I went to a Marlins game Tuesday night. It was my dad's birthday... he unfortunately has to share his birthday with 9/11... It was good to take a night off and have fun at the ballpark. Unfortunately, the Marlins were playing...
Anyway, it was an interesting experience. Sitting in a 70,000 person stadium that had maybe 3,000 people in attendance. Sound system broke (bad amp, bad cable?) in about the 4th inning, so there was no music, no PA system for the rest of the game. It was really surreal.
Let me tell you what I took away from the game. Paul Hoover. Paul is a backup catcher for the Marlins. He's 31 years old, bounced around in minor leagues all his life, and has played a whopping 13 games (31 at bats) in the majors his entire life. In the past five years he has played a total five games.
In short, never heard of the guy.
Which is what attracted me to him. First at bat (2nd inning), he lines a single into left field. Second at bat (third inning), double into center. Who is this guy again? Two for two in his first major leage game in a year? Unfortunately, no one was on when he got these hits, but he did score a run! He was contributing to the process.
So in the fifth inning Hoover gets up with bases loaded. I pull out my trusty iPhone and reference marlins.com for stats... he's never hit a major league home run. Never. Well, dangit, Paul's about to hit a Grand Slam...
This is it, Paul. Come on baby. Prove you can do this. Hit it for us other "loser" 30 year former baseball players that never made it to the majors. Nail it. Grand slam. Wait, Paul, why are you swinging at that crap. If you had a tennis raquet you couldn't hit that. And what were you thinking when you swung at that second pitch? A sand wedge would have been more useful... Oh Paul... Paul, why did you hit an infield fly (pictured right) to end the inning.
All kidding aside, the guy went two for five. Awesome game for a newbie. But what I learned from the situation was that when he succeeded, it didn't matter. There was nothing at stake. When an opportunity arose for him to make a name for himself, he couldn't. Every boy dreams of hitting the grand slam in the majors. For Paul, he couldn't capitalize on making that dream a reality. Now he has to hope that opportunity will open up again at a later point.
In our Small Group tonight we talked about following the Spirit, filtering out the world's "noise" and taking advantage of opportunities the Holy Spirit opens up for us. My hope and prayer is that we would follow His guidance, and try to reach out to those around us with the love of Christ. God, continue to open opportunities to us. Allow us to see our home, our work, our school, our city, our life through a Spiritual Lense and truly see how much our city needs You. Then give us the ability, strength, and persistence to tell them about You!
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