My junior and senior year in high school, I worked at the Astrodome in the concession warehouse. One day, I was asked to work in the souvenir warehouse because the kid who worked there was out looking at colleges, so I went down to work with George, the long time manager down in the basement warehouse where souvenirs were located. As we worked game prep, a guy walked in and said, "Hey George!" George looked up and said, "Hey Terry..." and the conversation began. "Terry," George finally said, "This is David. He's helping us out today. Can you take him to meet the other umpires?"
Umpires? Really? Turns out Terry was Terry Tada and Terry took me to meet Paul Pryor, Ed Vargo, and Satch Davidson in the umpire locker room nearby (I remember the names because they autographed a ball). Two of them were rubbing baseballs in the dirt used for prep for game baseballs. "What are you doing?" I asked. "Getting these ready for the game," was the response and still is today. See, in baseball, the umpires control the game balls.
So we come to Tom Brady and "Deflategate." Seems as though he's accused of tampering with game balls. Seems as though the officiating crew gets them ready (rubbed and inflated) and then gives them back to the team who can then adjust them accordingly, within boundaries. Of course, makes sense. Put the game ball back in the hands of teams before a game. The NFL has, what quality experts would cite, is a control issue. Rich beyond all imagination, it somehow cannot arrive at a process that ensures the integrity of the game ball which MAY require hiring one or two more additional officials.
The book Freakonomics cites, with a great deal of logic and supporting fact, the nature of people to cheat. Yes, we will, and we do. The degree isn't the point (take a little off the golf score, talk about our past a little more glowingly than reality, shave a little on taxes, perhaps take a few small things from the company like pens and pencils... all the way up to millions via embezzlement and worse?). The point is we can't help ourselves. It is who we are as sinful human beings. Deflategate, while some may sanctimoniously decry the situation via complaints against Brady as a "cheater," was enabled by a league that seems to not understand the very nature of people. "Oh, you can play minus two games," became a year's suspension once the video of the left hook to the girlfriend's jaw went public. Why should it shock us that giving the ball back to the team before the game causes this problem?
Christ's talk in Mark 6 about the "heart of a man" is exactly true. What's my temptation? What's yours? It is there. David, after being caught in a web of lies and deceit that resulted in a child and a dead general thanks to David's action, gave us Psalm 51 - "Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me."
That should be our daily prayer. "Create in me a pure heart, O God, through your Son Jesus Christ."
Hope Men's Ministry
Ball is on display in the Baldner Baseball Shrine on the 5th floor.
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