Baseball, Hideo Nomo, & the Hidden Work of God

You never forget your first time. I was eight-years-old.

It was 1995, I was swept away by the most beautiful and magnificent… baseball stadium. What did you think I was talking about?

My grandparents had taken me and my younger brother to a game. We were walking through the massive parking lot, buzzing with a surprising amount of Japanese fans, all wearing the same jersey, number 16.

Malibu (Gold, 2021), Disneyland (Gregory, 2022), Grand Canyon (Gerek, 2021)

There is something magical about encountering grandness in the world when you’re eight. Whether it is going to Disneyland for the first time, feeling the crash of the crisp waves of the pacific, or looking down upon the Grand Canyon. When you are a child you experience wonder as God intended it. Funny how as you grow older, you go back to Disneyland, and it’s not as big as you thought, sort of dirty, and way too commercialized. But that eight-year-old boy experienced something different: magic.

1995, I was walking into the largest baseball stadium in the United States—Dodger stadium. Hard to do it justice if you have only seen it on TV. Built in 1962, and not without controversy, it was massive for its time with a capacity of 65,000. Wrigley and Fenway—the only current stadiums older than Dodger stadium—are around 41,000 and 37,000 respectively in capacity. To put the difference in perspective, you could add the capacity of any current NBA arena to Wrigley or Fenway and still wouldn’t reach the size of Dodger stadium.

Dodger Stadium (Owens, 2018)

We entered into the coliseum and found our seats behind right field, I was in awe. From the crack of the first bat, Dodger stadium was electric, with every strike 16 threw, the crowd erupted. What I didn’t know then was that number 16 wasn’t any ordinary pitcher, he was the tornado, with each corkscrew wind-up, I was participating in Nomomania. As a kid, I was caught up in the lights blazing, the crowd roaring, not to mention the Dodger dogs and soft-serve ice cream in a baseball helmet, blissfully unaware, I was witnessing history. With each forkball strike, he was breaking barriers for Japanese players and changing Major League Baseball forever.

Later as an adult I realized the significance of what I had witnessed that night. Understanding how Nomo paved the way for some of the game’s all-time greats; Ichiro, Darvish, Ohtani, and the list goes on. But as a kid, all I knew was the magic of the game.

The Christian faith follows the same base path.

We first experience God, His grace, majesty, and holiness. Like the saints of old we are caught up in the beauty of worship, long before we grasp the theological depth behind it. The sacrifice it required, the waiting it demanded, the historical significance.

Theology is meant to be witnessed before it is understood. Much of theology jumps to explaining God, rather than beholding the wonder. God is not ‘a’ subject, but the very subject that all else spins around. He is meant to be encountered in burning bushes and wooden crosses.

So, here’s a new pitch to try.

What if our theological aim was to behold God, rather than try and figure Him all out?

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