring in both 1940 and 1941. Baseball was his fourth best sport! 

Later on, after spending some time in the military during WWII, Robinson honed his baseball skills playing in the Negro Leagues, but here’s the point I’m getting at: I’m really not sure that Jackie Robinson should’ve been a Hall of Fame caliber baseball player, but he was just so determined to succeed! Robinson knew that he carried the weight of the hopes of Black America on his shoulders, and he was determined that he would not let them down. So his determination led to great success.

Christians also need to be people of determination. You can’t accidentally live a faithful Christian life—it requires the determination on a daily basis to live a life of discipleship regardless of cost or consequence.

That’s counter-intuitive for us today (especially the part about cost or consequence) because we live in a consumer culture where different products are constantly vying for our attention and loyalty—if you’re not losing enough weight on your diet, quit it and try a new one. If you don’t like your cell phone plan, drop it and switch over to a competitor. If going to church doesn’t seem to be improving the quality of your life, cut it out and try something else…when taken to the extreme, we become people devoid of commitment or determination, and, quite simply, people who give up too easily. 

It is not easy to be a Christian, but Jesus never promised that it would be. Faithful discipleship requires determination!

Jackie Robinson’s ability to change the world certainly involved his natural talents and abilities, but equally if not more important were his character traits of daring and determination. If Christians, as citizens of the Kingdom of God are going to engage the world and change it for good, then we have to possess those same characteristics in abundance.

Wanted: Role Players in the Body of Christ

Joe Kleine was one of the best basketball players in Arkansas Razorback history. An All-Conference Selection in 1984 and 1985, and Kleine also played on the 1984 Gold Medal U.S. Olympic team. In a game against the 2nd-ranked Houston Cougars in 1984, Kleine led the Razorbacks to victory, snapping Houston’s 31-game conference winning streak and outscoring future Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajawon 22-10. During his career at Arkansas, Kleine averaged 18 points per game—more than Michael Jordan averaged during his career at the University of North Carolina. 

But, after completing his collegiate career and joining the NBA in 1985, Kleine went from being a stand out all-star to an average, back-up, role player. In the late 80s and early 90s, Kleine played for the Boston Celtics. While he was there, he was overshadowed by a number of very famous and very good players—Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Reggie Lewis, and Robert Parrish. Parrish in particular overshadowed Kleine, because Parrish played the exact position that Kleine did—center. Robert Parrish is considered by basketball experts to be one of the greatest centers who has ever played the game, so Joe Kleine got to be Parrish’s backup. 

It's not easy being a backup, a second teamer. Backups are called things like “substitutes” and “bench-warmers” and “role players”. Backups don’t get to play on the Dream Team; they don’t get to play in All-Star games. Their basketball cards aren’t worth very much, and they don’t get to make many commercials. It would seem that being a backup isn’t a very important job.

Nothing could be further from the truth, however. Consider the following description of Joe Kleine from an article by a Celtic sportswriter a few years back: 

“He is what he is. And he knows exactly what that is—the backup center on an NBA team. Every NBA team would love to have Kleine be what he is, which, in addition to being a competent NBA center, includes being a first-rate person.” 

The article goes on to quote one of Kleine’s former coaches: 

“When we had him here, Joe was our lug. Now, he’s your lug. But you know what? He’s a good lug, I wish we still had him.”

Why is Joe Kleine, a second-string backup center, the kind of player that every coach wants on his team? Why is he the kind of player that coaches don’t want to give up? Because he is willing to accept the role he is given, and give his best performing that role, even if it is not exciting or glamorous. 

Paul talked about role players in 1 Corinthians 12.14-18: 

“Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason cease to be a part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason cease to be a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact, God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be.” 

We don’t each fill the same role, but Paul goes on to tell us that we each have a role to fill. Moreover, he tells us that God bestows an extra measure of honor upon those who fill roles that seem unglamorous: 

“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don't need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’ On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think of as less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.”

Just as role players are an integral part of any NBA team, they are also indispensable within the church. Unfortunately, this is often a difficult lesson for Christians to learn. Even some of Jesus’ apostles struggled with this concept—in Mark 10, James and John asked to sit at the right and left hand of Jesus so that they could receive special recognition. This request was made because they did not understand the role that God had given them. In Mark 10.43-45, Jesus explained to them that “whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

Are you willing to be a role player in the Body of Christ? Because that’s the kind of player that God is looking for on His team.

So Long, Chipper

It has been a few days now since my beloved Atlanta Braves were bumped from the playoffs in the NL Wildcard game against the St. Louis Cardinals. I didn’t get to watch the whole game because I had to be at a wedding rehearsal during the same time, but in hindsight, that was probably a good thing. A couple of takeaways from the game:

• The Braves didn’t deserve to win. Committed too many errors and left way too many men on base. 
• Regardless of this, they still had a chance to win, which was negated by one of the worst calls in the history of Major League Baseball. Regardless of the fact that umpire Sam Holbrook stands by his call and other officials have closed ranks around him, it was a terrible call. Not only did it betray a fundamental lack of understanding of the word ‘ordinary’, it failed to take into account the whole line of reasoning behind the institution of the Infield Fly Rule in the first place—to protect the offensive team.
• A one-game playoff between two wildcard teams is completely stupid, as it negates the 162 game regular season. Anything can happen in a baseball game, which is why we play series in the playoffs—to more accurately and less randomly determine the better team. Add this to MLB Commissioner Bud Selig’s loooonnngg list of baseball sins.

So yeah, I was bummed about the game. The biggest bummer of all though is that the loss represented the end of Chipper Jones’ Hall of Fame career. 

I have always been a big Chipper fan. At the height of my baseball fandom (when, in addition to just following the Braves I was also obsessively collecting baseball cards and playing baseball all the time myself), Chipper burst onto the scene in 1995 as the Braves’ star of the future. Atlanta won the World Series that year, Chipper should have won the NL Rookie of the Year Award, and it looked like the future was very bright.

And for Chipper, it definitely was—he’s a first ballot Hall of Famer for sure, as well as being in the top 3 all time in the following categories:

• Switch-hitters: I’d actually put him at number 2, behind Mickey Mantle. In my opinion, definitely ahead of Eddie Murray.
• Third basemen: I think you could make a case that he’s the best of all time, but I’d put him behind Mike Schmidt and ahead of George Brett.
• Braves: Third best Brave ever, behind Hank Aaron and Warren Spahn (apologies to Tom Glavine…you really shouldn’t have signed with the Mets though).

You might disagree with where I have Chipper ranked within the top 3 of these categories, which is fine. You might also disagree that Chipper belongs in the top 3 of these categories, but you would be wrong.

Chipper played his entire career with the Braves, and as you’ve likely heard all season if you are a baseball fan, “he played the game the way it’s supposed to be played.” The degree to which he was respected around the league was evident this season as team after team honored him when he would make his last visit to play in their stadiums. 

Chipper’s retirement is poignant for me, because he represents the last link to the dominant Braves teams of my youth, who won 14 divisional titles in a row. That streak had already begun when Chipper broke into the big leagues, but he was there for its peak, when the Braves won the World Series in his rookie season in 1995. Probably no one would have believed that it would be his last, but as it turned out, the Braves of Chipper Jones were largely characterized by great pitching, a ton of regular season wins, and disappointment in the playoffs. 

That being said, looking ahead, it’s hard to be excited about the prospect of the Braves ascending to the top of the baseball world without their best player and longtime clubhouse leader around. Over the last few years, as his skills declined (slightly) and it became harder and harder for him to stay healthy, it also became increasingly obvious how important he was to the team: when Chipper was in the lineup, it always felt like the Braves had a chance to win. Without him, any victory seemed to be a lucky one.

He’s still a good player, and could probably still be productive for a couple more seasons, but he’s made it clear over and over again this season that he’s done, and there’s a lot to be said for going out well, rather than hanging on as long as you can and potentially tarnishing your legacy.

So so long to Chipper Jones, the best Brave of my lifetime. You will be missed.

          

On Being A Razorback Fan

A sad pig drawn by a talented artist. An appropriate representation of my current feelings about the Hogs.

Following last week’s humiliating loss to Louisiana-Monroe, and leading up to tomorrow’s seemingly impossible game against Alabama, I had intended to write a post on how frustrating and disappointing it is to be an Arkansas Razorbacks fan.

But then I came across this article, which really sums it all up nicely.

I hope that we’re able to pull off a shocker on Saturday, but honestly, I have very little faith that the Hogs will ever be nationally relevant on a consistent basis.

Designed to Break Your Heart: Tom Barlow

Hartford Dark Blues, 1875

This is a first post in a series introduced here. 

In the early days of professional baseball, in the 1870s and 1880s and even on into the 20th century, baseball was a hard game for hard men.

Protective equipment was rare, the travel was difficult, the wages were decent but by no means extravagant, and job security didn’t exist. College-educated professional ballplayers were rare; for many, a job in the big leagues was a ticket out of the coal mines. Players tended to brawl and misbehave, both on and off the field.

Tom Barlow was a catcher and sometime shortstop for the Brooklyn Atlantics and Hartford Dark Blues in the early 1870s. He is credited as being the originator of the bunt, and had his best season in 1872, when he hit .310, and caught all of his team’s games, a feat which has only been accomplished eight times (and not since 1945).

In 1874, while playing for Hartford, Barlow sustained an injury while catching for Cherokee Fisher, renowned as a devastating fastball pitcher. In a letter to the Boston Times on September 16, 1877, Barlow described the incident:

“It was on the 10th of August, 1874, that there was a match game of baseball in Chicago between the White Stockings of that city and the Hartfords of Hartford, now of Brooklyn. 

I was catcher for the Hartfords, and Fisher was pitching. He is a lightning pitcher, and very few could catch for him. On that occasion he delivered as wicked a ball as ever left his hands, and it went through my grasp like an express train, striking me with full force in the side. 

I fell insensible to the ground, but was quickly picked up, placed in a carriage, and driven to my hotel. The doctor who attended me gave a hypodermic injection of morphine, but I had rather died behind the bat then [sic] have had that first dose. 

My injury was only temporary, but from taking prescriptions of morphine during my illness, the habit grew on me, and I am now powerless in its grasp. My morphine pleasure has cost me eight dollars a day, at least. 

I was once catcher for the Mutuals, also for the Atlantics, but no one would think it to look at me now.”

Barlow was 22 years old the day he was injured behind the plate. He disappears from historical records after 1880; details of his later life and date of death are unknown.

I first became aware of the story of Tom Barlow through Ken Burns’ PBS documentary Baseball. Other details for this post were gleaned from Wikipedia and Bleacher Report.

Branch Rickey’s Original Plan for Integrating Baseball

Baseball historian John Thorn has written a fascinating article on a forgotten piece of baseball history—Branch Rickey’s master plan to integrate Major League Baseball.

Of course, we know the integration of MLB through the collaborative efforts of Rickey and Jackie Robinson was an unqualified success, but it didn’t go the way Rickey originally intended:

“…Rickey had never planned for one black man to deal with all the problems [of integrating the game] alone; he had meant to announce the simultaneous signing of several others.”

You can read the rest of Thorn’s article here.

Baseball: Designed to Break Your Heart

A. Bart Giamatti, Major League Baseball’s seventh Commissioner and a formidable scholar (having previously served as the President of Yale University), once famously said about baseball:

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.

Giamatti knew what he was talking about. A lifelong Red Sox fan, he had the unenviable task of overseeing Pete Rose’s lifetime ban from baseball, and then suffered a fatal heart attack eight days later.

I find Giamatti’s words to be true in my own experience as a baseball player, fan, and amateur historian. As a player, the joys of fielding ground balls and taking batting practice were gradually overshadowed by the political squabbles of battling for playing time with coaches’ sons and the increasing awareness that I was never going to get a shot at the Big Leagues. As a fan, the majority of my childhood was spent rooting for Atlanta Braves, the winningest team of the 1990s, and yet, looking back, it is not the hundreds and hundreds of victories that I remember but the failures in the playoffs year after year. And as an amateur historian, the stories that most readily spring to mind tend to be the saddest ones.

It is some of these stories that I would like to share, on an intermittent basis, as part of a new series. Designed to break your heart or not, I love baseball, in large part because of the poignancy of its illustrious history.

Hope you enjoy them.

The ARK 2012: Shake Up The World

The ARK Retreat is one of our big youth group events which occurs each spring. Over the last few years it has steadily grown in size and scope and it has actually become a pretty neat event as youth groups from six area congregations spend a weekend playing, fellowshipping, and worshipping with one another. 

For some of the teens, it is one of the high points of the year, and despite all the work and effort that goes into planning the ARK each year, that makes it all worth it.

The theme for the ARK for this year was “Shake Up The World,” and we heard several good lessons on that idea throughout the weekend. It was my task to introduce that theme on Friday night, and you can read a summary of my thoughts below:

I want to explain this year’s theme by telling you two stories.

The Man Who Shook Up The World

The first story is a boxing story, and for it to make sense, you have to realize that boxing used to be a really big deal. Today, if I asked you to name the heavyweight champion of the world, probably very few of you would know the answer. But if you lived, say, 50 years ago, you would’ve known because boxing was a big deal back then. And that’s when our story takes place, almost 50 years ago, in 1964, when two men squared off with the heavyweight championship on the line.

Sonny Liston

The first man was the reigning champion. His name was Sonny Liston, and he was terrifying. He was 35-1 for his career, and he hadn’t lost a fight in almost 10 years. He had defeated the previous heavyweight champion twice, both times via knockout in just over 2 minutes. If that wasn’t intimidating enough, he was also known to have connections with criminals and gangsters.

The second man was young, at 22 years old, not much older than some of you. His name was Cassius Clay, and he was somewhat well-known himself, because he had won an Olympic Gold Medal in boxing four years earlier. After turning professional, he had won 19 fights in a row without a single loss, and he had become the top-rated challenger. Despite this, no one gave him a chance in this fight, and the odds were 7-1 in favor of Liston winning.

But although Liston was regarded as the more powerful fighter, Clay was much quicker, and he used his quickness to duck and dodge most of Liston’s devastating punches, while landing a lot of his own. That was the difference in the fight. Liston didn’t come out to fight the 7th round, saying that he had a shoulder injury, Cassius Clay was declared the heavyweight champion of the world, and at 22, was the youngest boxer to ever take a heavyweight title from a reigning champion.

After the fight, speaking to the press who had doubted that he could win, Clay shouted, “I am the greatest…I shook up the world…I shook up the world!”

Eighteen months later, he defeated Sonny Liston again, and by this time, he had changed his name to name that most people know him by—Muhammad Ali, considered by most people to be the greatest boxer of all time.

Certainly, that’s one way of “Shaking up the world”—doing something amazing and then immediately letting everyone know just how amazing it was—but there’s another way to shake up the world, and that’s what we want to focus on this weekend…

The Men Who Turned The World Upside Down

The second story is about two other guys who shook up the world in a different way, and they lived a long time before Sonny Liston and Muhammad Ali. Their names are Paul and Silas and we read about them in the Book of Acts in the New Testament.

Paul and Silas in prison

Paul and Silas were missionaries—they traveled around telling people about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In Acts 16, Paul and Silas are thrown into prison because people are upset by their preaching, but while in prison, they spend their time praying and praising God in song and they end up baptizing their jailer!

In Acts 17, after being released from prison, Paul and Silas travel to another city called Thessalonica, and there they continue preaching. As was his custom when entering a new city, Paul went to the local synagogue, and there he used the Scriptures (what would be our Old Testament) to show the Jews in Thessalonica that the Messiah of prophecy would have to suffer and then be raised from the dead, and that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah that the Scriptures talked about.

When many of the people believed the words of Paul and began to follow Christ, it made some of the Jews jealous, and they formed a mob and sought Paul and Silas at the home of Jason, a local Christian leader. 

“And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, ‘These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.’ And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things.”

Did you catch what the jealous and evil men said about Paul and Silas? “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also…” They could’ve said, “These men who shook up the world….”

The men who said this about Paul and Silas didn’t mean it as a compliment! They’re saying that Paul and Silas have ruined everything—they’ve messed everything up! That seems hard for us to understand though—what were Paul and Silas doing that was so terrible? After all, they were just Christians, doing their best to follow Christ.

What About Us?

And that makes me think: maybe, just maybe, when Christians live like they’re really supposed to, when they really take up their cross daily and follow Jesus, maybe that shakes the world up! If Paul and Silas turned the world upside down by living for Christ, you would think that Christians today would be doing the same thing. But here’s the problem: when you look at Christianity today, do you really see a group of people who turn the world upside down? People who shake up the world? For the most part, I don’t think so.

Why is that? Unfortunately, I think it is because a lot of the time (especially with teenagers), it seems like we dumb down what it means to be a Christian until we basically have a list of do’s and don’ts: 

• Don’t have sex before marriage.
• Don’t do drugs.
• Don’t cuss.
• Do come to church and youth group activities.
• Do pray to God and read your Bibles.

And let me be clear, all of that stuff is true—as a Christian, there are certain things that you shouldn’t do and other things that you should do. But this weekend, we want to suggest to you that being a Christian—living as Jesus Christ called us to live—means a lot more than a list of do’s and don’ts.

Being a Christian doesn’t mean that you’re basically like everyone else around you except that you just happen to spend an hour on Sunday morning in a church building. Being a Christian does mean being radically different from your peers and consciously and intentionally denying yourself and sacrificing your life and the things you want to do on a daily basis in order to instead use your life to glorify God.

If you do that, you’ll shake up the world.

Martin Luther King Jr. and Jackie Robinson

Last week I wrote about Jackie Robinson’s integration of Major League Baseball in 1947 and mentioned that, after Martin Luther King Jr., Robinson was the most important figure in the American Civil Rights movement.

Today, while reading an article (which I recommend, by the way) about Jackie’s widow, Rachel Robinson, I came upon this quotation about Robinson from Dr. King:

“Back in the days when integration wasn’t fashionable, he underwent the trauma and humiliation and the loneliness which comes with being a pilgrim walking the lonesome byways toward the high road of freedom. He was a sit-inner before the sit-ins, a freedom rider before the Freedom Rides.”

Always a trail-blazer, Robinson was court-martialed in the Army (and later acquitted) for refusing to sit at the back of a military bus—11 years before Rosa Parks.

For more information regarding Robinson’s pioneering efforts in the field of Civil Rights, see this interesting blog post I came across.

Jackie Robinson and Martin Luther King Jr. receiving honorary
Doctor of Laws degrees from Howard University in 1957.

Guts Enough Not To Fight Back: Jackie Robinson

Jackie steals home against Yogi Berra and the Yankees in the 1955 World Series.

As a general rule in college and professional sports, teams retire the jersey numbers of the all-time greats who played for them. For example, no Chicago Bull can wear number 23, because that was Michael Jordan’s number and it has been retired. No New York Yankee can wear number 3, because that was Babe Ruth’s number and it has been retired. If you play Major League Baseball, regardless of what team you play for, you can’t wear the number 42, because that was Jackie Robinson’s number, and it is the only number to be retired by Major League Baseball.*

Sixty-five years ago yesterday, on April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson donned that number 42 Brooklyn Dodgers jersey and appeared in his first regular season Major League game, breaking baseball’s racial color barrier.**

Robinson’s Hall of Fame career and handled himself on and off the field opened doors for other black athletes in professional sports (and ultimately many other fields as well), and it has been said that only Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. accomplished more for the American Civil Rights Movement than did Jackie Robinson.

Before he signed a contract to play for the Dodgers, Robinson was called into the office of Team President and General Manager Branch Rickey. To give him a taste of what it would be like to be the only black player in the Big Leagues, Rickey spent three hours taunting and insulting Robinson, calling him every racial slur he could think of. Rickey then told Robinson that this is what he would face every day on the field, and that if he wanted it to work out, he would have to promise not to fight back or respond to insults of any kind for the first three years of his career.

Robinson, who possessed a fiery temperament and was very outspoken, was put of by this and asked, incredulously, “Mr. Rickey, are you looking for a player who is afraid to fight back?”

Branch Rickey replied, “No, I want someone with guts enough not to fight back.”

After some deliberation, Robinson agreed to Rickey’s terms, and he lived up to them on the field. When opposing baserunners tried to spike him when sliding into second base, he didn’t fight back. When fans and players yelled and cursed at him and even questioned his very humanity, he showed them how wrong they were by taking the moral high ground.

He had the guts not to fight back.

What Branch Rickey told Jackie Robinson reminds me of Jesus’ words in The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:

“But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.”

The world tells us to stand up for ourselves when we are treated unjustly. It tells us to have the courage to fight back and not let others push us around. On the other hand, Jesus tells us to have the courage to show that we are different from the world because we don’t fight back, and He tells us to forgive others when they mistreat us.

Jesus wants followers with guts enough not to fight back.

•   •   •

* Yesterday, to commemorate the anniversary of Robinson’s first game as a Dodger, this prohibition was temporarily lifted as representatives from each Major League team wore number 42 in his honor.
**Contrary to popular belief, Robinson was not the first African-American to play in the Major Leagues. That honor goes to Moses Fleetwood Walker, who played for the Toledo Blue Stockings in 1884. Regardless of this, Robinson was the first African-American to play Major League Baseball in the 20th century, and it was his breaking of baseball’s color barrier that led to the permanent integration of the Major Leagues.

Wise Words I Once Heard…and Bobby Petrino

If you pay any attention to sports at all, you are likely aware that Arkansas Razorback football coach Bobby Petrino was in a serious motorcycle wreck eight days ago, and that as more details of the incident came to light, it was revealed that a female passenger on the bike turned out to be an employee with whom Petrino was having an inappropriate relationship.

The national media has been quick to pick up on this story and has been decidedly anti-Petrino (a quick Google search on ‘Bobby Petrino’ will confirm this). Perhaps neither of those facts is very surprising—our culture (and by extension, the media) is always interested in a juicy story about the misdeeds or failure of public figures, and Bobby Petrino has never been very popular with the media anyway (ESPN’s Pat Forde has been on a personal crusade against him for years).

I don’t know if Petrino will be fired or not, and I have mixed feelings about whether or not he should be. I am disappointed in him and embarrassed by his actions, but at the same time, he has been the most successful football coach that Arkansas has had in my lifetime (or at least, in my memory), and I was never under the impression that he was hired because of his reputation for upstanding character.

All of this—the initial report of the accident, the rumors flying around after that report, the revelation of Petrino’s female passenger and his relationship with her, and the response of the national media—has reminded me of some wise words I once heard from Jimmy Allen.

Jimmy Allen is well-known within Church of Christ circles as an evangelist, and additionally, within the Harding University community as a Bible professor. It’s in the latter role that I know him best, as I took his outstanding class on the Book of Romans during my time at Harding. It was in that class (I don’t remember the specific context) that he said these words which I’ll never forget:

“If I hear something bad about someone, I never believe it. If it comes to the point that I have no choice but to believe it, I do not delight in it.”

I’m not entirely sure what it is about us as humans that makes us crave and delight (cf. Proverbs 18.8) in hearing of the failings of others. It likely stems from our own insecurities, and our tendency to feel better about ourselves when we see the shortcomings of others. But that craving and delighting is all closely related to the sin of gossip, which is a topic that the Bible has an awful lot to say about.

In the case of Bobby Petrino, I’m not delighting in the story like a lot of people in the National media and fans of other programs are, but if I’m honest, a lot of the reason for that is because he’s the coach of my team, and I don’t like the ramifications of all this for me. When it comes to hearing gossip about someone I might not like as much, I don’t always do a very good job of following Dr. Allen’s words.

Instead of gleefully focusing on the failings of others, the Apostle Paul suggests an alternative course of action in Philippians 4.8:

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Opening Day

Baseball is back, and briefly, everything seems right in the world again. My favorite words on the subject of baseball’s return stem from the pen of American poet Donald Hall: 

The Old Game

The old game waits under the white,

Deeper than frozen grass.

Down at the frost line it waits 

To return when the birds return.
It starts to wake in the South, 

Where it’s never quite stopped. 

Where winter is a doze of hibernation,

The game wakes gradually,

Fathering vigor into itself.

As the days lengthen in late February 

And grow warmer, old muscles grow limber.

Young arms grow strong and wild,

Clogged vein systems, in veteran oak and left fielders both,

Unstop themselves,

Putting forth leaves and line drives in Florida’s March.

Migrating North with the swallows, 

Baseball and the grasses’ first green,

Enter Cleveland , Kansas City, Boston.

Aside: bonus points to anyone who can name the all-time great pictured above.

Chuck Klosterman on Kentucky Basketball

Chuck Klosterman has written an intriguing article on Grantland.com about John Calipari’s Kentucky Wildcat basketball team, and what it will (or at least could) mean to NCAA basketball if UK wins the National Championship on Monday.

It’s a compelling article and touches on a lot of issues facing college basketball today—overall decline in the quality of play, recruiting, and the NCAA’s stupid One and Done rule. I agree with a lot of what Klosterman has to say, but I think he’s too easy on John Calipari. Coach Cal might genuinely be a nice guy, but his past teams have been too marred by scandal (and their accomplishments vacated) for me to believe that he is clean. 

He’s right about one thing though—Kentucky should absolutely win the title this year. They are scary good.

Brady Quinn on Tim Tebow

Apparently, in an interview for GQ, Broncos backup quarterback Brady Quinn had some unflattering things to say about his teammate and former fellow backup Tim Tebow’s headline grabbing 2011 season. Quinn seems to question Tebow’s ability, his humility, the showiness of his faith, and even the overall success of the team.

I thought Quinn was pretty good at Notre Dame and have been surprised by the degree to which he has completely flopped in the NFL. Regardless of your opinion on Tebow, does anyone see this as anything other than sour grapes on Quinn’s part?

I mean, Brady, I know your career hasn’t exactly gone as planned, but do you really think running down your teammate (who happens to be arguably the most popular player on the planet right now) is the way to go about improving things? 

If you don’t have anything nice to say…

Ozark Ultimate Preseason Magazine

Of my hundreds dozens pairs of readers, a few of you are ultimate fans, and so I thought I would take the opportunity to mention the 2012 Ozark Conference Preseason Magazine from Ozark Ultimate.

This 52-page magazine is available for download for just $2, and provides quality analysis of all ten teams from the Ozark Conference. I had a minor role in the development of the magazine, designing the cover and also writing an article on ultimate statistics.

For $2, it is a bargain, and it also helps to support media coverage of ultimate, which is still in its infancy (click the link above to buy the magazine via PayPal).

Tim Tebow’s Viability As An NFL Quarterback

Photo by Chris Schneider of the Associated Press.

Since he emerged as the starting quarterback for the Denver Broncos, Tim Tebow has become the dominant storyline of this year’s NFL season. It’s a story that has been analyzed from a number of different angles, ranging from Tebow’s abilities as a quarterback, to his personal faith, to whether or not God cares about football games, to the relationship between Tebow and Broncos General Manager John Elway.

One angle that hasn’t been discussed as much is the assumption made by many NFL experts and fans that the quarterback position can only be played successfully a certain way in the NFL, and that because Tebow doesn’t fit into that mold, he is by definition a bad quarterback.

I think it’s a close-minded and somewhat arrogant perspective that needs a closer look. To put it another way, if the only way to successfully play quarterback is to do it like Drew Brees or Aaron Rodgers does it—using pinpoint throwing accuracy to sling the ball all over the field to multiple receivers and amassing tons of passing yards along the way—then Tebow clearly isn’t successful. But is that the only way a quarterback can succeed?

Well, I think if you consider all levels of play, the answer is clearly, "no".

First, looking at kids playing football (whether you reflect back to your days of playground football or whether you’re watching an organized Peewee game), you see a fairly common theme: the quarterback is a kid who can usually throw the ball well, but he’s almost always the kid who is athletic enough to beat the pass rush and scramble for long runs. Moving on to junior high and even smaller high school football, it’s unusual to have a heavy pass offense—instead, the running game is the focus, and usually involves a lot of quarterback option play.

Now, it is true that as you move up in skill level (peewee to junior high, to small high school ball, to larger high school ball, to college, to the pros), you tend to find more of an emphasis on passing and the quarterback becomes more of a specialized skill position rather than just the stud athlete on the field who runs around and/or over everyone. But even at the highest levels of college play, there are notable exceptions.

When Tim Tebow broke into the college game at Florida, he started off by sharing quarterback duties with Chris Leak. Tebow came in almost exclusively to run the ball (or throw the jump pass!) while Leak was the more traditional QB, and the tandem combined to lead the Gators to the 2006 National Championship. The general thinking at the time was that, despite his success as a freshman, Tebow would struggle to make the adjustment when the full quarterback responsibilities fell on his shoulders, but everyone knows what happened: Tebow went on to have one of the greatest careers in college history, leading Florida to another National Championship in 2008, and also winning a Heisman Trophy (though I still think he shouldn’t have won the Heisman).

But still, despite the previous success of Tebow, you still had the overwhelming majority of scouts and observers saying that he couldn’t be successful in the NFL, and as I mentioned above, if the measure of success is putting up statistics like Aaron Rodgers, then Tebow hasn’t been a success. But if success for a quarterback is measured by the ability to make plays, move the offense down the field, and win games, it’s hard to completely discount what he’s done this season, regardless of his pass completion rate.

Ultimately, I don’t know if Tebow will have a successful career in the NFL or if his recent success is just a flash in the pan. What I do know is that the traditional NFL-Quarterbacks-Must-Play-In-A-Specific-Way perspective needs to be reexamined. Because regardless of what happens with Tebow himself, a quarterback like Tebow, who is smart enough to read defenses, athletic and strong enough to make plays with his legs, and good enough with his arm to catch defenses off guard will enjoy prolonged success in the NFL someday.

And who knows—it may start next year in Denver.

“He just sets the example…”

An interesting comment from a guy on an ESPN article on Tim Tebow (specifically in regard to Tebow’s overt Christianity):

“There’s a guy who doesn’t waiver. What I haven’t heard from Tebow is a demand that you live like he lives. He just sets the example and hopes others see the benefits. I’m not a religious man, but that’s exactly the way it should be done. Lead by example.”

I’m an unabashed Tim Tebow fan. I have no idea how he continues to win games while completing less than 50% of his passes, but I think he is an overwhelmingly positive role model.

Not So Fast

The stories coming out of Penn State concerning former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky’s sexual assault of multiple boys and the subsequent cover-up by the university have been shocking and sickening.

I came across the following picture and caption today:

“State College artist Michael Pilato paints over the portion of his mural that shows former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky in downtown State College, Pennsylvania, November 9, 2011. REUTERS/Pat Little”

I thought the picture was more than a little ironic—it’s only natural that Penn St. fans would like to paint over Sandusky and pretend the whole thing never happened, but isn’t that the same feeling that led to the cover-up?

Here’s the deal: Sandusky’s sick actions, and especially the ensuing cover-up, tainted the entire football program. Either leave the mural the way it was and try to convince yourself that the on-field success isn’t tainted by Sandusky and Co., or whitewash the entire wall.

Reyes: Not The Way It’s Done

New York Mets shortstop Jose Reyes won the National League batting title Wednesday, but it will go down as a tainted accomplishment in the eyes of many.

Entering the day with a 2-point batting average lead over the Brewers’ Ryan Braun, Reyes led off the game with a bunt single and then pulled himself from the game, eliminating the chance for any later bad at-bats and the risk of his average dipping.

Certainly there’s no rule against what he did; it’s just incredibly lame. As ESPN’s Rob Parker writes (emphasis added),

Coincidentally, Reyes’ decision came on the 70th anniversary of Ted Williams sealing his historic .406 batting average in 1941. Williams, the Boston Red Sox slugger, played in both games of a doubleheader on the final day of that season, even though he began the day with his average at .400. Williams believed he didn’t deserve a .400 average if he sat out the two games against the Philadelphia A’s, and he wound up going 6-for-8, finishing with the improbable .406. Most people think that mark will never be broken.

Clearly, Reyes had no similar qualms about the need to “play it out.” Reyes is a free agent, and most people think that he’ll be somewhere else next season. Perhaps the worst thing for Mets fans is the fact that their last memory of a great player will be a disrespectful and ultimately selfish one.