Is Worrying Wrong?

I'd have to say yes, worrying is wrong. Do I worry, yes. But I try not to worry. The problem with worrying is that it takes the emphasis off of God and puts it on you. This does not mean you can't plan ahead or think through a decision, but worrying is a slippery slope because it makes it difficult to determine where your faith begins and your faith ends - I will trust God with my salvation and my family's safety, but not my finances, my illness, etc.

I often hear people say that God won't give you anything you can't handle. That's not entirely true. People crumble all the time under the weight of their issues. God won't give you anything you can't handle as long you seek His guidance and embrace His grace and sovereignty. I have a friend who lays awake at night thinking about the problems of the economy and the doomed structure of our current credit system. I'm not saying be fatalistic, but worrying about issues you can't control doesn't stop the future from happening, it just gives you a pink mustache.

If find yourself worrying, try praying and giving your problems or concerns to God, He can handle it much better than you or I. Will God fix every problem, make sure your bills get paid on time, or heal your sickness? Maybe, maybe not. Ultimately, God is working for His glory, not our comfort (we'll discuss in future posts). Believe me when I say I know that relying on God is easier said than done, I fall short of perfection just like you. But if you don't listen to me (which I completely understand), please listen to the guy who delivered these words from the Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 6:25-34

25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

The Worst Baseball Players Ever

Wow, where to begin. I suppose we should limit this list to MLB players. And we shouldn't forget that you have to be pretty good to make it to the bigs. But there have been some pretty bad numbers put up by players who had fairly lengthy careers. I came up with a few names but there are many, many others.

I grew up watching the Rangers, so I cannot forget about players like (current USC coach) Chad Kreuter, Jeff Kunkel, and Jeff Huson. But these guys look like all-stars when compared to the cream-of-the-crap.

Let's take a look at the career of Bill Bergen. I know he played a long time ago...but man he was bad. The guy hit an astonishing .168 from 1903-1911. That's lower than my average of coolness (believed to be roughly .175, where as Brad Pitt would be somewhere around .900-.910, if you believe the sabermetrics). Bergen also managed to only hit one homerun. That happens to be the same career total as Randy Johnson, who looks like a disheveled Big Bird swinging a broom stick, so I can only imagine what Bergen looked like.

How about Todd Van Poppel? Are there pitchers with worse ERAs? Sure. But they probably weren't touted as the next Nolan Ryan. Van Poppel came out of Arlington, TX's Martin High School as a first round phenom. He ended up having a pretty long career and had a few years of success out the bullpen, then he reverted back to his earlier form . I've seen better WHIPs in an 80s music video.

I love the guy, but Bob Uecker had a pretty rough career. He had a .200 career average and topped out 30 RBI for his season high. Fortunately, he's hilarious and great broadcaster. He's now in the Hall of Fame as a broadcaster and people still talk about his hilarious induction speech.

And we cannot forget about Henry Rowengartner.

I think everyone knows this cautionary tale. The happy-go-luck kid slipped on a ball and broke his arm. His ligaments healed very tightly and he became an instant phenom with a +100 mph fastball. The Cubs scooped him up and rushed him to The Show. He did pretty well for a while, but unfortunately he slipped on a ball again and his arm went back to its normal 8 year old girl status. Of course he was in the middle of a crucial game and facing the league's most feared hitter, Butch Heddo, when his arm reverted. He improvised and tossed an amazing underhand Eephus pitch, struck out Heddo, and locked up the series for the Cubs. Unfortunately, he never did regain his arm strength. Over the next few years, he bounced around to a few teams and later tested positive for multiple controlled substances. In 2003, he had his right arm purposely broken again in an attempt to make a comeback...but it wasn't meant to be. His right arm is now like a liberal arts degree, essentially useless. I heard he's been married three times and is selling cars in the Springfield area, he's still only 28 years old. The lesson is don't slip on a baseball for a second time.

Why Does God Allow Suffering

I don't know.

I thought about posting the above sentence as my entire post (because it's partly true) but that would not give adequate credit to God.

I belive the Bible to be true and therefore take the contents of the Bible as fact. If you don't believe the Bible to be truthful, it's an uphill battle for me to show you that God is good but that he also allows suffering i.e. if God is truly good, why does he allow bad things to happen to good people? But like Kevin McCallister and TV dinners, I'll give it a whirl.

One chapter I've found helpful is 2 Corinthians, chapter 1. In this letter from Paul, he says he suffered to:

(a) comfort those in any affliction - it's nice to be sympathetic towards or receive sympathy from somone is in a similar situation. Personal experience can often be very healing in times of anguish, hence support groups, etc.

(b) learn to lean on God and not trust in ourselves - this one is huge. I've heard a lot of testimonies from people being completely broken and humbled and dropping to their knees and crying out to God for help. Sometimes it takes being broken to realize we are not in control. I have a friend who is a chaplain for the Phoenix Suns and the KC Royals. He told me the NBA and MLB players are a lot more receptive to hearing the Word than the minor league players. I thought this was odd but then he said minor league players still think it's all about them and once they get to the big leagues, they'll have everything they've ever wanted. But the big league guys have achieved the ultimate prize and still have a void, their is still something missing - they learn it's not all about them. Pride can be more dangerous than a swimming pool full of sharks with laser beams attached to thier heads.



(c) to give thanks - I often don't thank God for my trials: "thanks for allowing life to be terrible for the past few weeks, I feel stronger..." But the truth is, I grow stronger from the trials and tests I encounter. Although it's usually not fun and I often fail to see the bigger picture at the time of my tribulation, I wouldn't be who I am today without the challenges and difficult decisions I've made in my life.

Let's not forget we are all greatly flawed - as Level 42 said in Something About You "we're only human afterall". Please be assured, God does not condone evil deeds. We heap sufferings upon ourselves, and the sufferings we don't bring upon ourselves happen for a reason, although we may not like that reason. Life can be long. It may be years or decades before we see any reason or good from our pain. I don't have all the answers, I'm just a flawed person like you who has been humbled on many occassions, and I can tell you I know God is good.

Bad Bodies = Good Players?

Does having a ridiculously bad body mean you're a really good baseball player? If my research is correct, then yes. I'd like to explore the theory that perhaps corpulent baseball players have the necessary energy stores to get through the grueling MLB season.

Subject 1: Tony Gwynn

Mr. Gwynn had an amazing career. He wasn't always rotund but he did pack on some pounds as his career progressed.

Subject 2: John Kruk

Kruk put up very respectable numbers and he's also remembered for being a character, like when he walked off the field and into retirement (in the middle of the season) after he got the hit that raised his career average to .300. He also gets bonus points for the mullet.

Subject 3: Rich Garces, AKA El Gaupo

Wait, not that El Guapo...this EL GAUPO (and yes, this really is Rich Garces)

I know you're telling yourself that the guy in the picture can't really be an MLB pitcher, but Rich Garces actually had a pretty good career.

Subject 4: David Wells

Boomer is actually a terrific athlete and he had a fantastic career (including a perfecto), but the dude had a serious gut.

Subject 5: Cecil Fielder

Cecil was always on the verge of busting out of his uni, or hitting a 500 ft bomb out of old Tiger stadium.

Current star of the All Bad Body Team: Prince Fielder

Fielder is a lot of fun to watch as a player, and to paraphrase Ty Cobb: "he's run pretty well for a fat man".

Top All Bad Body Team Prospect: Brett Wallace

Wallace can absolutely rake and he's holding his own at third base. He should continue to move through the Cards system quickly.

I think it's pretty obvious that having a body conducive to premature heart disease helps provide the necessary energy to get through 162 games. Just because you like burritos and ice cream doesn't mean you can't go out and throw a perfect game...or be the best player ever.

From The Evolution of the Post-Game Celebration, to...Evolution?

Macro evolution is a contentious topic. People that don't believe in evolution are often viewed as religous goobers with infantile IQs. I don't believe in macro evolution. Now, I will never be confused for a genius...but I did graduate college from a top 20, I'm currently enrolled in a top 20 for graduate school, and I did take both biology and chemistry in college, so I'm not a complete idiot (although my level of idiocy is probably arguable).

Since 1859, the theory of evolution has failed to fill some seriously gaping holes. And its quite obvious that we know substantially more about the complexities of animals/humans and the complexities of life's building blocks. There are some questions that just haven't been adquately answered. That doesn't stop some incredibly smart people from fully subscribing to the theory, regardless of shortcomings. I actually saw Richard Dawkins concede that maybe we originated from a more intelligent source because no plausible explanation can be attributed to our origins (he insinuated alien intervention, not God).

One quick example of a problem I have is that even if someone makes the huge leap to say that somehow a cell (which is quite complex) formed from a random chain of events, no one can explain how consciousness came about. You can create a ridiculously complex robot or computer program that can run circles around human capabilities, but you cannot create consciousness or true emotion, regardless of complexity or intelligence.

This is just one of the many issues I have with evolution. But aside from gaps in theory, the logic seems faulty. Am I really to believe a human, a shark, a snake, and a cat all had the same origin? Really? I mean...really? Random events generally do not create more complexities, specialties, and efficiencies - in fact, quite the opposite. There are over one million animal species in the world and we all had the same origin? It just doens't seem possible, especially when we see examples of animals that are so amazingly complex (the complexities of the human body and its processes are truly unbelievable, just look at DNA or the changes that occur during child birth for both the fetus and the mother) and animals with amazing specializations.

Evolution is a topic of great interest to me and I will write additional posts on the topic in the near future. Feel free to poke holes or make fun of my IQ and niavete, I'm used to it.

The Evolution of the Post-Game Celebration

After a game ends, the celebration begins. An odd thing I've observed is the evolution of the post-game baseball celebration.

It started with the handshake and then the basic high-five. It morphed into the fist-bump.



After the fist-bump, came the fist bump ->explosion...or "blow it up" --- when you go for the basic fist bump and then blow your hand open when you bump like your holding an M-80. Next came the inverted "blow it up", where you start with the open hand slap and then close it up when you hit hands. Baseball has now moved onto the hip bump...

Allthough the hip bump is not the coolest celebration I've seen...(Mac and Jose circa 1987-1991)



...It's better than the alternative.

(I purposely ommitted some modern iterations of baseball hand parties. The modern 'open backhand slap' ,which was popular in 2008, and the current windmill-like 'high five up top' into the 'follow-through slap down low' as you pass the person are not shown...mostly because I couldn't find any good pictures.)

If any major "missing links" are not included, please let me know.