DURING MOST RECENT winters, my sister has heard me declare, excitedly, “Baseball is almost back!”
This may be surprising. Perhaps that’s because I am a Black man in my early 30s. (There aren’t that many of us longing for baseball anymore.) But it also may be surprising because my favorite team is the New York Mets. And if you know anything about the Mets, you know that to be a Mets fan is to be a friend to frustration, not to excitement.
I guess I was saved from some frustration because school and the lack of the necessary cable TV bundles made it hard for me to follow the team as closely as I would’ve liked during the 2010s and much of the early 2020s. Most of those years ended with the team losing more games than they won. And yet last year, with the blessing of a full-time job, I was glad to purchase a streaming service that allowed me to regularly watch my favorite team again.
Being a baseball fan — if you let it — can train your spiritual muscles in a way that few other activities can. Do you care about daily rituals like prayer? Baseball, unlike most professional sports, is typically played six or seven days a week. Are you working toward a cause, like human rights, that is mostly out of your control? Baseball reminds us that no one player, no matter how good they are, can single-handedly make their team win a championship (shoutout to Mike Trout).
As for the 2024 Mets season, it began like it had every intention of training my spiritual muscle of “dealing with disappointment.” The Mets lost their first five games. By May, things looked bleak. But, somehow, they won more than 60% of their games from June through September and made it to the playoffs. They advanced to the second round before their season eventually ended in defeat. It has now been 38 years since they last won a championship. Still: Last year might have been my favorite year of Mets fandom. And, sure, part of that is because their season was so dramatic. But I think another reason last year was so fun is because its results were so surprising, especially given the season’s inauspicious start. Simply showing up, allowing ourselves to be surprised by improbable victories, is part of life’s joy — even when those victories are accompanied by predictable losses.
One of the “star words” I received in church at the start of 2025 was “hope,” and baseball is a wonderful teacher of hope. Teams begin their preseason activity in Florida and Arizona, heralding the promise of summer weather to those of us in colder climates. And last year’s defeats have little bearing on this year’s reality. I say that while knowing that it is very likely that the Mets — their $300 million+ payroll notwithstanding — won’t win it all this year, again. But they might. And if they do win, I want to be able to say I experienced the journey.
I want to approach life that same way. I want to keep showing up, even when I have reason to be disappointed. Because my suspicion is that there are many more collective victories still waiting to be won. And, if I can avoid it, I don’t want to miss out.
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