Dear Friends,
Happy Opening Day of the Minnesota Twins Baseball Club’s 2020 season! I can’t imagine that most of you care all that much (at least not for that particular team), but it’s a big deal for me. Baseball is a constant companion for six months or more of my year, and I’ve desperately missed it. It’s a sport played almost every single day—162 games!—and the absence of its nightly sounds, the crack of the bat and the ball hitting leather, has left a gaping chasm in my life.
This week I’d like to not write about politics or culture. I am a high-end news consumer (meaning, I consume a lot of news and commentary), and I realize part of my “job” here is to pass on news and analysis to you. But one of the hazards of being a high-end news consumer is that sometimes the “news” consumes you. I see it on Facebook and Twitter every day: people in hysterics over some outrage in the news cycle—did you hear what so-and-so said?—and I think maybe they should go outside and get some sunshine. Politics is important, and it’s part of life; but it isn’t a very important part of life. Being constantly caught up in the drama is exhausting and depressing.
So, today, a “Potpourri” of sorts.
Play Ball!
As I mentioned, the baseball season has begun, albeit in a very shortened version: 60 games instead of 162. That’s a sprint, not the usual marathon. It will be interesting: with that short of a season, every game is going to take on a new feel of importance. Ordinarily, losing a couple of games in late July is nothing to lose sleep over: there’s plenty of time to catch back up. But this year will have plenty of added urgency.
Now, if you don’t like baseball you’re missing out, but you’re not alone. I mean, even the Commissioner of baseball doesn’t like baseball. More about that below. But if you’re convinced it’s “boring,” I’ll probably never argue you out of that opinion. It must be experienced. But I can at least try this: Marvin Olasky of World Magazine recently did a segment on baseball with a neat list of things that make the game wonderful and different, taken from observations made by philosopher John Rawls.
Among them is the peculiar fact that baseball is not governed by a clock. Yankees catcher Yogi Berra famously put it, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over,” and that captures it. A team is in the game so long as they have outs left. As former Oriole manager Earl Weaver put it:
You can’t just sit on a lead and run a few plays into a line and kill the clock. You’ve got to throw the ball over the plate and give the other man his chance. That’s why baseball is the greatest game of them all.
Moreover, unlike every other sport, there is no specific “type” of player. Tall, short, slim, heavy—there is place for you on a baseball field. The only uniformity is provided by, well, the uniforms. Many have observed that watching baseball is different than watching other sports because the viewer can actually imagine playing the game. Not only do the players look ordinary, they are doing things that look easy—so, as a fan, you can lament to your buddies: “Man, can you believe he didn’t make that catch!?” as though somehow you would have. There’s a deceptive “immersion” in the game, where the fans are not just observers, but critics who (ludicrously) imagine themselves capable of amazing feats. Nobody watches Patrick Mahomes throw a 60-yard touchdown pass and imagines that they, too could make that throw. It’s just different with baseball. Every fan is a self-deluded expert.
There are some new rules for this shortened season, and sadly these kinds of rule changes tend to “stick.” They are the brainchild of people who, as I say, do not like baseball very much. Led by Commissioner Rob Manfred, they are forever trying to “fix” a perfect game. A few of the changes I can live with—a universal designated hitter, for one. Nothing is as ridiculous as watching the average pitcher try to hit, and while I could bore you with a comprehensive thesis on why pitchers should not bat, I won’t. I have one particular online friend who goes on and on about how terrible the designated hitter is, and how it’s a communist corruption of our American game, and so forth. Here was one such clever attempt:
Which “teed me up” (pun intended):
He cried Uncle:
Relief pitchers now have to face a minimum of three batters, unless the end of the inning arrives. This cuts down on tedious amount of pitching changes that tend to occur late in games—i.e., bringing in a pitcher to face just this one guy—and it’s against the spirit of the game, but I can live with it.
Here’s one to which I will never, ever resolve myself: when a game goes into extra innings, the team at bat will start the inning with a runner on second base. An “instant” rally. It is an outrage. Sacrilege. This is, in fact, a communist corruption of our American game. You know why? It gives somebody something they didn’t earn. The number one, ironclad rule of baseball is this: You cannot get on base without earning it, whether it be by getting a hit, a walk, getting hit with a pitch, running safely to first on a passed ball on strike three. You see, there are a lot of ways to get on base, but in every instance one must merit being there. Just “placing” a runner on second base is outrageous, and they’d better throw this idea into the trash can after this weird 60-game season.
As I say, the powers-that-be just don’t like baseball very much.
Beware Academic Sophistry
Last month The New Yorker published a fascinating article entitled, “In Search of King David’s Lost Empire.” It is a closeup look at the world of biblical archaeology which, as you might imagine, is fraught with rivalry, politics, backstabbing, and a whole lot of sophistry (so-called “wisdom”). Give it read, if you’re looking for a good magazine-length essay.
I have been out of academia for a very long time, but this essay reminded me how unbearably arrogant academics can be. The number of absolute claims made by these historians of antiquity is mind-boggling. This is not much of a caricature: “Look! I did not find a sliver of pottery buried in a hillside. Therefore, obviously…David did not exist!” They are no longer even talking about assessing evidence for conclusions; they are just shouting their conclusions.
These scholars are coming to the question with methodological presuppositions and, in the case of Finkelstein, mostly those are that the Bible is worthless as a matter of historiography. They do not prove this; they assume it. And then all counter-facts are dismissed: “The ‘House of David’ inscription is a hoax!” Yes, it is a hoax only because someone has already determined it cannot exist. It seems like the state of affairs in biblical archaeology is that everyone is assuming what they are supposed to be proving.
Anyway, if you do read the article, just know it is highly significant what is not said. It simply isn’t true that everyone thinks the biblical texts are late compositions. Indeed, most of the things presented as “facts” are highly contested. I find it, on the other hand, very remarkable the Hebrew texts demonstrate the hallmarks of their purported age. For example, the covenant formulae used in, say, Exodus and Deuteronomy look and feel just like ancient covenants we manifestly know about because we’ve dug the tablets out of the ground. The places, the peoples, the technologies, the cultures the texts describe are exactly as we know them to have been.
Furthermore, the archaeological study of antiquity is, in the nature of the case, fragmentary, and requires humility. You will see in the essay that many of these scholars lack that particular virtue. I bet you didn’t know that critical scholars—like the ones in the essay—used to mock Bible-believers because there were no such people as the “Hittites.” Then someone discovered them, and discovered that the Hittites possessed a vast empire! Color me beyond skeptical of a bombastic scholar trying to tell me that King David is a myth. Finkelstein acts shocked—just shocked!— when his thesis was roundly criticized by the “Bible thumpers.” I’ll let you in on a secret: he wasn’t shocked one bit, and he intended all of the controversy because he actively courted it.
There’s money to be made in sensationalism.
A Sad and Tragic Loss
Mike Adams and I were acquaintances. For a few summers we taught together at Summit Ministries in Manitou Springs, Colorado. I’d travel down for a week at a time, but he made it his summer home and stayed as a sort of teacher “in residence.” He was very upbeat, funny, and extremely generous with his time. The students absolutely adored him. I remember he always kept telling me, in passing, that we needed to find some time to play our guitars together.
Mike was a professor of criminology at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. A long-time atheist, he converted to Christianity later in life and became a passionate apologist and pro-life advocate. When the university passed him over for tenure, Mike, with the help of his lawyer (David French), was able to prove that it was because of his Christian faith and political persuasions. And I mean that: he proved it. In a court of law, to a jury of his peers. His was the very first jury verdict of its kind, and he won a substantial award of back pay and attorneys fees. Here’s a speech he gave to the Alliance Defending Freedom about his case:
More recently, Mike’s political activism became too much for the university and they arranged with him a premature retirement for another substantial sum.
Mike’s online “style” was not very much like mine. He overused sarcasm. My view is that sarcasm is a seasoning, not a protein. You wouldn’t like to eat a bowl of pepper; it’s much better sprinkled over something substantial. But he definitely got under the skin of a lot of progressives. He loved verbal sparring. And they accused Mike of everything: misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, you name it. In reality, Mike was a Christian who loved the Lord and others. He was fiery and passionate about very good causes, and I am certain he would admit that he fell short in many ways.
Yesterday, Mike’s body was found in his home during a welfare check. Like everyone who knew Mike, I am stunned. An investigation is ongoing, but I believe that suicide is the likely cause (even though his various controversies will spawn conspiracy theories). David French hints that there were depths of hidden pain beneath that gregarious exterior:
It seems to me there has been a spike in suicides in the Christian community. It is awful and tragic. I understand how, in dark times of the soul, it can seem like a reasonable way to deal with pain, but all it does is foist all of the pain on to those you love most. It is fundamentally not self-less, but selfish. Please, if you know of anyone struggling, intervene. If you yourself are struggling, please reach out for help.
I’m upset about it, but I know that the Lord will set it all to rights in the end. RIP, Mike. We’ll have to postpone our jam session a little while longer.
Miscellany
This whole newsletter has been a “miscellany,” so I’ll close out this Opening Day on a lighter note. First, GO TWINS! Second, this never gets old, no matter the passage of time. Ladies and Gentlemen, Abbot & Costello:
Oh, I hope you are not right about Mike Adams. I can't believe it's even real. I was in tears last night. He was on the front lines of this culture war for so long! How can he be gone? I need to know what happened to him! They already bullied him out of a job, and now he's dead. I can't grasp it.