As the pitcher sat in the locker room after being knocked in the second inning, the reporters would not leave him alone. None of his pitches were working, and his fastball lost about 10 miles an hour on it. They kept hounding this beaten old man until he finally gave in and answered their questions.
“I know I’m not the pitcher I was before. What forty five year old man could still be as good as he was in the prime of his life? Father Time is the athlete’s worst enemy. He grants us strength and durability in our youth; then abandons us in our latter years. Since we can do nothing about it, all we can do is adjust to it. We can be thankful for what he did to us, but shouldn’t be bitter when we can no longer function like we did before. It is physiologically impossible to do. Our bodies won’t let us.
We are still a valuable asset to the game of baseball; in that we can pass on our skills to someone who was just like us in our early years. We can mold someone else into a future Hall of Famer just like someone did to us. If we were bitter about the situation, we couldn’t help ourselves or anyone else. We can live up to our God given grace to fulfill our potential, or we can remain to be bitter and act out our denial against his expectations and his will in us.
We are free to choose our own destiny, because we have the freedom to embrace Father Time and leave our decisions in God’s hands, or let our bitterness take hold and go against his plan for us; thus living our lives without him. I choose living my life with him in mind and using my assets to pass on my knowledge of the game of baseball to someone else. That is the righteous way of doing things.”
The reporters didn’t print everything he said in the paper. They left out what he was saying about embracing Father Time, and left in the fact that he was washed up. How could you sell newspapers if the people wanted to hear something positive about someone? Why did they interview him in the first place?