Money Ball and Regrets

"It's easy to be romantic about baseball." from the movie Moneyball.

"Baseball was, is, and always will be to me the best game in the world." Babe Ruth

So I watched the movie Moneyball last night. Great movie. There are few baseball movies that I don't like. Field of Dreams is my #2 all time favorite movie. It was #1 for a long time but was knocked off by a non-baseball flick. Hard to believe but it's true.

There is something about the game of baseball that resonates with my soul. The sights, sounds, smells, strategy....all of it.

In my work I often ask people about regrets they may have as a way for them to acknowledge them, talk about them, and possibly heal from them. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't. Asking all these questions of others forces me to ask them of myself from time to time.

If there is one thing I regret (trust me, there are a lot more than one) it is that I never pursued playing baseball after high school. Why? I've come up with a list of excuses over the years - I was in a "relationship" and didn't want to go anywhere far away (lame I know); An injury during summer ball after my senior year (true but ever heard of rehab?); I just wasn't good enough (maybe, maybe not). If I am perhaps honest with myself, maybe it was that I was scared of not being good enough - of getting rejected. In order to avoid rejection, I didn't even try in the first place. It's hard to be rejected when you aren't there to be rejected in the first place.

That is a regret for me. Not so much that I never played, but that I didn't even pursue it. I let my own doubts of my ability stop me from even trying. I experienced the same doubts when we left for Princeton as I started seminary. That old familiar voice of doubt regarding whether or not I could cut it academically were loud as we drove across the country. Something transformed inside of me as we ventured out from the comfort zone of familiar and easy. I started to see that freedom lies not so much in making sure you are always doing the right thing which is basically motivation from avoiding rejection by not doing the wrong thing. Freedom lies in living life as a response to the love I have been shown which is motivated by unconditional acceptance. Writing it out is a lot easier then putting it into practice and I still find myself at times focused on performance but I think if I were 18 again I might have given baseball another shot.

I keep this letter to remind me that certain opportunities come along once in a lifetime and to "try and fail is better to have not tried at all."