"PLAY BALL!" and America's Aspiration to Truly Be 'For All'

“Put me in coach, I’m ready to play, today.  Look at me, I can be, center field.”    --from the song “Centerfield” by John Fogerty

Baseball for everyone. No one left out.

It’s called “Baseball for All” a movement and a nationwide organization. Its mission embodies for me two things in this world that I absolutely love. First, baseball, that most American of pastimes whose holy season is peaking right about now, as major league teams are in the thick of pennant races, even our own Boston Red Sox! And then there is the “…For All” declaration, for all, as in everyone is invited to play the game and no one is ever left out.  All God’s children have a place at the plate and in the field.

I love that vision.  To play a game where no one if ever left behind, where everyone has a chance to get picked for the team.  In baseball. In life.

“Baseball for All” was formed by ball player and coach Justine Siegal in 2010 with one simple goal: to promote the participation of girls and young women in the game of baseball at all levels of play. In the words of their founder, “Too many girls are told they can’t play baseball because of their gender. We’re here to change that. I want girls to know they can follow their passions and that they have no limits—that their dreams matter.”

I’ve been witness to this “Baseball for All” movement in the life of my 15-year-old Goddaughter Bridget, whom I’ve watched grow up in life and yes, grow up on the baseball field too.  I’ve seen her play ball, from the days in her backyard, when on tiny toddler legs she stood at the plate and swung her plastic bat with mighty gusto, at a wiffle ball I’d thrown. Days on the local ball field when in T-ball, she ran down the first base line with such joy, a huge smile on her face. I’ve watched her play in Little League, the only girl in the dugout, who played with such passion and purpose, squatting behind the plate as a scrappy catcher. 

And then I got to watch Bridget, just this past week, as she played for an all-girls team in the National Girls Baseball Championship. Upwards of 400 girls and young women played, from 8 to 18 years old, on more than forty teams, from the United States and Canada. They were the Florida Bolts and the Boston Slammers, the New York Wonders, and the Toronto Cardinals. They all came together to play ball and that they did. Hitting with power, fielding with finesse, and running like the wind.  That’s the baseball I saw as I cheered in the stands on a hot baseball field in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.

All those girls and young women want, is to be able to play, to be welcomed to compete on the field, just as surely and as clearly as boys and young men are invited to play.  Then baseball is truly “for all.” Kind of makes me think how wonderful it would be if all of life worked that way too.  You know.

For all.

As in for all of us to share in both the fruits and the challenges of this God-given life, none of us left behind or looked over or rejected or kept out.  That phrase ‘for all” is in fact found in the 31-word pledge of allegiance, the one you and I used to recite in the classroom before we went off to our school for the day. Remember? It’s not just “for all” but “liberty and justice for all.” For every single American. For you and for me and for the rich and the poor and the gay and the straight and the boy who plays baseball and the girl who plays baseball too. Christian and the Muslim and the non-believer as well.

“For all” has been an aspirational ideal of our country for a long, long time.  We struggle and we stumble to make this nation “for all” and then someone like Rosa Parks comes along and the door of equal opportunity and access to rights and privileges opens up a bit wider.  We are living in strange times, times when many politicians in our country aren’t expanding “for all” but are in fact diminishing the ranks of “all.”  Like if you are a trans kid in need of medical treatment. Or if you are a same sex couple looking for a graphic designer to help with your wedding. Or if you are just trying to vote but the government keeps making it harder and harder. These are times that can be discouraging for many of us, we who are a part of the “for all” too and want to see “for” actually become “for all.”

I find my hope, still, in the witness of all those girls and young women who have fought for so, so long for the chance to pick up a baseball and play the game. Play on a level playing field. Play just as hard as the boys and play to win, and play for the joy of competing, and play to just…play.  Way to go Bridget and all your baseball loving sisters too! Thank you.

You remind us that “for all” actually means for all.  No exceptions.  No one forced to sit out on the sidelines or in the dugout. Everyone invited to “PLAY BALL!”

God give us the courage and the resolve to realize this ideal and hope. For me. For you. For all.

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.