Keeping Score

What Baseball Taught Me about Bitterness--And Why It's So Hard to Let Go

Photo by Salvador Rios on Unsplash

Bitterness corrupts.

It corrupts everything the embittered touches, tastes, and smells. For Bitter Boy, everything is filtered through his bitterness.

So, I try to avoid allowing myself to go down that path, though I can by no means claim a 100% success rate.

But, all of that changes when it comes to baseball.

You see, baseball has been the one great sports love of my life.

So, when baseball done me wrong, I got bitter. And, it’s been difficult to get over. I’ve tried. But, letting go of my bitterness against baseball–like releasing any bitterness–has been hard.

My love affair with baseball started on June 20, 1968. I was 7.

I knew about and liked baseball before this time. I played catch with my dad. We watched the Cardinals when they were on TV. But, on 6/20/68, I saw my first baseball game in the stands. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was not just the first game I saw in person, it was the best game I ever saw. And, I suspect, ever will see.

My beloved St Louis Cardinals against the evil raiders from the north, the Chicago Cubs. Gibson on the mound for the Cards and Jenkins took the ball for the Cubs. A classic match up, and both would throw complete games that day. The Cards won 1-0 when Lou Brock tripled in the third, and Curt Flood singled to drive him in. (Box score’s at the end of this post.)

My uncle Gaylon and aunt Jeanene took me along with their 4-year-old son, my cousin Kendall. Kendall wasn’t all that interested in the game. But, at 7, I was taking it all in. There is, after all, a significant maturity gap between 7 and 4. But, it was more than that. I saw something Kendall didn’t, and I was falling in love.

The love affair with baseball continued for years, even though Major League Baseball did some things I didn’t like. The first thing was the American League’s adoption of the DH rule in 1973. No longer would pitchers in the AL bat, but a Designated Hitter would always bat for the pitcher. Ugh!

I was only 12 when that rule took effect, but I knew, right from the start, that MLB had violated a sacred vow. And, it had done it right out in front of God and everybody. It had already lowered the mound at the end of that 1968 season to create more offense. But, that was more of a subtle difference. The contours of the game remained essentially the same. The DH though! That was another matter entirely. It took away all the strategy from the AL game.

I didn’t abandon baseball though. That was the AL! That’s just the way they do things over there in the junior circuit. The brand of baseball they play there isn’t pure. Not like the kind played by my Cards and the rest of the National League. That was baseball.

So, we bumbled along, baseball and me. Nothing much changed until the 1985 world series, which pitted the Kansas City Royals against the Cards. The Cards were clearly the better team, but anything can happen in 7 games. And, anything did. And, baseball? Well, baseball just let it happen.

The Cards were up 3 games to 1 and led game 6 going into the bottom of the 9th 1-0. Then it happened. A blown call at 1st base that has gone down as one of the worst, if not the worst, call in baseball history. Royals win that game and then take the series the next night.

But that’s not my point. Baseball allowed the error to stand. There were other umpires on the scene. They were witnesses with the authority to right the wrong. But baseball? By saying nothing, baseball just stood blithely by and let the game be corrupted in one quick moment on a call that wasn’t even close. (Here’s a pic, but you can find a video of the whole debacle.)

Fast forward 12 years to 1997. That’s the year Baseball decided interleague play was necessary. Not just at the All Star Game and the World Series. Throughout the regular season too. Well, the NFL, NBA, and the NHL do it, why shouldn’t Baseball? Or so the argument goes.

But the answer is in the question.

Because, you lunatics, it’s baseball!

I thought that would be the last straw. I was seriously injured by this time. But, MLB, in its infinite wisdom, decided I’d not yet had enough.

In 2022, the National League adopted the DH rule too.

Thanks, Obama!!

What had happened to me was more than just drifting apart because of time or distance. That drift is natural. It just happens.

What I experienced with baseball was deeper than that. Baseball had betrayed me. And, I was bitter. A kind of bitterness that betrayal alone can manufacture.

But, baseball?

Baseball didn’t care. Baseball didn’t even notice.

Didn’t notice I was hurt.

Didn’t notice I’d checked out.

Didn’t notice I was bitter.

When MLB embarked on what felt like its agenda to alienate me, I was just 12. Fifty-three years have passed since, and MLB’s been pretty good at making me feel disaffected. In that time, it compounded the frustration with hurt, layered in some cluelessness on top of the hurt, and finished it all off with a topping of spite just for good measure.

But, has it really been so measured and calculated? (In my heart, I want to say, No, but that would be to allow for some measure of trust for the team owners.) Is MLB really out to get me? (No, he said begrudgingly.) And, even if it were, don’t I have any agency here? (Enthusiastically, Yes!)

I do have agency, and because I do, I can decide to let go of my baseball bitterness.

I can actually decide to let go of all bitterness when you get right down to it.

The problem is I don’t always know how to let go. Sounds easy. But, if you’ve ever struggled with bitterness, you know it’s not.

First, what does letting go even mean?

When I talk about letting go of something, I have this mental image of holding something in my hand, opening the hand, and letting that thing fall out of my hand.

It’s a fine image, but it’s not a complete one.

Letting go of something corrupting like bitterness is only successful if we fill that open hand with something more valuable. What’s more valuable than bitterness? Uh. . . well. . . just about everything. Gratitude. Kindness. Compassion. All are of infinitely greater value than bitterness.

In fact, some vices may have more moral value than bitterness. (I’m just kidding. . . I think.)

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ready to sing Kum Bah Yah with MLB leadership. Maybe one day. But, not today. I’m not ready to admit that MLB was right about any of the decisions I listed.

What I am ready to do, though, is admit that MLB is imperfect. Thus, to seek a degree of perfection from MLB is to ask of it something I can’t give either. I too am flawed.

I don’t like to admit it, but I have made decisions that impact others negatively, often when I didn’t even know it. I have pursued profits that brought contamination to my soul. I have swallowed whole camels while carefully spitting out the gnats.

And, maybe that’s how letting go of bitterness starts.

Admitting my own imperfections, treating others with the kindness with which I’d like to be treated, being grateful for more than I complain about, and refusing to keep score on wrongs suffered.

Many thanks for reading this edition of the Ragstack.

#forgiveness #AsburySeminary #baseball #bitterness