Triumph and Disaster are Imposters (Bot9 #352)
I was browsing Twitter on Friday morning when I came across a post that included video from the image above. If you don’t follow Rob Friedman, aka Pitching Ninja (@PitchingNinja), you owe it to yourself to begin now. Seriously, if you’re a baseball fan and love seeing pitches that defy physics, stop reading for a minute, follow him, and come back.
Okay, now that you’re back, the pitch above was thrown by Kevin Kelly of the Tampa Bay Rays. It traveled 76mph, a classic backdoor sweeping breaking ball that broke 23 inches horizontally. Yes, in the span of just 60 feet and 6 inches, that pitch broke two feet from left to right from the vantage point of Reese McGuire of the Boston Red Sox. McGuire argues the call, but I’m guessing he reviewed the video at the end of the game and could only say to himself, “Oh.”
Kelly has one of the Rays’ 13 wins. His team is off to a blistering 13-2 start, the best record in the major leagues (as of writing this Saturday afternoon). On the flip side of the success by the Rays, the Oakland Athletics are 3-11, worst in the big leagues. One of the facts most seriously overlooked in baseball and all sports is that 50% of teams lose every day there is competition. The Rays and A’s have records that almost mirror one another in terms of current success and failure. How should we react when we’re on a roll like the Rays or in a rut like the A’s?
Above the players' entrance of the Centre Court at Wimbledon is an inscription that reads: "If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two imposters just the same". Those two lines come from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” and provide us with a potentially helpful thought. Kipling attempts to help us think of two things, triumph and disaster, quite differently than we likely do. Triumph is what we are pursuing, disaster is what we are avoiding. He’s illuminating the truth that winning might make us think for more of ourselves than we should, and losing far less than we ought to. For many, their very identity is wrapped up in how the perform in the arena. Those walking on Centre Court at Wimbledon are encouraged to just be and not allow the result of the day to overwhelm them.
In many ways I feel like we’ve overblown this whole “baseball is a game based in failure” thing without recognizing that it’s actually not all that unique. Recent documentaries from the sports of golf and tennis have really helped viewers see the absolutely brutal stretches competition and emptiness which can ensue. Enter The Masters and only 1 in roughly 100 golfers walks away the winner. At Wimbledon, you have a 1 in 128 chance of walking away as the champion. Many of these competitors don’t make the cut or lose early in the tournament empty-handed. It’s given me a little more grace to those golfers joining the LIV Tour, which pays the golfers for their participation along with the opportunity to earn more based on performance.
But either the brutality of failing and earning nothing or the immediate gratification of financial gain for participation misses the point. We should be looking and seeking to be grateful in all outcomes and worship the Lord, Jesus Christ, in all situations. We have slipped into falsely believing that winning or success will complete us and failure may destroy us. The only one who can do either is the One who created us. The goodness of this pursuit and the love of simple or deeply competitive play has been lost on us. Every scenario, whether a recreational beer league softball game or the World Series, is simply an opportunity to worship with the gifts we’ve been given. The imposters of triumph and disaster are only different roads to the same end - worship in the win and in the loss. Stop the “you only win or you learn” nonsense and call them what they are - wins and losses. Let’s worship either way.
So what could the Kelly vs. McGuire clip look like in worship? McGuire reacting in astounding joy at the pitch he’s seen Kelly throw. He turns to the umpire and asks, “Did I really just see that? Did it really cross the plate???” Tip your cap and come to play the next inning. Reject the imposters and accept the joy of the moment you’ve been given. Chances are Kevin Kelly has another physics-defying pitch in his arsenal for you to try to hit the next at bat as well. Embrace each opportunity to worship while we have the chance to play.