It was a Saturday afternoon in a regular season game with little on the line. A young boy stepped into the batter’s box and up to the plate with a few runners on base. He quickly found himself in a hole: 1 ball, 2 strikes. And over the next several pitches, something remarkable happened. A ball, then a foul ball. Another ball, then another foul ball. Another foul ball. And then a ball. The boy tossed his bat toward the dugout, took his base, and I, as third base coach, gave a clap and yell of encouragement. All of it quite standard. But internally, I was thrilled and kept my “LFG!” to myself.
What’s so remarkable, you might ask? Why the celebration and joy? It wasn’t a big hit. No runs scored. The ball never even left the field, and in fact, in the statistics, the “at-bat” is not even really recorded. It was, simply, a walk. If you had glanced away from your seat in the bleachers, you might have missed it entirely. But for those who had been watching — not just that at-bat, but all season — this was actually one of the richest moments of the year. You just had to be paying attention. And this has me thinking about how much of life, ministry, and the kingdom of God is premised upon learning to notice.
Oftentimes, the most meaningful growth is invisible unless someone is paying attention. And so much of coaching is just that. The best coaching begins with and is sustained by attention to the smallest of things:
How a kid sets their feet
How they’re holding the bat
If they’re keeping their eyes open and on the ball
Their posture and confidence in the box
The kingdom of God grows in increments small enough to miss. Jesus said as much, speaking of the kingdom through analogies like a small mustard seed, like hidden yeast growing within the dough. In a culture that feeds off all things viral and efficient, we are often formed to want and long for the spectacular, and yet, the kinds of things Jesus foregrounded — as ways of seeing and inhabiting the kingdom — are small, hidden, quiet, and slow. The most substantive work is learning to recognize the small things.
That particular, seemingly insignificant at-bat reminded me that growth rarely looks the way we imagine it will. When it comes to coaching, as well as the kingdom, there is often a great contrast or even chasm between expectation and reality. We expect growth and accomplishment to look like dramatic transformations, home runs, easy material for the highlight reel. Yet, in reality, what growth actually entails and involves is much less glamorous and far more hidden and humbling. Going back to hitting off a tee when something is off with your swing. Continuing to practice and work through the pitches you just can’t seem to hit. Facing your fears by getting back in the box after you get hit. And eventually, fouling off pitches you used to miss, and drawing a walk in an at-bat that used to end as a strike out. When we begin to see growth in this way, it changes how we respond.
This way of seeing and being in the world ultimately changes how and what we celebrate. Little League baseball assumes this. So often, as coaches, we are helping our (often very distracted team) pay attention in the dugout, encouraging them to learn dugout chants, to cheer on their teammate, to celebrate even the smallest incremental “win.” Over time, I’ve come to see that nine-year-olds are quite good at celebrating the right things as they learn how the game works.
In a similar way, there is a unique, countercultural way of celebrating that is intended to animate the life of the church, that is grounded in the kingdom of God. So much of the beauty that animates a parish requires a particular kind of noticing. Witnessing the quiet faithfulness, hearing the vulnerable questions, seeing the small steps of repentance, the ways people are bearing one another’s burdens, opening themselves up to God’s grace in prayer, sacrament, and more.
There’s an assumed inverted calculus to the kingdom of God, as Jesus notes, “There is more joy over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous.”
Most of us, left to ourselves, can’t see the forest for the trees. Can’t see or celebrate the incremental — yet glorious — work God is doing in and around us. It’s no surprise that MLB players are almost always on a tablet after their at-bats, paying scrupulous attention to what just happened, comparing it with the other trends they’ve learned to see in themselves. But in our lives, we don’t really get that kind of opportunity. Life moves too fast, and there’s not a multi-angle recording and organized database of all of our at-bats. If anything, there’s a flawed internal recall that swings on a vicious pendulum between “total success” and “abject failure,” between self-deception and self-damnation, as we navigate the ups and downs of each day.
We’re made to pilgrimage this “long obedience in the same direction” surrounded by fellow travelers who have the critical distance to notice and celebrate that which we cannot ourselves see that clearly. Transformation always involves others. And baseball, like the kingdom of God, is the kind of venue that invites a more realist account of what this journey of growth entails. It assumes that “doing well” looks more like batting above the Mendoza Line. It assumes that failure is in fact the expectation on average, that some days you just don’t have it, that slumps will come, and that’s okay because it’s a long season. It assumes that sometimes you actually get out on purpose so that someone else can move forward. I could go on, but perhaps that’s another article.
So, on that warm Saturday afternoon, a nine-year-old boy jogged to first base. His parents and teammates cheered. He stood on the base, standing tall and smiling. In the box score, it was simply recorded as “BB.” But for those who had been watching and walking alongside him, it was one of the highlights of the season.
The longer I coach baseball and pastor people, the more convinced I become that what constitutes “the highlight reel” of one’s life will actually be filled primarily with hidden and humbling moments, instances that most people would simply regard as insignificant or too small to merit notice. Yet, coaching baseball continues to teach me that the most important work of love is simply this: learning to notice, learning to name growth (which always begins by recognizing and owning failures and weaknesses), and learning to celebrate the small things. The most beautiful at-bat of the year might just be a walk; and the kingdom of God might be advancing one foul ball at a time.
FANTASTIC as usual, Robert. Thank you.