The second half of the 2019 baseball season starts today. Between now and late September, the regular season will feature over 1,000 games.
One ting I love about baseball is that no matter how good or bad today’s game went, tomorrow is a new day.
In baseball, you can get absolutely trounced one day. Pitching can be terrible, hitting can be terrible, you can lose by 15 runs. Just a disaster of a game. But no matter how badly you might lose today, tomorrow is a new day and a new game.
Conversely, no matter how much you dominate today, you could hit 4 home runs, pitch a no hitter, have a walk off home run, everything can be clicking, but tomorrow is still a new day and you need to do it again. You can’t just rest on yesterday. (more…)
The Stanley Cup. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
It’s a better story than the Mighty Ducks.
The St. Louis Blues won their first Stanley Cup in franchise history Wednesday night. The story of how they got there is an inspiring one.
January 2 was an off day for the St. Louis Blues. It was also a significant day because it was on that day where they fell into last place in points in the NHL. It had already been a chaotic season. In November, the time fired head coach Mike Yeo. At that point, rising star goalie Jordan Binnington hadn’t even started an NHL game (and he wouldn’t get his first win until January 7).
The Blues had a winning record for the month of January. But as the month ended, they were still far behind in the playoff standings and posted the third worst record in the Western Conference.
In February, the Blues caught fire. From January 23-February 19, St. Louis won 11 straight games. They continued to rise in the standings and made their way into the playoffs, tied for the fourth most points in the Wester Conference.
Once they made it to the playoffs, it wasn’t an easy journey. All four of their playoff series went at least six games. In every round but the first round, the other team had the home ice advantage. But last night, the Blues came out in game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals and dominated Boston.
It’s a great story.
To think on January 2 that St. Louis would win the Stanley Cup. It would have been laughable. The playoffs seemed like a far off dream.
But there are some life lessons we can all learn from the Blues this season. It’s not where you start that matters. It’s how you respond and how you finish. Keep grinding, keep fighting, keep working hard and amazing things can happen.
Just because you start working to improve doesn’t mean that it becomes easy along the way. The Blues had to battle the whole way.
It’s always easy to settle for failure. It’s always easy to make excuses and justifications for why things can’t change or get better, of why YOU can’t change or get better. It’s always easy to think it’s too late, you’re too old, you didn’t have the right foundation, etc.
Don’t make excuses. Just grind.
Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe!
Josh Benner has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He has served churches in Minnesota and Illinois. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in St. Louis.
An egregious no-call in the Saints-Rams, NFC Championship game yesterday.
Missed calls happen. But I don’t know if I can think of ever seeing a more consequential no-call that had a bigger impact on a game than the missed pass interference with 1:46 left to go in the game. (more…)
We don’t control the cards we’re dealt. All we can do is play what we have.
Tyler Trent passed away on Tuesday.
The Purdue student had battled a rare form of bone cancer. He had become a sensation in college football and Big Ten circles as being someone the Purdue football team rallied around this season. The hashtag #TylerStrong went viral.
He inspired and encouraged people. He raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for cancer research. He wrote a book that he’d never be able to see completed, but which will also continue to raise money for cancer research.
Tyler was also outspoken about the importance of his faith.
In 2017, Tyler’s cancer returned and he began to pray that God would use this journey for His glory.”
As I think about the impact he had over the last few months, it’s clear that this prayers was answered.
In an interview with Today, Tyler said: “Waking up day to day is like winning a lottery…I try to rely on my faith in Jesus Christ and figure out how to have a good day.”
As his battle continued, Tyler took to Twitter numerous time to glorify God. (more…)
Relentless effort (not talent or intelligence) is the key to achieving great things in your life. Struggle is part of the process. It is hard and often painful. But it’s also necessary, because it’s in the struggle that great things are achieved.
-Urban Meyer, in Above the Line
Tonight, one of the greatest college football coaches of all time retires.
Urban Meyer concludes his seventh and final season as the head coach at Ohio State. Meyer has amassed an incredible record at Ohio State and throughout his coaching career. Coming into tonight’s Rose Bowl, Meyer is 82-9 as the Buckeye head coach. In his seven seasons, Meyer never lost more than two games in a season. He lost four conference games total. He won his first 24 games in Columbus.
He’s one of the greatest college football coaches of all time. Three national championships. He won .85 percent of his games. Meyer had four winning streaks of 20 or more games (to put that in perspective, no other coach even has three).
Great coaches can teach us all things. I think of things I’ve read over the years from people like John Wooden, Vince Lomardi, Woody Hayes, Bobby Knight.
For people who have succeeded in competitive endeavors, they have insights from which we can all benefit in terms of work ethic, leadership, and grit.
We so often make excuses for our failures and mediocrity. Great coaches don’t settle for mediocrity. They demand excellence from themselves, from their staffs, and from their players. We so often chalk up failure to a lack of resources, things beyond our control, or the fault o others. Great coaches show us all that excellence comes from hard work. Success comes from preparation and learning from mistakes. Success comes from wanting it more than your opponent.
It’s true on the playing field, on the court, and in life.
“I’ve come to learn that leadership is not automatically granted to you because of your position or your salary or the size of your office. Leadership is influence based on trust that you have earned. A leader is not someone who declares what he wants and then gets angry when he doesn’t get it. A true leader is someone who is going someplace and taking people with him, a catalyst for elite performance who enables people to achieve things they wouldn’t achieve on their own. A leader is someone who earns trust, sets a clear standard, and then equips and inspires people to meet that standard.”
-Urban Meyer in Above the Line
Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe!
Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.
