Safe Haven

5 Cantankerous Thoughts on Baseball 5. Hey, MLB, I don't care if the Mariners and A's have played 2 official games in Japan; the season hasn't started yet. 4. Dear ESPN: Quit showing Spring Training scores as if they are official. 3. For pete's sake, Roy Oswalt, sign somewhere! 2. I still hate the DH. 1. Baseball purists everywhere think the wild card is immoral, so your solution is...add more?

One of the interesting storylines coming out of MLB Spring Training is aging stars. Chipper Jones, third baseman for the Atlanta Braves, is entering his 19th and final season. Perhaps the greatest switch-hitter (a hitter who bats from both sides of the plate) of all time, Jones has a career batting mark of .304 and 454 home runs. Though he will turn 40 in April, he still bats third in the order (traditionally the position for the biggest run producer on the team) and is the undisputed leader of the Braves. He will begin the year on the disabled list, but should return in the second or third week of the season. There is no one on the Braves who was there when Chipper made his debut in 1993. The National League's Most Valuable Player in 1999, Jones last had a typical (for him) season in 2007. We'll see if the almost certain Hall of Famer can go out with a bang. Mariano Rivera has been the closer for the New York Yankees since 1996. A closer is a relief pitcher tasked with the fin...

Easter is almost upon us. And because it is that celebration of his vicarious Passion, death, and especially his Resurrection, I wanted to magnify the great purity of his Name. I want nothing to be in the way of that celebration. May the peace of Christ be your peace, be our peace. May you forgive my many faults. I release any anger I may have toward any of you. If you should never ask my forgiveness, no matter; I forbear it. I will suffer it. If you find that you cannot speak the words of our friendship in the Lord to my ears (for I do not deny my errors), then please pray for me, and perhaps the Lord will console me that we are not enemies. I admit that I have suffered in the knowledge that I cannot fix what has been broken, that indeed, my words are not heard. You are in my heart, even if you cannot say that I am in yours. I learned from sufferings long past that when we leave the land of the living, we lose the chance to say what we desire to say. Please hear this now: Because not...

I need to clarify something about my journey to the Catholic Church. Let no one say, "Well, he joined the Catholic because he became disenchanted with Sola Scriptura." It's true that I became disenchanted with it, as all of you should be or become. Because it's total crap. But that's an entirely other problem from the challenge/invitation/obligation/annoying, bearded monk in your head posed by the Catholic Church. The Church is like a Blackjack dealer. You're sitting there with two face cards, a rock-solid 20, and she says, "Peter, Apostolic Succession, Eucharist. That makes 21," and you swear, and hand over your money. Because you can see the cards. It is what it is. But you really don't have to be a papist to recognize the Sola Scriptura problem. You let me know when you convince Mark Dever to baptize infants, or convince your grandfather/crazy neighbor/pretty girl who sadly attends a "Church of Christ" that you're not going to he...

Good point .

So there I was, reading St. Augustine and listening to Lady Gaga, and I caught myself appreciating the oddly spiritual themes in the music. Are we absolutely sure I didn't write "Bad Romance"? The bridge is my favorite part; the third time she sings, "I don't wanna be friends!!!" I'm not kidding, I want just this line for my ringtone. If you will pardon the frankness, I'm too old for this crap. The twentysomething girls sometimes maintain this conceit that we want close platonic friendship with them. We don't. If it goes well enough, we can keep a close friendship even when someone's status changes, but in my experience, this closeness is something a man is drawn into, not a choice. Being a Christian that believes and practices doesn't change this at all; if you think you have a friend this doesn't apply to, he's either lying, or he's attracted to people of his own sex. (Or he intends to be celibate for the Kingdom.) Honestly,...

It was a good day yesterday; Paulie called me at 1, and asked if I wanted to go to the evening Mass in Eureka. I said, "Sure, see you then." I texted another friend to see if she wanted to come along, but in the end, it didn't work out. So there I was, minding my own business, bleeding away the afternoon, when the doorbell rang. "It's 3 o'clock. What's going on here?" As it happened, it was not Paul, but Jeff Ryan and Adam Eubanks. Jeff you might recall as the "Farkle martyr" from my birthday party. Adam's story is complicated, but suffice it to say that the love of a woman draws him ever closer to the loving arms of Mother Church. Anyway, until the moment I opened the door I thought Paul was early--he likes to say he believes in "German hours" as his defense for showing up obscenely early--but faced with these others, in faux-outrage, I demanded an explanation. None was forthcoming from Jeff, who was busy murdering his cell p...