So the Olympics are over. While I remain somewhat uncomfortable with the games in general, wondering if we could possibly convince the impartial outside observer that they are anything other than religion, I cannot deny that they pull together the nation in a completely unique way. Already I can see that the Olympics were good for Canada.

There were lots of great stories coming out of the Olympics. We saw Joannie Rochette win a bronze medal in an event held just days after the sudden death of her mother. We saw Clara Hughes win a bronze medal in long track speed skating, putting an exclamation mark and the end of her career as the only athlete in history to win multiple medals in both the summer and winter games. Last night we witnessed the men’s hockey team win a medal that will be talked about in Canada for years and years to come—an overtime goal that claimed for our country a gold medal in Canada’s own game. Overall we saw Canada win the greatest number of gold medals any nation has claimed at a Winter Olympics.

I have always found it difficult to think about sports in a distinctly Christian way. I love sports (mostly watching, occasionally playing) and want to be able to enjoy fandom guilt-free. But every now and then, when I look at another of the sports scandals or when I hear of the lives of athletes, I wonder if professional sports really is a worthwhile pastime for the Christian. By our participation as fans are we contributing to the sometimes-shocking lack of morality, to the building of massive egos, to the idolatry of the athlete? How should we, as Christians, think about these things? Christians tend toward two extremes, I think, either writing off professional athletics altogether or embracing them with unblinking acceptance. Yet I’m convinced that neither extreme is helpful. It was with interest, then, that I picked up Ted Kluck’s The Reason for Sports (you may know Kluck from his books co-written with Kevin DeYoung, Why We’re Not Emergent and Why We Love the Church).

A couple of weeks ago, I went to watch the Toronto Blue Jays take on the Tampa Bay Rays (baseball, for those of you who may not follow professional sports). For the first time in recent memory I went to the game on back-to-back days, both Friday and Saturday. When they announced the group that would sing the national anthems for Saturday afternoon’s game, I knew I was where I needed to be that day. The singers were The Calvinist Cadets.

The reason I went to both games was that the Rays were in town and with them was Ben Zobrist, whom you may remember from this interview I did with him back before the season began. I met Ben while speaking at a conference down in Nashville and we had agreed that when he was in Toronto, we’d meet up for dinner after a game. Injuries and trips to the AAA team had kept him out of Toronto for the Rays’ previous two trips through Toronto, but this weekend he was here. On Friday my son wanted to go and see him play, so I took him to the game and we met up there with a friend. On Saturday Aileen and I went off to take in the game and we then enjoyed dinner with Ben and his wife (who travels with him through most of the season). I even bumped into a reader of this site at the game (Hi, David!).

As we were sitting out in the stands, I began to think what it would be like to have a job that provided instant feedback. When you’re a player in the Major Leagues, everything you do well is met with applause and everything you do poorly is met with icy silence or with loud boos. One day’s hero is so easily the next day’s goat. When B.J. Ryan, the Jays’ closer, charged onto the field in the ninth inning to try to nail down the save, the crowd went wild. When he struck a man out, there were loud cheers. But, when he gave up three runs to tie the game, he walked off the field to a chorus of boos. The crowd was fickle, expecting him to do his job and to do it right—and to do it all in front of their watching eyes. He had a bad day and the crowd let him know what they thought of that. One day he nailed the save and was loved; the next day he blew the save and was reviled.

Now maybe there is something to be said for the argument that when a guy’s weekly paycheck comes out at almost $200,000, as B.J. Ryan’s does, you expect him to do his job right (Can you imagine heading to the bank every Friday afternoon to deposit a check for $200,000?). But I still wonder what it would be like if we all received such instant feedback in our vocations. What would I do differently if I turned around to see a crowd sitting behind me, watching my every move? What would my day be like if every time I wrote a good sentence or created a good line of HTML code the crowd went wild; and what would it be like if every time I wrote something stupid or broke an otherwise good site layout, a chorus of boos arose behind me? It wouldn’t be much of a life.

I am grateful for grace. There is One who watches me at all times and who must sometimes shake His head in amazement as I blow yet another save or write yet another chunk of bad code or thoughtless prose. And though I deserve the jeers and the jabs, He extends grace. I am glad that, far more often than not, it is only He who sees my failings, for He is the source of all grace and comfort. He is no fickle fan, but the One who loves freely, who loves with a steadfast, gracious love.

For people living in a society so obsessed with sports and so given over to them, I’m not sure that enough Christians have paused to consider what they think about sports in a way that is firmly biblical. I can think of only a small handful of books that have considered sports in light of Scripture and that have offered truly Christian ways of thinking about them. Into this void steps Stephen Altrogge with his newly published Game Day for the Glory of God.

On Wednesday evening I was coaching first base when, from behind me, I overheard a chat between two of the parents from other team. “That first baseman was so nice. He would tell our guys, ‘Nice hit!’ even though he is on the other team. What a nice boy!” With just a bit of pride I smiled, knowing they weren’t talking about just any first baseman; they were talking about my boy.

It was a bit of a tough season for Nick. It started off well enough, with him collecting a few hits over his first couple of games. This year his team was facing a pitching machine flinging the balls at 40 miles per hour. It was a big adjustment from the year before when the boys saw nothing more than soft tosses from their own coaches. But once they made the adjustment, they began to hit well. I worked hard, with the other coaches, to help them work on their swings and by the end of the season we saw some remarkable progress. But Nick struggled. Around the mid-point of the season our team was playing the Red Sox when one of their players, a friend of Nick’s from school, was hit by an errant pitch (though, honestly, the machine threw it straight—it was the kid who stepped in front of the plate and hence in front of the pitch). There was no great damage done to the boy, but something clicked in Nick’s mind and he determined that the machine was out to get him. For the rest of the season he struggled to hit, subconsciously stepping away from every pitch, obviously worried that he would be hit as well. He collected a few hits through the rest of the season but mostly he flailed away, striking out time and again.

We prayed with him a lot. We assured him that God cares even for things as silly as little league baseball. We did not want him to become too discouraged with striking out and prayed that God would let him hit, at least occasionally. Nick is an above average fielder and loves playing defense. He often wished that his team could have a designated fielder just like American League teams have a designated hitter. But if he wanted to play, he would have to bat. And so he did, facing that machine three or four times every game. Mostly he struck out.

If Nick became discouraged, he did not often let it show. The boys on the team would occasionally tease him about his inability to hit, but he would brave it out. He was the boy on the team with the best head for the game and he was the one with the most enthusiasm. While his teammates were goofing off behind the bench, Nick was cheering for the one at bat and the one or two on base. When the boys came off the field after striking out, Nick would give them a high five and tell them, “Nice try!” He cheered the loudest and the longest. But still he struck out.

With only a couple of weeks left in the season, the head coach announced that he was going to hand out three team awards. He wanted the boys to vote for one another to decide who would win the award for the Most Valuable Player, the Most Improved and the Most Sportsmanlike. He gave no stipulations—just that the boys could not vote for themselves and that they had to realize that these awards meant a lot because they came not from the coaches or the parents but from the boys themselves.

Wednesday’s game was a tough one. It was the last game of the season and one we would need to win to have any hope at all of making the playoffs. Even then it was a long shot. The boys played well but faded at the end, unable to hold off a stronger offense. Twice Aileen heard boys on our team making fun of Nick, laughing at him or calling him names for his inability to hit. Twice Nick choked back tears and put a brave face on, continuing to cheer for his teammates.

At the end of the game, a loss, the coach handed out the awards. The MVP went to the obvious candidate—a boy who was our best hitter and among our most skilled fielders. The Most Improved went to a boy who had a lot of trouble throwing and catching at the beginning of the season but, who by the end, was hitting regularly, making solid contact; his fielding had improved significantly as well. And then it came time for the Most Sportsmanlike award. I’m not one of those parents who values sportsmanship above all else; I don’t adhere fully to the “as long as we all have fun” philosophy. I figure that if we are going to play sports, we ought to try our hardest and do our best. If I held to the “as long as we all have fun” philosophy in web design, I would not run a successful business! When Nick plays baseball, I expect that he will give it his best effort. Yet sportsmanship matters. It is the award that reflects character more than skill. And as a Christian parent, I value character much more highly than skill.

Sure enough, when the coach announced the winner, he announced Nick’s name. Taunting comments were forgotten, at least for a few minutes, as Nick accepted his trophy and accepted applause from his team, his coaches, and the parents. Though his teammates may have made fun of him at times, they had to acknowledge his love for the game, his loyalty to his team, and his character. As we walked off the field and headed home, Aileen and I told him how proud we were. We told him that we would much rather have a son who shows character—who stands brave in the face of trials and who is encouraging to his friends—than a kid who can hit the ball all over the diamond (though we wouldn’t complain if he could do both!).

It was a tough year for my boy, but a good one in which he showed a lot of growth. As Aileen said afterward, Nick is learning a skill, and that is being encouraging teammate with a good attitude and strong character. And really, that is going to get him a lot further in life than hitting a baseball out of the park. Of course this won’t keep us from spending some time in the batting cages during the off-season…

I met Ben Zobrist while in was in Nashville speaking at the Nashville Conference on the Church and Theology. The conference was hosted by Community Bible Church, the church he and his wife, Julianna, call home (Julianna is a professional singer and musician. You can visit her MySpace). Ben was pointed out to me as the shortstop for the Tampa Bay Rays (apparently they are no longer the Tampa Bay Devil Rays). I know the Rays well as they share a division with my hometown Toronto Blue Jays. Ben, who was the opening day shortstop for the Rays in 2007, but who finished the season with an injury, is currently on the 40-man roster and is looking good to earn a spot on the 25-man roster (and hence a position on the major league squad) to begin the new season.

Though Ben’s major league career has been short, he has already been involved in a play that is unique in the annals of professional baseball—a triple play in which the bat never touched the ball (a player struck out, a runner was caught trying to steal second and a third player was subsequently caught trying to steal home). If you’re a baseball fan and haven’t yet seen the play, you’ll want to! You can do so here.

Ben was kind enough to answer a few questions I sent to him, even though he is just settling into training camp.

How did you come to know the Lord?

God brought me to Himself at about the age of 4. My parents were devout believers and my Dad was in Bible College at the time. I remember hearing the gospel in Sunday school and I talked to my Mom about it one night before bed. It was clear to me that I was a sinner and I was not going to heaven if I died without accepting Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross for me. I was brought to Christ out of fear of going to hell. I didn’t want to go there after I died, and there was only one other choice in my mind as a 4 year old. I wanted to go to heaven. It was and is that simple.

How do you seek to bring glory to God through your career as a baseball player?

First of all, I try to be excellent at my job, because I know God wants me to give my best to be a walking witness and ambassador of the excellence of Jesus Christ. My teammates and coaches are watching to see if my relationship with Christ makes me any different on the ballfield, and I pray that God will be represented in my play as excellent. At the same time, I am seeking to be an active part of the body of Christ among ballplayers by using the spiritual gifts God has given me to encourage and build up my fellow teammates as well as the Baseball Chaplain that ministers to us on a weekly basis. We have weekly bible studies and Sunday morning chapel services. The nature of the game also gives me great opportunity to visit and share my faith in Christ on a regular basis with individuals, schools, and churches. So I try to use that platform to give glory to God as well.

Do you feel any particular kind of increased responsibility as both a Christian and an athlete?

I do sense an increased responsibility as a Christian athlete in our culture, because our culture exalts performance so much. There are many kids and adults alike who dream of being in our shoes. I believe as a Christian athlete, we are called to use that highly respected platform to deflect any praise to Whom it really belongs and to help people see beyond the glory of a man-made game or ballpark.

As a baseball player you have to be away from home for months at a time. How do you maintain your spiritual health while you are on the road and unable to be a part of a church? How do you maintain family relationships?

My wife and I are still learning how to do this effectively. Playing on Sunday afternoons (required to be at the park in the morning) creates an even more difficult situation than just being away from our Home church. Not only is it near impossible to be involved at a local church where we are playing, but we play at nights during the week until Sunday when we have an afternoon game, after which we usually have to travel to the next city right after the game. This makes it almost impossible just to attend any service. Baseball Chapel, an organization which provides an on-call minister in each baseball community, has been a great help with bible study during the week as well as ready networking among Christian ballplayers. We attend a service when we can. We take advantage of what Baseball Chapel offers. We read as much scripture personally as we can. And we also try to listen to podcast sermons as much as we can. To stay connected to family, we spend a lot of time talking on the phone and friends and family come visit us at various cities when they can. We are blessed to have great family and friends who encourage us in Christ throughout the baseball season.

How do you stay connected to your local church during the baseball season? What role does your home church play in your life during the season?

We listen to our home church pastor Byron Yawn’s sermons through podcast. I am part of a men’s Theology class at church as well, and one of the men sends me an mp3 of the study that week. We keep up with prayer requests and activities through massive church emails. Pastor Byron calls every so often to check on us to see how we are doing. We also try to do a mass update to everyone every so often to let everyone know how we are doing and how to pray. Prayer is the main role the local church plays in our lives during the season. Prayer is powerful and much needed as it seems there are few ballplayers that have a strong connection to a local church back home that is praying for them.

How can we pray for Christian athletes? What particular needs or challenges do athletes have that require prayer?

Pray first and foremost against idolatry for us. It is easy to make success in our sport an idol when you want to be excellent. It is easy to set ourselves above others and most grievously above God when people treat you “special”, almost like an idol. Pray for right perspective and constant humility against our prideful flesh. Pray against temptation of all things worldly. And pray for spiritual openness and conversation amongst believers. Athletes tend to have hard outer shells and they think it is weak to share their hearts.

How does an athlete - someone who people know and recognize - handle being in a local church without being a distraction?

I wear a hat and glasses…just kidding. People don’t know who I am when I go to church. I guess I’m not bigtime yet…Ha! Seriously though, I think when you go to worship the Lord with His people, if you bring an attitude of humility, and it is obvious what you are there for, people get it. I love that our local church treats us no different than any other, and I’d be worried if it was any other way. I believe we are best as the body of Christ when we show absolutely no partiality among the saints.

Who are your main spiritual influences?

My parents and my wife’s parents have been incredible examples in our lives. There are some great Christian men in my life that I look up to on a regular basis. My accountability partner, my Chapel leader and his family, our pastor and local church back in Nashville are other main influences. Others include pastors I’ve listened to personally and through podcast that faithfully preach the Word of God.

What are a few good books you’ve read recently? What are a few you’re hoping to read soon?

The Saints’ Everlasting Rest by Richard Baxter
The Measure of a Man by Gene Getz
The Attributes of God by Arthur Pink
How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler
Overachievement by John Eliot

Soon, I hope to read…

Famine in the Land by Steven Lawson
Church History in Plain Language by Bruce Shelley
Humility by CJ Mahaney
Cinderella Man by Jeremy Schaap
Oh yeah……and uh Spiritual Discernment by Tom Challies or somebody like that.

Should I draft you to be the cornerstone of my fantasy baseball squad this year? Are you willing to make me any performance guarantees?

You should definitely draft me, but I can’t guarantee a lot of points. Draft by faith.

The quiet strength and outspoken faith of Tony Dungy.

Those who know the National Football League will know of Tony Dungy, the coach of the Indianapolis Colts. One of the league’s premier and most respected coaches, Dungy is a Christian and one who is outspoken about his faith. Two events in the past two years have put him in the spotlight: the death of his son in 2006 and the Colts’ Superbowl victory in 2007. Anyone who has read about Dungy or observed him on the sidelines will affirm that Quiet Strength is a perfect title for his memoir—a book that has reached as high as the top spot on the New York Times list of bestsellers, becoming the first NFL-related book to hold that honor.