Baseball, Converts, and the Last Inning

Yes, baseball season is in (caution, very corny cliche' coming) full swing!  Here we have Danny(17) at umpire (with complete unbias of course) and Mickey(11) at bat:

And here's Kevin (8):

Kevin takes his baseball very seriously.  When asked why he was crying after the team party at the end of last year's season he rubbed his eyes and replied, "Because now there won't be any more baseball until next year...and that's a long time away!"  The night before each game he lays out his whole uniform so that it looks like a little baseball player melted on his bedroom floor. :)

Our friend, Dave Leatherby, sent this wonderful account of Babe Ruth's deathbed confession:

Babe Ruth's last message: The kids can't take it If we don't give it!

BABE RUTH

As far as I'm concerned, and I think as far as most kids go, once religion sinks in, it stays there—deep down.

George Herman "Babe" Ruth, Jr.

1895-1948

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Bad boy Ruth—that was me.

Don't get the idea that I'm proud of my harum-scarum youth. I'm not. I simply had a rotten start in life, and it took me a long time to get my bearings.

Looking back to my youth, I honestly don't think I knew the difference between right and wrong. I spent much of my early boyhood living over my father's saloon, in Baltimore—and when I wasn't living over it, I was in it, soaking up the atmosphere. I hardly knew my parents.

St. Mary's Industrial School in Baltimore, where I was finally taken, has been called an orphanage and a reform school. It was, in fact, a training school for orphans, incorrigibles, delinquents and runaways picked up on the streets of the city. I was listed as an incorrigible. I guess I was. Perhaps I would always have been but for Brother Matthias, the greatest man I have ever known, and for the religious training I received there which has since been so important to me.

I doubt if any appeal could have straightened me out except a Power over and above man—the appeal of God. Iron-rod discipline couldn't have done it. Nor all the punishment and reward systems that could have been devised. God had an eye out for me, just as He has for you, and He was pulling for me to make the grade.

As I look back now, I realize that knowledge of God was a big crossroads with me. I got one thing straight (and I wish all kids did)—that God was Boss. He was not only my Boss but Boss of all my bosses. Up till then, like all bad kids, I hated most of the people who had control over me and could punish me. I began to see that I had a higher Person to reckon with who never changed, whereas my earthly authorities changed from year to year. Those who bossed me had the same self-battles—they, like me, had to account to God. I also realized that God was not only just, but merciful. He knew we were weak and that we all found it easier to be stinkers than good sons of God, not only as kids but all through our lives.

Babe Ruth at St. Mary's Industrial School (Back row far left)

That clear picture, I'm sure, would be important to any kid who hates a teacher, or resents a person in charge. This picture of my relationship to man and God was what helped relieve me of bitterness and rancor and a desire to get even.

I've seen a great number of "he-men" in my baseball career, but never one equal to Brother Matthias. He stood six feet six and weighed 250 pounds. It was all muscle. He could have been successful at anything he wanted to in life—and he chose the church.

It was he who introduced me to baseball. Very early he noticed that I had some natural talent for throwing and catching. He used to back me in a corner of the big yard at St. Mary's and bunt a ball to me by the hour, correcting the mistakes I made with my hands and feet. I never forget the first time I saw him hit a ball. The baseball in 1902 was a lump of mush, but Brother Matthias would stand at the end of the yard, throw the ball up with his left hand, and give it a terrific belt with the bat he held in his right hand. The ball would carry 350 feet, a tremendous knock in those days. I would watch him bug-eyed.

Thanks to Brother Matthias I was able to leave St. Mary's in 1914 and begin my professional career with the famous Baltimore Orioles. Out on my own... free from the rigid rules of a religious school . . . boy, did it go to my head. I began really to cut capers.

I strayed from the church, but don't think I forgot my religious training. I just overlooked it. I prayed often and hard, but like many irrepressible young fellows, the swift tempo of living shoved religion into the background.

So what good was all the hard work and ceaseless interest of the Brothers, people would argue? You can't make kids religious, they say, because it just won't take. Send kids to Sunday School and they too often end up hating it and the church.

Don't you believe it. As far as I'm concerned, and I think as far as most kids go, once religion sinks in, it stays there—deep down. The lads who get religious training, get it where it counts—in the roots. They may fail it, but it never fails them. When the score is against them, or they get a bum pitch, that unfailing Something inside will be there to draw on. I've seen it with kids. I know from the letters they write me. The more I think of it, the more important I feel it is to give kids "the works" as far as religion is concerned. They'll never want to be holy—they'll act like tough monkeys in contrast, but somewhere inside will be a solid little chapel. It may get dusty from neglect, but the time will come when the door will be opened with much relief. But the kids can't take it, if we don't give it to them.

I've been criticized as often as I've been praised for my activities with kids on the grounds that what I did was for publicity. Well, criticism doesn't matter. I never forgot where I came from. Every dirty-faced kid I see is another useful citizen. No one knew better than I what it meant not to have your own home, a backyard, your own kitchen and icebox. That's why all through the years, even when the big money was rolling in, I'd never forget St. Mary's, Brother Matthias and the boys I left behind. I kept going back.

As I look back those moments when I let the kids down—they were my worst. I guess I was so anxious to enjoy life to the fullest that I forgot the rules or ignored them. Once in a while you can get away with it, but not for long. When I broke training, the effects were felt by myself and by the ball team—and even by the fans.

While I drifted away from the church, I did have my own "altar," a big window of my New York apartment overlooking the city lights. Often I would kneel before that window and say my prayers. I would feel quite humble then. I'd ask God to help me not make such a big fool of myself and pray that I'd measure up to what He expected of me.

In December, 1946 I was in French Hospital, New York, facing a serious operation. Paul Carey, one of my oldest and closest friends, was by my bed one night.

"They're going to operate in the morning, Babe," Paul said. "Don't you think you ought to put your house in order?"

I didn't dodge the long, challenging look in his eyes. I knew what he meant. For the first time I realized that death might strike me out. I nodded, and Paul got up, called in a Chaplain, and I made a full confession.

"I'll return in the morning and give you Holy Communion," the chaplain said," But you don't have to fast."

"I'll fast," I said. I didn't have even a drop of water.

As I lay in bed that evening I thought to myself what a comforting feeling to be free from fear and worries. I now could simply turn them over to God. Later on, my wife brought in a letter from a little kid in Jersey City. "Dear Babe", he wrote, "Everybody in the seventh grade class is pulling and praying for you. I am enclosing a medal, which if you wear will make you better. Your pal—Mike Quinlan.

P.S. I know this will be your 61st homer. You'll hit it."

I asked them to pin the Miraculous Medal to my pajama coat. I've worn the medal constantly ever since. I'll wear it to my grave.
________________________________________

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

George Herman "Babe" Ruth. "The Kids Can't Take It If We Don't Give It!" Guideposts (October, 1948).

This is Babe Ruth's last message. It was written with the help of friends not long before the Babe died. The Guideposts magazine office received it on the fatal day—August 16, 1948, Babe Ruth's last.

THE AUTHOR

George Herman Ruth, Jr. (February 6, 1895-August 16, 1948), best known as "Babe" Ruth and nicknamed "the Great Bambino", "the Sultan of Swat", "the King of Crash", and "the Colossus of Clouts", was an American Major League baseball player from 1914-1935. Ruth originally broke into the major leagues with the Boston Red Sox as a starting pitcher, but after he was sold to the New York Yankees in 1919, he converted to a full-time right fielder and subsequently became one of the league's most prolific hitters. Ruth was a mainstay in the Yankees' lineup that won seven pennants and four World Series titles during his tenure with the team. After a short stint with the Boston Braves in 1935, Ruth retired. In 1936, Ruth became one of the first five players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Ruth has since become regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in American culture. He has been named the greatest baseball player in history in various surveys and rankings, and his home run hitting prowess and charismatic personality made him a larger than life figure in the "Roaring Twenties". Off the field he was famous for his charity, but also was noted for his often reckless lifestyle. In 1998, The Sporting News ranked Ruth number one on the list of "Baseball's 100 Greatest Players."
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Isn't it a comfort that God doesn't quit going after souls long after most of us would have written them off?

Recently I read a very interesting post written by Frank Weathers, a convert, on a great website called Why I Am Catholic. He described his changing belief about the ratio of souls in Heaven and hell:

Before I was a Catholic, I would have answered her question the way that makes sense to a modern day Pharisee, you know, that most won’t make it to heaven. But you can be sure that I just knew that I would make it. Sigh. But as a Catholic, my frame of reference had changed drastically.

(James 5:14 Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick man: and the Lord shall raise him up: and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him.) (Douay-Rheims)

(Frank continues) The Catholic Church actively pursues the saving of souls from the moment of conception until natural death. That isn't popular with many folks. Remember the parable of the vineyard workers (Matthew 20:1-16) who all received the same wages whether they started working at 5 a.m. or 7 p.m.? That is how the Catholic Church sees it. Deathbed baptisms,confessions,etc? No problem; Because saving souls for Christ is job one and the true mission of the Church, among the laity and religious alike.

Evelyn Waugh, another convert, also appreciated this confidence we can place in God's patience and persistence with us.  A deathbed confession by the patriarch of a Catholic family is the climax of his novel Brideshead Revisited.  The irrepressible and lovable daughter Cordelia reminisced about family members who have strayed: 

"D'you know what Papa said when he became a Catholic? […] He said […]: 'You have brought back my family to the faith of their ancestors.' […] The family haven't been very constant [in regards to religion], have they? There's him gone and Sebastian gone and Julia gone. But God won't let them go for long, you know. I wonder if you remember the story Mummy read us the evening Sebastian first got drunk – I mean the bad evening. Father Brown said something like 'I caught him' (the thief) 'with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread.'" (emphasis mine)

The Prodigal Son-Rembrandt

This is why I don't fret terribly when some of my friends tell me about their grown children going prodigal.  I know that my dear friends have planted the seed of faith in their children and watered it well.  When the promises the world offers them prove empty, they will have a place to come home, a Savior to turn to.

So I have hope for the lost, as well as humility for myself, because I know that like St. Paul, "I myself may be disqualified." 1Cor 9:27  May God's grace sustain us all the way to the last inning.