Pitchers and Catchers Report, Will Dads? Part I

Snow recently covered a good portion of the country but I have not felt as warm and vibrant in some time. Pitchers and catchers report to MLB Spring Training mid-February and for some inexplicable reason that does something good for my soul. Like George Will, "baseball has been the background music of my life" and I have never tired of the tune. A new season of the national pastime is full of hope and glorious possibilities for every club and its fans.

Since 1846, when Alexander Cartwright took the Knickerbockers to play the New York Nine in the first game of organized baseball on the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, NJ the game has possessed an irresistible and rhythmic hold on our nation. Generations of Americans are linked because of what happened on that green field in New Jersey and has been happening on subsequent diamond stamped green fields ever since. Those fields have not simply preserved an enduring form of recreation but have helped promote vital traits which are fundamental to our health as a people.

"Without fathers, there is no baseball, only football and basketball" (Diana Schaub, "America at Bat," National Affairs). It was one of those lines that paralyzes you when you read it. As a former High School coach I began reflecting on just how true that sentence was in my experience. In football it was common for a young man with superior brawn or athletic ability to begin playing the game successfully at an older age with no background or former tutelage in the sport. Height alone can equate to some measure of basketball success at younger ages and skills can be honed in isolation with nothing more than a ball and a hoop. None of this is true with baseball. In most cases, the way a love of baseball is transmitted is through dads.

No boy will love and pass down the game of baseball simply because someone bought him a glove, ball, and bat. He cannot play catch with himself, hit himself ground balls, or throw himself batting practice. Much less will he ever figure out on his own what in the world a squeeze, sacrifice, infield fly rule, frozen rope, Texas leaguer, or balk means. The mechanics, mystery, nuance, and jargon of baseball demand that one has to be discipled in its craft and patiently taught its excellencies. Very little in baseball is seeker-friendly or self-evident and few people pick up the game on their own. Monday: Part II

(David Prince is Pastor of Preaching and Vision Ashland Avenue Baptist Church. He is also a former high school baseball and football coach)