World Wanting Peace

Renting Space in My Head

From the time I was 9 years old, and picked up a baseball, I was a pitcher.

During my youth, I turned into a tall skinny, side-arm hurler. I could come off the mound with a side arm fastball that started behind a right-hand batter and crossed the outside corner of the plate, leaving him dumbfounded. And it naturally handcuffed a left-handed batter when it worked. When it didn't, somebody got hurt! I could throw hard. During my 15-year old season, I figured out how to throw a side-arm screwball that came wide across the plate and then spun back inside. It was impossible to hit. Or duck! It was the kind of pitch that chased a batter back to the dugout.

At 16, I thought my future was secure. And obvious. I'd be pitching for the Cardinals (my favorite baseball team) or the Reds -- the team closest to me in central Indiana. Pro ball was a given in my mind.

So when my high school coach cut me from the team in my senior year, I was devastated, demoralized and depressed. My self-esteem was always a little shaky, but this was personal. After all, I was leading the Babe Ruth League in the same season at the time in both hitting and pitching.

And, surely I had an "in" with him since his farm backed up to our property. I even drove him to school many mornings. So, when he cut me from the team, I assumed I deserved it. I wasn't good enough. My dreams became just dreams, no longer my reality. My dream of professional baseball wasn't the only thing shattered, but all my dreams. I was busted to zero. This was my first big depression and it had been brewing for years.

"If you hug to yourself any resentment against anybody else, you destroy the bridge by which God would come to you." -- Peter Marshall (1902-1949) chaplain to US Senate

The only recourse obvious to me was to hate the Coach. For nearly 30 years, I practiced that much harder than I ever practice baseball fundamentals, totally devoting myself to the cause. Whenever I talked with anyone about seminal events in my life, the Coach came up.

"He ruined my life. If it weren't for him, my life would have been totally different." A friend said, "Why are you letting him rent space in your head for nothing." Coach occupied a prominent spot there for 30 years.

I told everyone, he's the only person I hate. All my hate was stored up in this one man. He was the repository of all my resentment. And I thought that because I only hated one person, I was still basically a good person. But the only person drinking that poison was me.

I didn't see the Coach again after high school, so his face never changed, nor did my strong dislike for him. He became more and more evil to me. I'd been wronged, and was not willing to forgive.

He never knew it. Had no clue.

About 7 years ago, when in casual conversation, I mentioned how much I hated the Coach to my parents, my dad said, "I know why he cut you. He was mad at me because I charged him $50 to graze his cattle in our field for the first time in 10 years. So, he cut you from the team."

What!!! This wasn't about me at all! What a relief!

In that instance, I realized how sick that was. I felt so much better that my potential baseball career had been cut short because he was mad at my dad. I was all wrong. It wasn't personal toward me. I was an innocent, like a bystander shot in a drive-by. Still dead, but not at fault.

Then it hit me just how ridiculous it is to harbor a resentment against anyone. Especially when the other person doesn't even know about it. I was only harming me by giving him the space in my head. How could I ever forgive myself or anyone else for any thing if I held on to this one resentment. Obviously, to change, to achieve any inner peace, I couldn't continue to give him that space.

Thirty years to learn the one of the most important lessons of life. Could have been worse, I guess.

*Tomorrow, I'll write about the Four Forbiddens!

See the Ball

I loved baseball.

When I was 9, I began playing organized ball in the Minor Leagues. That was the prep league to Little League, which was for 10- to 12-year olds. Then came Babe Ruth League from 13- to 15-years old. High school ball started when I was a sophomore and until I was 17. And, finally, that was followed by American Legion baseball, which I gave up at 19 to join the Air Force.

My memories of baseball always flood back this time of year: The hot Indiana sun roasting us as we kick up the dust picking up grounders or chasing fly balls. All summer long, it was the same routine, day-in, day-out. There was nothing like the feeling of snagging a hard-hit high-hopper, twisting and turning as your mind gauged the distance between you and the batter, and calculating automatically just when and how quickly to release the ball to throw him out at first base. That was fun!

But picking up the bat and staring down the pitcher -- that's when my mind soared. I couldn't be stopped when I could see the ball from the moment the pitcher released it. I could follow it all the way in as it increased in size until it looked like a basketball and I couldn't miss. But seeing the ball is a state of mind, not a physical phenomenon. Ask any sports psychologist.

That state never existed for me in the first year of any league. As a 10 year-old, I cried after every game because I wasn't big enough, good enough or fast enough to play. No matter how hard I practiced, I warmed the bench. Slowly, through my 11 year-old year, I improved and grew naturally. When I was 12, I experienced seeing the ball. I became a star, hitting home runs, stealing bases all the way around, and learning to intimidate the batters from the mound. I knew something had happened, but I wasn't sure what. I was focused and, to get a little zen on you, one with the ball.

Then I moved to the Babe Ruth league, where I became again, no one with the ball. I was the smallest and youngest bench-warmer for a year. The same routine happened: Over the next two years, I improved and became a star leading the league from the mound and the bat with best pitching stats and most doubles and singles in the league. The ball was back -- it was part of me again.

Then I moved to the high school playing field -- you get my drift, right?

Baseball is a great metaphor for life. That's why there are so many movies about baseball. But for me the baseball ideal is clear: Practice, grow, and improve until you see the ball. It happens. That state of mind sneaks up on you, but only when you've invited and prepared for it.

I have to remember that just because I haven't achieved that special state of mind in the beginning of an endeavor doesn't mean that I won't by the end. The early days of any project are the toughest, whether it's building Peace at home, in your heart, or on the ball field.

Today, try to see the ball.

*Tomorrow, another baseball story about the coach -- the only person I've hated for so many years, and why that was a mistake.