July 15, 2009

Dear Friends,

Still the Man.
I have the deep suspicion that, if you had asked Barak Obama last Wednesday morning , “What is the best thing about being President of the United States?” he would not have said, “I have a really great plane.”  Or, “I get to meet all these incredible people who govern other countries,” Or, “Michelle and I can get a table at any restaurant in Chicago or Washington any night we want.”  Or, “Nice house, free rent.”  Nope.  I am almost certain that if you had asked the “best thing about being President” question last Wednesday morning, he would have said, “I get to take a baseball from Stan Musial and throw it to Albert Pujols.”  That, at least, is what I would have said.
   Tuesday night was baseball’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, the All Star Game, the best of the National League and the best of the American League, head to head, with nothing at stake except home field advantage in the World Series.  (OK, I realize that if you are not a baseball fan, you are probably not still reading this.  I will pray for you.)  But here’s the deal.  The president was going to throw out the first pitch.
   Now the game was being played in St. Louis, home of the Cardinals, the only club for which Stan Musial ever played.  (He played, of course, BFA, Before Free Agency, back in the days in which baseball players were indentured servants to the clubs for which they played.)
   Still, Stan was The Man.  He played for the Cardinals from 1941 to 1963.  Stan had a lifetime batting average of .331, hit 475 home runs, played in four World Series, was three times National League Most Valuable Player, and twice Major League Baseball Player of the Year.  In 1969, the first year that he was eligible, he was voted into the Hall of Fame with 317 votes out of 340 cast.  Who the twenty-three were who did not vote for him, I do not know, but their Topps card collection should be confiscated and sold to the highest bidder.
   On Tuesday night, The Man, now 89 years old, entered the stadium in a golf cart and handed the president the ball for the first pitch.  I’ll tell you, it was a moment.  The president, decked out in in his White Sox warmup jacket, then threw the ceremonial first pitch to Albert Pujols, who is in his ninth season with the Cardinals and is hitting a Musialesque career .334.  Some are saying that Pujols may simply be the best player ever to step on a diamond.
   The throw was less than thrilling, but Pujols caught it, and then, predictably, the American League won again.
   I’m telling you all this, because Stan Musial was my boyhood hero.  More than a great player, he was a class act, a person of warmth and character.  He smiled at me and asked me my name when I, a shy eight year old, handed him a baseball down at spring training in St. Petersburg.  That ball still sits on my mantel.
   The church does lots of things for all kinds of people, but nothing we do may be more important that to let our children mingle with adults who are good, kind, just, committed people.  In Kids Central Church School classes and Vacation Bible School, in youth groups and on mission trips, in Worship and Wonder and during children’s time in worship services, we put our children in conversation with adults who, by what they say and who they are, give our children and young people role models for the kinds of adults we hope they will become.
   You are a part of that important ministry.  This Sunday, speak to a child, introduce yourself if you do not know him or her, and tell that child that you are glad that he or she is a part of the church too.  Welcome a child, and you will bat a thousand.
   Glad to be your pastor, Central
Dr. Michael Mooty,
Senior Minister, 07/15/09