Hitters Are Having A Rough Time

It's still early in the 2022 season but one thing is certain, baseballs are not traveling as far as they used to and home runs are down significantly.

Don't believe me? Here's some facts / stats: Major League Baseball teams, thus far this season, are averaging just 0.9 home runs per game and just 4.02 runs per game overall. Those numbers, should they continue, would be the second lowest home run average and the lowest runs per game average over the last 30 seasons. Throw in the fact that the league is batting a miserable .231, which is the lowest average of all-time, and that raises a plethora of questions. 

It appears that hitters in 2022 have it even harder than hitters in 1968, who batted just .237 in baseball's final season with a 15-inch mound. They're likewise worse than they were at the outset of the '21 campaign, when hitters were batting just .236 through the season's first two months.

The obvious boogeyman this time last year was the sticky stuff that pitchers were using to get unnatural spin on their pitches. The league acted accordingly when it stepped up enforcement on banned substances in June, and it worked as hitters jacked up their average to .248 in the season's final four months.

As spin rates remain depressed in 2022, the sticky stuff ban still seems to be working. This naturally got me to poking around for other explanations for this season's early offensive outage, as well as for potential ways that the problem might be solved.

The Role of the Holy Spirit

Currently at my church, we are going through a teaching series based on the Holy Spirit. That prompted me to try to remember if in all my years of attending church, if I had ever heard anyone teach on the Holy Spirit, and to the best of my recollection, the answer is no. 

So I'm going to start with some of the basics of understanding the Holy Spirit, several of which I was ignorant about before our church started this series.

Let's examine three different scriptures, starting with 1st Corinthians 12:13, where the apostle Paul teaches that we receive the Holy Spirit the moment we receive Jesus Christ as our Savior.  “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” 

Romans 8:9 tells us that if a person does not possess the Holy Spirit, he or she does not belong to Christ: “You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.” Ephesians 1:13-14 teaches us that the Holy Spirit is the seal of salvation for all those who believe: “Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.”

These three passages make it clear that the Holy Spirit is received at the moment of salvation. Paul could not say that we all were baptized by one Spirit and all given one Spirit to drink if not all of the Corinthian believers possessed the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:9 is even stronger, stating that if a person does not have the Spirit, he does not belong to Christ. Therefore, the possession of the Spirit is an identifying factor of the possession of salvation. Further, the Holy Spirit could not be the “seal of salvation” (Ephesians 1:13-14) if He is not received at the moment of salvation. There are many other scriptures that teach that salvation is secured the moment we receive Christ as Savior. (John 3:5-16 being just one of many)

Light In The Darkness

 

"Sometimes what waits in the darkness, transcends the darkness." 

What a crazy time that we currently occupy on the timeline of human existence. Even though we are not faced with the hopelessness of the Dark Ages, or the survivalist challenges of our most distant ancestors, nevertheless we are filled with numerous challenges, unique to our age, that threaten our abilities to live a life that is not plagued with fear. 

Just one of the many pressures that we are facing is a once-in-a-century disease that has ravaged the world and divides culture as no event perhaps in history has ever accomplished. It has sown the seeds of discord and distrust in people of all ages and that is the recipe for a fall of our civilization. If we can no longer trust our leaders, than our own efforts will turn from obedience to rebellion, with the moral certainty that we are left with no other choice than to wrest power away from those who would lead us astray. 

"The Decision"

 

“No man, not even our heroes, should be expected to carry the burden of our dreams.” Allan Barra

Mickey Mantle was one of the biggest stars in American sports history, ruling Major League Baseball in the 1950s and '60s. This was back when baseball was the number one sport in America. It was the equivalent of the modern day NFL, NBA, and college sports all wrapped in one package. And Mickey, along with Willie Mays, were the stars of that universe. 

I had the great fortune to grow up in one of the golden decades for baseball, with players that were still protected by sports journalists and without the coverage that today's players have to endure. As a child my knowledge of my favorite players came from newspapers, weekly TV broadcasts, and baseball cards. What I didn't know about my favorite players, myth stood by to fill in the gaps. And so their stature grew in my childhood eyes until they exceeded mere mortal expectations.