GOD,BASEBALL AND ANNOINTING

Two types of baseball

GOD, BASEBALL, AND ANNOINTING!

I believe that every person has an anointing. That is to say, something that they are driven to do, and choice is not part of the equation as far as desire is concerned. The choice is only involved if one chooses to ignore or reject the anointing. When God anoints, whatever that anointing is, will happen either by the one anointed to complete the task or by someone else but it will happen. Often the anointing is not obvious, but it always manages to get in front of you.

The voice of the anointment may happen as it did in the Old Testament to Moses, David, and other New Testament folks like Saul of Tarsus. The voice is loud and clear, and sometimes lops you upside of your head.

Moses murdered someone and was on the run from the Pharaoh. He had a speech impediment and was not the most articulate, but he was to lead the Jews out of Egypt—his anointing. After 30 or 40 years on the run his anointing caught up to him at about age 80 and the rest, as we say, is history!

How about King David? Shepherd boy. He was the youngest of several brothers that harassed and made fun of him. I can only imagine his thoughts and self-talk out in the field chunking and slinging rocks at wolves and other predators. ‘Ok, so when I become King, I am going to make my brother come and tend these sheep?’ Exaggeration of course but there had to be something that he didn’t choose but was always there. Always in his thoughts. Perhaps it was just wisdom? He just knew things. And where did a shepherd boy learn to write such beautiful Psalms? Songs? Where did the insights come from? He had to know that somewhere along the line he was going to be called on for something. At some point, he said OK and gave his anxiety over to the higher power that spoke to his inner David. What folks call, ‘that still small voice’!

Not to put myself in a category with King David, Moses, or St Paul but I have had a couple of things happen to me that keep coming back and will not let me go. I recall as clearly as if it happened today, the first time I set foot on a baseball field. I was nearly five years old. I was watching the neighborhood “big guys” play a baseball game in De Coster’s backyard. Bill, the second oldest of the De Costers, grabbed me and said, “Come on Joey, you’re playing left field.” I remember it clearly. Everyone laughed and chuckled that “ain’t he cute” chuckle but to me, I was Pete Rose even though Pete wasn’t quite “Pete” yet either. I have been a baseball guy ever since that day. Not a day goes by that I am not involved in baseball. Even when I was in Vietnam, I started a team and we played when we could against other units, platoons, or just a game of workup. I have done other things in my life. I have been a bill collector, truck driver, bartender, litigation administrator, and other things, but each of those was in support of me as a baseball player, coach, and scout. My older brother Jim has a similar story. We have a pact: when God calls us home, we are going out with our cleats on!

It is our anointing. Baseball owes me nothing. I owe everything to the game of baseball. As I age and move away from being on the field, I have concluded that the only way I can keep baseball is to give it away. So I do at every opportunity. There are two kinds of baseball: the one that you want and the one that you have. I can’t have the one that I want but I can want the one that I have.

It’s baseball!