(side note… I got half way through the article and stopped…saved the article under the title “baseball sucks” I guess I am not over it yet!)
I can’t wait for Spring! The sadness of the Dodgers crashing out of the playoffs (congratulations Padres fans) is still heavy on my heart but there is next year.

One of the things you learn is things always don’t go the way you think they will. As a baseball fan for over fifty years you learn the ups and downs but most of all you learn the failures happen much more frequently than the successes. This year being a prime example. I can remember in 2001 when the Seattle Mariners won 116 games and failed to make the World Series and how difficult that was to my friends and family who were certain their team was the very best and would surely walk through the playoffs and receive the long cherished ring of a champion. And I remember the 1988 World Champion Dodgers team having won 94 games beat a New York Mets team that had won 100 games and had dominated the Dodgers in the season series and then went on to beat the Oakland Athletic Bash Brothers 104 win team that no one expected them to even touch with a ten foot pole.
Baseball is hard. With a couple weeks left in the regular season on twitter one of the non-official Dodgers sites tweeted out “This game is easy” during one of those moments when a winning streak was in progress and all parts of the game, hitting, pitching and defense were a clicking. I replied to the effect, “This can quickly turn into being bounced out the playoffs in the first round. Don’t anger the baseball gods.” Fifty years of disappointments with five successes (Championships) in my lifetime but only three, 1981, 1988 and 2020 that I can remember a test to this truth .
I remember a former major leaguer in an interview (I can’t remember who at this writing) who said the hardest game you play in the next one. Baseball is unrelenting and you are never know when the next hit or run will come and the attention and focus needed must come day in and day out. Baseball is hard.
I am now at the God part of the talk…thank you for indulging me…see the note above.

Faith is hard. The practice of our faith is hard. Living our faith is hard. I have been a Catholic for 61 years. I have had some great days in the minor leagues of faith learning in the bosom of my family. Watching some masters at work teaching the faith and absorbing the culture of Catholicism in a great and loving parish and community.
And upon reaching the major league of faith…that is leaving home…I went through some terrible slumps where I hung on the vapors of faith leaking out of the remnants of what was given and finally embracing the hard work that faith demands in the last years of college and truly beginning to fall in love with God.
But the funny thing is…I still go through slumps. Some easily identifiable and where the “fix” can be worked on with focus and determination. Others are mysterious and I can seem to be flaying at the plate swinging through each prayer and spiritual exercise not making contact and wondering if I will ever pray again until the day when through perseverance and trust the feeling of solid contact comes naturally and I simply thank God for the gift of blessing. And just as natural is the team, the parish, my brother priests who surround me where those magic moments when we are all pulling in the same direction makes the “game’ of faith seem so easy but always knowing the reality of how it can so easily slip away and faith becomes so very hard again.
And of course…I can feel like the old manager, who at the one hand knows the game of faith so very well, how it is deeply set in his bones, who holds great respect for the depth and beauty of the game of faith, the life of faith, the love of faith who seeks to pass on just one tiny bit to see it grow in another who loves the game.
Baseball is hard…Faith is hard…we will fail, we will go through slumps but God is always with us to pick us up with the clutch hit…
God Bless
Fr. Mark.