The Blessing of the Balls

Ah, baseball season. Itchy flannel uniforms, no gloves, the old hidden ball trick, handlebar mustaches. What?! 

Oh, I meant to specify baseball as it was played in the 1880s. 

You see, one of the great traditions in Hingham, Massachusetts, is the annual vintage baseball game held on July 4th weekend and sponsored by the Hingham Historical Society. 

You've never heard of "vintage baseball?" It's a thing. Think Civil War reenactors for the sporty set. Middle-aged guys living out their sports fantasies in throw-back style wearing period uniforms. And it's pretty great -- spectators and players alike get into the spirit of another era. You can hear "huzzahs!" and and even some 19th century trash-talking, although I've frankly never been able to distinguish between "tomfoolery" and "ballyhooing."

In the end the Derbies defeated the Coopers in a tight game, 4-3, to earn bragging rights for the next 12 months.

This year I was invited to give an invocation of sorts just before the singing of the National Anthem by Laura Winters, a parishioner and Hingham Historical Society booster. 

Since between us we couldn't come up with anything other than "The Blessing of the Balls," we decided not to insert this item into the official program. But of course I couldn't pass up the opportunity to have some fun with it. 

If you ever have occasion to, um, bless the balls in your own hometown, feel free to use the following. 

The Blessing of the Balls

O God, as you were with these players from the Big Inning,

With Laura Winters

Make them less concerned with losing and winning.

Than with a spirit of sportsmanship and fair play 

As we prepare to celebrate this Independence Day.

We pray for the players and fans; we give thanks for this weather

We pray for hands catching balls without leather.

May the Coopers and Derbies play with unabashed hustle

while not pulling anything worse than a muscle.

Give to the umpire the gift of impartiality

To insure the game does not end in his fatality. 

So bless these bats and bless these balls

And help us to revel in the wonder of it all.

And when the final out has been made

let us give God our thanks and our praise.

Amen.

In Good Faith: Spring Fling

In my latest In Good Faith column, I write about fulfilling a lifelong fantasy and glimpsing a bit of resurrection in the process.

Spring Fling

It started with a throwaway Facebook post. A lament that, given what I do for a living, I 

would never get to go to spring training. I mean, the season of Lent, the busiest time of year for parish clergy, just happens to coincide with Major League Baseball’s own season of preparation. Christians may be preparing for Easter but ballplayers are preparing for Opening Day, so there are a few parallels. If you’re desperate enough.

Getting to see my beloved hometown Baltimore Orioles play in spring training has crept up my bucket list over the years. Okay, I don’t actually keep a bucket list, but if I did it would be near the top. Connecting with my inner child, combined with some warm sun after surviving another New England winter — what could be better? Alas. Maybe when I retire.

But then I got a text from my oldest childhood friend who had seen my pathetic post. “Thinking about taking dad to see a couple games next week for his birthday. You in?” After verifying that he wasn’t just mocking me by adding salt to my first world wound, I started thinking seriously about going down for a couple of days. No, I didn’t have the time. No, flying to Sarasota for two days without a Saturday night stay-over wasn’t cheap. But in the end, the answer was clear.

You see, this wasn’t just any friend taking just any father to Florida for spring training. This was my second family growing up. Yes, Ned moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, 20 years ago to start a family and a career and we rarely see each other anymore. But as with the deepest relationships, when we do get together, it’s as if no time has passed.

This wasn’t really about baseball, however. Ned’s dad is dying. It’s not imminent, but the cancer has now spread into the bones so the sand is rapidly moving through the hour glass. A man who has been a source of inspiration and support throughout my life; someone who is a living connection to my own late father; a person whose gentle humor and unconditional devotion to his family and friends have endeared him to so many over the years won’t, in fact, live forever.

And so, in-between innings, we talked about life and death, faith and family. Time stood still as the three of us laughed and cheered and talked about the things that really matter in life — the relationships that define us and shape our identity — and the sense of peace in the face of death that, even as it comes from a life well-lived, defies all understanding.

Spring training was everything I anticipated it would be. There was hope, as well as the defining sights and sounds of baseball, in the air. The crack of the bat, the warm breeze, the wafting odor of grilled hot dogs, the chatter of the ballplayers, the smack of balls hitting leather.

As people throughout the world prepare to walk through the agony of Good Friday before encountering the joy of Easter, it’s worth remembering that resurrection comes in many forms. Spring training was, for me, a resurrection experience in the midst of Lent. It was time spent with people I care for deeply, and included moments I will always cherish.

But that’s really what the Christian faith is all about — snatching life from the jaws of death; finding hope in situations that feel utterly hopeless.

Wherever you may be during this holiest time in the Christian year, and wherever you may worship, I encourage you to nurture the relationships that mean the most in your life. This begins with the God who loves you with reckless abandon and continues with those to whom you have had the privilege to walk this mortal journey. 

Life doesn’t always go into extra innings. Which means taking advantage of resurrection moments when they present themselves. Even if this means sitting in the Florida sun watching the home team win a meaningless spring training game, that means the world to you.

Field of Dreams

Some have wondered in recent days why I'm so passionate about the Baltimore Orioles. It's hard to explain without sounding like the pseudo-baseball philosopher George Will. And it's complex -- swirling emotions always are. It transcends simply "being from Baltimore" and to sort it all out would take more than a simple blog post.

But I thought I'd share an essay I first wrote for the Baltimore Sun over a decade ago, a version of which (below) ended up in my book What Size Are God's Shoes: Kids, Chaos, and the Spiritual Life. In it, I share the story of how I acquired the stadium seat from the old Memorial Stadium that now sits on our screened-in porch. The attachment I have for my beloved Birds may remain a mystery, especially to those who eschew sports, but I think anyone can relate to the emotions themselves.

I guess I've been in a reflective mood after some intense, extra inning games against the hated Yankees this week. After today's deciding game in the American League Division Series, only one team will continue their season. You know where my heart will be.

Field of Dreams

By the Rev. Tim Schenck

I can’t fully explain why, but I was mystically drawn to the old Memorial Stadium in Baltimore several years ago. The pilgrimage was spurred by the announcement of the structure’s imminent destruction at the hands of a wrecking ball. Yes, the stadium had become the latest victim of the building craze in the arena of professional sports that has turned many old stadiums into dinosaurs before their time. Memorial Stadium, the one-time home of the Orioles and Colts had sat vacant for a number of years, falling into disrepair and becoming a mere shell of its former glory. And yet I was drawn back to this place, a place where I spent much of my youth dreaming, rejoicing, despairing, cheering, and jeering.

When the sale of stadium artifacts was announced, an indefinable force propelled me back to 33rd Street. A variation on the mantra from the Kevin Costner baseball movie Field of Dreams came to mind: ‘If you raze it, they will come.’ As I stood in line with my fellow pilgrims waiting to get onto the field, I couldn’t help but feel that I was entering a space no less sacred than a European cathedral ruin. If you’ve ever experienced this you know that even though the stained glass windows are long gone, weeds shoot up through the remains of the stone floor, and bats glide boldly through what’s left of the vaulted ceiling, there is still a pervasive sense of being on holy ground. The generations of prayers that emanated from the site still hover like a cloud of witnesses. You can almost hear the voices of the choir lifted to God in praise and glory.

So it was as I walked for the first time onto that glorious field of dreams that was Memorial Stadium. Despite the fact that weeds had overtaken the outfield, the windows of the press box were smashed, and the concrete dugouts were crumbling, I was very much walking on holy ground.  In my mind’s eye I could see the stadium packed with a cheering throng. The life, energy, and electricity that once pulsed through the place was much more than a distant memory. The hope and excitement of a little boy once again coursed through my veins and I felt as if my adult self had just been introduced to the childhood version.

But I came to the stadium not just in search of memories but as a sojourner seeking a holy relic. Items from the stadium were being sold and I wanted, even needed, one. I had my heart set on a stadium seat, the kind I used to sit in as a boy, a teenager, and a young adult. I sought a tangible piece of this place that I could take home and cherish forever. For Memorial Stadium was more than simply a place where I learned to love the liturgy and ritual of baseball. It was a place of relationships, memories, and magic.

Even more important than my sporting reminisces, are the memories of time spent with my father. He took me to my first baseball game in 1975, shortly after my family moved to Baltimore. He had absolutely no interest in the game; he was a symphony orchestra conductor after all, but didn’t want to limit my interests because of his own. As it turned out, I fell in love with the stadium and the game of baseball at first sight. And over the years he actually became quite an Orioles fan himself. When he was dying of cancer he wrote me and my brother a letter while he watched the last Orioles game ever played at Memorial Stadium. In it he wrote about his love for us and the sense of peace he felt as he prepared to take leave of this world. He died several months after the final out was recorded and I’ve always associated the death of Memorial Stadium with the death of my father. Its final destruction was like one last shovel-full of dirt being thrown over my earthly relationship with him. I mourn the loss of the stadium, as I do the loss of my father, but I also take comfort in having known them both.

During the Orioles’ American League pennant winning season of 1979, the string of improbable, come-from-behind, last minute victories led to the coining of the slogan “Miracle on 33^rd Street.” I think the real miracle is that so many people were brought together through the steel, concrete, and brick that made up Memorial Stadium. My soul was touched and my family, like so many countless others, was nurtured through a public, “secular” structure.

Well, I now have my stadium seat. To my wife Bryna’s chagrin it sits in our family room, though she did manage to keep it out of the living room. I’m not entirely sure what drove me to seek out a piece of the stadium. But I do know that it’s comforting to have in the house. If a religious icon is a window into the mystery of the divine, my new chair is a kind of icon. It serves as a window into a special time in my life and it somehow puts me in touch with a part of my heart that I will always cherish.

Little (League) Pet Peeves

Many of you know that I spend a lot of my free time coaching little league baseball. The Rev. Tom Mulvey and I coached our boys' ten-year-old teams in the Hingham Little League this spring and then, in a Beatles-like reunion tour, agreed to coach one of the summer travel league teams.

I won't share our teams' joint won-loss record for fear of self-incrimination. And I have Tom's legal degree to back me up here. But we're winding up the regular season tonight in the beachside Shangri-La of Hull before starting the playoffs on Wednesday night. Now before you start popping the champagne and offering us kudos for our sensational coaching acumen, you should know that every team makes the playoffs. Even a certain 3-9 team that will go unnamed.

I'm not here to wax nostalgic since we're still in the hunt. But as much as I love nearly everything about little league baseball (I still consider my time as a shortstop in Baltimore's Roland Park Little League to be my athletic "glory days"), I will admit that certain things drive me nuts. Here are a few in no particular order:

1. Parents who think their precious darlings are much better than they really are. The level of delusion can be astounding. I love it when parents are supportive and encouraging with their kids -- raising self-confident children is a critical piece of parenting. But when they can't reach the plate from the mound, they shouldn't be pitching. It's not good for their self-esteem (regardless of dad's hopes and dreams) to get into a game and walk eight straight batters. And if the only thing your son can hit is his little sister, I'm not batting him cleanup.

2. Walks. Golf has famously been referred to as "a good walk spoiled." Multiple bases on balls could be called "a pleasant evening ripped away in a long, slow, painful death." They have been the scourge of little league for generations -- they make coaches pull their hair out, teammates fall asleep in the field, and parents wish they'd signed the kid up for an hour-long pottery class instead. In those innings where walk piles upon walk I'm reminded of the line spoken by Clint Eastwood as Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway in Heartbreak Ridge: "You can rob me. You can starve me and you can beat me and you can kill me. Just don't bore me!"

Two PKs (Thomas and Zack) along with a teammate

4. Opposing coaches who believe they are the modern-day Miller Huggins. The rules are very clear -- you can ask for clarification from an umpire but you cannot argue calls. I've seen coaches bully the umps (who are often teenagers) throughout the game so that when, and if, the game comes down to one critical call at the end they'll be more than likely to go the route of conflict avoidance and make the call in favor of the loudmouth coach's team. This might not be a bad strategy if there was a lot on the line -- like professional pride, a world championship, a job next season -- but this is a league full of ten-year-old kids. They might get disappointed about a tough loss but within minutes they're back running around and laughing with their buddies. If your happiness and self-worth rides on the crest of how your team is playing, the issues are likely deeper than one could imagine. (Oh, and if you didn't know, the hot-tempered Miller Huggins managed the team many consider the greatest ever, the 1927 New York Yankees, to a World Championship).

5. Players who lose track of the batting order. When I was a kid (which is, of course, how things should be today), I had my helmet on three batters before I was due up. Everyone was anxious to hit and you knew that if you weren't ready to go, the coach would skip your turn and bench you. Despite posting the lineup in the dugout and calling out the names of who's coming up, sometimes kids are caught without a helmet, a bat, and a clue when it's their turn to bat. This makes me crazy whether it's our team or the other team. It's like the guy sitting in his Prius at the red light who's too busy texting to notice that it turned green 15 seconds ago. Honk!


6. Parents who believe their children are entitled to make the All Star team. It takes more than mere athletic ability to be named one of our team's two All Stars. It takes actually showing up to games and practices. The ability to play the game at a moderately high level is a plus. Just because your child was an All Star on his lacrosse team doesn't mean that he's an All Star in baseball. Similarly, just because he's good at the piano doesn't automatically make him a whiz on the trombone.

7. Umpires with inconsistent or absurdly large strike zones. I realize this is an issue at every level of the game and, as I noted earlier, many of our umps are teenagers. However, in no league at any time in the history of baseball has the strike zone ever been from the top of the helmet to the soles of the shoes. We had this issue in Braintree a few weeks ago with an ump who was clearly no spring chicken -- the gray hair would indicate that he was decidedly not a teenager. I'm not sure if, like your typical teen, he had a hot date that night but the strike zone was larger than Big Papi. Game after game we preach to the kids (and I mean that literally given our vocations) not to chase the high stuff -- nothing good ever comes from it. But that night anything that didn't sail over the backstop was called a strike. That's not helpful for any kid trying to learn the nuances of the game. Although, I have to admit, it was the quickest game of the year.

That's all for now -- I have a lineup card to fill out!

The Old Ball Game

In my latest "In Good Faith" column for the Hingham Journal I reminisce about the good old days of little league baseball. The days before pitch counts and teams being sponsored by nail salons. A time when only football helmets had masks and chin straps and the on-deck circle wasn't taboo. See, I can be a cranky old man with the best of them.

The Old Ball Game

One of the best things about coaching little league baseball is that it gets me out of the office and into the fresh air. Of course around here “spring” baseball consists of standing on a cold, windy field in a light rain wearing mittens. Coaching directives include such pearls as “If you guys get too cold, do some jumping jacks in the dugout” and “Stop walking so many batters! It’s freezing and I want to get home in time to watch Modern Family.”

While the game basically looks the same as it did when I was a kid, there are a few notable differences. These differences might seem minor but they say a lot about how society has changed over the years. Yes, many of the changes revolve around safety and fairness – not bad things to be sure – but at least some of the fun has been sucked out of the experience in the process. So if you’ll excuse me I’ll go into my cranky old man mode and wax nostalgic about the way things used to be. Fortunately this attitude never appears in churches.

First of all, we used to have on-deck circles. This was the designated area where the next batter in the lineup would swing a few bats to get loose or maybe put on a donut. When kids today think of donuts they can only imagine the word Dunkin’ before it. They have no idea that in baseball a donut is a circular metal weight, generally covered in rubber that is slipped over the handle of a bat to make it heavier in the on-deck circle. The idea is that if you take a few swings with a heavier bat, by the time you take it off and get up to the plate your bat will feel much lighter. Hitting is about bat speed and this is both a physical and psychological tool that today’s little leaguers will never experience.

Why no on-deck circle? Why, safety of course. In fact, if the umpire catches anyone besides the batter with a bat in hand it is an automatic out. Which means coaches spend much of their time telling kids to “Step away from the bat.” Elementary-school aged boys seem especially drawn to potential implements of destruction.

The other major shift is the emphasis on pitch counts. Now in fairness this transcends little league as even professional managers and pitching coaches now obsess over the number of pitches thrown by each pitcher. Back when we were kids you pitched until a) your arm fell off or b) you starting walking a lot of hitters. Much of the limited strategy employed by little league coaches surrounds monitoring the pitch counts. For each age there are rules governing the maximum number of pitches allowed.

To further complicate things guidelines are in place that translate pitch counts into subsequent days off until that player is allowed to pitch again. For instance a ten-year-old is allowed to throw up to 75 pitches in a game. However if said pitcher throws over 66 pitches he or she cannot pitch for four calendar days; 51-65 pitches translates to three days rest; and it goes down from there. Got it? I suggest that each team be issued an MIT-trained pitch count analyst at the start of the season.

Players also now rotate positions at the same rate that you’d trade partners at a hoedown. Everyone is given a chance to play every position. In my day, if you couldn’t catch the ball they sent you out to pick daisies in right field. Today if you can’t catch they’ll make you the first baseman for a few innings. Perhaps this is why the games seem to take longer. When I was a kid I was a shortstop – that was my position and that’s what I played every inning of every game. I didn’t pitch, I didn’t catch, I didn’t play the outfield. Now, if asked “What position do you play?” kids can’t answer. They can only tell you what position they like best.

Some things haven’t changed, though my perspective has. When I was a kid the blessed ice cream truck would always show up right after the last out was made! Today, that blasted ice cream truck always shows up right after the last out is made.

But even with all the changes, nothing beats an early evening out on the ball field. I’m coaching with another Episcopal priest who lives in Hingham – the Rev. Tom Mulvey. While our club is mired in the middle of the standings, we do lead the league in one thing: Episcopalians.

Throwin' Strikes

Zack Bringing the Heat

In between the time I realized that a career in professional baseball was not an option and before that whole call thing kicked in, I thought about becoming a baseball writer. What could be better than being paid to watch baseball games and then comment on them? At least that was my thinking at some point during high school. I read a lot of Red Smith back then in the midst of my daily diet of box scores and attaching tin foil to the antenna of my radio so that I could catch snippets of Orioles games being broadcast on WBAL from my bedroom in Queens, New York. Oh, to have grown up in the age of internet radio.

I hadn't thought much about this until I had to write a brief summary following a recent game for the Hingham Little League website. The winning coach is tasked with writing about the game and, as an assistant coach, this never fell to me. Until last week when the head coach couldn't make the game (his son's trumpet concert took priority). For the record, the Bodyscapes Fitness club is coached by two Episcopal priests -- the Rev. Tom Mulvey, Hingham resident and priest-in-charge at Emmanuel, Braintree, and yours truly. This hasn't helped our record, mind you, but we do lead the league in Episcopalians.

So here's my game review. It's not exactly ESPN-worthy but it was a lot of fun to write. Plus Zack had a great game on the mound.

Pitching Dominant as Bodyscapes Edges Fruit Center 4-3

Backed by superlative pitching on both sides, Bodyscapes Fitness rallied to defeat Fruit Center 4-3 in a quick game that may have set a minor league land speed record of just one hour and 20 minutes. The four pitchers (Will Sutton and Zack Schenck for Bodyscapes and the Fruit Center “Joes” – Sylvester and Bandera) combined for 22 strikeouts and a mere 7 walks.

Aiden Torres powered the offense for Bodyscapes with two triples and two RBI. Jared Testa scored two runs and Chace Congdon drove in Torres for the winning run in the bottom of the fifth to complete the rally.

In a back and forth game, Fruit Center jumped out to an early lead with back to back to back hits in the first inning by Joe Sylvester, Colin Gannon, and Joe Bandera. They added a third run in the third inning as Bandera drove in his second run of the game.

In what would ultimately prove to be the game-saving play, Bodyscapes recorded a rare 7-5-2 putout at the plate with Jonathan Fasoli applying the tag to foil a third inning Fruit Center rally.

Zack Schenck pitched a perfect three innings in relief, striking out 7 of the 9 batters he faced to close out the victory. The game ended, as it began, with a strikeout.