The Meaning of Loyalty (or, Why My Dad Became a Braves Fan)

by Ian McLoud

I grew up in Saginaw, Texas, a town whose only claim to something better than obscurity is its massive grain elevators - some of the biggest ever built, because this is Texas after all, and even small towns here need the biggest something to prove the Texas bravado. Anyway. I grew up in Texas.

Two sports existed in our household: football and baseball.  Nothing else counted.  Basketball is played by a bunch of “wannabe-gangster-thug-rappers,” or so my dad said. Hockey is just plain boring, unless Coach Bombay is there telling us all about the triple-deke, the flying V and quacking.

My dad, a man I admire more and more as I get older, was a fan of the Dallas Cowboys and the Texas Rangers. We never went to Cowboys games, but I remember the Ballpark at Arlington, in all its beautiful, green, majestic glory. I, however, wasn’t a Cowboys fan, or a Rangers fan. 

I was a Green Bay Packers fan and an Atlanta Braves fan. The Braves make sense; I spent summers in Georgia with my grandparents and when Grandpa went to bed, Grandma and I would stay up late and watch the Braves. Grandma would scream and scream at Chipper, Glavine, Maddux and Smoltz. Mostly Chipper, and often so loud I was afraid Grandpa would wake up and tell us to go to bed. I liked Green Bay because I was weird and also, one time they won a Super Bowl while I happened to be watching.

But my dad was a die-hard fan of Texas teams. Sundays in the fall meant the Cowboys were on. Summers meant talking about Rangers baseball.

So it struck me as really odd when, after a move to Georgia, my dad began rooting for the Falcons and the Braves. I understood the Braves because they’re awesome, but at the time, the Falcons were even worse than the Cowboys. I asked dad what was up with this sudden change of heart; he said something along the lines of, “We live in Georgia now,” and I probably made some crack about him needing to learn the meaning of loyalty.

As I get older though, I view that response differently. My dad, a former minister, was doing something that I now realize had an importance all its own: he was trying to relate to his new neighbors, new friends and a new church community. He was, to quote Paul, “becoming all things to all people.”  That may sound weird; all he did was change his allegiance to sports teams.

Big deal, who cares? But looking back, I can see how the people he met cared. He could converse with them about a subject that they both knew something about. No one in Georgia cared about the Rangers, or the Packers, or the majestic grain elevators of Saginaw, Texas. But they did care about the Falcons and most definitely the Braves.

My dad had this whole idea of understanding a new culture and building relationships that bridged the gap. He could relate to people in this new environment on a level that I simply couldn’t because I was stubbornly sticking to my Brett Favre (pre-Jets) loving ways. He could connect and build relationships whereas I was still an outsider. And from him, I learned the importance of culture and relationship building before it became the trend du jour. (Hey! My dad’s a Christian Hipster!)

He was acting out the all things to all people that Paul was talking about. And while I don’t think Paul was envisioning sports fandom exactly, still, it works. Especially in a society where our sports affiliation is seen as a key to our identity.

So yeah, my dad wasn’t loyal to the Cowboys or the Rangers. He’s not even really loyal to the Falcons or the Braves. But he’s loyal to God and to people. And sometimes, that means giving up things we desire in the pursuit of connecting with others. 

Ian is the Youth and Family Minister at the Lakehoma Church of Christ in Mustang, Oklahoma. You can follow him on Twitter @KindaScottish.

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On Breaking the Slump

by Ben Howard

Over the winter, my favorite baseball team, the Atlanta Braves, signed free agent center fielder B.J. Upton to a five year contract worth $75 million dollars. It's the biggest contract the Braves have ever given to a free agent. I was a bit hesitant upon hearing the news, after all that is quite a large investment, but Upton has been a solid player over the last few years. He's fast, plays good defense, and has the ability to hit a lot number of home runs. He isn't quite a superstar, but he is only a step or two down from that.
 
Unfortunately, B.J. Upton has started this season playing terribly. Over the first two months of the Upton had a batting average of .144. That means he got a hit in 14.4% of his at bats. To put that in perspective, his career batting average is .250. 

In fact, there's a term in baseball called the Mendoza line which defines incompetent hitting. It's named for a notoriously bad hitter named Mario Mendoza who hit .200 for his career. If you hit below .200, it's essentially impossible for you to be a useful player. Upton was far below that.

But this isn't a story about a player who was once good suddenly becoming terrible, this is a story about slumping. Upton didn't suddenly forget how to play, nor did his skills erode to the point where he was overmatched; he was just in a slump. In fact, this month, he's hitting a relatively robust .234.

So how do you get out of a slump?

Some say it's a matter of confidence. Some say you just need to relax. Others have more interesting and off-the-wall suggestions (if you're brave, look up the term "slumpbuster"). Ultimately though there's no real solution. You're simply in a slump until you're out of it. It's part of the cyclical nature of sports and life in general.

The worst part of a slump is when a player begins to press. If you're unfamiliar with the phrase, pressing is when someone begins to put pressure on themselves to succeed. It typically involves over-thinking processes that were once instinctual. For example a baseball player starts to think about how to swing a bat instead of just swinging, or a basketball player starts to go through the step-by-step process of shooting instead of just shooting. At its worst, it can lead to the "yips" where a player can no longer perform simple actions that they've done for years (i.e. a catcher who's unable to throw the ball back to the pitcher).

I mention all of this because I'm in a slump right now and it feels like I'm pressing. The thoughts that used to come to my head easily are a chore and the words I want to communicate just aren't there. Instead of writing on instinct, I've been....well, I haven't been writing at all.

Since I don't know the best way to break a slump, I'm doing the best I know how and leaning into the curve; trying to overcome my writing slump by writing about it.

I've noticed a curious thing throughout my attempts to break out of this feeling. I've noticed the desire to try and copy myself. When I felt like I couldn't access an authentic version of myself, when I felt like I lost my voice, I would simply try and be the best imitation of myself that I could be. If I couldn't "be myself" then I'd try to "act like myself."

Think about that. Think about what that means.

It means that I thought that there was only one "authentic" version of myself that I needed to be all the time. It means that sometimes I thought I wasn't "me". That's impossible. I'm always me. Every part, every emotion, every happy moment, every sad moment, every moment when I have a voice and every moment when I feel like I've lost it, those are all me.

I'm sure you've heard that people show their true colors when they're angry or when they're sad or when they're afraid. Bullshit. People show their true colors all the time. They are always themselves. Every bit of them is authentically them, even when they're trying to lie and hide it.

But there's something in our psyche that tries to avoid that truth. There's something in our mind that would rather see clean narrative arcs and easily defined personalities. We want to be able to encapsulate people, we want to be able to encapsulate ourselves. For people we say that they're "Thoughtful, reflective and kind" or "Surly, arrogant and rude." For baseball players we tick off their batting average.

Here's the thing that I've learned about being in a slump. Slumps are as much a part of who I am as the peaks. B.J. Upton's performance as a baseball player is not defined by his average, it's defined by all the bits and pieces along the way that go into that computation. You aren't one thing, you are all the things across the spectrum that compose that encapsulated view of yourself.

We limit ourselves and others to the average version of us. We define ourselves against our relative norms, and then we judge ourselves to be lesser when we fall below those norms. Perhaps the best way to break a slump, or to be confident in ourselves, or simply love ourselves (and others) is simply to realize that we are always who we are whether we're slumping or peaking or anywhere in between.

Peace,
Ben

Ben Howard is an accidental iconoclast and generally curious individual living in Nashville, Tennessee. He is also the editor-in-chief of On Pop Theology and an avid fan of waving at strangers for no reason. You can follow him on Twitter @BenHoward87. 

 

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology.

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Melky Cabrera Is Bad At Lying

by Ben Howard

Melky Cabrera.

I'm going to assume that unless you're a serious baseball fan or an avid reader of ESPN you have no idea who this is. That's okay.

How about some quick background on The Melk. Melky came up in the Yankees system and was always considered a player on the borderline between being a starter and a backup. He was best defined by the word, Meh.

“Is he a good hitter?”

“Meh.”

“Is he a good fielder?”

“Meh.”

“Will he help us win?”

“Meh.”

My favorite Melky moment came when he played for my favorite team the Atlanta Braves in 2010. Melky ran down a ball at the warning track in left-center field and proceeded to throw the ball in an arc to slighty center-er field where there was no one at all. The batter scored. How do I feel about Melky? Meh.

But then last year, Melky started playing well. This year, he played so well that he was named an All-Star. Huh?

Then this weekend the other shoe dropped and Melky was hit with a 50 game suspension because he tested positive for a banned substance. Excess testosterone was found in his system.

Now, Melky isn't the first player to take drugs to be a better player. As an economic decision, it's pretty defensible. Break the rules, make tens of millions of dollars. No judgment here. You tried to break the rules and you got caught.

But that's not how Melky took the news. Nope, not even a little bit.

Instead, in a series of misadventures that can only be described as Quixotic, Melky paid for a website to be created. And on this website there was a product. What kind of product? A fake product. A fake product that Melky claimed he took and caused him to fail his drug test. Yeah.

Apparently it took Major League Baseball investigators very little time to deconstruct Melky's brilliant facade. Is he good at subterfuge? Meh.

It always amazes me how athletes, or anyone really, reacts when they're caught red-handed. I think everybody knows at some level that the best possible reaction is to tell the truth and try to push your way through the awkwardness and the consequences that might come. Just deal with it head on, but then that wise voice in your head gives in to that much louder voice that just screams, “Lie!”

And so we get Melky's fake website. And Tiger Woods driving an SUV into a tree as his wife attempts to beat him with a golf club. And Presidents debating the meaning of the word is. And whatever other absurdities we've tried to concoct to cover over our own inadequacies and failures. Every one little more than a joke in hindsight. A fraud perpetrated in our minds that no one else believes.

Honesty is such a simple thing, yet at the same time it is so deeply profound. It reinforces the dignity of our humanity and allows us to engage others on the same level. I will be honest with you and I will hope you are honest with me. Even the pain that occassionally comes from honesty feels better than the unsteady doubt fostered by the possibility of a lie.

This all seems so trite. Your mother told you that “the truth shall set you free,” but sometimes the simplest things are those that are most difficult to hold within our grasp. I wish I could promise you that I'm always going to be honest, but I can't. I just don't think life works that way. I wish it did.

Peace,
Ben

Note: More than likely, I'll continue to look at this idea of honesty/apologies later in the week. I'd really appreciate any comments or insights you might have on the topic.

When he isn't criticizing baseball players for cheating and then elaborately lying about it, Ben likes to read the works of Jonah Lehrer and James Frey. That's some real honest writing. You can follow his literary pursuits @BenHoward87.