A few days ago I posted an interesting video commentary on Sunday’s gospel. The priest in the video considered the story of “doubting Thomas” with a baseball connection. It started me thinking about faith and baseball. Maybe it is a coincidence of calendars and scheduling; maybe not. But Easter and Eastertide are always right there with the start of major league baseball season. Just saying.

Lots of people consider baseball in the same or similar way in which they view religion. F. Scott Fitzgerald famously called baseball “the faith of fifty million people.” Susan Sarandon’s opening lines in the movie Bull Durham: “I believe in the Church of Baseball . . . For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary, and there are 108 stitches in a baseball.”  The comedian George Carlin noted: “In football, the object is for the quarterback, otherwise known as the field general, to … hit his receivers with deadly accuracy … With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory … In baseball, the object is to go home and to be safe.” Rather like the objective of heavenly rest.

It is a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Perhaps there is more pondering to do. Or perhaps a nap.