Baseball really is a metaphor for life

Bob Sloan Editor

confetti falls, the Lombardi Trophy is presented, and the NFL season officially comes to an end. Now we can now get on to far more important things . . . like baseball!

Yes, that’s right, baseball - America’s true pas- time. Don’t believe me? Well, just ask Terrance Mann, played by James Earl Jones in the classic movie Field of Dreams: “The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game — it’s a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.”

I get goose bumps every time I read those words, especially when spring is right around the corner and the pop of the mitt and the crack of the bat are just a few weeks away. While the Chiefs and Eagles lined up against one another at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Az. on Sunday afternoon, my mind was really about 44 miles to the west in Mesa where at Sloan Park they are getting everything ready for the arrival of the Chicago Cubs. Today and tomorrow are the first days pitchers and catchers can report to Spring Training – the Cactus League in Arizona and the Grapefruit League in south Florida. Opening Day is - thank you, Lord - on March 30, just six short weeks away. The Boys of Summer are back, folks, and I for one can’t wait for the season to begin.

In so many ways, the game of baseball is a metaphor for life. Whether you’ve played (or still play) baseball, watch it as a fan, or even if you don’t particularly like it, understand it, care about it, or think it’s boring (which I know some people do), the game of baseball can teach us so many important things about life.

Here is a collection of valuable life lessons we can learn from baseball:

• Baseball has no clock. Neither does life, in the grand scheme of things. There is no time limit or “sudden death” overtime. You know there is an end to the game, but never exactly when… just like life.

• In life, like baseball, what happens at the beginning might have no relevance at the end. Baseball season is 162 games. Mangers often remind their players that the season is a marathon, not a sprint. There will be winning streaks and there will be losing streaks. It’s not about where you start, but where you finish. And remember, as Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra once said, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”

• Life, like baseball, is not easy and failure is a big part of the game. Even the best achievers fail–a lot. Hitting a baseball is hard. The best hitters are the ones who hit for a .300 average, which means they succeed at their goal only three out of every 10 times. These players know that in order to be the best at what they do, they will have to be prepared to failbut they don’t get discour- aged. Just like in life, they are willing to take a swing at whatever opportunity comes their way, knowing that, when they do succeed, that’s all people will remember.

• Life, like baseball, is a team sport with people of multiple specialties coming together. What they all do together is figure out what their roles are, how to do their roles well, and how to support each other in their roles.

• In life, like baseball, we are sometimes asked to make sacrifices for the good of the team.

• In life, like baseball, fundamentals are everything.

The metaphors between baseball and life are endless. It’s just one of the many things that make the game so special. I have a favorite movie clip that I post on social media this time every year. It’s from the Disney film, “The Rookie.” The movie tells the true story of Jim Morris, who goes from being an aging Texas High School baseball coach to relief pitcher with the Tampa Bay Rays.

At one point in the film, Morris steals up from behind his teammate Brooks in the clubhouse. With an ear-to-ear grin plastered on his face, he rhetorically asks, “You know what we get to do today, Brooks? We get to play baseball!”

That moment encapsulates the joy I feel when I think about the game I love so much.

Today, we get to play baseball.

Contact Editor Bob Sloan at editor@florence newsjournal.com.