 God, Father of Universe |  Abner Doubleday, Father of baseball |
Little League began recently for my eight year old. It’s so adorable you can’t believe it. The kids are all 7 or 8 so while we don’t technically keep score, everyone knows what it is, and how many games we win and lose. So far we are 0-2. As an assistant coach I find myself thinking about the lineup, scoping out the competition and trying to find a way to hide the kids on my team who stink up the outfield every inning. The adults, as I’m sure is the case everywhere, care much more about winning and losing than the kids do. Last game some random parent came up to me to tell me our side had gotten a free out due to the fact that one of our kids wasn’t called out sliding in to first –which is apparently against the rules. It took all of my self control not to call him out for arrant douchebaggery. Our team this year is a little Bad News Bearish as far as paying attention and athletic skills go. That was not the case last season, and I give all the credit to last year's coaching staff, except, obviously, me. Actually, I give all the credit to Coach Cecil and possibly, the Almighty.
Coach Cecil is about 7 feet tall and I think has that condition that Lincoln supposedly had. He’s a scary dude. He’s also a preacher for one of the local megachurches. Cecil tended to get more out of the kids by speaking very little and doing so in very short commands:
“Stop the ball!”
“Hit it hard!”
“Sit down!”
etc…
When on Coach Cecil’s Team we went 11-1, only losing in the championship game (despite my son’s season being shortened by an appendectomy, leaving us shorthanded in the playoffs), raised the most money for the league fundraiser, and the most food for the league food drive.
That team didn’t have all that much more talent than this year’s team, which got me to thinking that, given Cecil’s occupation, was God on that team’s side?
Certainly, folks have been invoking divine intervention for their teams since it was lions vs.Christians, but much like the usual author of this blog, I tend toward agnosticism, so I never gave it much credence. Plus I’m sure there are thousands of people who pray for the Cubs every season, so the evidence of history is on the side of rationalism. Except…
I first saw Cecil in a hardware store looking over the giant rack of nuts, bolts, screws. He clearly needed something more out of the ordinary than a 3/8” or 9/16” and was not happy. We didn’t know each other then, so I was eavesdropping on his end of his phone conversation, which went something like: “No, no” followed by a long plea on other end, then “No, no” followed by an even longer attempt at persuasion. Finally, Cecil said, “NO! That would be disobedient to God,” and angrily hung up the phone.
It wasn’t a very polite way to treat a member of the congregation, no matter how many times they might have annoyed you previously by calling while you were at peace in the silent, undemanding company of nuts and bolts, screws and washers, but I sometimes wonder that if Cecil had exercised a little more patience with his flock that day, last year's team could have gone undefeated.
Coach Cecil is about 7 feet tall and I think has that condition that Lincoln supposedly had. He’s a scary dude. He’s also a preacher for one of the local megachurches. Cecil tended to get more out of the kids by speaking very little and doing so in very short commands:
“Stop the ball!”
“Hit it hard!”
“Sit down!”
etc…
When on Coach Cecil’s Team we went 11-1, only losing in the championship game (despite my son’s season being shortened by an appendectomy, leaving us shorthanded in the playoffs), raised the most money for the league fundraiser, and the most food for the league food drive.
That team didn’t have all that much more talent than this year’s team, which got me to thinking that, given Cecil’s occupation, was God on that team’s side?
Certainly, folks have been invoking divine intervention for their teams since it was lions vs.Christians, but much like the usual author of this blog, I tend toward agnosticism, so I never gave it much credence. Plus I’m sure there are thousands of people who pray for the Cubs every season, so the evidence of history is on the side of rationalism. Except…
I first saw Cecil in a hardware store looking over the giant rack of nuts, bolts, screws. He clearly needed something more out of the ordinary than a 3/8” or 9/16” and was not happy. We didn’t know each other then, so I was eavesdropping on his end of his phone conversation, which went something like: “No, no” followed by a long plea on other end, then “No, no” followed by an even longer attempt at persuasion. Finally, Cecil said, “NO! That would be disobedient to God,” and angrily hung up the phone.
It wasn’t a very polite way to treat a member of the congregation, no matter how many times they might have annoyed you previously by calling while you were at peace in the silent, undemanding company of nuts and bolts, screws and washers, but I sometimes wonder that if Cecil had exercised a little more patience with his flock that day, last year's team could have gone undefeated.
MATT CAHILL, author sibling, dutiful husband, exemplary father and serious baseball afficiando, is today's guest blogger
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