1967, Albuquerque, New Mexico, I was 13 years old and beginning my first season playing little league baseball. I know, today parents start their kids in t-ball when they are just a few weeks old – just kidding – most of them are at least 3. Well, back in my day that didn’t happen. I played a lot of baseball growing up but it was all pickup games at Altura Park and on the all dirt diamond at our school. I never really had much coaching except from my Dad who played “Legion” ball behind the plate as a catcher. I decided to go to try-outs for the Thunderbird Little League organization and thought I could be a top notch pitcher, even though I had never thrown a pitch in a real baseball game. I tried to copy the wind up and delivery of Don Drysdale, an all star pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers. I had watched Don live when he played for the Albuquerque Dukes. Even though I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know the difference between throwing from a windup from the stretch and I certainly couldn’t read signals. Of course neither could our coach. None-the-less, I must have got the ball in the strike zone enough during the tryouts to entice the coach of the Thunderbird League White Socks to add me to his team.
The White Sox had some talent, we just didn’t have much coaching. I am convinced the only reason our coach volunteered was so his kid, who couldn’t throw a baseball 10 feet, could be on a team and play. Now I realize that is a pretty good reason to be a youth sports coach but that discussion should be left for another day. When the season began I was pretty nervous because several of my buddies played for other teams and besides the rivalries that created, there were girls to impress and end of season bragging rights to consider. I started out pitching and was doing a pretty good job until one day at practice I lost my control and hit two of my teammates with bad throws. Worst part was, they were brothers and one of them was my favorite catcher. Joe and Gavin Maloof were two really good guys, two friends and their grandfather, Joe G. Maloof owned the exclusive rights to the distribution of Coors Beer for the entire state of New Mexico. Joe and Gavin went on to build an impressive sports and entertainment empire including owning the Sacramento Kings of the NBA and the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas. I should have stayed in touch with those guys! Anyway, back to baseball. After hitting my friends with pitches I kind of lost my desire to pitch and found myself sitting the bench more than I was playing. In a lot of ways, the bench was pretty comfortable. A guy could sort of hide in the dugout, didn’t need to worry about making a game losing error or being embarrassed by a pitcher who could strike you out two or three times in a game. The White Sox had the worst record in the Thunderbird league and it just didn’t seem like risking one’s reputation was worth putting out any extra effort on a bad team. There were drawbacks to being a bench warmer. The primary one, when I wasn’t on the field I wasn’t getting noticed by Susie Lamb. Of course there were also the Edmunds twins, Anne and Betsy, in addition to the always beautiful Chris Darrow. I really needed to be out in front of them – how else would they know what a tremendous, good looking, studly athlete I truly was. I decided it was time to “get off the bench” and make a statement. We were half way through a game against the number one team, the Junior Dukes. Our third baseman was struggling and we were on our way to another loss when I jumped up off the bench, approached our coach and begged him to put me in at third base. I had never played third base but I knew I could do better than Eddie was doing. We finally got out of the inning after the opposing team scored several runs fueled by a couple errors by Eddie. Amazingly coach looked at me and said, “Ideker, you’re in. Go show me something.” The next inning the first batter up for the Dukes was a buddy of mine, Michael Grubbs. He was a big guy and had a reputation for hitting the ball hard. The very first pitch to him he drilled a line drive right at me. I might have closed my eyes but somehow I managed to snag that hard shot and a new third baseman was born. Over the rest of the season I gained a reputation for being a good defensive third baseman and became a decent producer at the plate all resulting in being selected for the Thunderbird league all-star team. The best part was, my all-star team selection earned me a prom date with Betsy Edmunds!
So what’s the lesson in this one. It’s pretty simple really. You can’t make a difference in your life, or the life of anyone else if you are comfortable riding the bench. Being a Christian can sometimes create confusion about the whole idea of being strong enough to get off the bench and stand up for what you believe in. Too many times we get the message that we are to be “meek like a lamb” or the need to be humble goes hand in hand with keeping our mouth shut and avoiding confrontation. So we sit idly by and watch as our faith, our morals, our sense of right and wrong, the confidence of our children, our voting decisions – it goes on and on – are negated by others who use our comfort on the bench to change the world in ways that are in direct conflict with our professed beliefs.
In Joshua 1:9 the Lord asks, “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” That is only one of several places in the Bible where we are encouraged to be strong, to be courageous, to take on the full armor of God, to rely on his strength, his provision, his protection. And yet, even with his encouragement and his promises to us we tend to sit the bench. We serve the God of the universe. The God who parted the sea. The God who made it rain for 40 days and 40 nights. The God we serve can cure disease and heal wounds through his touch. We have direct access to the God who can turn water into wine, who can feed masses with a few loaves of bread and a couple fish, the God who is the same today, tomorrow and for all eternity. The God who loves us so much he gave up his own son for us.
Thinking back to 1967 I now know how much my life changed that day. My decision to get up from the comfort of the bench and thrust myself into the game is something I still look back at and use as motivation when I find myself slinking back to the safety of the bench. Isn’t it time for all of us to stand up, pull the splinters out of our pants, cinch that belt buckle up a little more and and begin snatching those hard hit line drives out of the air? Certainly it’s not easy but we cannot afford to wait any longer. We need to stop whining about things like “wokeness”, the rise of liberalism and the seemingly endless attacks on our “maleness.” Let’s resume our roles as men, as leaders, as followers of Christ. What is happening to our world, our country, our schools, our neighborhoods and our families, is our own fault. We allowed ourselves to be distracted and have retreated to the lazy, risk free safety and comfort of the bench.
Let’s not stop at merely getting off the bench. Let’s burn our benches and make a commitment to never replace them!
Doug's Journey 