I've worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahman, Vishnu, Shiva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. . . I've tried them all, I really have. But the only Church that feeds the soul day in and day out is the Church of Baseball.
Baseball can be a wonderfully entertaining, enjoyable, and exhilarating experience.
Here in Boston it is also often a frustrating pastime. While it is fun to support and cheer on a hometown team, especially during a winning season such as the current one, our faith ultimately cannot be in Wakefield's knuckleball, Vaughn's homeruns, the Red Sox roster, Duquette's deals, or a magic number. To make baseball the center of one's existence is to hew out a cistern that does not hold the living waters our souls seek. Sometimes we place our faith in mood-altering substances of behaviors, rather than the true and living God. In a recent Parade Magazine interview, Johnny Cash recalls that despite his faith in God at an early age, he because addicted to amphetamines, tranquilizers, and alcohol in part to numb painful feelings related to his childhood and to cope with the pressures related to his success as a country western singer.