Baseball, it may sound like a cliché but the mention of the game evokes so many memories, and so much nostalgia for me. From my earliest days as a single parent my son and I have been watching and playing the game together. Before the age of three he would stand in the middle of my bed watching the television which sat atop my book case, clad only in a diaper and a baseball cap (and occasionally a Texas Rangers t-shirt) and try to emulate the pitchers.

I remember my surprise at the first time he sat and watched virtually an entire game with me. It was probably a ploy to stay up later than usual but it worked. I just didn’t have the heart to send him to bed before it was over. Then there was the time I had to explain to his teacher why he had sharpie marks all over his arms… “He just really likes Josh Hamilton, and Josh has a lot of tattoos…” fortunately his teacher was a fan too.

In my family, baby’s first baseball game is on about the same level as his baptism or his first communion. I remember that one too, and many others that followed. I should probably send the Texas Rangers an apology note for the number of times I carried him into the ball park on my shoulders. The rule is that children beneath a certain height don’t require a ticket, and it’s not an easy thing to gage when the child is riding on a parent’s back. Of course, the folks at the gate were on to us, I’m pretty sure at least one winked at me as we slid through the crowd. And it certainly made a better story in the long run.

It was from that same seat (meaning my shoulders) that my son watched the Rangers in the playoffs during their 2010 World Series run. He yelled his heart out with the rest of the forty thousand plus fans whirling his Rangers towel like he was going berserk. While we may not have won the series we were the American League Champions that year!

There were minor league games too. I remember one we attended with my brother and his family in Oregon. In the course of the game my son had beer accidently spilled on him, he subsisted on all manner of ball park food, including at least two ball park hotdogs, at the end of the game he stormed the field with a mob of other children and concluded the evening by slugging a mascot. In short, he lived an entire lifetime in a single evening. His response? “Can we come back?”

In the summers 2015 and 2016 we traveled abroad with my new wife and my son’s new mother, (they’re the same person) and of course the balls and gloves traveled with us. We played catch in the streets of Barcelona and on the Beach in Oregon, carried them all over Rome (hoped to play a little catch in the coliseum, but that didn’t work) played in the Parks of Dublin, and numerous other places. Point being we rarely travel without a ball and glove. And now that I’m married my wife has been fully converted into the church of baseball. We still go to Ranger games as a family and we watch nearly every game on television. My car has numerous dings from us playing in the yard and I should say, I’m proud of every one of them.

Today my son starts playing on his first organized baseball team. It’s been too long coming but he’s thrilled. I only hope that he does well. Not because I want him win every game or live vicariously through him. In fact, I don’t really care if he loses every single game. (He would not agree with that sentiment by the way), I want him to learn as much about the game as he can. I want him to do well because the game is a part of who we are as a family. I want him to do well because I want him to continue loving baseball.

I read an article last week about a “suggestion,” that was put forward by the British Medical Association [BMA]. The suggestion was of course just another point of compliance, social and political correctness is demanding of the upcoming generation. And its these demands are daily pushing western culture into a world- wide game of make believe where we all close our eyes to objective reality and allow others to believe that the plastic tea cups are actually, fine china and the air we’re all sipping is in fact earl grey tea.

Of course, what I’m referring to is the BMA’s request that its staff and members not use gender specific terms like “expectant mothers,” or (I assume) “mothers” because the terms are “shaming” to “intersex and transgender” men who may also be pregnant. I could go on to try and explain the thinking, (if it’s possible to refer to it as such), behind the request but it’s just a process of pilling one absurdity upon another and grows tedious.

But this article wasn’t written to argue for or against transgenderism. Quite the opposite. As a Christian I can only feel genuine sympathy for those who are wrestling with issues of identity and depression. Instead what I’m suggesting is that Motherhood and fatherhood are quite literally as old as humanity. They are in fact the very basis of human civilization and survival. These concepts are truisms beyond negotiation and are not going to change on the basis of re- stylized language.

But beyond that as a society we have completely lost sight of the beauty and the value of our sexual identity to the point that we deny its physical reality. And for those of us who are not confused, culture demands that we should be, or rather that we should make it impossible for others to escape their confusion. Ultimately, we seem to be rushing towards self- destruction. We’re suffering from a cultural self- loathing and rather than treating the ill we’re playing along with their delusion; like conceding to the anorexic that she is in fact, overweight. But at some point, it all has to stop because merely changing our terminology isn’t helping anyone. It’s merely making fools of all of us.

Lord Wellington famously stated that the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. He was referring of course to what the combination of classical upbringing, culture and athletics can produce in young men (and in our modern context young women). When I was growing up in private school these same values were planted in me and my classmates. Not that our school was an elite, socially exclusive private school but it was classical. We studied Latin and Logic, and played Soccer, basketball and ran track. And while we were expected to be aggressive on the playing field, we were also taught to be respectful of the adversary. We were expected to strike a balance between competition and gentility, (not that we struck fairly every time).

Now that I’m a parent (of a son who’s far more athletically gifted than I was), I’m working to give him the same educational experience I had. I try to emphasize for him that he should never use these gifts to prey upon those who are either weaker or less capable than he is. I tell him to compete, play hard, work hard, get ahead but be just.

But all this is difficult to emphasize sometimes in the context of local sporting clubs. My son plays on a team of third graders, in Lindale. They are a great team with a terrific coach. The team has been a huge blessing and has helped to give my son an outlet for his abounding energy. But often playing in tournaments outside our immediate community can be frustrating.

About three weeks ago however, our team participated in the Tyler Brookshire’s Soccer tournament. It was an illuminating peek into a competitive culture unconcerned with creating an environment sportsmanship, gentility, and fair play. And lest my reader think I’m speaking as the bitter parent of a losing team, we won more than we lost, and beat some good teams. But I also witnessed some cheap shots. I saw officiating that gave up control of the game. I saw players throwing others to the ground from behind with arms fully extended; right in front of refs who did nothing. I saw coaches bring in ringers and deliberately play in weaker recreational leagues just to ensure their players ranked. I saw parents behave as though their children were competing for spots on the national team.

All this I think, is emblematic of a culture that values winning over nobility. These clubs exist without providing the ballast of education. Essentially they can only serve the competitive side of the child’s nature. And too many of the children’s coaches are only interested in that competitive half. Unfortunately the student learns more about winning at any cost and less about sportsmanship and teamwork. Now I should emphasize that I love to win. But life is not just about winning. It’s about how you win. I don’t expect my son to be showered with honors he hasn’t earned, that is also the wrong lesson. What I want is to build him into a whole person, capable of leaving it all on the playing but of being a gentleman off it.

It is interesting to note the overcorrection made by social activist groups. I think it’s a human trait that often our passion for one thing becomes passionate opposition to something else. The more dogmatic we become in favor of one position the more we devalue the others. As evidence and example, I would offer the constitutional debates that followed the American Revolution. The side that favored the ratification of the new document, (namely the Federalists); successfully redefined skeptical faction (the Anti- Federalists) as the side that opposed national unity. In fact nothing could have been further from the truth. The Anti- federalists didn’t oppose national unity, they opposed (wrongly I would argue) the adoption of the constitution. (Which by the way, they did for some valid reasons. But I digress…)

I note this fact after reading an article about a California rancher who has been issued a permit to kill a mountain lion who had killed several of her livestock. (By the way, as evidence of the paper’s immediate bias I offer the fact that the author referred not to a permit to hunt a predator, but a permit to execute a lion).

As a history and Literature teacher I am forced to recognize the truism that in order for one thing to live, something else must die. It seems however that this lesson is lost on many of us. It’s striking to me that so many people protest the proposed “execution” of the lion but are unconcerned with the death of the livestock. It’s the predator that must be protected for those who protect the prey. So why is this true? I suspect it has to do with the self- loathing so many of us feel for our own species. The protection of the natural world has grown into a resentment for the rest of humanity. It’s not enough to protect animals, we must specifically protect the one’s that make human lives more difficult and in one way or another add to the struggles of our fellow men.

So is it always true that our cause must over compensate into passionate opposition? In other words, does every cause have a polar opposite? Too often in life are causes are defined for us. And perhaps this is the sticking point. It’s hard to keep our commitment to one thing from becoming hatred of something else. The important thing I think is to honestly evaluate our defining principles, and then resist the natural evolution of our passions. Ultimately, there’s nothing wrong with caring for the natural world around us, but we should resist the temptation to labor against flesh and blood.

I spent a lot of time over the last couple of months agonizing over the holidays. My wife and I both knew we wanted to go somewhere or do something different for Thanksgiving. We contemplated a trip to the northwest, (a trip that came very close to happening but didn’t due to our inability to arrange things at home quick enough to dive through the narrow window of time required to snatch up the bargain priced tickets. Do I sound bitter?) Unfortunately, we were not able to match the price we missed, so we set our sights more locally.

Instead of venturing far from home we made arrangements to spend a few days with family friends in the Dallas area. The combination of a short hotel getaway, great Thanksgiving Day food, and a Dallas Cowboys victory made up for the short- term nature of our adventure.

We chose to stay at the Courtyard Marriott in Las Colinas. The room itself was perfectly comfortable. There were no hairs on pillows or dust mites in the corners, so on that front it was great. The Hotel was equipped with an indoor- outdoor pool, (which was why we chose it) that would have made staying there ideal for this time of year. Except for the fact that there was neither a hot tub, nor was the pool itself heated, or at least heated well. To be perfectly candid this fact didn’t deter our son one bit. It didn’t bother the children of the quests we snuck in the back door either. For the adults on the other hand; the water was far too cool to enjoy.

The Hotel did not offer a complimentary breakfast. I realize that this is true of many higher end establishments, but the Marriot didn’t seem extravagant enough to pass on the service, especially since it certainly wasn’t discounted. Breakfast was available for around fifteen dollars. Starbucks coffee was for sale in the lobby which was certainly a plus but it was no longer available after ten am. The overall experience provided by the hotel was not a bad one. And it certainly didn’t subtract from our holiday escape. On the other hand, it wasn’t all it could have been had the hotel offered a few more amenities or done a better job with the ones they offered.

While I wouldn’t refuse to stay there again, even knowing what I now know, if I had it to do over I would probably cast a wider net in searching for place to stay.