stepping up to the plate

if you are a loyal reader of this blog, you might have assumed that i am talking food in this post.  nope.  not this time.  i am going to switch it up today and talk...baseball. i read this article the other day and really appreciated it.  i've never really thought of the game of baseball in this way.  and i must say that it made me love it even more.  a game of "managed failure".  a pastime that teaches you to keep heading up to the bag and swinging, about the importance of persistence, about "moral courage".  and i love how he author ties in the similarities to the christian walk.  thought-provoking.  and check this out:

Parents simply looking for ways to keep their children busy and happy will choose sports that do not include the pressure and individualized responsibility that baseball has always demanded. Baseball requires a kind of moral courage that keeps persisting in the face of inevitable repeated personal failures. That is the sober unalterable reality for Albert Pujols and every little leaguer as well. Thus, baseball demands a huge time commitment for dads, not simply in teaching and repetitively practicing the fundamentals of the game, but also calling sons to the kind of moral courage the game demands. Rarely ever will a boy persist in baseball if his dad has little interest in the game. As Diana Schaub avers in her essay "America at Bat," "Without fathers, there is no baseball, only football and basketball."

interesting right?  i'm thinking that if we ever have boys, baseball might be the game.  {unless this is our father/son reality}  plus, i could totally get on board with rocking a baseball hat and tee from the stands.  and peanuts are my fav.  who's ready for baseball season?  go yanks!