Opening Day

Baseball season is finally here. There are no two ways about it, I am a diehard baseball fan. I start missing baseball almost as soon as the season ends and look forward to reading articles and listening to radio broadcasts about it during the offseason. January is when the Seattle Mariners, our local team, open the doors to Safeco Field for the fans to come in and see behind the scenes, meet players and coaches, run around the bases, tour the club house, and generally get their off-season baseball fix. Then in February, Spring Training begins, and the first broadcasts are on the air. At last, the practice sessions are over and it's time to really start to PLAY BALL.

Growing up, I didn't pay much attention to baseball. As a girl (an athletically challenged one at that), I played a little softball and avoided contact with the ball as much as possible. It wasn't until I became an adult that I began to get a little interested. I played some coed softball and finally learned how to hit and catch enough to actually enjoy myself, but I still did not follow professional baseball much.

After moving to the Los Angeles area and getting married, we made it to a few Dodger and Angels games, and that was fun. It was after we moved to the Pacific Northwest that baseball really got under my skin. We moved here in 1995, right when the Mariners were making their first serious run at the playoffs. Baseball fever was everywhere; signs sprouted up supporting the team, and for the first time since the Mariners had been formed, Seattle was becoming a baseball town. Since we were planning to stay in the Seattle area and make it our home, we decided we should support the local team. Over the next few years, we went to a couple of games in the old Kingdome and followed the team as they won and lost, but not too closely. Then in 2001, a friend offered us a chance to share in her season tickets, and we decided to buy a block of 10 games. That was a very special year for the Mariners: they tied the Major League Record for most wins in a single season, 116 games. It was also a year of tragedy for the United States because of the events on September 11. When the Mariners won the game that clinched their win of the American League West championship title that year, I vividly remember their response: as a team, they gathered on the infield with an American flag and knelt down to pray for the United States and to give thanks.

That year is when I really went from a casual fan to a diehard one. There was something about the character and the attitude of the team as a whole and many of the individual players that captured my attention. I began to read about baseball so I'd understand the game better. I watched games on TV or listened on the radio more often, and we went from going to a few games each season to as many as 20 one year, graduating from sharing someone else's season ticket plan to getting our own block of tickets. The players, manager, and coaches come and go; some years are winning years, and many are not. The losing years are painful, but that is the way it goes for baseball fans. The real fans are the ones who cheer the team on and hope for the best even when things are not going well.

I have found a lot of parallels between life and baseball. No, life is not a game; we do not get a Spring Training time when what we do on the field is just for practice. Everything counts from the moment we draw our first breath—our Opening Day of life. But sometimes life is amazing, beyond what we could hope for. There are spectacular plays and times of camaraderie with the other players, and there are times of disappointment and complete failure. In all of that, however, there is one constant; whether we set a record or fall on our face, we have a diehard fan who is cheering us on. Like the real fans who go to games even when their team is losing, God is there, encouraging us to give it our all and keep going. He recruits us for his team, his family, even though we may think we are totally unqualified.

There is an Opening Day coming that I look forward to even more than the one for baseball. That is the day when the skies will open up and Jesus will come back for all who love and follow him. He will be recruiting for that team up until the last moment; his invitation is to all who will hear and respond.

March 30, 2008