Too Dangerous?

Does Jericho Scott, pictured above (AP photo) look like he’s dangerous?  Apparently the Youth Baseball League of New Haven, Connecticut, thought so.  As a 9-year old in the 8-10-year old division, his 40 mph fastball was deemed too threatening, so they banned him from pitching.  When his coach put him in to start a game, the opposing team chose not to take the field.  Jericho's team was subsequently disbanded as punishment for allowing him to pitch, and the players redistributed to the other teams.  Which leads to the question – with helmets with faceguards on them, how much danger is a 40 mph fastball?  It suggests that the real fear is not a bruise on the arm but a bruise to the ego.  And, of course, whose ego are we concerned about?  The 8-year old who might be overmatched, or the parents who will feel so bad if their child strikes out against that nasty pitcher who throws too fast?

It seems to me that there are a couple of important issues that are being missed by the YBL of New Haven.  First, there is a need for us to face fears.  A lot of the things life throws at us are scary.  Not only fastballs and bad-hop grounders, but death, divorce, disease, and all sorts of other nasty things that people, young and old, deal with every day.  Sports can be a proving ground for endurance, perseverance, and overcoming fear for a greater good.  I learned a lot about myself by running (mostly walking) through stomach cramps and knee pain to finish a marathon.  I learned that I can endure a lot more than I ever imagined.  What does it do to a player when the parents say, “That pitcher’s too fast for you, we won’t let him play”?  Don’t we want the message to be, “Get out there and do your best – it may be scary, but you can face that fastball”?

Second, I’ve argued here before that the greatest part of competition is that it allows players to showcase God’s glory by doing their best and accomplishing wonderful feats.  By not allowing Jericho Scott to pitch, the players, coaches, parents, and spectators are all deprived of (1) the wonder of a 9-year old who can throw 40 mph (and, so far, with enough control that he hasn’t hit anyone), and (2) the glory of another player – maybe an 8-year old? – putting the ball in play and, wonder of wonders, getting a hit!  Wouldn’t the better story be, “Eight-Year Old Homers Off Nine-Year Old Wonder Pitcher”?  But, when the parents and league officials are afraid of someone’s bruised ego, the opportunity for displaying wonderful God-given talent and hard-practiced skills is lost.

How sad for Jericho Scott and all the other players in the Youth Baseball League of New Haven that these displays of glory in competition and these opportunities to grow in character have been lost because of the fear of a 40 mph fastball.

John Sajdak - In Memoriam

            My Dad passed away on Monday of this week (August 18 – my favorite baseball player’s birthday – Roberto Clemente).  Later today will be his funeral.  So a tribute is in order.

            My Dad turned 90 in January of this year, and I turned 45 the next month.  I am the age he was when I was born.  I now understand his parenting style a bit better, as I imagine what it would be like to have a baby right now.  Because Dad was older when I was born, he wasn’t as directly involved in much of my athletics as a boy.  I only remember one time when he pitched whiffle ball to me, and I don’t remember playing basketball or football with him.  But sports was still an important part of our relationship.  Sunday afternoons watching the Packers, listening to the Brewers on the radio all summer, and in later years watching the Brewers on TV, provided for a lot of conversations.  I remember talking him into taking me to my first game at Wrigley Field when we were visiting relatives in Chicago (and seeing Manny Trillo hit a homer in a Cubs victory, then later learning that my first nephew, Brian, was born), and I remember going to see the Packers play at Milwaukee County Stadium.  He was a District Supervisor for the Milwaukee County Parks, and his district included the arena where the Milwaukee Admirals played hockey when I was a boy, and I got to see a few games and play with pucks and sticks from the team.  I have a lot of great sports-related memories of my Dad.

            But some of the more significant interactions with my Dad in my youth took place on the golf course.  There was a lot of time for talking about things from tee to green, and I enjoyed those moments with my Dad.  My Dad wasn’t the best golfer I played with as a boy – Uncle Clare was always the best in my youthful opinion – but one of my goals was to beat my Dad at golf.  My Dad never let his boys win - we learned to do our best in order to beat him, and we learned a lot about him and about ourselves in the trying.  It took a lot of years, but it happened eventually.  It was a rite of passage.  I slowly began to see his humanity on the golf course – he was made of the dust of the earth, like all of us.  That revelation only served to  demonstrate his nobility, for, despite his grumbling about the outcome, he was not brokenhearted at losing, but rather was proud in having a son who would go beyond what he could do.

      I don’t golf much anymore, but I do play tennis, and my boys are taking up the sport.  I know that day will come when, one by one, they are able to beat me on the court, and I know they’ll brag about the feat, just as I bragged about beating my Dad at golf.  But I also hope that on that day I’ll taste a bit of the pride of my Dad, and that I’ll delight in them just as my Dad delighted in me.

I love you, Dad.  

Olympic Solution?

            I’ve spent very little time paying attention to the Olympics this year.  Sure, I’ve seen reports about Michael Phelps’ gold medals and world records, but I’ve also seen the questions about the ages of the Chinese women (children?) gymnasts.  The Olympics were intended to be an event that would bring nations together in peace, but for all the great sports moments, there are also the questions of human rights violations (Tibet), wars (Georgia), performance-enhancing drugs (Maria Isabel Moreno, Katerina Thanou and how many others?), smog, killings, terror threats, murder-suicide, and other scandals.  Perhaps the days of the Olympic ideals of Baron Pierre de Coubertin are past.

            Instead of the issues of who will boycott, who will cheat, and who will dominate, perhaps the sports championships should be held in venues where they are showcased far more appropriately, without the politics, and overseen by their own agencies.  Isn’t that why we have the Soccer/Football World Cup, Wimbledon, the British Open, the World Series, the Super Bowl, and so on?

            In April, sportswriter Buzz Bissinger wrote a NY Times Op-Ed piece about the need to improve the Olympics… by ending them.  It’s worth reading, even as you watch Phelps continue his quest.

            [And, if you are a fan of women’s (children’s?) gymnastics, you might also want to read Bissinger’s more recent Op-Ed piece in the NY Times.]

The Christian at Play - Part 2 - External Values

            In my last blog I referred to the book The Christian at Play, by Robert K. Johnston.  In the book, Johnston makes the case that play is only play when it is engaged in for it’s own sake.  If we engage in play for another purpose, it ceases to be play and becomes something else, most likely, work.  Still, play in general, and sports in particular, have external values, benefits that accrue to the player.  Johnston highlights five external values: “(1) a continuing sense of delight or joy, (2) an affirmation of one’s united self, (3) the creation of common bonds with one’s world, (4) the emancipation of one’s spirit so that it moves outward toward the sacred, and (5) the relativization of one’s workaday world.”

            Of these external values, I am particularly drawn to three.  First, the “continuing sense of delight or joy.”  Johnston quotes former basketball player and US Senator Bill Bradley, who, in his book, Life on the Run, described the euphoria that comes when something special happens on the basketball court:

            “What I’m addicted to are nights when something special happens on the court…. It is far more than a passing emotion.  It is as if a lightning bolt strikes, bringing insight into an uncharted area of human experience…. It goes beyond the competition that brings goose pimples or the ecstasy of victory…. A back-door play that comes with perfect execution at a critical time charges the crowd but I sense an immediate transporting enthusiasm and a feeling that everything is in perfect balance.”

            I’ve never been a particularly gifted athlete, but there are moments that transcend the sporting event and bring a deep joy to the soul.  In golf, I remember my drives on two consecutive holes when I was a teenager.  Never before or since have I hit a drive as long or as straight.  I’ll never forget that moment or that feeling.  I remember a particular tennis doubles match in high school – we won, 4-6, 7-5, 7-5 – where the exhaustion, the perseverance, and the shot execution together created a euphoria beyond the final score.  Something magical happened that night.

            Johnston directs our attention to C. S. Lewis and his book, Surprised By Joy, in which Lewis recounts how specific moments of joy that came unbidden in his play pointed to something transcendent.  Are these moments of extraordinary joy a taste of the presence of the divine?  For Lewis, these moments prior to his conversion to Christianity were “valuable only as a pointer to something other and outer.”  Seeking an encounter with the transcendent, the divine, through sport will, most assuredly, prevent it from happening.  Trying to make it happen will turn the "play" into "work," and the opportunity will elude the player.  But when one abandons oneself in the moment, sport might provide an avenue to encounter the divine joy, if God chooses to make himself known in that moment.

 

            Next time, the external value of “the emancipation of one’s spirit so that it moves outward toward the sacred.”

"The Christian At Play" - Part 1 - Sport and Purpose

            While I was away on vacation, I came across the book, The Christian at Play, by Robert K. Johnston, (sadly, out of print) in a bargain bookstore.  Johnson’s book offers some helpful insights for a Christian theology of sport.  Johnston’s definition of play is broader that the realm of sport, including the aesthetic (e.g., music, art, drama, dance) and the communal (e.g.,  feasting, celebrating, resting) as well.  In the next few blogs I intend to share a few of these insights.

            One of Johnston’s insights is that play (sport) is primarily non-utilitarian.  He argues that one of the ways that play is misused and becomes something less than play is when it is done for a purpose.  Children will often resist adopting games that have been designed or adapted to teach a moral purpose.  He refers to a study by Stanford psychologists Mark Lepper and David Greene in which two groups of preschoolers were tested for their continued interest in a certain play activity.  One group was told that if they performed the activity they would be rewarded, the other group was not promised any reward.  At the end of the activity both groups were rewarded with playing with special toys.  After two weeks, the group that was promised a reward had diminished interest in the activity.  “Because their play had become goal oriented, they overlooked its pleasures.  The activity had become purposive; it was work, not play.”

            Johnston also quotes Lee Gibbs: “…the purpose of play is in the play itself.  If a person enters play only with useful, instrumental goals in mind, the activity ceases to be play.  The most distinctive characteristic is that it is voluntary, spontaneous, a source of joy and amusement, an activity pursued exuberantly and fervently for its own sake.”  There may be other benefits that accrue to the people who play, but they cannot be the primary intent, or it is no longer play.

            I see this in my own exercise program.  I took up running because aging and my wife’s delicious cooking were adding pounds.  I ran in order to lose (or, at least, not gain) weight.  I even ran a marathon (or, should I say, survived one).  But I never felt any joy in running, never experienced the “runner’s high.”  Perhaps my utilitarian use of running prevented it from being “play” or “sport” in the fullest sense.

            On the other hand, during the last year I have returned to a sport of my youth – tennis.  It also provides some health benefits, but I don’t play primarily for the health benefits.  I play because I enjoy the game.  It is a lot of fun.  Even though I gain health benefits from both, for me, running is work, while tennis is play.  Sports may have external benefits, but if those benefits are the focus, then the sports are no longer “play.”  They stop being Sabbath and become work.

            Perhaps this should be kept in mind by the coaches who preach that the team plays to learn life lessons.  The sport is primarily about the sport, otherwise it stops being play and becomes work.  When I coached my children’s teams, I said I had three goals: that the athletes are safe (avoiding injury), have fun, and learn something.  Maybe my goals should only have been the first two, (or even only the middle one) but then, what need would there be for a coach if the kids weren’t supposed to learn something!  We are told in Scripture to stop from our labors (which Johnston argues is an invitation to play, among other things), but if even our play becomes work, we will either burn out on an activity that is meant to be fun (by “working at our play”), or we will be diminished in our capacities to be the people we are created to be.

            May all of our sports be “play,” in the truest, deepest sense.

The “Kindergarchy,” AAU, and Healthy Parenting

            I’ve been away on vacation and study leave, so it’s been awhile since I’ve posted.  I hope to post at least twice a week from now on, so stay tuned…

 

            While I was away, my brother, Rich, sent me a link to a worthwhile article in the Weekly Standard by Joseph Epstein, “The Kindergarchy.”  In the article, Epstein questions the child-focused (read: child-obsessed) parenting of today, particularly by comparison to the parenting of a generation or two ago.  Children have become the focal-point of parents’ lives, leading to many unhealthy consequences, including self-centered delusions of the children.

            One area where the “Kindergarchy” is evident is the parenting of child- or student-athletes.  Parents become concerned (obsessed?) that their children get into all the right camps, have all the right equipment, get all the best coaching, and play on as many teams as possible so that they will “succeed.”  In Iowa, one of the sports idols that contributes to this “Kindergarchy” is AAU.  When I think of what I have seen and experienced in AAU, I feel a mix of sorrow and anger.

            It breaks my heart to see families disrupted and focused on their children’s participation in sports.  Long trips to tournaments and games every weekend feeds the insatiable monster that never cries “Enough!”  The lie that spurs this on is that if you want your child to play Varsity in high school or earn a college sports scholarship, you’ve got to get them into AAU and into as many camps and programs as you can.  What is the result?

-       Children who think that they are the center of the world, as their parents cater to their every (sporting) whim. 

-       Children who get burned out working on sports skills, instead of enjoying the delight of playing. 

-       Families that are grossly misshapen by unrelenting sports schedules.

-       Too-often disappointing results, as those who are “athletes” will “succeed” in sports, whether or not they follow the AAU – Camp – Tournament routine or not. 

“Soccer-Mom” should be considered an insult – why don’t the moms & dads have a healthy life full of real involvement church, ministry, and in their own hobbies and enjoyment?  I am angered when I think of all the otherwise able parents in congregations and communities who have used their children’s activities, including sports, as an excuse for not getting involved in worthwhile causes.

Shouldn’t sports be fun?  Parents (through what I believe to be originally well-intentioned organizations like AAU and Little League) have organized the play out of the games and made the games into work for everyone involved – children and parents.  (I can’t believe how much is expected of parents of student-athletes in high school these days.  Parents were hardly involved “back in the day,” and sports programs functioned just fine.  Now it’s another insatiable monster that never cries “Enough!”)  The parents should “put away childish things” and get involved in healthy adult activities and let the kids have fun on their own.  But then, maybe the problem is that the parents are still trying to live out their childhoods vicariously through their children. 

But that’s a whole other blog entry.