The Perfect Game

The one constant through all the years…has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.

My Thoughts on America’s Pastime

The life in Christ is often compared by St. Paul and the Fathers of the Church to an athletic competition, ascesis or struggle being hallmarks of both. I will wrestle here with some of the thoughts prompted by my love of sports, particularly (but not only) baseball, which though it has be so called, must pass the title of Perfect Game to the struggle to become like Christ.

  • Not All Changes are Good
    On this date in 1971, on the right bank of the Ohio River in the baseball stadium where I would eventually watch my first big league games, one of the finest lineups in baseball—the Big Red Machine—failed to get a hit against Cubs pitcher Ken Holtzman. Holtzman had already pitched two of the nine completeContinue reading “Not All Changes are Good”
  • Getting on the Ball
    It seems impossible that it has been nearly two years since I have written anything about baseball, so since we’re at the beginning of the annual baseball reawakening, I think I will begin to reengage this page with a reflection of my favorite sport. Not only is Major League Baseball Spring Training now underway, butContinue reading “Getting on the Ball”
  • Well, That’s Too Bad
    And just like that, I have lost all emotional interest in the World Series. The worst part about it isn’t even that I haven’t got a team to root for. As a rule, I cheer for three specific teams: the Chicago Cubs, and whoever is playing the Dodgers and the Yankees. Now that the latterContinue reading “Well, That’s Too Bad”
  • Every Head a Billboard
    Living overseas I tend to be out of the loop when it comes to U.S. professional sports news, sports opinion in particular, which may be why I haven’t heard about the latest MLB money grab: selling ad space on their players’ heads. Uniforms have already caused a lot of controversy this season, and it wasContinue reading “Every Head a Billboard”
  • How the Babe Broke Baseball
    New York Yankee Aaron Judge now holds the American League record for home runs hit in a single season with 62. (Some might also say that he is the only legitimate holder of the MLB record, given the other records’ holders being tainted by steroids, but we’ll leave that for another time.) Without dispute heContinue reading “How the Babe Broke Baseball”

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