Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Among the many things I love about being a priest are the varied, diverse and sometimes downright motley places I find myself.

Each summer our parish takes our altar servers out on an outing, to thank them for their service to the church throughout the year.  For the past three years we went to PNC Park and watched a Pirate game, from the safe haven of the “all-you-can-eat” section behind the Clemente wall in right field.  I’m surprised the Pirates management allowed us back, after two of my teen-age servers ate nine hamburgers, three hotdogs, four ice creams and a few cups of soda—before the game began!

Anyway, I wanted to do something different this summer (just when the Pirates are on the verge of achieving respectability), so I suggested we go see a Washington Wild Things minor league baseball game, at their cozy Consol Energy Park next to I-70.  A parishioner arranged for us to get box seats at a reduced rate.  Then he texted me, “I have a gig for you:  throw out the first pitch.”  My first thought was, me???!!!  I wasn’t even a starter in Little League.  My second was, dang, that means I’ll have to wear my clerical clothes to the game.  Then it hit me, I have to prepare my arm for this big pitching moment.

I talked with Jake, a server who loves baseball, and asked him to bring me a glove and baseball to help me warm up.  Monday afternoon saw me throwing pitch-and-catch with Jake in our Madonna Church parking lot.  Wow, it has been a long time since I threw a baseball!  But fear of looking very stupid in front of several hundred strangers can be a great motivator.  So Jake humored me for thirty minutes while I warmed up and gradually got the feel of what it meant to throw a baseball to another human being 60 feet away without bouncing it in the dirt. 

And so tonight, before the national anthem, I was announced to a bored crowd of 700 (and our 12 cheering servers and four adult chaperones), walked out to the mound wearing Jake’s glove, pounded it a few times, and threw a strike to Kevin behind home plate.

Somewhere, I think heaven, my dad, a Little League manager for 18 years, is smiling broadly.  Photos to come.  What strange place will God lead me next?!