LIFE IS A BASEBALL GAME.
"Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball" the French Historian Jacques Barzun made this famous diagnosis of American life in 1954.
On 15 April 1947 , Jackie Robinson became the first African American player in Major League Baseball. Today San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds is moving closer to baseball's all-time home run record, soon to surpass Hammering Hank Aaron and Herman "The Babe" Ruth..
A Black Gospel Singer, Sister Wynonna Carr, put it this way:
You know life is a baseball game, and you must play it fair.
It's being played every day, and every one can play.
Jesus is standing at home plate; He's waiting for you there.
Life is a baseball game, and you must play it fair.
First Base is temptation, and Second Base is sin.
Third Base is tribulation, if you pass you can make it in.
Old Man Solomon is the empire. Satan is pitching the game.
He'll do his best to psych you out, keep playing anyway.
Daniel is up to bat first. He prayed three times a day.
Satan pitched him a fast ball, bur he hit it anyway.
Job, is up to bat next. Satan struck him in every way.
But, Job hit a homerun, and he came on in that day.
Prayer is our strong bat. When he hears that Satan will fall.
When you start to swinging, you've got to give it your all and all.
Faith is gonna be your catcher, and on him you can depend.
Lord Jesus is standing at Home plate, and waiting for you to come in.
Moses is on the sidelines, waiting to be called.
When he parted the Red Sea, he gave Jesus his all in all.
John came in in the ninth inning. The game was almost done.
Then God gave John a visio, and we knew we'd already won.
Life is a baseball game, being played every day.
each and every one can play.
Jesus is standing at home plate, and He's waiting for you there.
You know life is a baseball game, But you've got to play it fair.
Labels: Black Sports Figures.
posted by ichbinalj at 6:26 PM
2 Comments:
The Intellectual Take on Our National Pastime Skip Mcafee F. Scott Fitzgerald claimed that baseball was "a game played by idiots for morons."^1 In this paper I will examine the views of the intelligentsia--erudite, "cultured," but nonbaseball individuals, including prominent artists, historians, scientists, statesmen, educators, philosophers, humorists, novelists--as they interpret what baseball is all about. We all know about Twain's observation of the "drive and push and rush" of baseball in the "raging" nineteenth century, and Longfellow's rage for "ball, ball, ball" that can rid Bowdoin students of their "torpitude," and Whitman's "hurrah game" that fills our lungs with oxygen.^2 But Whitman also had his reservations. In a discussion with his friend Tom Harned in 1889, Whitman asked: "Is it the rule that the fellow who pitches the ball aims to pitch it in such a way the batter cannot hit it? Gives it a twist--what not--so it slides off, or won't be struck fairly?" On Tom's affirmative Whitman denounced the custom roundly: "The wolf, the snake, the cur, the sneak, all seem entered into the modern sportsman--though I ought not to say that, for the snake is snake because he is born so, and man the snake for other reasons, it may be said."^3 This is reminiscent of Charles William Eliot, president of Harvard, on why he wished to drop baseball as a college sport: "Well, this year I'm told the team did well because one pitcher had a fine curve ball. I understand that a curve ball is thrown with a deliberate attempt to deceive. Surely this is not an ability we should want to foster at Harvard."^4 "It is impossible to understand America without a thorough knowledge of baseball."
On C-Span recently,there was a
speech by Senator Barrack Hussein Obama, Jr. He was standing in the
pulpit of a black church in Selma, Alabama, and as I studied the
body language of the dozen or so black ministers standing behind the
senator, I couldn't help but be reminded of the little head-bobbing
dolls that people used to place in the rear windows of their 1957 Chevrolets. If their reactions are any indication, the new Schlickmeister of the Democrat Party is actually a pretty accomplished public speaker.
However, as he spoke, I found my bull_ _ _ _ alarm going off,
repeatedly. But I couldn't quite figure out why until I actually
read excerpts of his speech several days later. Here's part of what he said:
"...something happened back here in Selma, Alabama. Something
happened in Birmingham that sent out what Bobby Kennedy called,
"ripples of hope all around the world." Something happened when a
bunch of women decided they were going to walk instead of ride the bus after a long day of doing somebody else's laundry, looking after somebody else' children.
"When (black) men who had PhD's decided 'that's enough' and
'we're going to stand up for our dignity,' that sent a shout across
oceans so that my grandfather began to imagine something
different for his son. His son, who grew up herding goats in a small village in Africa could suddenly set his sights a little higher and believe that maybe a black man in this world had a chance.
". So the Kennedy's decided we're going to do an air lift.
We're going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over
to this
country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a
wonderful country America is.
"This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets
and came over to this country. He met this woman whose great
great-great-great-grandfather had owned slaves; but she had a good
idea there was some craziness going on because they looked at each other and they decided that we know that, (in) the world as it has been, it might not be possible for us to get together and have a child. There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in
Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a
bridge. So
they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don't tell me I
don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I'm not coming
home to Selma, Alabama."
Okay, so what's wrong with that? It all sounds good. but is
it?
Obama told his audience that, because some folks had the
courage to "march across a bridge" in Selma, Alabama, his mother, a
white woman from Kansas, and his father, a black Muslim from Africa, took heart. It gave them the courage to get married and have a child. The problem with that characterization is that Barrack Obama, Jr. was born on
August 4, 1961, while the first of three marches across that bridge
in Selma didn't occur until March 7, 1965, at least five years after Obama's parents met.
Obama went on to tell his audience that the Kennedys, Jack and Bobby, decided to do an airlift. They would bring some young Africans over so that they could be educated and learn all about America. His grandfather heard that call and sent his son, Barrack Obama, Sr., to America.
The problem with that scenario is that, having been born in
August 1961, the future senator was not conceived until sometime in
November 1960. So, if his African grandfather heard words
that "sent a shout across oceans," inspiring him to send his
goat-herder son to America, it was not Democrat Jack Kennedy he heard, or his brother Bobby, it was Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Obama's speech is reminiscent of Al Gore's claim of having
invented the Internet, Hillary Clinton's claim of having been named after the first man to climb Mt. Everest. even though she was born five years and seven months before Sir Edmund climbed the mountain, and John Kerry's imaginary trip to Cambodia.
As one of my black friends, Eddie Huff, has said, "We need to
ask some very serious questions of the senator from Illinois.
It's not enough to be black, it's not enough to be articulate, and
it's not enough to be eloquent and a media darling. The only question will be how deaf an ear, or how blind an eye, will people turn in order to turn a frog into a prince."
It appears that Senator Barrack Hussein Obama, Jr. is not a
"fresh face," as media sycophants like to describe him, he's just
another in a long line of Democrat snake oil salesmen.
by Paul R. Hollrah
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