The Never-Ending Story (that was the All-Star game)

I went to sleep at 2 a.m. because I watched the longest baseball game ever. By the 11^th inning, the novelty of the All-Star game being played in the last year in the House that Ruth built kind of dissipated. However, a few storylines kept me engaged, thus the reason why I stayed up and watched until the 15th inning … in no particular order:

- I wanted to see how many errors Dan Uggla could accumulate in an All-Star game. He ended up with three, but was very close to four.

- I wanted to see how many times a Major Leaguer can come up to bat with a man on third and less than two outs and still fail to drive in a run.

- I wanted to see what Terry Francona would do after Kazmir (his last pitcher) could no longer throw. Apparently, JD Drew would have been the next-in-line to pitch. Now that would have been worth watching.

- I wanted to see how much irrational banter Tim McCarver and Joe Buck could have as the clock neared morning.

In any case, it was an enjoyable All-Star game, although I’m feeling the pain of its long duration. Here were the highlights of the game worth mentioning:

- Pujols had two nice hits, but got a taste of the Ichiro cannon arm

- Mariano looked very much the invincible closer he has been for a decade

- Russell Martin made a few unbelievable plays at home plate

- JD Drew lived up to his potential … finally

Again, A-Rod disappointed in the limelight, and although the game was riveting, it was kind of anti-climactic to see the last 7 innings played by names that aren’t a household name. As much as I like the play of Nate McClouth, Ryan Ludwick and Carlos Quentin, they just didn’t raise my blood temperature at one in the morning. Oh well, at least it was a game that everyone played to win.

Unlikely Homerun Champs, Revised Look on Heaven and Food for Thought …

Homerun chatter …

Chase Utley doesn’t have the prototypical soma-type to be a homerun champ, but somehow he’s doing it. Here’s my list of the top three most unlikely guys who would be surprising homerun champs, but not completely unbelievable:

1. Ichiro Suzuki—He’s a skinny leadoff slap hitter, but by his own admittance, Suzuki says he could be a homerun machine if he wasn’t more concentrated on getting hits. Some managers who’ve seen him hit during batting practice state that Suzuki could become whatever hitter he wants. Even if he couldn’t hit the ball out of the park with the frequency of today’s big hitters, he does have one homerun that’ll be remembered for a long time (remember his inside the park home run in last year’s all star game?).
2. Rick Ankiel—He used to be a pitcher best known for his inability to find the catcher’s mitt. Miraculously, he’s resurrected his baseball career as an outfielder with an above-average arm and a sweet left-handed swing. He’s on pace to hit nearly 40 homeruns in what is his second year in the league as a non-pitcher. Hitting behind the most-feared hitter in baseball probably doesn’t hurt his chances.
3. Josh Hamilton—a former substance abuser winning the HR crown, wait… by substance we mean non-steroid-type drugs, such as heroin. In any case, Hamilton is a feel-good story of a player who got a second chance after literally falling off the face of the earth, and is making most of this opportunity.

Ankiel watching another baseball take flight, while thinking, “It’s good to hit after Pujols!”

Just Like Heaven …

Good interview and articulation of the “old” view that Christians have on heaven. N.T. Wright is a brilliant theologian, and it is statements like the one below that should really challenge the Christian worldview when it comes to the “afterlife.” In other words, we need to deconstruct our passed-down way of thinking and truly look at Scriptures through fresh eyes. It’s truly startling to see how much of our Christian worldview has been influenced by Greek culture and of course the Enlightenment period. The conversation picks up after TIME asks Wright, why do we have the current view of heaven?

Wright: It has, originally, to do with the translation of Jewish ideas into Greek. The New Testament is deeply, deeply Jewish, and the Jews had for some time been intuiting a final, physical resurrection. They believed that the world of space and time and matter is messed up, but remains basically good, and God will eventually sort it out and put it right again. Belief in that goodness is absolutely essential to Christianity, both theologically and morally. But Greek-speaking Christians influenced by Plato saw our cosmos as shabby and misshapen and full of lies, and the idea was not to make it right, but to escape it and leave behind our material bodies. The church at its best has always come back toward the Hebrew view, but there have been times when the Greek view was very influential.

TIME: Can you give some historical examples?

Wright: Two obvious ones are Dante’s great poetry, which sets up a Heaven, Purgatory and Hell immediately after death, and Michelangelo’s Last Judgment in the Sistine chapel, which portrays heaven and hell as equal and opposite last destinations. Both had enormous influence on Western culture, so much so that many Christians think that is Christianity.

Food for thought …

What foods trigger the most creativity? I’m sure there’s a study that I can google, but it’ll probably spit out a list of foods that I’m not too fond of. Speaking about non-fondness, if some food scientist ever proves that Durian can increase brain activity by 300%, I would still abstain from that food. It’s got spikes—that’s God’s way of saying please do not consume. Currently, my favorite go-to food is cereal. I’ve been rotating from yogurt-flavored Cheerios to Puffins to Raisin Bran (not particularly my fave) to Honey Bunches of Oats.

The spikes are a not-so-subtle hint …

Once you get past the spikes, it’s still not an attractive treat …

My sentiments exactly