Two Morality Tales from Major League Baseball
Major league baseball has given us two morality tales this season, one heart-warming, one unsettling, both profound. The first was the almost “perfect” game thrown by Detroit Tiger pitcher Armando Galarraga. With two outs in the ninth inning of that game, a hard hit ground ball resulted in a close play at first base and umpire Jim Joyce called the runner safe. So Galarraga lost his perfect game. However most observers saw that the runner was clearly out—and TV replays gave concrete visible evidence to the fact.
Here was a situation ripe for harsh language, bitterness, and recrimination on one side and stonewalling defensiveness on the other. But it did not come—at least not from the two key players in this little drama, Galarraga and Joyce. Galarraga’s immediate response was a shy, incredulous smile, followed a short time later by the comment that nobody’s perfect and everybody makes a mistake from time to time. Joyce admitted he had blown the call, apologized personally to Galarraga, even shed tears over it.
It was a great teaching moment brought to us by major league baseball: Galarraga’s grace in the face of unintentional injustice and Joyce’s heartfelt sorrow and apology teaching all of us, and especially young people, a profound lesson in forgiveness and repentance, exhibiting,as Hemingway put it, “grace under pressure.”
That happened quite early in the season. Now just three weeks before the end of the regular season, Derek Jeter has put on his own little morality play. Here’s the drama: The Yankees and Devil Rays are locked in a tight game in the most intense pennant race in the majors. With the Yankees trailing by a run and Jeter at bat, he appears to be hit in the hand by a pitch. Instantly he grasps his hand, winces, and dances around in pain. The umpire awards him first base. Moments later, with Jeter on first, teammate Curtis Granderson hits a home run. But what much of the crowd saw and what TV cameras caught on tape is that the ball did not hit Jeter but the end of the bat. His entire little dance of pain had been a charade.
Jeter readily admitted he had faked getting hit. “My job is to get on base,” he said. Joe Maddon, manager of the Tamp Bay Devil Rays, protested the call so vigorously that he was thrown out of the game, but after the game he said, “I thought Derek did a great job, and I applaud it, because I wish our guys would do the same thing.”
And that seems to be the prevailing opinion. ESPN announcers chuckled as they endorsed Jeter’s little drama. Phil Rogers of the Chicago Tribune says approvingly, “He (Jeter) knows the right thing to do at the right time every time and this was an example.” Ben Walker of the Associated press writes, “Coming off the Steroids Era, where cheating often meant illegal performance enhancing drugs, some actually found a charm in Jeter’s old-fashioned chicanery.”
I find it neither right, nor charming nor harmless. And speaking of the Steroids Era, if you can lie about getting hit, why not lie about taking steroids?
Our games often mirror life, and our lives often mirror our games. Tell a lad to lie if it will help his team to win, and he will likely become a man who will lie to help grow his company’s bottom line. If we play our games to win no matter what the moral cost, then we will run our businesses on the same principle. One might even speculate that the financial collapse of September 2008 was made possible by the gradual cultivation of this non-ethical code.
Large number of people in our country have either rejected the Biblical code of right behavior known as the Ten Commandments or have divorced their religious beliefs from their workplace practices so as to enable them to ignore its teachings when they are at the job. We have become so secularized that large numbers of fans and commentators are calling Jeter’s lie the “right” thing.
Derek Jeter (and all his encouragers) said with the lie he acted out that the end justifies the means. Armando Galarraga said of the umpire who cost him his perfect game, “I understand that nobody’s perfect” and in doing so he bore witness to the fact that life consists of more than winning, that things like decency, kindness, humility, generosity, and honesty enrich life far more than fame or fortune.
Here was a situation ripe for harsh language, bitterness, and recrimination on one side and stonewalling defensiveness on the other. But it did not come—at least not from the two key players in this little drama, Galarraga and Joyce. Galarraga’s immediate response was a shy, incredulous smile, followed a short time later by the comment that nobody’s perfect and everybody makes a mistake from time to time. Joyce admitted he had blown the call, apologized personally to Galarraga, even shed tears over it.
It was a great teaching moment brought to us by major league baseball: Galarraga’s grace in the face of unintentional injustice and Joyce’s heartfelt sorrow and apology teaching all of us, and especially young people, a profound lesson in forgiveness and repentance, exhibiting,as Hemingway put it, “grace under pressure.”
That happened quite early in the season. Now just three weeks before the end of the regular season, Derek Jeter has put on his own little morality play. Here’s the drama: The Yankees and Devil Rays are locked in a tight game in the most intense pennant race in the majors. With the Yankees trailing by a run and Jeter at bat, he appears to be hit in the hand by a pitch. Instantly he grasps his hand, winces, and dances around in pain. The umpire awards him first base. Moments later, with Jeter on first, teammate Curtis Granderson hits a home run. But what much of the crowd saw and what TV cameras caught on tape is that the ball did not hit Jeter but the end of the bat. His entire little dance of pain had been a charade.
Jeter readily admitted he had faked getting hit. “My job is to get on base,” he said. Joe Maddon, manager of the Tamp Bay Devil Rays, protested the call so vigorously that he was thrown out of the game, but after the game he said, “I thought Derek did a great job, and I applaud it, because I wish our guys would do the same thing.”
And that seems to be the prevailing opinion. ESPN announcers chuckled as they endorsed Jeter’s little drama. Phil Rogers of the Chicago Tribune says approvingly, “He (Jeter) knows the right thing to do at the right time every time and this was an example.” Ben Walker of the Associated press writes, “Coming off the Steroids Era, where cheating often meant illegal performance enhancing drugs, some actually found a charm in Jeter’s old-fashioned chicanery.”
I find it neither right, nor charming nor harmless. And speaking of the Steroids Era, if you can lie about getting hit, why not lie about taking steroids?
Our games often mirror life, and our lives often mirror our games. Tell a lad to lie if it will help his team to win, and he will likely become a man who will lie to help grow his company’s bottom line. If we play our games to win no matter what the moral cost, then we will run our businesses on the same principle. One might even speculate that the financial collapse of September 2008 was made possible by the gradual cultivation of this non-ethical code.
Large number of people in our country have either rejected the Biblical code of right behavior known as the Ten Commandments or have divorced their religious beliefs from their workplace practices so as to enable them to ignore its teachings when they are at the job. We have become so secularized that large numbers of fans and commentators are calling Jeter’s lie the “right” thing.
Derek Jeter (and all his encouragers) said with the lie he acted out that the end justifies the means. Armando Galarraga said of the umpire who cost him his perfect game, “I understand that nobody’s perfect” and in doing so he bore witness to the fact that life consists of more than winning, that things like decency, kindness, humility, generosity, and honesty enrich life far more than fame or fortune.
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