Baseball: The Experience
Every player has a weakness. So do we.
Baseball is fate. Its “law” is that everyone has a weakness.
No pitcher commands equally all of his repertoire. Fielders are a step slower in one direction. You can’t cover every part of the strike zone, or pick up the spin on every pitch.
In this way baseball is like life. We all have weaknesses and experience uncovers them. It is one of the reasons why we shy away from experience.
Fortunately, we do not simply choose experiences. We are drawn into them. We find a game being played and we want in. And from the game, perhaps, we gain the confidence we need to be drawn into other experiences.
The good life requires that we learn to accept, even welcome the challenge, the risk (or certainty) that our weakness or weaknesses will be revealed. You stand alone on the mound, in the field and at bat. Exposed. And we root for a fielder who can compensate for a slower pivot or a weaker arm. We root for ourselves.
But this is a two-part story. We are not only victims of our own weaknesses, we are exploiters of the weaknesses of others.
As well as rooting for the batter who can overcome a weakness, we root for the pitcher who can exploit that same weakness. Our survival has always depended upon exploiting the weakness around us. In life we play on both sides of fate.
We exploit the weaknesses of others and in turn our weaknesses are discovered and exploited. And a score is on the board. Can we show humility and wisdom in accepting both?
They are tests, self-discoveries, and a path of growth.
We come out of the shadows on the sidelines of life into the bright sun of a field of play.
Even at the risk of having our weaknesses discovered and tested.
Even at the risk of winning and having our humanity tested. Even at the risk of understanding the “game.”