Suppose a player went to the coach and said, "I like being on the team and all, but I'm tired of getting dirty. I don't want to get hurt. And, try as I might, I just know I'm going to mess up a time or two. Any advice on how I can avoid all that?"
The answer would be simple: Quit. Go home. If a player is in the game, there's no way to avoid any of those things. That's common sense.
I need that reminder most of the time, only not in any way pertaining to athletics. I seem to have this endless pursuit for everything to be just so, at work and with my house, in my career and with my dealings with people, and something must be seriously wrong with me if it isn't. I will sit at my desk at the end of the day, rubbing my eyes and rolling up my sleeves, thinking that everyone else breezes through life's challenges with relative ease, but not me.
Too often with me, the one situation that didn't work out so well with override the fifteen that did. I want to ask, "How can I avoid all that?" And the answer is simple. I can quit, go home, and never stick up for a person's interests ever again.
In the words of Judge Smales in the movie Caddyshack, "Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too."
I need to be reminded that the players in every game who enjoy themselves the most are the ones who are dirty, sweaty, battered and bruised. The ones who are IN the game enjoy it far more than the ones who merely watch it. They're also the ones who actually DO something.
So maybe my tired eyes aren't a symbol of failure. They're the reflection of having tried.
Maybe your weariness isn't the result of having been kicked, but instead a reflection of the flat-out perseverance you have for tackling the stuff that comes your way.
And we're always told it's better to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all. So maybe all the stuff that seems negative is actually very, very positive.
I'm not sure what compelled me to sit and write this tonight, because I actually had a pretty decent day today. But tomorrow will be another doubleheader, and I'm sure the pitchers will be pretty good. By noon I'm sure I'll have to face something that's pretty serious, and by mid-afternoon I'm going to need a seventh-inning stretch.
I think we all have days like that, no matter what kind of job or position in life we have.
So this is a tribute to dirty uniforms. It's an appreciation for scratches and strikeouts and tough moments at the end of the day...when quitting feels like the answer.
It's a call to stay in the game. Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips (pictured) sometimes gets thrown out trying to steal third, but throughout it all, he enjoys the game. He's got a smile that could light up Texas. I need to remember that.
Now let's crank up some John Fogarty and sing along when he sings Centerfield:
"Put me in, Coach. I'm ready to play."