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Sermon on the MoundListen to text
Thuzdenhoople, Maize 29, 2003 
The moral example of the baseball pitching coach
Click, batta batta batta, click batta batta!
Pitching coaches. That's right, I said pitching coaches, you know, for baseball teams: we should all be like them. (Work with me here, gang, this "sermon" is going to make sense before I'm through, okay? Jeez. Widow Brimley's already giving me the evil eye over there: She's like, "Pitching coaches, indeed!" Patience, people, patience!)
By the way, there's doughnuts in the social hall immediately following this harangue, so I'll thank you lot to perk up and listen for a change. Who knows: I may even have something important to say. At any rate, I stayed up till 3 in the morning racking my brains for these moral reflections, so the least you could do is pry your eyes open for 15 minutes. I mean, honestly! No, seriously, pitching coaches: have you ever seen them stoically plodding to the mound during a rough inning at a Major League Baseball game? I don't care how dicey the situation is (bases loaded, nobody out, Manny Mota at bat, you name it), the pitching coach is always the picture of composure as he sashays up to his besieged protégé to deliver a pep talk. The manager may be furious at the latest turn of events, the crowd may be apoplectic, the hurler himself may be bummed out bigtime, but the pitching coach -- ah, the pitching coach: He just lumbers up to the mound like an overweight Zen master, indifferent to the jeering, refusing to be rushed, his generally bulging tummy swaying in front of him like the very incarnation of satiety. (Satiety: S-a-t-i-- Oh, you know what I mean: Don't make me come out there, now!)  Father O'Really here, my child. You know, God can forgive just about anything these days (he's grading on a huge curve, after all, what with all the terrorists and petty despots putzing about in the early 21st century on behalf of their various custom-made Armageddons), but I've got to tell you: he's going to be right pissed if you don't read every one of the sermons that I've given below. Humph! (Well, you can even push Divinity too far sometimes -- as the fig tree found out to its cost in Matthew 21:19) More Sermons Talk about grace under pressure: you'd think the newly summoned pitching coach was just getting up from his sofa at home to let the cat out during a commercial break. (Can I get a witness here?) There's no fretting on his part, no conniption fits en route. He may lazily spew a plug of tobacco on the infield while advancing toward the troubled moundsman, but if it's a gesture of disdain, it seems to be directed more at Fate than at the harried hurler. For lo: the crowd is treated to the edifying spectacle of a father-son chat once the coach reaches the mound. (Wouldn't you agree?) You can almost hear the paraphrased summary of the obese philosopher's apparent advice: "Relax, my son, you can DO this!" So, you see, Widow Brimley: I had a point, after all: namely that we should strive to be like baseball pitching coaches when we approach the problems of life. Comprendo? Let the managers fret, let the bystanders rave: We, for our part, should just lazily put on our thinking caps and walk out to "the mound" of life with the determination and calm of one of these Major League father figures that I have been at some trouble to describe this morning. Fair enough? Then we can confidentially whisper to our "pitcher" (i.e., to our soul or whatever) that, yes, it can indeed "DO this!" thank you very much! Of course, those of you who are unfamiliar with the American sports world may be struggling with this analogy, having never actually seen one of these Buddhistic baseball coaches sashaying up to a pitching mound during a particularly rough inning, ready to console his troubled student with philosophical reflections designed to put the game in perspective. But perhaps you have the moral equivalent of a pitching coach in cricket or European "football," you know, the guy who helps the team keep its "eye on the prize" even when they're down 5-0 or whatever. In any case, you surely know the psychological type that I'm invoking here: It's the feller about whom Rudyard Kipling wrote the poem "If," remember: "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs...." Speaking of which, I think I'll end today's "sermon" with a relevant abridgement of the work in question -- and I quote: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss.... Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a PITCHING COACH, my son! Let us pray -- No, wait a minute, let's not pray! I keep forgetting, these spiels of mine are secular in character despite their sermonlike trappings, huh? (Oh, golly! I am SO silly!) Of course, if you feel moved to pray, be my guest. But now if you'll forgive me, I'm going to make a beeline for the social hall and those doughnuts I alluded to. (Last one there is a rotten parishioner! Ha ha!) .. 
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