When you hear the word “baseball,” what image comes to mind?

Wholesome pictures of America’s pass time next to apple pie and old glory waving?  Major league parks?  Favorite teams?  Or has your view been tainted into something more closely connected to dollar signs, lies, congressional hearings, and the Mitchell Report?

Both are legitimate reactions.  Both, however, are different than what will always come to mind for me.  It’s not that baseball doesn’t represent a slice of Americana.  I too have major league ballpark memories of dad and I climbing to the upper deck “cheap seats” of Bush Stadium.  It’s not that I’m naïve or immune to the recent scandals that have tarnished the game’s image.  It’s just that for me, my views can’t be easily swayed because it has never really been about pop-culture, public perception, or the MLB for that matter.  It’s more about what took place in my backyard and more importantly, the person I spent that quality time with.

As we celebrate Father’s Day tomorrow, I thought I’d share just a few things my dad and his favorite pass-time have taught me over the years.

1.  My dad’s affection toward me was not about my performance—either good or bad.

I’m not oblivious to the fact that this is something many children with sports loving families never get to enjoy.  I’ve been to tee-ball games where fathers of five-year-olds berate their children over developmentally appropriate indiscretions.  I’ve seen parents whose eyes blinded by the prospect of scholarships and dollar signs fail to notice that their 16 year-old has grown to resent not just the game, but those closest to him.

We can tell kids over and over again that our love is unconditional.  Both my parents did this, but what gave their sentiments credibility was their response.  It was the way that I could climb in the car next to my dad after a championship win against our rivals and know that he would be the same man I sat next to when the opposite outcome occurred.  It meant being there to celebrate, being there to provide tough love (when my adolescent attitude needed some perspective), and being there to hug me and listen when everything went wrong.

The way my dad loved me through sports was a beautiful picture of my Heavenly Father’s love toward me.  It wasn’t something I earned by doing well or something I could lose when I messed up.  Softball was a fleeting, temporary season of my life, what my dad helped me to see during that time, though, had eternal implications.  Don’t miss the opportunity to share the Gospel with your children through sports.

2.  Baseball was a good gift, not the ultimate gift.

I’d be hard pressed to remember a time where a game played with bats and balls stole my dad’s joy.   Sometimes that meant flipping the channel.  Sometimes that meant taking a deep breath and working through a .500 season as a coach with integrity while the guy down the street used the opposite approach and grew his trophy case.

In his book Counterfeit Gods Tim Keller writes, “It is not easy to draw an exact line between ascribing value to something and assigning it absolute value.”  As a child with limited life perspective, it was difficult for me to grasp this in many arenas—including those related to sports.  Unfortunately, many young athletes grow up in homes where their parents actually perpetuate the problem.  I’m grateful that my dad helped me to understand that baseball was a family gift, not a family idol.

3.  Regardless of venue, time with me was valuable because I was valuable.

That often meant turning off the T.V. and getting out of the recliner after a hard day of work to go sit on a five gallon bucket to catch pitch after pitch when his knees felt anything but young.  My dad is a mechanic who owns his own business and works in the heat all day.  I didn’t always get it at the time, but he daily sacrificed his comfort with motives not to “ride the coattails of my athletic prowess” but to simply spend time with me.

4.  There comes a time when all of us hang up our cleats.

My dad and I recently talked about this chart from the NCAA that shows the likelihood of someone becoming a professional athlete.  I think it’s a pretty great reminder that everyone will eventually hang up their cleats (more often than not before signing a major league contract.)

My relationship with my dad in many ways started and grew up on the dusty fields of Palmyra’s Flower City Park.  It by no means died there.  If I would have hated sports I have no doubt in my mind that my dad would have intentionally looked for other ways to spend time growing our relationship.  We still talk about the National League standings and text back and forth during the World Series, but we also share History Channel documentaries, phone calls about public school issues, favorite book recommendations, theology talk, and a fair amount of laughing at our own cheesy jokes.  I didn’t have to worry about what would happen to my relationship with my dad when I stopped playing ball because it was about so much more than the love of a game. It was about a love for each other that was just a picture of the greatest Love of all.

How deep the Father’s love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory.

Happy Father’s Day!