Long Defeat in Baseball

Loving baseball means heartbreak.

Every baseball season starts with optimism, especially if you’re a Dominican student brother who supports a team who isn’t afraid to shell out some cash for good players. Perhaps the team has called up prospects with promises of greatness. Perhaps the front office has made a savvy trade. “This season’s the one,” you say, “the one where we’ll go all the way!”

In August, the view is much more realistic. Maybe your team still has hope, or maybe they’re far removed from a chance at the playoffs. Of course, only one out of thirty teams can actually win the World Series. For all the rest? Defeat—heartbreaking defeat. What’s worse is that defeat can be repeated year after year, and you have a sinking feeling in your gut that next year will give the same result. The management promises they’ll fix things, they’ll hire a new manager, they’ll look for prospects—only to trade them all away when the next five-year plan fails. Can you tell yet that I’m a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates?

Life, like baseball, can feel like a long defeat. When we are young, we are optimistic, but over decades we accumulate disappointments, and perhaps grow bitter. Life has its joys, of course, in family and friends. Eventually though, our bodies begin to function worse and worse, until a final catastrophe strikes, and we die.

J.R.R. Tolkien in his letters speaks of this long defeat: “I am a Christian, and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a ‘long defeat’—though it contains… some samples or glimpses of final victory.”

Tolkien realizes that being Christian means that life will be a long defeat. After all, our example is in the life of Jesus, who himself said that “it is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher” (Matt 10:25). Jesus is our teacher, and he experienced increasing alienation from his friends, abandonment by his disciples, treachery, and lastly execution as a criminal. Is it enough for us that we become like Jesus—do we expect more success than he?

Long defeat does not have the last word, though. Just as we share in Christ’s defeat, so we share in his resurrection. Life and baseball feature glimpses of glory, but they can only offer a foretaste of final victory. In God’s action alone do we realize success—and not just a temporary success, but one that lasts for all eternity. We read from the Psalmist, “Put no trust in princes, in children of Adam powerless to save” (Ps 146:3). We should also not put trust in baseball teams, prospects, or five-year plans. We should not put trust in ideologies or governments. We should not even put trust in our own abilities or goodness. God wants to teach us that success—true and everlasting victory—is found in him alone. Christians have this unique hope. “Our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth” (Ps 124:8).

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Republished with gracious permission from Dominicana (August 2024). 

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Photo by Nicolle Wootten on Unsplash.