Josh Benner

Tag: Cleveland

  • What Jim Thome can teach us about strengths and weaknesses

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    Jim Thome. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia commons @Erik Drost

    Like any Cleveland Indians fan growing up in the 90s, Jim Thome is one of my all time favorite baseball players.

    Always had a good reputation as being friendly, a slugger, wore high socks like he was playing in the 30s. What wasn’t there to love?

    This past weekend, Thome was enshrined in baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. It’s well deserved. Thome’s 612 career home runs ranks him eighth all time.

    Baseball fans talk about guys who are five tool players, which refers to someone who can hit for power, hit for average, run well, throw well, and who has a good glove.

    Obviously Thome excelled at hitting for power. And while his career batting average was a respectable (though not exactly phenomenal .276), he actually is 51st all time in on base percentage because Thome also walked a lot.

    But he wasn’t known for being a great fielder or runner (19 career stolen bases, compared to being caught stealing 20 times).

    Simply put, Jim Thome was not a five tool player. And yet he’s in the Hall of Fame, because parts of his game were great.

    We all have room to grow, areas where we can improve. And we should always strive to get better in those areas. But there are also some skills where we’ll probably never excel, and that’s ok, because we can still do a lot with the talent and ability we have.

    Sometimes we can get bogged down for modest improvements in areas that aren’t our strengths when we could be working to cultivate our strengths to become even better. Let us never be so good at something that we think we can’t still do it better.

    What’s something you’re good at where you could get even better?

    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.

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  • Life lessons from baseball

     

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    Tomorrow is opening day of the 2018 Major League Baseball season. Between opening day and the end of the season in early November, more than 2,430 games will be played.

    Baseball’s regular season is the longest in American professional sports, nearly doubling the 82 games NBA and NHL seasons.

    I think about the baseball games that are blowouts. The 10, 12, 14 run wins. When a team gets behind by a huge margin in baseball, it’s very rare for them to comeback and win. And the later in the game a team is down by a big run-differential, the less likely they are to comeback. If you get to the bottom of the 9th down by double-digit runs, the incidence of a comeback is virtually unheard of.

    In a baseball game, you can go out on Thursday, and your team can get crushed. Starting pitcher might not have good stuff bats aren’t connecting, errors. It can be a horrible day, a 12 run loss.

    But the beauty of baseball is that, no matter what happened on Thursday, Friday is a new opportunity to go out and to succeed. No matter how badly you lost yesterday, it doesn’t matter with how you can do today.

    Life is the same way. We can have a really bad day. We can feel totally defeated. But tomorrow is always a new day.

    That metaphor works both ways. If you were the team who dominated on Thursday, you still have to go out and play well on Friday.

    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.

  • LeBron’s historic finals: greatest player of all time

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    LeBron James – Photo by Keith Allison, Wikimeia commons

    No one thought Cleveland would win this series. Golden State had had the winningest season of all time. They had won last year. Cleveland was overmatched, didn’t have the depth. It was the best player in the game (Steph Curry) vs LeBron, who’s past his prime, a shadow of his former greatness.

    And the series began as many expected. Golden State up 2-0. Cleveland responded well at home but lost a hard fought game four. The series was effectively over. Many expected the team to roll over. In game 5, without Draymond Green, the Cavs dominated. In game six, with Green back, Cleveland wouldn’t be able to keep up. But the won again. (more…)

  • The greatness of LeBron

    LeBron James - Photo by Keith Allison, Wikimeia commons
    LeBron James – Photo by Keith Allison, Wikimeia commons

    I wish we would be as critical of our president as we are of LeBron James. LeBron gets criticism for having the wrong facial expression. Nevermind the fact that he lead BOTH teams in scoring, rebounds, and assists. And nevermind he had one of the worst supporting casts in NBA final history up against one of the best teams in NBA history. Commentators talk about how the greats find ways to get it done. Oh do they? How many of these greats were playing with a supporting cast like this? Michael Jordan had Scottie Pippen and Phil Jackson for every title he won (and Dennis Rodman for his last three). All Hall of Famers. People set impossible standards for LeBron and then knock him when he doesn’t reach those heights. (more…)

  • Happy Cavs fans, and the people angered by the fact that forgiveness exists

    LeBron James - Photo by Keith Allison, Wikimeia commons
    LeBron James – Photo by Keith Allison, Wikimedia commons

    I see some people who are being critical of Cavs fans. Was there a lot of anger and frustration after the decision? Of course. Just like there is a lot of anger in Miami as we see Heat fans burning his jerseys. But you better believe they would welcome him back.

    Are the Cavs fans being hypocrites? (more…)