The Next Ted Williams?

I’ve never really made an effort to watch prospects closely, especially other teams but one name stands out to me. Bryce Harper. Harper is 18 years old and should be a high school senior but instead as a junior went to college to play ball and now is in the minor league system of the Washington Nationals. While he is a very good defensive outfielder and average base runner one thing that stands out is his hitting. In college (at the age of 17 remember) he hit over .400 and in the minors hit over .300. My question is this, could he possibly be the next Ted Williams? Williams went to the San Diego Padres in his senior year and then played in Minnesota before going to the Red Sox in his very early 20’s. He went on to be the best hitter in baseball and the last man to hit .400. Could Bryce Harper be the one to break his record? I don’t know much about Harper as a person, all I know is that he hits the ball hard and isn’t fooled often at the plate. The thing about Williams was that he had his swing down to a science; he strove to be perfect at every possible opportunity and knew what worked and what doesn’t. Why do I ask if Harper could be the next Ted Williams? It’s because baseball has changed, it is no longer exciting; steroids took over and ruined baseball and left it for dead. For someone with the caliber of talent that Williams had, an “old style” baseball player, a kid who is simply good and doesn’t need PED’s to do it is just what baseball needs. To get someone who achieves fame as a hitter not because they can hit the ball out of the park but hit the ball consistently is what we need as fans, to see Teddy Ballgame back at the plate and see baseball the way it used to be. Is Bryce Harper the next Ted Williams, only time will tell but I have a hunch that he will be one of the best hitters of this era.

Arancini!

Arancini!

I realize that I mentioned an arancini recipe on New Year’s Eve and have yet to post it so here it is. First off arancini means “little oranges” in Italian and judging by their appearance this is a fitting name. They are common in grocery stores and Italian delis’s and are essentially fried balls of rice filled with bacon or ham, peas, and cheese. The ones I made were a little bland, so I suggest frying up some shallots to mix in the rice and adding a good amount of pepper to mix in as well.

Ingredients: White rice, Shallots, Olive oil, Salt, Pepper, Eggs, Cooked Bacon, Cooked Peas, Cubes of Fresh Mozzarella, and Bread Crumbs mixed with Paprika.

They are very simple to make, all you do is cook some white rice (as much as you want) in boiling water. Once the rice is cooked put it into a bowl to let cool for a little. After that add an egg to the mixture and mix thoroughly. Then add the shallots, pepper, and salt. Once you have that all mixed up take a small handful and add some peas, bacon, and mozzarella cheese. Take another small handful and form the rice into a ball with the filling safely on the inside. Keep doing this until all the rice is used up. Then when you are ready to cook them, take a rice ball and dip it into a bowl of beaten eggs. Then add it to a bowl of breadcrumbs and coat. Dot this until all the balls are covered. To cook heat a pan of olive oil (high enough to cover the arancini, or at least ½ the way up). Fry the arancini until golden brown (make sure they are nice and brown so that they are crispy). Set them aside on a paper towel to drain and either eat right away or bake in an oven to heat up. Buon Appetito

Not By Man's Understanding

I’m changing it up a bit and writing about the New Testament for this post. I was sitting in church and the message my pastor gave really struck me as interesting. He was talking about faith and knowledge (yeah, another faith post). Anyway we were reading 1 Corinthians 2:1-16 but the verse that got my attention was verse 5 “so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.” One thing I find that many people have trouble with is the idea of faith. Often times people come up to me and question me, thinking that they can “prove” that God does not exist. While I pretty much always answer them I cannot help but find that there is a wall between us in our understanding. You see, there is nothing I can do to “prove” that God exists, no man’s understanding can reveal an ounce of God’s wisdom. Yet at the same time God reveal’s his wisdom to us in specific ways. To me it was through books, I (when I have time) am an avid reader and God gave me books written by those before me to guide me. For others it might be nature, or even sports. Basically Paul’s point and mine is that God is not revealed to us in man-made things, more often than not He is concealed that way. Instead God’s wisdom and our faith is given to us by God at the right time. Some may say that this is unfair, well I suppose it is; we don’t like the thought of not knowing something, we all want assurance. But unfortunately, as is the case in life, we can’t know everything, instead we need faith. Faith is not some mystical smoke screen surrounding us, it is a strength and commitment to what we believe. While we can never be sure in God we can be strong in Him and fortunately in believing we are given strength to build up our faith. In the end of any discussion I always end up saying that some day, it could be tomorrow or in twenty years, God will reveal Himself to you and when it happens you will recognize it and know. But, until then I can do nothing of service to you.

Red Sox Facts

Here are some miscellaneous Red Sox facts to make you think.


In 2007 The Red Sox won the World Series; their regular season record was 96-66.
In 2007 Josh Beckett’s record was 20-7 with a 3.27 ERA; Jon Lester went 4-0 with a 4.57 ERA.
In 2007 Jonathan Papelbon had a 1.85 ERA and 37 saves.
In 2008 David Ortiz hit .264 and had 23 homeruns.
In 2008 Clay Buchholz pitched his first full season; he went 2-9 with a 6.75 ERA.
In 2009 the Sox starting rotation was Beckett, Lester, Penny, Wakefield, Buchholz, Matsuzaka.
In 2009 Nick Green played 103 games at shortstop and pitched one scoreless inning.
In 2010 David Ortiz his .270 with 32 homeruns.
In 2010 Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz combined for a 36-16 record, and a 2.83 ERA.
In 2010 Daniel Nava hit a grandslam on the first pitch of his first major league at bat.


As you can see a lot has changed over the years, some players who were done showed what they can do, some who were aces fell apart and some rookies stepped up to be the best in baseball. All I can say is that you can never really tell what will happen in a given season, all you can do is watch and enjoy the outcome.

Some Cool Winter Pictures

It always amazes me how beautifal simple things like a sunset or a snow covered tree can be. God didn't just do a "good" job, He did a great job in making the earth. Of course when the snow freezes over and I lose the feeling in my ears every time I step outside I will start to complain about winter, but for now I'm in a good mood.

True Joy

Now for the third and, I believe, final post in this miniseries on Jeremiah. So the question that may be asked and I have asked myself is why am I writing about this? God’s judgment is not a very popular topic of conversation but I feel that I can conclude my posts with this. My main point is that a relationship with God is not a given, it can be damaged or even lost and just like our relationships with other people it is fragile. Relationships are based on trust, whether you are friends, dating, or married, if you can’t trust the other person the relationship ends there. It’s the same with God, we need to trust God and He needs to trust that we won’t leave Him. A lot of people seem to think that good deeds get you to Heaven or that if you walk away from God you can lose your salvation but that is not true! Jesus died on the cross to save us, He doesn’t need to die again. What we can lose is our relationship with God, when you walk away the distance grows and soon you lose sight of who and where you are. I think that’s what Jeremiah’s point is, it’s a wakeup call from God, it’s His way of saying “Hey I won’t forget or leave you, but you can and you are!” Like I wrote earlier the Bible is a love letter from God, it’s His revelation to man about His love and it presents us with a choice: choose a life with God full of honesty and loyalty or continue to run after things that don’t last. If you desire happiness and a quick fix choose the latter, but if you want joy that lasts, joy that supersedes the pains of life choose the first. That is Jeremiah’s message.

Never Easy to Write

Yesterday I wrote about sin as cheating on God and now I move on to part two of that post. This is going to be a hard and unpopular post to write, it’s easier to write about God’s love than the reasons for His judgment. Yet at the same time this post, I hope, is a good answer to a question I’ve had and many others do to. The question is: Is God harsh? You can’t read the Bible without coming across that question in your mind, and many people who do not like the Bible use it out of context. I’ve been doing some thinking and here is my conclusion. God is infinitely good (as said many times), and infinitely just (as said many times) and His actions toward His people are reasonable so no He is not harsh and actually less harsh than many people I know. The purpose of writing “Cheating on God” before this is to draw a parallel to God and a married couple. Now, imagine a married couple where one is cheating on the other, what happens when the other finds out? Well, generally things don’t go well, they can but it is hard for them to. But with God, He gave Israel so much and forgave them for so much that eventually He said “Enough! I can see that you do not love me. I can see that you will not come back to me. If that is how you want it, if you don’t want to save this relationship then fine, I’m leaving” As much as God is described with great might and power He is also described with great emotion (I mean He made it so He has to be) Jeremiah 5:7 says “Why should I forgive you?...I supplied all your needs, yet they all committed adultery and thronged to the houses of prostitutes.” Now, when a sinner comes to God in honest repentance of course he will be forgiven, God loves us and will take us back, but what happened here is the people of Israel were unrepentant. They would pray for deliverance, promise to change, but revert back to idolatry. It’s the same when a husband says to the wife “Honey I know I’ve cheated on you six times, but I still love you more than those other girls.” So, what does God do? He steps back a bit and let’s things take their course. He let the Assyrian army take over Israel and allowed Hezekiah to invite Babylonian envoys to see his palace. He let the Babylonians take over Judah after seeing its wealth and later allowed the Greeks to take over, then the Romans… God saved Israel countless times, He had them triumph over the Egyptians, those living in the promised land, the Philistines… but for all that Israel still cheated on Him and left Him for something else. It’s a hard post to write because it requires taking a look at ourselves and thinking what have I done and where do I stand? It’s a necessary post  though because this is an issue and a question that needs to be addressed, is God harsh, in respect to what was done to Him the answer is no and actually as history unfolded He showed the people Israel that He still loves them and has a grander plan than they ever could have imagined.

Note

For some weird reason the font is messed up and so I am now changing the font of this blog to Trebuchet, it's easier to read and I don't feel like taking the time to look up the font for future posts. Sometimes new tech. is a good idea and others it just complicates things.

Cheating on God!?

As my journey through the prophets continues I have recently finished reading Isaiah and have started Jeremiah. I would have to say that the biggest difference between them so far is that Isaiah speaks more about hope for the future while Jeremiah talks about the punishment of the present. For that I feel that Jeremiah unjustly gets a bum rap and that will be the subject of another post which answers the question “Is God harsh?” For now, as a sort of prelude, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about a certain verse/passage, well actually a chapter. The chapter I’ve been thinking about is chapter 3 which talks about the unfaithful Israel. First off note, not faithless, unfaithful meaning (using our trusty thesaurus) “disloyal, untrue, false, two-timing…” I was struck by that image and the standard God uses in telling Jeremiah. The chapter starts off “If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, should he return to her again… but you have lived as a prostitute with many lovers – would you now return to me?” Then in verse 20 it says “But like a woman unfaithful to her husband, so you have been unfaithful to me…” Now I found that interesting for a few reasons, but the main one is that I never thought about sin in that way. When I sin, not only do I take a step away from God, I cheat on Him. Think about a marriage, if one person cheats on the other two issues arise 1) You don’t love me the same anymore and 2) I can’t trust you from now on. That must be how God feels, as expressed in this passage. See, it’s not about saying “Oh, God doesn’t love me/ He won’t forgive me.” It’s “Wow, looking at my life I cheated on God – how can He trust me?” The thing about the Bible is that it is not just a history book, it is a love letter written (or dictated) by God to man. It’s God’s way of saying “Hey you! Read this because it says how much I love you! Please come back, don’t cheat on me, I am enough.” To be honest I’ve cheated on God, I’ve cheated on Him with pride, anger, greed…. I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions and it may be a bit late for one but here’s mine: for the rest of 2011 I will try to be more faithful to God and to love and trust Him always.

Barry Bonds vs. Ted Williams

Here’s a short digression onto baseball, particularly baseball in the 90’s and 2000’s. So, I was watching MLB Network and they keep running specials about different seasons during the steroid era and invariably the names Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds come up. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how steroids affect hitting, and weightlifting as a whole. I watched a video of A-Rod taking a swing and as much as I hate myself for saying it he has a nice swing and demonstrates the idea of using your hips vs. using your hands well. So my question is this: what gives, how does lifting weights affect hitting and can it make you a better hitter? My answer is yes and no. This past summer I hit a career high .380 and hit 2 homeruns, as a result of reading The Science of Hitting and working out a ton. Using a bit of physics I determined that taking steroids can give a good hitter much more power, but being big is not everything and can not necessarily make you a good hitter. When you hit a baseball you swing the bat pretty fast causing the ball to bounce off, in physics this is called momentum (mass times volume or mv). Momentum is transferred from one object to another so the momentum from the bat goes into the ball. Obviously the more momentum the ball ahs the farther it goes so the idea is to build momentum. What steroids do is that it builds up your mass, the more of you there is in the swing the more momentum and the farther the ball can go. Or if you take the high road and do it honestly you can build you velocity and your mass. By running and doing a lot of core work you can increase the velocity in your swing, and by working out normally you increase your mass by a little bit. So the question is this, do steroids make someone a good hitter? The answer is no, they only give a hitter more power. Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire were pretty consistent in their averages; it was the power numbers that changed. So what is a hardworking baseball player to do? Work hard the honest way, run, stretch, and lift weights and focus on the fundamentals – that is how you become a truly great hitter.

Where Did The Time Go?

I’m not really one for sentimental reflections, but my goodness how time flies by. It seems like yesterday I was back from Mississippi writing a quick post on the old laptop in the kitchen and then God created in me a passion for reading His word and writing about it. This is my fourth year of blogging, my third full year and so far it has been a wonderful experience. Whatever it is you do I say do it for God, whether it be writing, painting, playing music, playing baseball – when you let God take the driver’s seat really cool things can happen. The theme of my college essay was how amazing it was that God could take a blog that was originally meant to last for a week as a joke and turn it into my main hobby. Hobby isn’t even the correct word, really I should use passion or focus, because that is what God has made it. I used to think I would have to be a big time preacher, or make a charity, or travel the world as a missionary to make a difference. Yet amazingly God has shown me that I can be myself, with my quirky sense of humor, love of baseball, and passion for Him to make a difference no matter how big or small it is. One thing I’ve realized is this, you don’t have to have your name in a history book to make an impact in God’s eyes, simply loving Him and living in that manner is all that is required.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year, this year I will pray for strength, strength to live as God wants me to and strength to hold on to Him and His promise despite the doubts that creep into my mind. 2010 was an eventful year filled with trials and joys and I pray that God will help us continue to grow closer to Him and come out of these trials victorious. I don’t pray for comfort or that everything will go my way, but I do pray that when things go wrong I will not give in and forget God’s promise – that He is with me to the end. I pray for growth, that I may grow in understanding of God’s word, and that I may grow closer to Him. Amen.