Baseball and time


The days of our life are seventy years,
   or perhaps eighty, if we are strong.... (Psalm 90)

Why is baseball such an enduring part of the American psyche? Not because of gargantuan feats of heroism, death-defying catches or mighty blasts that clear the bases; not because the Red Sox have vaulted from "the working definition of hell" in 2011 and 2012 (ESPN SportsCenter) to world champions in 2013.

Quite the contrary: The sport is intimately familiar to us because it unfolds on a scale that approximates that of our lives. How long will a given game be? No one knows. Nine dull innings, 26 record-setting innings? How long does each inning last? How many pitches? Enough by the third inning to send the starter to the showers, or a masterly demonstration of brevity that will stand forever in the record books (Charley "Red" Barrett in 1944, playing for the Boston Braves, who shut out the Cincinnati Reds 2-0 in a mere 58 pitches)? How long will our lives be--seventy years, perhaps 80 if we are lucky? Unless we are seriously ill or faced with a dire prognosis, there is simply no way to know.

This is why Yogi Berra's truism is so poignant: "It's never over 'till it's over." Some dismiss this as this a typical example of his "mangled" speech, but in fact he was uttering a simple fact of life and of baseball. How refreshing, how life-giving this is to not know when one's end will come, or when the end of the game is imminent. In football, with one team down by two touchdowns with a minute to go, there is no hope. The final seconds tick off the clock innocuously as game-winning celebrations have already begun on the sidelines.

Would we desire this of our own lives? That when our death sentence is pronounced ("you have a month to live") our family and friends wander off to other pursuits? No, we say! Stay with us! And so in baseball we remain faithful until the last out is recorded, bright in the "assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11), knowing that anything is possible as long as we have one last breath to draw. And so we live!


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