The baseball season is winding down, a sure sign that summer is too. We haven’t talked much about baseball, and while softball was a big part of my life, I don’t think there are a lot of fans out there.
Yet, here is an interesting historical note. On this date, August 27, 1917, the Cleveland Indians set a club record by stealing eight bases in a game. That’s almost one base an inning.
But let’s step back for a moment. Baseball is known as America’s Pastime. It has long been regarded as part of that shimmering red, white, and blue persona. The all-American way.
Children play the game in sandlots. Other kids in the middle of city streets. So then, isn’t it interesting that we are teaching our kids it is okay to steal? Play along here.
I mean, if you get a hit and you make it to first base, it is a legitimate single. Same thing with a double, and so on. But if, while you are there, and you think someone isn’t watching you close enough, you can run like mad and steal another base.
Yes. If no one is watching, you can take something you haven’t earned. Oh, I know it is written in the rules that you are allowed to steal bases.
But is it any surprise that this has become the standard in the corporate world and in politics? We hear of this happening all the time, and the truth of it is, only a few are caught.
Oh, I’m not blaming all the world’s troubles on baseball. But that is how our culture starts to “tell” us things from a very early age. Maybe not so much with baseball and stealing. But with other things like being afraid of those who don’t look like us or thinking that women are inferior.
How many commercials did we watch showing women pinned in the kitchen, mopping, or baking, or feeding the baby, while the man came through the door, grinning, having brought home the bacon, having slain the beast?
We are products of our environment, with every single occurrence in our lives teaching us lessons about the world around us. The stove is hot, it burnt my hand. And. Jimmy’s dad says black people are bad. And. Mom is ironing the shirts with the spray starch again.
We become who we are from the world around us, most of the time. Every person we meet and every incident we experience touches us somehow. And whether or not we know it, this changes us, affecting our outlook on the world.
We are often molded to see the world how someone else wants us to see it.
And this can be dangerous.
It is amazing when a person can transcend old ways of thinking.
Which is why we should always question what we see, and hear, and think we know.
It’s how we grow.
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“Most misunderstandings in the world could be avoided if people would simply take the time to ask, “What else could this mean?”
― Shannon L. Alder
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“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.”
― Primo Levi
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Stealing bases. Stealing thoughts.
