My Favorite Ballplayer

I grew up going to one or two Astros games a year.  My parents' home in the suburbs of Houston was a bit of a drive from the Astrodome.  Actually, it wasn't the drive that deterred our family from going to games.  It was the Dome itself.  When it was built in the 1960s, it was heralded as a modern architectural marvel, the world's largest air-conditioned space.  By the time I was going to ballgames as a kid in the 1980s and 90s, it was a dump.  Players hated games at the Dome, hated losing fly balls in the off-white colored skylights, hated the Astroturf and how it hurt their bodies, and fans hated the cavernous spaces where home runs went to die.

Craig Biggio played his entire major-league career as a Houston Astro.  Despite the shortcomings of the Dome, he played every game with passion and intensity unrivaled in the major leagues.  He wasn't afraid to get hit by a pitch (actually, he set the modern record for being hit by a pitch during his career - 285 times) or dive for a ground ball.  He played catcher, second base, and center field - all with energy and enthusiasm that set the stage for the rest of his teammates in Houston.  Biggio once told his manager that "the veterans have to show [new guys] that you have to play [hard]...If someone dogs it here, then they're not here for very long."

(see the quote in context and the rest of the article at this excellent post from ESPN.com:
http://espn.go.com/mlb/hof13/story/_/id/8809931/craig-biggio-belongs-cooperstown)

Hopefully, Craig Biggio will be elected to the baseball Hall of Fame this year.  He's retired now and is a coach for his son's high school football team in Houston, sharing his intensity and enthusiasm with a new generation of athletes.

What about us?  Although a baseball team's culture is much more competitive and potentially-cutthroat than life in the church, are we not also called to the kind of passion and devotion Biggio showed during his career?  The gospel of Christ, the mission of God, the fellowship of all believers - these are the things that should get us excited for the mission and ministry ahead of us.

So here's a practical challenge for those of you who may feel like Biggio in his attempts to share his passion with younger players: have you talked to a younger believer about stewardship?  Have you shared your passion for your area of ministry with someone who hasn't yet found what God has made them to do?  How can we, as a whole church, better involve everyone who walks through our doors in our mission: to follow Christ and share his Word?

May God bless us as we work on this together.

Shalom,

Travis

(Craig Biggio photograph (C) Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)