Ear­li­er this week, Charles S. Sher­man wrote about a life-alter­ing event and how he’s han­dled the chal­lenge. His book, The Bro­ken and the Whole: Dis­cov­er­ing Joy after Heart­break, will be pub­lished in March by Scrib­n­er. He will be blog­ging here all week for Jew­ish Book Coun­cil and MyJew­ish­Learn­ing.

“Spring train­ing” has just opened up. Amer­i­ca’s favorite past-time sig­nals warm weath­er, longer days, fam­i­ly out­ings, the good times. T‑ball, lit­tle league, sand­lot, at one time we all have engaged the crack of the bat, the excite­ment of round­ing the bases. 

When my son, Eyal, who is quad­ri­pleg­ic and vent depen­dent, was grow­ing up, he played on a base­ball team, called The Chal­lengers. Sum­mer evenings, a cou­ple of times a week, our fam­i­ly would pile into our spe­cial­ly-equipped van and dri­ve a half hour or so to a base­ball field in North Syra­cuse. It’s clear the name of the team was coined because each play­er faces seri­ous chal­lenges. My son, ​“Big Al,” (does not every seri­ous ball play­er have a nick­name?) played third base.

When you watch these kids play base­ball, at first there is a sense of dis­be­lief and even rest­less­ness. When the ball is hit, chil­dren are lift­ed and hoist­ed from wheel­chairs and shut­tled around the bases as fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends clap and cheer. In this league, inge­nu­ity and imag­i­na­tion are the name of the game. For a girl who is blind, there is a spe­cial base­ball that pro­duces a beep­ing sound. A young boy smacks the ball using his crutch as a base­ball bat. And all the time, par­ents and sib­lings are facil­i­tat­ing, enabling and empow­er­ing. You don’t have to watch for long to real­ize some­thing very spe­cial is tak­ing place on this base­ball dia­mond, and it has very lit­tle to do with the game of base­ball itself. It has to do with rela­tion­ships, coop­er­a­tion, per­se­ver­ance and pos­si­bil­i­ty. When­ev­er these kids play, I am wit­ness to mir­a­cles as awe-inspir­ing as the split­ting of the Red Sea. Pre­vi­ous­ly, my under­stand­ing of a mir­a­cle was more ​“Bible stuff.” The expect­ed light­ning and thun­der, moun­tains that shud­der, now we’re talk­ing mir­a­cles. But a mir­a­cle is nine kids on a base­ball team, some of them can­not see, oth­ers can­not talk, and still oth­ers can­not even move. And they play base­ball three nights a week in North Syra­cuse. Now that’s a mir­a­cle to write home about.

I’m remind­ed of this spe­cial base­ball team when­ev­er I vis­it the Base­ball Hall of Fame, in Coop­er­stown, not far from my home. On the sec­ond floor, there is a the­ater that has been con­struct­ed to sim­u­late an old-time major league base­ball park. It allows you to sit in bleach­er chairs, right up close to the action, you can even hear the voic­es of the ball play­ers and those of the con­ces­sion­aires, hawk­ing pro­grams, peanuts and crack­er jacks. In this nos­tal­gic envi­ron­ment, there is a sev­en-minute film clip, a young major lea­guer wal­lop­ing a base­ball, a win­ning run­ner cross­ing home plate, hands held high. Can­did shots, of mod­ern major lea­guers to lit­tle lea­guers. And it all ends with the voic­es of chil­dren play­ing base­ball in some cow pas­ture. And this voiceover:

“Base­ball is a part of the very fab­ric of Amer­i­ca. And at what­ev­er lev­el we expe­ri­ence it… whether we play it… or watch it … from back­yard to major league sta­di­um… it is a game that speaks to us of more than box scores and start­ing line-ups. It is a game that reflects:

Triumph…and defeat,

the strength at the beginning…the wis­dom near the end,

the bad days…and the good”

Base­ball approach­es myth because it is a cel­e­bra­tion of life. As author Roger Angell wrote, ​“Since base­ball is mea­sured only in outs, all you have to do is suc­ceed utter­ly, keep hit­ting, keep the ral­ly alive, and you have defeat­ed time. You remain for­ev­er young.” 

Okay, ​“Big Al,” Eyal, get ready champ. You’re on deck. Bat­ter Up! 

Charles S. Sher­man is the Senior Rab­bi of Tem­ple Adath Yeshu­run, the largest syn­a­gogue in Cen­tral New York. Active in numer­ous faith-based and sec­u­lar orga­ni­za­tions, he has received many awards for his ser­vice and has been a respect­ed mem­ber of his com­mu­ni­ty for over forty years. He and his wife, Leah, par­ents of five chil­dren, live with their son Eyal in Syra­cuse, New York.