Adventures in Syberspace

This is Not The Year

The one question Cubs fans get asked more than any other this time of year is a simple one: Is this the year? That is…will the Cubs, after a 108 year drought, finally win the World Series? They’re poised to do so, having secured the best record in all of baseball, their pitching rotation solid, their lineup of hitters dominant. Some would even say that there is some urgency to win now. Sports Illustrated picked them to win. One national columnist, in fact, recently said that they must win the title this year. Their pitchers are getting older, other teams are catching up…they better not miss this chance.

I say Hogwash. Malarkey. This is precisely the attitude that should be nowhere near Cub Nation at this moment. For starters, baseball players, perhaps more than any other athletes, need to be relaxed in order to excel. The more pressure they feel, the worse they tend to do. But these are professionals, so I’m not as worried about them. I’m much more worried about us, the fans. See it’s not the failure that trips us up; it’s the success. We know exactly what to do with failure—failure is a familiar friend. She feels like home. Success…this is new. And we don’t handle it well. Consider 2008.

2008 feels eerily similar to this year. The Cubs had the best record in the National League, and it was the second straight year they’d qualified for the playoffs. It was also the 100th anniversary of the last World Series team so naturally we all drank the Kool-Aid and believed that this was The Year. Why wouldn’t it be? I was, in fact, at Game 1 of that first playoff series. Chicago took an early 2-0 lead and the optimism in the park was palpable. Until the Dodgers hit a grand slam. They went on to lose the game, and then the next two. Three and out. Not what we had in mind. Cub Nation wasn’t just disappointed; we were confused. Hurt. This was supposed to be our year! It wasn’t.

Let me go back a bit further. Consider the Atlanta Braves of the 90s and early 2000s, who won 14 straight division titles. It was unprecedented, and will likely never be matched. They were absolutely dominant. Do you know how many World Series they went to? They went to four. You know how many they won? Just one. Every year, diehard Braves fans must have thought: This is The Year! They were the best team in baseball for many of those years, and have exactly one (1) round trophy of flags to show for it.

Fans of other sports may have a hard time understanding this. Take basketball. In the NBA this year, there was about a 95% chance that the Cavaliers would make the Finals. Because when you have one of the most dominant basketball players on your team, he can touch the ball on virtually every possession, impose his will, and guarantee success. In baseball, you can have the most dominant player on your team, but he only gets to bat every ninth time. You can have the most dominant starting pitcher on your team, but he only pitches every five days.

And baseball is funny. People don’t want to admit it, but there’s a fair amount of luck in baseball. It truly is a game of inches, and sometimes inches separate success from failure.

Which brings us back to this year. Once again, the refrain is thrown about. “This is our year! We have the best team so it’s gonna happen!” Well here’s the deal, folks. You know how we’ll know it’s our year? When we’ve recorded the final out in the final inning of the final game of the World Series, and our team is on the field celebrating. Then and only then will we know.

And it’s way better for the emotional health of every Cubs fan to assume that this is in fact not The Year. Isn’t this the way we best enjoy gifts? The ones we don’t expect, that we don’t feel entitled to…those are the ones we appreciate the most. Sure we have a great chance to win it all, a better chance than the rest of the teams, but it’s not even close to guaranteed.

So Cubs fans, join me in basking in the glow of a historically great regular season. Wait expectantly, full of hope, for a World Series, because I believe with all of my heart that it will happen. But it may not be this year.

This is not the year. Until it is.

How Parenting Flies By

I was on a walk with Heidi one day and we were talking about how jarring it is that you get used to being a parent, and then it's just over so quickly. I likened it to a road trip I took once. Then I wrote this article about it, and it got published on The Gospel Coalition website the day before I took our oldest daughter down to Baylor. Timing was pretty amazing. Hope you enjoy the article, found here. 

What I Learned About Parenting from the Mets

While most of Cub Nation was experiencing schadenfreudian delight at the untimely demise of the New York Mets last weekend, I was experiencing something a little different: learning what not to do as a parent from Mets manager Terry Collins.

For those of you that missed it, the Mets were in a must-win situation in Game 5 of the World Series on Sunday night, down 3 games to 1. The Mets’ Matt Harvey had pitched eight scoreless innings and his team led 2-0, with just three outs to get. Collins had already made his mind up that he would bring in his team’s closer to get those three outs. When Harvey heard he was being pulled, the cameras caught him vehemently lobbying to stay in, saying: “No way. No way. I'm not coming out.” Earlier in the season, Harvey had gone through some controversy related to how many innings he was willing to throw, having missed the previous season due to reconstructive surgery. Some fans thought he was soft and was putting his own well-being before the good of the team. Finishing the game himself would put some of that controversy to rest, and would end his season on an emphatic note.

About that time, the fans joined in too, chanting “We Want Harvey.” So Collins had a decision to make: do I make what I believe is the right baseball decision, to bring in a reliever whom I’ve counted on all season to succeed in such a situation, or do I listen to the emotional plea of a young man who wants to finish what he started, and the fans who want the same? He relented, and sent Harvey out to pitch the ninth. It did not go well. After giving up a walk and a double, the lead was down to 2-1. At that point, he brought in his reliever, who gave up a run on two innocuous groundouts. The Mets went on to lose the game in 12 innings, and the series 4 games to 1. After the game, Collins bravely took full responsibility for his call, and said “I let my heart get in the way of my gut. I love my players. And I trust them.”

So how did I make the jump to parenting? Because I saw myself as a parent in the way Collins talked about his players. I love my children, and I trust my children. I want to make decisions as a parent that will make them happy. And there will be times when I will be tempted to make a decision that may bring them happiness in the short run, but will be detrimental to their well-being in the long run. I may be hesitant to follow through on that decision out of fear for how my children will respond. I may even get second-guessed after the fact. But it’s the right thing to do.

So in the same way that baseball players need their managers to make the best decision for the good of the team (and by extension the fans), so do children need their parents to make the best decisions for the good of the family. And in both situations, those decisions may not be received well, by our children and by others. The “We Want Harvey” cry of the fans is not unlike the response of our kids’ friends or their parents, who will also want to sway you from whichever decision they may disagree with. The “I’m not coming out” from Harvey is like the “Oh yes I am going to that sleepover” from our teens and tweens. It’s our job as parents to, at times, make unpopular decisions, and we should expect disagreement. But we are the parents! We have to trust that we’re acting with the best interests of our children in mind, and trust that it will benefit them even if they don’t like it right now.

With the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, we now know that Collins shouldn’t have “trusted” his pitcher, not because Harvey’s a bad player but because the manager needed to keep the bigger picture in mind. Just as winning a championship for your team always has to trump a loyalty to a certain player, putting your children in a position to succeed in life has to trump their short-term self-interests.

Love your kids with all of your heart, love them till they can’t take it anymore. But never stop making decisions with your gut. Here’s hoping Joe Maddon does the same.

A free and easy way to help children in need

Who is interested in a free and easy way to help underresourced children? If you shop at one of the new Heinen’s stores that have opened up, this suggestion is for you.

Heinen’s donates 1% of all purchases made with their “preferred” card to a school of your choice. When you register your card online, you are given the option of which school to choose. Here’s my suggestion: choose a school in North Chicago. If you don’t know much about North Chicago, suffice it to say that the need there is much greater than just about anywhere in the state of Illinois. There are incredible people doing great things there (North Chicago Community Partners) and additional funding would go a long way.

Let me put it to you this way. Imagine a stranger comes up to you and says: “Hey, I’ve got a bag of money here that I’d like to give to some kids. Should I give it to the ones that don’t have very much, or the ones who have enough?” How would you advise him? I thought so.

Incidentally, this also goes for those of you with the Target RedCard. Thank you for listening. 

Youthworker Journal Article: Managing the God-High

The phrase "God-high" didn't exist when I was in a high school youth group, though the concept was there for sure. Students talk about it now quite a bit. Is it good or bad? Discussed here.

Youthworker Journal Article: Grace for the "Older Brother"

It's oten easy for pastors to show grace to the "younger brother" types as depicted in Jesus' story in Luke 15. It's sometimes harder to show that same grace to the "older brother." Discussed here. 

Youthworker Journal Article: Managing Exits

"Everybody needs a little time away" is what Peter Cetera said. And sometimes, volunteers in your ministry say the same thing. They leave. How do you handle that? Here's what I have to say about it. 

Thought of the Day, October 11

"C.S. Lewis wrote fantasy stories because he thought, correctly, that that’s what the world is really like. The lie of realism is that somehow we've let people name ‘important fiction’ in which there is no soul, no spirit, no supernatural — “realistic.” In realistic fiction, there can be no magic, no supernatural, no God, no soul to the character. … We’re on a rock, mostly molten lava, flying through outer space at about mach-86 right now, like a yo-yo being swung around a ball of fire in the sky. That’s our setting. What kind of story are we telling? We’re in the sci-fi fantasy section of the bookstore."     -N.D. Wilson

An Open Letter to the Girardi Family

Well hello Girardis! I realize you don’t know me, nor would you have any reason to care about me and my fellow Cubs fans for that matter, but I’ll get right to my point.

We need you. Actually, that’s not true. We need your dad, Joe Girardi, to be the 59^th manager of the Chicago Cubs. And the reason I’m talking to you about it is because your dad told reporters that each of you gets a vote in what he decides to do next. And if he’s serious, what that means is that it really doesn’t matter what your parents wants to do: you outnumber them three to two, so it really comes down to the three of you.

We assume you’re Yankees fans (as you should be with your dad as manager there the previous six seasons), so it may feel like it’s been a long time since they’ve won a World Series: four whole years! Here in Cub Nation, it’s been over a hundred. 105 to be exact. Your dad played for the Cubs on two different occasions, so maybe he’s told you about that. That’s not a drought, children; that’s Death Valley.

Your dad is a proven winner. He won Manager of the Year in his first season with the Marlins, taking a team of nobodies to the verge of a playoff berth. He then won a World Series with a team having the highest payroll in baseball. This is exactly who we need on the North Side, someone who can work with prospects and with highly-paid veterans.

So why would you have any interest in leaving New York? On the face of it, I don’t know why you would. New York is a great place to live. But just ask your dad: so is Chicago. Have you been here lately? Picture a cleaner, less crowded New York, plus our large body of water adjacent to the city has fresh water instead of salt. Plus, you probably haven’t seen the Bean, have you? The Bean is great, you’ll love it.

And yes, the Cubs did have a chance to hire him back in 2007 when you still lived in the Chicago area, and your dad was looking for a job. Heck, it was his dream job back then. They chose experience over talent and desire, and well, it didn’t work out well.

Is this a little pathetic, a grown man groveling at the feet of children? Absolutely, but we Cubs fans are a desperate lot. Is this selfish of me to ask this of you? Of course it is. And trust me, I don’t feel good about it. Asking you to leave your friends and your routine for a new life in Chicago. But it’s come to this.

See, everyone wants to accomplish something in his life that no one else has. For a baseball manager, that something is bringing a championship to the Chicago Cubs. There’s no greater hill for your dear old dad to climb. And you’ll get to be a part of it! You won’t believe your eyes, when you watch the joy that your dad will bring to millions, when he hoists that World Series trophy over his head. There will be nothing like it.

So when it’s family meeting time around the dinner table, I hope you’ll take this to heart. Please, think of us. Think of history. And if I’ve convinced any of you, remember that this is Chicago, so feel free to vote early and often.

Youthworker Journal Article: Managing Bedtimes

Very practical stuff in this one. Hope it's helpful to some sleep-deprived retreat-leading youth workers!