As baseball is set to begin a new season, the sport is being put under a microscope to evaluate how the game is adapting to a changing culture.
Sports have to keep up with how fans are consuming their product, and in baseball, ways to shorten games and speed up certain aspects of the action are being considered.
With the focus on pitchers helping to speed up the game, the pitch clock is going to be tested out during this year's spring training games.
This may help some of the pace-of-play concerns, but Major League Baseball might need to shift their attention to finding a way for foul balls to stop slowing down the game.
Fivethirtyeight.com’s writer, Travis Sawchick, has an intriguing article with the headline, “Foul Balls are the Pace-of-Play Problem Nobody’s Talking About.” He explains how “there were almost 14,000 more foul balls last season than there were 20 seasons earlier.”
Sawchick also writes, “For the first time since pitch-level data has been recorded, there were more foul balls than balls put in play in 2017 — and that trend continued in 2018.”
The definition of a foul ball is “a ball struck with the bat so that it does not stay between the lines (the foul lines) that define the width of the playing field.”
As I contemplate how foul balls affect the pace of the game, I find a similarity to sin in our lives. Sin can be considered anything that “does not stay between the lines” according to God's Word.
The same way foul balls slow down a game is the same way sin slows down our growth and progress. Many times we’ll realize our “big sins” and put an emphasis on turning from those things, but there are other sins that “are the pace-of-play problem nobody’s talking about.”
Instead of overlooking certain aspects of our lives that are holding us back, it’s time we shift our focus to the solution.
Hebrews 12:1 (NLT) provides this challenging answer: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up.
"And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith…”
Today, let’s keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and allow Him to help us let go of every “foul ball” that slows us down - especially the ones that so easily trip us up. Let’s stop standing at the plate, but rather, run with freedom as we pursue holiness.
I’m Bryce Johnson and you can UNPACK that!
PRAYER: Heavenly Father, thank you for Your grace through Jesus that covers my past, present, and future sins. I desire to live in obedience and stay on the right path as I follow Your ways. Help me keep my eyes on Jesus and not be slowed down by sins that cling so tightly. It’s in His name I pray, Amen.
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