Tag Archives: postseason

If Only…

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Game 6 of the World Series was last night. Now I know I just posted about baseball, but this is the last one for a while.

I would say, “I promise,” but I can’t and won’t promise that, baseball is never far from my mind.

As I’m sure you know the Boston Red Sox won the Fall Classic last night in a 6-1 win over the St. Louis Cardinals. This hurt. A lot. No one wants to lose; in fact it hurt less when we lost to the Giants in the NLCS last season than last night.

I am now using ‘we’ in the sense that I am apart of the team…it’s just something that fans do. Don’t judge.

I had to work last night so I didn’t get to the bar to watch the game until the middle of the 6th inning. As I got out of my car and was walking in a gentleman coming out of the bar said to me,

“You might not want to go in there if you’re a Cardinals fan.” (It was pretty obvious as I was wearing my Freese jersey).  I responded, “I know the score, but I have to watch my team, win or lose.” The gent smiled and responded in turn, “Good for you.”

I had to see it end, good or bad. You never know I might have missed a biggest comeback in World Series history and I just couldn’t take that chance.

Here’s the thing for some unknown and baffling reason, I am the most superstitious person when it comes to baseball. Seriously I’m not kidding. The rules I place on my superstitions change from season to season. For example: during the postseason this year I wore my Cardinals sweatshirt twice on game days during the NLCS against the Dodgers. We lost both times. So obviously, my brain tells me that I can no longer wear my sweatshirt on game days. And two years ago during our incredible and unbelievable postseason run (along with World Series victory) I refused to post anything baseball related on social media. Seriously, nothing, there were no “go Cards #postseason #wildcard” tweets or “David Freese is my boy, I knew we could do it at home!” Facebook status updates after that legendary Game 6. I posted a few things after we won the series, but even those were tempered. With the exception of one series of tweets to a friend of mine, and even that was all in good fun.

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There is one superstition that I adhere to no matter what and that is no trash talk. I absolutely refuse to engage in trash talking. A passionate and intelligent debate, sure. Bashing the other team simply because they are competing against my team? Not a chance. The superstition lies in the idea that if I do engage in trash talking the competition that some sort of karmic comeuppance will cause my team to suffer.

I don’t believe in Karma, in fact the rational and faithful Catholic that I am knows that none of my superstitious beliefs actually affect the outcome of a sporting event that I’m not personally participating in, but there’s always that “what if?” And for some illogical reason that “what if,” outweighs all other logic. So I choose not to trash talk.

And yes you could insert the theological argument here that sin affects us all and that it is a ripple effect and that sin isn’t strictly personal. I know, I’ve stated that case many times to young minds. However I’m on my soapbox about sports, and I’m not talking the type of superstition that would travel down the road of sin.

In the end I just find it easier to be gracious, in winning AND in losing. I find that at the end of the day, those people who try and trash talk me will be left speechless and maybe respect me more, when I reply with a “congrats” and “great game.” (Though let’s be honest last night’s game…not so great, not because they lost, but mostly because they weren’t playing up to their potential).  Being gracious and humble will take you far in life, and I’m not talking false humility or being under-handedly gracious. It’s not about taking the high road to shame others. I really am happy for the fans of the Red Sox, it’s nice to have a winning team. I know. That doesn’t mean that I like the Red Sox I don’t, I’m still bitter from 2004, but more over, I’m not a huge fan of the organization. But hey, I accept that people feel the same way about the Cardinals, it is the nature of competitive sports and their fan bases.

I understand that what I wear on a game day and what I tweet about won’t affect the outcome of the game, but I do think in life, graciousness and humility will always affect the outcome of how people treat you and how you treat people. Be good to each other.

Also, this new twitter format made it really difficult to be a Cardinals fan last night.

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9 Innings of Bliss

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It’s the end of October and Postseason Baseball is in full swing, as an avid St. Louis Cardinals Fan and a lover of baseball since I was a kid, October is like the Superbowl to me.

Growing up and watching baseball in the 90s I saw some amazing things, I saw the Braves rise and fall, the Yankees dominate, Randy Johnson and the Diamondbacks come out of nowhere, and even the year without baseball.  All that time I loved to watch the game, but would become easily bored, leaving the living room if we were watching at home, and even wandering the stadium with my cousins when we were lucky enough to be at a game.

The 90s were also a tough time to be a Redbirds fan, I don’t know if you know this, but the team isn’t really listed much in the history of that decade, with the exception of Mark McGwire in ’98 and I don’t know if you follow baseball, but that didn’t end well. However the mid to late 2000s and now the 2010s have been very good to my team.

Seriously…have you been watching baseball the last three years.

The problem with my team’s sudden surge in popularity and wins, however means I am constantly having to defend myself against a large number of people who will classify me as a bandwagon fan. This irks me. While I may not be a numbers person, and I don’t memorize batting averages, ERAs, or RISP, I do know what’s going on with my team…all the time, I follow the trades in the off season, the recruits and draftees and their ascent through the farm and triple A system. I know what’s going on, on the field and if anyone were to sit down and actually talk with me about baseball they would know that I didn’t just “hop on the bandwagon.”

However, engaging people in that conversation can be difficult. Why? Because baseball is a slow sport, there is no time clock on a baseball game; it will go on as long as it takes for a team to win. While some people find this tedious and boring to watch, I revel in it. Over the years of watching and learning about the game I have found that baseball is a finesse sport, a unique chess match that happens on the field, and one that will be different every time.

The past couple of summers I have spent a lot of time watching baseball, mostly on TV, and when I watch I become very still and calm, you never know when someone will make an amazing catch or hit a grand slam. Patience is the name of the game, even when you get nervous and the team is losing. Patience and a cool head is what keeps pitchers’ in the game, what keeps the batters cool at the plate, and what keeps the fielders from making mistakes. Even in the most stressful situations patience and calm will keep things from getting out of hand. Long gone are the days of my fidgeting and leaving the couch, and when I’m lucky enough to get to see a game in person, there’s no aimless wandering around the stadium. That’s why you show up early.

Watching baseball, has given me a better prayer life. Seriously, it has taught me to be present in the moment but to keep a calm mind and heart. It use to take me a long time to sit down and calm my mind when it came to my personal prayer, and even then within 20 minutes I was fidgeting and putting myself on the clock. (You know like just 10 more minutes and you’ll be good). The problem with this is that I was never fully putting myself in the presence of God. I would spend 10 minutes calming my thoughts, 10 minutes whining to God and asking for advice, and then another 20 minutes thinking about how much longer I needed to sit and “listen” before my prayer time would be considered adequate.

This is not how you pray.

Prayer is a conversation with God, which means that it needs to be a two way street, if prayer was meant to be one way, it would simply be called a monologue, of the internal variety. There is no time constraint on prayer no minimums or maximums, prayer is about being open, calm, and peaceful, to communicate and converse with God. 

Listening is the hard part, to do that we have to learn how to calm our thoughts, to be okay with sitting in silence and waiting to receive him.

Baseball taught me how to wait, something we struggle with in our NOW society, people find baseball boring and outdated, I think this is because we’ve forgotten what it means to be patient, how to wait, and to be okay with waiting and not having the answer come right away.

They say the best baseball happens in October, and that may be, it certainly seems more exciting. However, astonishing and beautiful plays happen in baseball all season long, you just have to be willing to wait and see.  The Fall Classic may only come around once a year, but your relationship with Christ is there everyday, if only you choose to participate.

On that note…

Go Cards!