Hope Through Baseball | Josh McAlister
Calendar Year 2020: Difficult. Emotional. Confusing. Complex. Reckoning. Hopeful.
It is February of 2021, and with that comes the renewal of Major League Spring Training. Traditionally, Spring Training is a time where we dust off the cold of winter. Baseball signals warm days to come, late nights, hot dogs, cold beer, and outdoor gatherings with friends and family. This spring, we all know we are dusting off more than the change of seasons.
American culture has historically relied on baseball as a reprieve from daily life. During the Depression, Lefty Grove won the MLB Pitching Triple Crown twice. In the height of World War II, America saw Ted Williams win the first Batting Triple Crown. Jackie Robinson gave so many black Americans hope by becoming the first to break the color barrier, and Hammerin’ Hank left his legacy on the game as one of the great power hitters to ever play.
People learned of these feats by sitting on their stoop listening the radio, or collecting the next morning’s newspaper for the box score. Kids in apartments would listen to the likes of Mays, Ruth, Gibson, and DiMaggio in between stick ball innings. Brooklyn, Boston, the Bronx all loved the Dodgers at Ebbets Field, the Sox at Fenway, and the pinstripes of Yankee Stadium.
We reveled in our team’s success and cursed them at their failure. There was no questioning of how long the game took to watch or how long the season took to determine a winner. The daily rhythm of watching your team was more than just a game – it was medicinal to whatever struggle was currently present in your life.
Even within recent memory, the game has been an aid to our nation. We saw the world gather together to watch then United States President George Bush throw the first pitch of Game 3 of the World Series in NY after the traumatic events of 9/11. The Oakland A’s waited 10 days after the Loma Prieta earthquake to complete their World Series sweep of the Giants in 1989. In the wake of the Financial Crisis in 2008, we saw the incredible individual achievements of Francisco Rodriguez setting a single-season record with 62 saves, Manny Ramirez hitting his 500th home run, Ken Griffey Jr. hitting his 600th home run and John Smoltz recording his 3,000th strikeout.
The above bring fond memories for baseball fans. In our profession of finance, the phrase ‘past performance is not indicative of future results’ is commonly uttered.
However, I cannot help but feel a sense of hope for the 2021 Major League Season.
Why the hope? To answer, I would like to describe my own personal baseball story.
My father was many things to me: a mentor, a teacher, and a guide. He is who I rely on for advice when adversity hits and is top of the list to call for celebration. When I think of my father, I can access many positive memories from my childhood. None more prominent than playing a game of catch.
This memory is not a specific moment, but rather a memory of the general game of baseball. As young as I could remember, I would bug him for time with his glove and mine. I was fortunate to have many gloves throughout my childhood, but he always had the same – an old Dale Murphy Rawlings glove that he had since he was a kid. The leather was worn, the strings had been relaced more than a few times, and all padding in the palm had withered away.
We would play catch in front of our house in the street. I was always so excited for that first throw – a feeling that brings tears to my eyes as I write this. I love the game of baseball, and the deep roots of that love reside in the street in front of my house. That time was much more than catch. Much of my growth happened there with my dad. Catch was the medium in which he taught, and I learned. Four things I learned that I believe are so massively important for all in 2021:
Self Esteem – Another kid told me I was no good at baseball when I was 10 because I did not make the all-star little league team. My father told me it was only my thoughts that mattered.
Time Matters – Countless hours spent playing catch. He never said no when I asked, maybe a ‘later,’ but never no.
Power of Belief – My father truly believed in me. His belief in me made me believe in myself.
Empathy – Above all, people truly matter. My father met me where I was emotionally, usually through a game of catch.
How does this translate to hope for 2021? Many would argue the baseball today is not the baseball of yesteryears. Few listen to the radio anymore, traditionalists scoff at bat flips to uphold unwritten rules, and baseball is now somewhat of a distant 3rd behind the NFL and NBA. More than any other sport, analytics seem to have replaced the human element of the game. Managers take direction from the front office, players are valued based on stats that resemble the sound of launch code, and during 2020, players and owners squabbled over pay in the midst of a global pandemic. Again I ask the question – why the hope?
The Coronavirus, Black Lives Matter, and the U.S. presidential election of 2020 reminded us that the human life is to be valued over all else. We were quarantined in our homes away from our loved ones, reminding us why human connection means so much. Major League Baseball is a business, and I believe that people are going to spend their dollars differently in 2021. They will spend their resources on experiences that give them that craved human connection, and the MLB has to respond in kind.
We do not need to go back to what it once was, but we do need to marry the benefits of today with wisdom that existed in the past. I feel we will experience moments in baseball that are as improbable as Luis Gonzales’ jammed hit off Mariano Rivera. We will witness heroism of the likes of Kirk Gibson’s bum knee dinger in Game 5. Rivalries of the Yanks and Sox will be renewed, we will stand in awe of Wrigley and Fenway, and someone may challenge a long-standing record.
In short, we will experience baseball in a way that we have not in many years simply because we need it. We will consume the game through a lens of human connection because we crave that feeling. We will desire to feel like a kid, simply desiring to have just one more game of catch with dad.
