Here we are, at the end of August.

In the universe of organized sports, this moment is a bit of an inflection point. 

Basketball and hockey are still in hibernation for a while. (But seriously, does anyone care?) College football starts today with the professional brand just a week behind.

And then there is baseball. Ah yes, baseball. 

There are so many great things about America’s Pastime. It is rich with tradition. It is at once serene and pastoral (appropriate for a summer game), yet sprinkled throughout with moments of blazing speed, athleticism, strength, and skill. The people who play it come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and nationalities. It is a blindingly simple game, and yet also stupefyingly complex, at the same time. One nine inning game can expose a person to a veritable artist’s palette of emotions. The venues where baseball games take place are some of the most transcendent spaces imaginable, with sights and smells that revive powerful childhood memories.

Some have even waxed religious and philosophical about the game, professing their undying allegiance to “The Church of Baseball.”

Right now, on August 31, some Major League Baseball (MLB) fans are on the edge of their seats, wondering if their team will make the playoffs. The battles are raging at the top ends of each of the six MLB divisions. Every game is full to overflowing with post-season significance.

And then there is me and folks like me. You see, I am a loyal fan of the Kansas City Royals baseball team. In MLB’s American League Central division, my Royals are currently 28.5 games behind the first place Minnesota Twins. And with their loss last night, the Royals have been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention…

… in August.

Although to be fair, it is probably more accurate to say that they fell out of contention sometime back in mid-May.

The Royals are the 29^th (out of 30) best team in Major League Baseball with only 1.5 games separating them from the very bottom of the barrel. 

It is hard to keep cheering for a team this epically bad… made even harder when we remember that it was not so terribly long ago (2015, to be precise) that the Royals were crowned World Series Champions!

And yet I continue to gaze forlornly at this sad sack team and say – just like Ennis said to Jack in the movie Brokeback Mountain – “I can’t quit you!”

As I stop for a moment to analyze it, I find I can point to three different sources for my forlorn Royals fandom; the first one is habit. I got into the habit of cheering for them when I moved to Kansas City in 1976 (they were good back then, too), and just never broke that habit.

The second factor is nostalgia. Joan and I moved from Kansas City to Fort Collins, Colorado nearly four years ago, and as nice as Fort Collins is, as beautiful as these Rocky Mountains are, I still miss KC. The Royals connect me to that place.

And finally, there is hope. Hope for a better day. Hope for a return to championship form (or at least to a semblance of respectability). Hope for the eventual maturation of all these promising young players currently on the roster. 

But I wonder… are any of those the reasons God continues cheering for US (you and me)? I mean, our failure of faithfulness to God goes back WAAAAAYYY longer than the eight seasons I have fumed about the Royals. Like maybe back to the beginning of time? 

So why does God continue to stay in our corner? Is it out of habit? Or nostalgia? 

Naaah. Probably not.

But what about HOPE? Is it possible that God stays with us, keeps loving and forgiving us, never failing or forsaking us (Joshua 1:5), and promises to be with us “… to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20) in the HOPEthat we are one day going to snap out of it and finally be the people we were created to be?

Or is it possibly something even more powerful than that?

I think maybe the Apostle Paul answered that question in one of his most famous writings when he said, “And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13, NRSVU). 

Play ball!

Abundant blessings;