AND GOD SAID, “PLAY BALL!”

But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. 

[2 corinthians 4:7 nrsv]

The 2026 Major League Baseball season is underway!

It began with a stand-alone opener on the west coast Wednesday evening between the New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants which was pretty much a one-sided affair. The Yankees shut out the Giants, 7-0, but it was simply fun just to watch a game that counted in the standings.

The rest of the league played its games on Thursday. (The Guardians won, the Pirates lost. So, what else is new!)

The beginning of baseball season is one of those times I take great liberties in this space to express my unbridled enthusiasm for the game of baseball and the teams I follow at the risk of downplaying, if not altogether abandoning, the spiritual dimension of my reflections.

I borrowed the title of this post from a book by Gary Graf that makes comparisons between baseball and the Bible. I own two such works, the other being Baseball as a Road to God by John Sexton.

I prefer Sexton’s book because – not to sound snobbish – it has a more intellectual appeal and is more analytical in tone. The author himself is an academic, the past president of New York University, and holds degrees in both law and religion. I also quoted from his book in a post last October. (See: “Thank God for Baseball.”)

Both books, however, revel in baseball history, and are enjoyable reads.

This is the most hopeful time of the year for baseball fans. Every team begins with a clean slate and the same dreams – to win a championship.

But as Sexton points out, quoting writer Gary Talese, “Like religion, the game of baseball is founded on aspirations rarely met. It generates far more failure than fulfillment.” (Sexton, p. 141)

The season is 162 games long, but by the first month of the season, one has a pretty good idea which teams will be vying for a spot in the playoffs come October, and which ones will be making winter vacation plans by July.

As unforgiving as that sounds, the same teams show up spring after spring, hoping that this season will somehow be different.

And we, as blindly loyal fans, faithfully follow of our favorite teams and players, with the same optimistic expectations.

It puts one in the mind of our religious rite of confession, where we habitually ask forgiveness for “what we have done, and what we have left undone.”

In that same ritualistic vein, though we know we are far from perfect, we show up nearly every Sunday at church in hopes of coming out better than when we went in.

There’s a line in Sexton’s book that elegantly defines our fanatical attraction to the game, why communities build ballparks as religion erects cathedrals.

…baseball has the capacity to elevate and transform, it has a power to bring people together in expanding levels of relationship: parent and child, neighbor and friend, community and city, state and the nation. On some majestic days, the many who assemble are one. (Sexton, p. 177)

To quote Annie Savoy, the sexy groupie in the movie Bull Durham, we are moved to “worship at the shrine of baseball.”

One could argue that, in the United States, American football has supplanted baseball in fan supremacy. Yet I maintain that football does not have the same level of participant appeal on a global scale. Nearly one-third of the rosters of Major League Baseball teams are foreign-born, making it the most diverse of the three sports invented in this country (baseball, basketball, and football).

If the recent World Baseball Classic proved anything, it was that this country has done such a tremendous job evangelizing the sport that American players have been victimized by their success. Of the six tournaments staged so far, The U.S. has won only once!

International competition aside, most of those players are now suiting up in one of the uniforms worn by the thirty Major League teams that will compete in 162 games over the course of the next six months to crown a champion at the end of October.

For fans during this time, our minds will be preoccupied with wins and losses, standings and statistics.

For some of us, it might signal a welcome change from poring over scripture passages or coordinating choir anthems. Our prayers may include a petition or two for the end of a slump or extending a winning streak. Morning devotions will be joyfully followed by a litany of video highlights of home runs, stolen bases, strikeouts, fantastic catches.

And with all else that is going on in the world, every morning, from March to October, we can lift our hands in praise and thank God because BASEBALL IS BACK, and not a moment too soon!

Let us pray:
O God, in the course of this busy life, give us times of refreshment and peace; and grant that we may so use our leisure to rebuild our bodies and renew our minds, that our spirits may be opened to the goodness of your creation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
(Book of Common Prayer, p. 825)

---