Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

• 2 Corinthians 12:6-10

This is what the Lord says:
“For three sins of Judah,
    even for four, I will not relent.
Because they have rejected the law of the Lord
    and have not kept his decrees,
because they have been led astray by false gods,
    the gods their ancestors followed,
I will send fire on Judah
    that will consume the fortresses of Jerusalem.”

• Amos 2:4-5

“Hear this and testify against the descendants of Jacob,” declares the Lord, the Lord God Almighty.
“On the day I punish Israel for her sins,
    I will destroy the altars of Bethel;
the horns of the altar will be cut off
    and fall to the ground.
I will tear down the winter house
    along with the summer house;
the houses adorned with ivory will be destroyed
    and the mansions will be demolished,”
declares the Lord.

• Amos 3:13-15

The Scriptures have nothing to do with baseball.  It would be millennia before Abner Doubleday would be born.  Okay, nearly two millennia for the Corinthians Scripture and close to three millennia for Amos.

No, I would like to start by saying a belated congratulations to the Texas Rangers for their World Series victory.

But, in seeing Alex Rodriguez (A-Rod) in the Texas ballpark, Globe Life Field, it brought back memories.  I was in a southern suburb of Dallas, setting up demonstration equipment for a steel heating furnace course the next day.  Our company had built a new furnace for the steel mill.  My assistant instructor flew into DFW (Dallas, Fort Worth airport) and when he arrived to help, he was in a hurry and a bit agitated.  I insisted that we get everything hooked up and make sure it worked before we left, but he said we had to do so in a hurry.  I had no clue why.  He said, “We are going to the Ballfield in Arlington (as I think it was called then) to watch a baseball game.”  I had no idea who was on either team, but he reminded me that Alex Rodriguez had joined the team through free agency from the Seattle Mariners.

We got everything done in record time, but we only made it to the ballpark by the second or third inning.  Our luck – Alex Rodriguez had the night off.  But we saw Mark Teixeira hit more than one homerun.  Although both A-Rod and Teixeira joined the Yankees and both are now retired, we had no clue who Teixeira was at the time.  My friend hated the ballfield in Arlington and praised the new baseball field in Pittsburgh where there were no bad seats (obscured vision of the game due to structural columns), but since there were few people at the game, we never got to our true seats, opting for the best empty seats with a good view.  We had a good time and my workmate purchased the first stadium marked baseball, vowing to visit every major league park and complete his collection.  He is now very busy with his own business.  I do not know if he finished his quest, but I was there for the first baseball in the collection.  Note: I think he had a souvenir ball from the Toledo Mudhens, but they are minor leagues.

Earlier this month, as I watched the retired A-Rod, now an analyst, talking about the game, I remembered that at that same venue, I did not see him play.  But then again, when we lived in the Golden Triangle of Texas, my wife and I went to two different Houston Astros games when the Cincinnati Reds were in town, The Big Red Machine.  I had been a Johnny Bench fan since he was a rookie, more partial to the Reds than the Pirates (fearing saying that since I live in the Pittsburgh area and have for nearly thirty years, and I like the Pirates these days).  But in the two games that I attended with the Reds playing, I never saw the stars play, except for Tony Perez one night.  Okay, Joe Morgan was at second base both times, and maybe Ken Griffey (Sr.) one of those times.  Bench had a rest day, Pete Rose, Concepcion, and the other star outfielders.  The Astros were not a good team and the Reds thought they could win with their second-stringers.  They lost one of the two games.

I even went back to the Astrodome to have my boys experience a game when we lived a few hours away from Atlanta, GA.  The Braves were playing the Astros, and Gant was the only member of the batting order that I even recognized.  Again, rest the good players.

Four baseball games, and I missed seeing the stars every time.

But God got irritated with Judah and Israel for worshiping false gods.  In a way, we idolize our sports stars, just driving a 200 mile round trip to see someone not play could be a form of worshiping an idol.  And when you drive that far, pay a lot for the tickets for yourself and others that are with you, you want to see the best that the teams can offer.  But hockey calls it the “healthy scratch,” giving a star a night off because he is tired.  They probably have a similar name in baseball.

But the Apostle Paul went out of his way to tell the Corinthians that he was not a type of person to be idolized.  All the focus should be on Jesus, not him.  In fact, he was so insignificant that God would not remove a thorn in the flesh, letting Paul keep that thorn in the flesh to humble him.

I have my issues.  I have my pains.  I am not a perfect man, and I fall far short of the example that Paul portrayed, even deflecting the praise.

I could think that I was some sort of jinx, with the stars only taking the night off when I had bought a ticket, but if I had seen them all play, I might brag about that.  Even more so if I had their autographs.  I have no autographs, no signed baseballs, and the few photographs inside the Astrodome are probably lost in all the moves.

But Jesus takes no nights off.  He does not tire in loving us.  He is there all the time, whenever He is needed.  He listens to our prayers, and you may not know this, but his autograph is written on our hearts.

He is the only One worthy of our worship.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.