"Oh the Losses I've Seen. Glory Hallelujah": The Spiritual Significance of the World Series

Nobody knows the trouble I've seen

Nobody knows my sorrow

Nobody knows the trouble I've seen

Glory, Hallelujah

Sometimes I'm up, sometimes

I'm down, oh yes, Lord

Sometimes I'm almost

To the ground, oh yes, Lord

The old Negro spiritual describes a horrific kind of suffering, but in the process it also manages to define the human condition itself, both in its sorrow and its redemption. The spirituals sing of life in its lowest moments, in its deepest despair, but within the same verses embody faith ("Glory, Hallelujah") and hope ("oh yes, Lord"). These powerful lyrics have been sung around the world, applied to all manner of trouble and all forms of salvation.

I certainly wouldn't want to equate baseball to the conditions that birthed the spirituals, but it does offer an analogy that helps explain what is going on today, especially in Kansas City, but many other places as well. Last night, as the clock ticked past midnight on the east coast, a band of lads in blue erased three decades of baseball futility, bringing a World Championship to Kansas City for the first time since 1985. A significant number of those players were not even born when the pain began.

I'll be quick to acknowledge that sports is an imperfect metaphor for ruminations about life, marked as it is with greed, cheating, mistaken priorities, and moral ambiguity. But since life suffers similar shortcomings in virtually all its expressions, we can probably let it serve without undue apology.

I am a lifelong fan of the grand game of baseball. I truly believe that the kind of game it is, the multitude of human stories that are played out in every contest, and its respect for its own heritage and tradition, infuse it with meanings beyond itself. Some say "baseball imitates life." Others go further, claiming that "baseball is life"--a tad pretentious, perhaps, but I respect the sentiment. At the very least, the game offers parallels to life that are useful and worth pondering. I think that is evident on the streets and airwaves of Kansas City today. What happened isn't just silly playfulness. It is about people allowing a game to speak to the hole in their souls.

Today there are scores of writers and pundits pounding out elegant descriptions of the World Series and its meanings. The game lends itself to literary endeavors; there are dozens of anthologies that collect thoughtful prose about America's Pasttime. It's just that kind of game.

A year ago I wrote several pieces about that enchanted season that foreshadowed last night's triumph. The 2014 Wild Card Game, still the greatest game I've ever seen and arguably the best ever played, prompted some musings about "baseball and the soul." And the excruciating loss in the seventh game of the World Series led me to a "joyful lament" about what had been gained and what had been lost. I was clearly captured by the quixotic journey out of the wilderness. It had provided a salve to year after year of 100-loss-seasons, embarrassing video lowlights that reminded one of the Katzenjammer Kids, and where baseball's classic promise to "wait till next year" became a cruel hoax. Such angst triggered reflection, hence the blog posts.

I was a little surprised therefore to discover that during this historic season of winning--seven straight victories out of the box, sole possession of first place in the division for virtually the entire season, and the best record in the American League--I had hardly written anything about baseball, and then only tangentially. It's as if defeat was worthy of attention, but I had nothing much to say about winning.

My initial thought of a title for this post was "When Losers Win." But somehow it felt kind of like a junior high kid in a schoolyard spat calling another kid "Loser!" It didn't capture the intent.

But the truth is that this baseball season, with its Houdini-like escapes, its personal drama (three Royals players lost parents in the last few months), and its embodiment of what national commentators came to call Royals-style baseball, has been about losers becoming winners. In doing so, legions of fans, many of them newly-minted fans, have sensed something personal--that amidst disappointment comes hope, within despair there is nested joy, and "the trouble I've seen" is not my trouble alone.

Eric Hosmer dives headlong to score the tying run in the ninth
inning of Game 5 of the 2015 World Series, an improbable dash
 that led to the first KC Royals World Championship in 30 years.

Last night with one out in the ninth, a loss was imminent. The opposing pitcher had dazzled the boys of virtue and truth throughout the entire game. The crowd was roaring, mocking, waving flags, urging the scoundrels on.

Then came the convergence of every moment into one moment.

A kid who was born to play baseball stood at third base, down by one run, remembering in a nanosecond everything his dad, his coaches, his baseball heroes, had ever told him, buoyed by scouting reports about the range of the shortstop and the arm strength of the first baseman, aware not consciously but instinctually of the speed of his feet and the length of his stride.

A slow ground ball on the infield was handled routinely. The defender checked him, looked him back to third, then threw to first. The kid’s body coiled, his instincts prickling, his timing impeccable. He broke down the line at warp speed, launching his body headfirst toward the plate, his arm stretching, stretching, the ball threatening to beat him there. And failing.

And then his hand found home. The game was tied, and soon to be won. The dugout erupted as he lay face down on the ground.

I'm down, oh yes, Lord
Sometimes I'm almost
To the ground, oh yes, Lord

And then Eric Hosmer was up again. Human again. A winner again. For the first time again.

And so are we.

Glory, Hallelujah!

Redemption Cometh - Baseball and the Soul

The Sports Page of the Kansas City Star says it all in one word following the Royals stunning victory
over the Oakland A's in the AL Wild Card Game of Major League Baseball's 2014 Post Season
(Photo by John Sleezer, The Kansas City Star)

In the end, the cast of characters was as improbable as the game--a booming triple off the top of the wall by a season-long underachieving first baseman, a high bouncer in front of the plate by a rookie infielder with a broken finger, and then a screaming line drive down the third base line by a much-coveted young catcher, but one mired in a horrible 0 for 5 in the game, sometimes swinging haplessly at pitches, looking completely lost. But this ball smacked against the wall and ended a four hour and 45 minute classic, propelling the Kansas City Royals past the Oakland A's 9-8, and extending to another day their first post-season tournament appearance in 29 years.

The catcher: Salvador Perez. The headline: Salvation.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound. Once was lost, but now is found.

There must be some reason why baseball attracts some of the best writing in all of sport. Names like Red Smith, Roger Kahn, Ring Lardner, Jimmy Breslin, Roger Angell (the best of all), and W. P. Kinsella have for decades graced newspapers, magazines, and anthologies with poetry masquerading as baseball stories. Unlikely contributors like the biologist Stephen Jay Gould, the political columnist George Will, and the novelist John Updike have all written signature books or essays demonstrating that this is more than just a game. 

The titles of some of the most notable baseball books point to a reality beyond the stadium: 

Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville: A Lifelong Passion for Baseball

The Boys of October: How the 1975 Boston Red Sox Embodied Baseball's Ideals -- and Restored Our Spirits
The Faith of 50 Million: Baseball, Religion, and American Culture

Mickey Mantle: America's Prodigal Son 

Baseball: A Literary Anthology
Baseball as a Road to God: Seeing Beyond the Game

The Duke of Havana: Baseball, Cuba, and the Search for the American Dream
Memories of Summer: When Baseball Was an Art and Writing About It a Game

There is something about this game of baseball that transcends bats and balls and gloves. It has something to do with a dad tossing a baseball to his son--and thankfully these days to his daughter as well--but that isn't all of it either. It is about the rise and fall of heroes--"There is no joy in Mudville, Mighty Casey has struck out." It is about moments frozen in time--Bobby Thompson's home run, Willy Mays basket catch with his back to the infield, Jackie Robinson's first step onto a Major League baseball field after which everything is different.

It is about historic team rivalries and nail-biting match-ups between Cy Young Award pitchers and MVP hitters--two men all alone it would seem as a blazing orb collides with a pine bat, launching it to God knows where--the extended leather hand of a diving shortstop, or that sweet spot between the racing outfielder and the unmovable wall, or perhaps beyond the wall, into the seats where suddenly everyone becomes an outfielder, $10 beers splashing into the wind, popcorn tubs converted to mitts, and hopefully a ball ending up in the hands of a kid, now a baseball fan forever.

Transcendent themes weave through every game--hope and dreams, failure and loss, tragedy and comedy. It is about odds that are overcome and statistics that lie, surgeries and rehabs, youthful exuberance and veteran wisdom. It is about blown calls and managerial missteps, rules and reviews, hirings and firings. It is about patience and waiting for your chance, one that may never come.

In other words, baseball is about "life writ large."

Cardinal fans have never forgotten "The Call" in Game Six of the 1985 World Series
while Royals fans patiently remind them of the 11-0 thumping delivered in Game Seven.

I was there in 1985. It was Game One of the World Series between the Kansas City Royals and the St. Louis Cardinals--the I-70 Series they called it, after the freeway connecting the two Missouri baseball franchises on opposite sides of the state. We lost the game, but there was magic crackling in Royals Stadium that day. Six games later the Royals scrapped their way back, winning Game Seven after a blown call of epic proportions effectively snatched Game Six from the Cardinals' grasp. They never got back on their feet and the Royals cleaned up in a runaway.

In the 29 years since that jubilant final out the Kansas City Royals have never sniffed a playoff game, the longest playoff drought of any major sport in North America. Not even a sniff!

That is why the response to a play-off clinch on Saturday night triggered the expected celebration. It was loud and reckless, champagne bottles spraying their eye-stinging contents into a surreal, Star Wars-like locker room with players donning goggles and slickers to protect their eyes and skin from the burning liquids. If it seemed a little kissy-sissy--can you imagine Mickey Mantle with goggles and raincoat in a playoff celebration at Yankee Stadium? But it did not blunt the sheer sporting achievement of this historic win. It was a grand day in Kansas City.

But then came Tuesday night and the wildest of wild cards, the most unbelievable of scripts, and the most unfathomable of outcomes. Tuesday night became... well, it became downright theological.

The wonderful "Salvation" headline was much more than a clever spin on the name of a redeemed player. It was about this city, this team, these individuals. And if the cable sports channels, the radio talk shows, and the social media have it right, it would seem to be a time of redemption for us all.

I've got an M.Div. and I can only imagine my seminary professors snorting and snarling upon hearing the subject of many thousands of treatises being likened to a baseball game.

Well, maybe not Dr. Tex Sample. I thought of him while fingering some books and pondering the meaning of this baseball season, and darned if I didn't stumble across a piece by Sample, one of my favorites, now Professor Emeritus of Church and Society at St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri. His essay, "Baseball: A Spiritual Reminiscence," is collected in a wonderful book, The Faith of  50 Million: Baseball, Religion, and American Culture. Sample, an accomplished athlete and one-time semi-pro baseball player, writes movingly of a spinal condition that prevented him from playing football and redirected those talents to a baseball field. There he experienced the range of human emotions, likening a time when he walked the bases full to "being gutted," (p. 208) or describing his inability to play at the level he thought possible as a "failure of being, a failure to be a man" (p. 209). His reminiscence is often more tortured than redemptive. He recognizes that one can take it too far:

Yet baseball is not war; it is not a struggle over dignity; it is not the ultimate stage on which the reason for life is lived out...Turning baseball into a life-and-death struggle destroys it as a game, and it is the love of the game that makes it so right. (page 213)

Undoubtedly so, but the mere fact that Sample chose the game of baseball as a metaphor for his life journey clearly illustrates its power to define and describe one's very soul.

The fine writers listed above, and many others, have written about baseball as cultural history, social transformation, religious fervor, and literary achievement. Though an unrelenting fan throughout these insufferable 29 seasons, I might be a bit jaded about all of that had I not been listening to the voices in Kansas City this week. Women calling in to the radio shows and weeping in gratitude that the long ordeal is over. Hard-bitten sportscasters, choking up as they reached for words to describe the moment, and failing. Kids out in their driveways throwing the ball against the wall, imagining themselves in the bottom of the 12th at "the K" ripping that line drive just inches past the outstretched hand of the diving third basemen.

Silly or not, people got out of bed on Wednesday morning and life was different. If Kansas City's version of the Boys of Summer could pull off that most unlikely of achievements, how bad can my problems be? There is joy and hope in Royals Land and now we will see where it takes us. But no matter where it goes nothing can take back what has been done this week. It is here for the ages.

There is just one little troublesome thought burrowed into a corner of my mind, one that I can't seem to shake, one that keeps nudging itself into these theological ruminations.

Tonight is Game One of the American League Division Series. The Royals are in Anaheim and ready for the first pitch about 8pm CST.

Their opponent:  The Angels.

Damn!