by Eddie Pipkin
Image by Marisa Sias from Pixabay
I’ve been following the Major League Baseball number one performance by the Tampa Bay Rays this season (always the underdogs, those underfunded and underloved Rays, so always fun to watch). They started the year on a torrid pace, winning game after game, but as we head toward the midpoint of the season, they’re slumping a bit. That’s why it was a jaw-dropper to see that they benched their wunderkind shortstop, team superstar Wander Franco. Due to some troubling behavior, they gave the best player on the team – and this almost never happens in modern, professional sports – a timeout! It hardly ever happens in ministry either, but we could probably all benefit from being temporarily set aside to get our heads straight from time to time.
We won’t get into the details of Wander Franco’s transgressions in this space. Suffice it to say that he had displayed recurrent flares of attitude, outbursts of temper, and exhibitions of petulance unbecoming a professional athlete. He’s only 22, and one of the hottest players in the game. It’s a tough transition from high school superstar to well-mannered, multimillionaire pro, the kind of hardworking guy who consistently conducts himself with a diffident equilibrium every single day in every high-stakes game that makes up the monthslong grind that is the MLB season. The coaches on the team are hopeful he can get the hang of it before he gets into the habit of bad ha