I was mildly irritated when I visited espn.com during my lunch break yesterday and saw footage from the Yankees championship parade. Then I came across this little piece by Rick Reilly, who captured my sentiments well:Look, the Yankees played well. But isn't that what the Yankees are supposed to do? They paid their players almost twice as much as the Phillies team they beat -- $208M to $111M. Just the Yankees starting infield made more than 15 teams this year. Throw them a parade? I don't get it. So what? George Clooney got a girl, Paris Hilton slept in satin sheets last night and Bill Gates went to the bank. Call me when you've got some news.
Read the rest here.
It's good to know at least that the Phillies have the best team that money can't buy.
Larry,
ReplyDeleteSo, are you advocating some kind of baseball socialism to "spread the wealth around"? What about all those years the Yankees lost (most of the 1980s, etc)? They were one of the worst teams in baseball at one point. Did they have any less money those years? Why did they not even make it to the World Series last year, if money is such a determining factor?
An occassional baseball fan from North Jersey who is getting tired of the "Yankees have money" argument (otherwise known as "being a sore loser"),
Will
Relax, brother. Other professional sports have a salary cap. I don't think anyone is too concerned we're moving toward socialism!
ReplyDeleteThe Yankees won fair and square. They were clearly a better team than the Phillies. No sour grapes here. I personally just don't think it's as exciting to see your team win when they have spent $100 million more than anyone else out there. And I would feel that way even if it was the Phillies who were spending that kind of money.
Larry,
ReplyDeleteI am relaxed; however, I have heard many Christians be sore losers during the last few days. This jepordizes our Christian witness over something silly and rather pointless. When people get passionate about something in the world, I think often they say things that are inconsistent with the Gospel and don't realize it. Think about the opportunities to speak to non-believers during a World Series! I think, more than ever, this may be an opportunity to go against the grain of the culture. Don't we benefit from a treasure that we did not earn? Isn't there a victory that we've won that seems wholly unfair? The Yankees at least played well, pitched well, etc. All we did was sin. In fact, Jesus won the game for us while we spit in his face and then gave us the victory.
Will
I appreciate your thoughts, Will. I would just say two final things on my end:
ReplyDelete1. I would hope that if you clicked the 'Phillies' category on the sidebar you would find that the posts I've shared about the Phillies give a respectable Christian witness. I have tried on numerous occasions to show how the Phillies winning and losing is exciting to me not as end in itself, but because of the eternal realities that I have been reminded of as I watch them.
If you feel my reflections on the Phillies have jeopardized my Christian witness, I'd value your loving admonition. Others have told me the opposite, that they have been enabled to think through these things from a more God-centered perspective.
2. If you have recently had bad experiences with frustrated Christian Phillies fans who are not representing the Gospel well, I hope you're making it a point to speak to them face to face and humbly express your concerns, rather than airing out your frustrations by calling people sore losers in a public forum. It seems to me that this has the potential to do the very thing that you are so concerned about: jeopardizing your Christian witness over something that is silly and rather pointless.
Love you, brother,
LL
Larry,
ReplyDelete"If you have recently had bad experiences with frustrated Christian Phillies fans who are not representing the Gospel well, I hope you're making it a point to speak to them face to face and humbly express your concerns, rather than airing out your frustrations by calling people sore losers in a public forum. It seems to me that this has the potential to do the very thing that you are so concerned about: jeopardizing your Christian witness over something that is silly and rather pointless."
Good point! Why is it that whenever I recognize a sin in others, it turns out to be present in myself to an even greater extent? I think there's a Bible verse about that somewhere...
Not a day goes by where I don't need the cross even more than I did the day before. How is it that the Grace I've received, which already seems to be infinitely more than I deserve, seems to increase with time? What a merciful, magnificant God we serve!
Will
As always, I appreciate your humility Will.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharpening me, and all of us.
I am thanking God for this post! At first, I was concerned about the posts and where they were going. However, thank you for showing all of us how to be honest about sin and humble in our response when someone points it out.
ReplyDeleteAs Larry was telling me (this morning) about those first 3 comments between him and Will, I told him how I am not very good at handling tense situations like that, i.e. when someone disagrees with me or seems offended with something I say. At first I was thinking "Oh, no, I hope this disagreement gets resolved! And I hope no one's feelings get hurt in the end!"
ReplyDeleteBut as we talked, I came to realize that Larry (and probably Will as well) was not concerned at all about their friendship, because two mature people who love God most can disagree about something like baseball without it affecting a friendship.
I think I get nervous hearing about disagreement because I am the kind of person (like a lot of women, I think) who finds wayyyyy too much value in people thinking highly of me and of what I have to say.
So I, too, am thankful for your excellent examples, Will and Larry, on how to 1)disagree and say hard things for the sake of each other's hearts and souls displaying Jesus better, 2)be humble enough to really listen to what each other is saying, and 3)admit that you aren't perfect and never will be on this side of heaven.
You both really made yourselves vulnerable. I want to be real like that too, so thank you, thank you, thank you for your example!