For Wilshire Baptist Church
Saturday morning after dropping off a casserole for a local family shelter and circling White Rock Lake on our bikes, we drove through Chick-fil-A and took breakfast sandwiches to Casa Linda Park. While we ate in the shade at a picnic table, we watched a little league baseball team go through their drills.
Watching them brought back memories of my own little league career. I wasn’t any good — I couldn’t hit the ball and I was timid in the field — and in fact during my last season I had to play two games on some Saturdays. The first game was with my regular team, and the second was a sort of pick-up game arranged by a well-meaning coach for those of us who sat on the bench during their morning game. It was a chance to play, but it also was another chance to embarrass ourselves.
Even though I wasn’t a good baseball player, I benefitted from lessons learned: teamwork, the value of repetitive drills and practice, following instructions, and doing your best with whatever role you are given. That includes cheering for your teammates who are out on the field representing, being ready to step up and play when a teammate goes down, and backing each other up when the ball is in the air.
That’s what was being taught during one of the flyball drills we watched on Saturday. The coach positioned the boys in two groups, maybe 20 yards apart, with one boy calling “I’ve got it” and catching the ball, and the other boy getting in position behind him in case there was a drop. It was up to the two boys to determine who was in the best position to make the catch.
“Great catch Johnny. Way to back him up Charlie,” the coach shouted, encouraging both players and emphasizing that in a real game, they’ll both have a role to play.
Good life lessons for sure, and the game hasn’t been more real than in recent months with society splitting apart at the seams. Pandemic, quarantines and shutdowns, illness and death, marches, protests, violence – the list goes on. The media is full of big stories about big players saying big things and making big plays. I marvel at their energy and their passion, because I’ve never marched or rallied for a cause, never wielded a bullhorn and made a speech, never sat in or walked out, never waved a sign or a flag, never even shouted someone down on Facebook or Twitter. I’ve written letters, sat in council meetings and stood in lines to vote my conscience.
That casserole we delivered early Saturday morning was not a big game-changing play. It was just us backing up the people who take the field every day to provide shelter, food and safety to families in crisis. They are the ones catching the flyballs and line drives and making the saves at home plate.