On April 27th, the year of our Lord 2021, the young Vladimir Guerrero Jr. launched three baseballs into orbit, for his first three-homerun game of his career, at the age of 22. Two of those shots were lifted off of Pitcher Max Scherzer. But that wasn’t the first time the great Scherzer has been taken deep by someone with a mighty swing named Vladimir Guerrero. In 2010, Vlad Jr.’s father, Vladimir Guerrero Sr., sent a ball over the center field wall in Texas off of the same Max Scherzer. You can watch the video of both here.
I watched Vlad Sr. play for many years, and I can’t help but notice just how similar Vlad Jr.’s swing is to his father’s. Vlad Jr. is his own man with unique abilities, but also with undeniable traits passed down from his pop. Watching such a storybook father/son moment makes me think of my favorite baseball quote from my favorite baseball movie, Moneyball, “How can you not be romantic about baseball?” From movies to real life, baseball has provided us with many great father and son moments, and not just for actors and pros, but the average Joe enjoys nothing more than having a catch with his son or his old man.
This got me thinking about some larger characteristics of baseball. I have written about how baseball is game of honor and respect, not just of the particular opponent you are facing on any given day, but it is a game of honor and respect to those who came before you. This is the biblical principle of honoring our fathers. From the other side of it, baseball is also about passing down wisdom and insight to the next generation. This is the biblical principle of training up your child in the way they should go. Every baseball player needs an older baseball player to talk to and receive advice from.
The long held traditions of baseball assume a Christian worldview. The traditions of baseball don’t make sense outside of a Christian society. We live in a society that is poisoned with, and being killed by ungodly ideologies that flow from different versions of cultural Marxism. The spirit of the day is an ideal of “social justice” that has nothing to do with justice, but is about overturning “power structures” and “oppressors.” These terms of course do not have biblical definitions, but are code words for: straight Christian men. These crusaders of a new social order want nothing more than to destroy and eradicate fathers, men, and Christians from society. And if fathers, families, men, and Christians are erased from modern life, so baseball will be. Baseball depends on fathers, sons, and Christianity.
Baseball is not immune from the poison our society is drinking down. It cannot remain neutral. In fact, we can already see a little bit of the poison seeping in. If baseball bows down to the neo-marxist gods, baseball will not rise up again. Baseball needs to see that these sweeping ideologies seek to destroy and eradicate the very principles and values of the game of baseball. (And I do distinguish between the game of baseball and MLB. Robert Manfred has his own values that are not Christian baseball values, but he doesn’t own the game of baseball). Baseball, a game built on fathers and sons, cannot join the mocking, the hatred, and loathing of fathers and sons doing manly father and son things, without destroying itself. This is what cultural Marxism does, it destroys itself. It is self-defeating.
So I am not without hope, because Jesus Christ rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of the Father in Heaven. I am not without hope because ungodliness cannot prosper. Sin is not a long term game plan for success. Sooner or later, and I pray that it is sooner, we will all realize that we need the patriarchy. We need godly fathers, sons, and families, submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It is chaos, confusion, and suffering without them.
If baseball dies with our society because of this sin, I believe it will rise again, when we reject our evil ways and deeds and return to the Lord. For if we return unto the Lord of Hosts, He will return unto us.
For Christendom!
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