Category: Midland Baseball

There’s No Crying in Baseball

Our entire GCR Church family is taking in the RockHounds baseball game together next Wednesday June 7. It’s a church picnic situation with burgers and dogs, chips and popcorn, and all the sodas we can eat and drink. Cory and our worship team will sing the national anthem, one of our shepherds, Brandon Brunson, will throw out the first pitch, and a bunch of our younger people will serve as contestants for the promotional games they stage in between innings.

To promote the event, our ministry team put on our own dizzy bat race at the RockHounds stadium last week and Dan turned it into a video we showed to our congregation on Sunday.

That’s one of our youth ministry interns, Nate, inside the Rocky RockHound mascot costume; he’s still defumigating his hair. Kudos to Brenda for her superb acting skills while being shoved up against the infield netting. And, for the record, Kristin is probably the first person to ever spit on a GCR church video.

Peace,

Allan

In Honor of Kim Scott

Kim Scott probably knows 500 preachers and each of them – all of them! – would have jumped at the chance to do his funeral. That I was the one to officiate that memorial service yesterday in Amarillo is one of the great honors of my life.

In some ways, it was a tough spot. I felt like I needed to tell a bunch of jokes. I felt like Kim would be disappointed if everybody wasn’t laughing the whole time. And you might say, “But it’s a funeral.” And I would say, “But it’s Kim!” The guy died in the church building during a Bible class on Wednesday night! He would want somebody to point out  the humor in that!

So we did. We covered the fact that Kim is right now probably bragging about dying in church on a Wednesday night and how that moves him to the front of the line to get into heaven. We covered the loud neckties and the outrageous family Christmas cards. We talked about Farm & Ranch Shows and Water Board meetings and LCU. We highlighted his sense of humor and his great joy. And I told some jokes. Straight out of Kim’s book.

Did you hear about the big truck that overturned on I-40? It was carrying peanut butter. Jars of peanut butter spilled out everywhere. But it went so well with the traffic jam.

What sound does a limping turkey make?
Wobble, wobble, wobble.

What do you call a cow who just had a baby?
Decaffeinated.

I hear that membership in the Flat Earth Society is falling off.

People who identify as cake are really conscientious; they’re always running around saying, “You want a piece of me?”

I would love to write out all six pages of my eulogy to Kim Scott in this space. Instead, here’s a link to a video of the service. If you want to hear 650 people gut-laughing at a funeral, you might check this out.

On top of presiding over Kim’s funeral, it was a rich blessing to be back in Amarillo. It was great to see so many of the people we ministered with during our ten years there. I got to town early enough to stop by The PARC and hug Shelley’s neck and get caught up with Valerie and see the plans for their new building. I got gas at “my” Toot N Totem and visited with my longtime early morning friends Stacy and Gary and just missed Daniel, who I learned is Stacy’s new assistant manager. I found out the hard way that Burger Bar on Polk Street is now permanently closed so we had to move our lunch with Greg, Steve Nordyke, and the Coopers to the original Blue Sky on Western. (That Blue Sky has crispy fries, which we don’t have at the Blue Sky in Midland!) And I got to spend a couple of hours in that sacred Central church building.

Mixed emotions, man, I’m telling you. Tougher than I thought it would be. And much more of a deep-rooted joy than I anticipated. I thank God for that great church and the years we spent there with those wonderful disciples of Jesus.

And I praise the Lord for Kim Scott. Kim reflects our God’s glory in his kindness and generosity, his patience and grace, his love and great joy. I am a better man, a better follower of Jesus, because of my connection with Kim. I know God better, I see God better, because of Kim. I’m a little ticked off at him right now because he left without saying goodbye – that’s very unlike Kim. But I’m looking forward to seeing him soon. Sooner than I think. And I’ll see if he’ll let me cut in with him in line.

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I made it home last night just in time to change clothes, grab C-A and Whitney, and make it out to the ballpark for the Midland RockHounds home opener. It was a beautiful night, the crowd was energetic, the nachos had a little extra cheese, and the RockHounds gave us a win over the Tulsa Drillers. They were down 3-0 in the first inning before they even got up to bat. But Midland exploded for six runs in the bottom of the seventh to win it 10-8 and maintain their first place position in the Texas League South.

Peace,

Allan

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

More than 300 of us from the Golf Course Road Church are enjoying GCR night at the ballpark this evening as our local team takes on the Springfield Cardinals. The weather forecast has been downgraded to the upper 90s instead of 103-degrees, and there’s even a slight chance for some rain – perfect for an all-you-can-eat picnic at the stadium and a ballgame with family and friends.

It’s going to be all GCR all night long for everyone in attendance.  Our church worship team is going to perform the national anthem. Jase Owen is going to yell “Play ball!” on the big screen to get us started. I’m going to throw out the ceremonial first pitch, wearing a GCR T-shirt and praying to the Lord I can throw it 60-feet-6-inches and relatively straight. Some of our church elders will be participating in the on-field in-between-innings promotional events like the sack race and the steal third base race, leaving the dizzy bat race and other of the more risky events to folks like Jennifer Crawford and Bryce Williams.

GCR Church members can pick up their free tickets at the stadium’s main gate between 6:00-6:30pm – look for a GCR minister wearing a GCR shirt. The dinner is from 6:00-8:00pm and the game begins at 6:30pm.

Peace,

Allan

Sports Joy

Baseball season has begun and the Rangers have a cool new logo to promote this as their 50th Anniversary Season. I love the logo because it incorporates the old cowboy hat from their very first logo in 1972, still my favorite Rangers logo of all time. Never mind that this is the Rangers’ 51st season – the Cowboys pulled the same math miscalculation in 2010 with their 50th anniversary patch during their 51st season, and nobody seems to care. It’s a neat little design that highlights a milestone moment for a beloved baseball team.

And it’s probably going to be the highlight of the season.

This is still the same ol’ Rangers. What other team can average seven runs per game and still be 1-3? What other team can be up 7-0 in the 4th inning and lose 10-8? What other team places its ace starting pitcher on the injured list with a finger blister three innings into Opening Day? What other team loses in extra innings on an overturned illegal slide video replay call from New York City?

I watch and cheer for the Rangers mostly out of duty. They’re my team. I’ve been with them for all fifty years. Rooting for the red dot in three stadiums. “It’s baseball time in Texas!” Sunny, Pudge, and Chad Krueter. Feliz versus A-Rod. Nellie Cruz’s drop. Chan Ho Park. Expectations are low and nobody gets hurt. It’s an obligation for me. There’s not a ton of joy.

Over the past couple of months, I have become really excited for the Mavericks and their sure-to-be deep playoff run that starts this weekend. They have the second best record in the NBA since January 1 and they’re playing as well as anybody in the league. They’ve secured home court advantage for the opening round of the postseason for the first time since they won it all back in 2011. And they’re not facing the Clippers! I’ve been enthusiastically following this team and looking forward to these playoffs for weeks.

But Luka strained his calf in the second half of the season finale Sunday night and he’s questionable for Saturday’s tip-off against the Jazz. If he can’t go, this is a quick series and it’s one-and-done, again, for the little Mavericks. That excitement is now gone.

The Stars are barely hanging on, backing into their NHL playoff spot via the wild card. Hard to get too excited about that.

My sports hope this spring and summer is in the Midland RockHounds. They will be my sports joy. The AA affiliate of the Oakland A’s and our new hometown team plays their home opener tonight against Corpus Christi and we’re there. They are also celebrating their 50th anniversary season with updated logos, featuring a more anatomically correct Rocky the Hound and including a cool paw print made up of five drops of oil. They’re off to a 2-1 start after opening the season on the road in Amarillo, atop the standings in the Texas League South Division.

We show up early, we wear the gear, we cheer for the players by first name, we toss dollar bills when they hit homeruns, and we always have a great time. I can get pretty excited about that.

Peace,

Allan

RockHounds Fans

We officially turned the corner as a family last night in becoming Midland RockHounds baseball fans, openly cheering for our new team in the friendly confines of the Sod Poodles ballpark in downtown Amarillo. Whitney and I wore our new RockHounds t-shirts and we loudly rooted for the Midland Nine as they routed Amarillo 13-3.

Stan Cox, our favorite usher who runs a very tight Section 109, told me he didn’t know what was more disappointing: that we were leaving Central or how quickly my baseball allegiance had changed. He agreed that my quick switch shows a real lack of personal integrity and character. When Stan came around with the garbage bag in between innings, he asked me to take off my RockHounds shirt and kindly place it in the trash.

Stan and Susan are two more of the really great people I’ve had the privilege to live, worship, and serve with here in Amarillo. I was honored to perform the wedding for their daughter Sara to Nick Lewis and I was blessed to spend ten thrilling days with them in Israel. Susan kindly volunteers at the church office when Gail is out. Nick and Sara’s beautiful daughters were both born here and are being raised in and by Central – one of the many wonderful families we’re really going to miss.

Needless to say, we were the only ones cheering for the RockHounds last night – we stuck out a little bit in the partisan Poodles crowd. Whitney came away with a foul ball generously tossed up by a Sod Poodles player and Midland pitcher Jared Koenig autographed it for her after the game – nice on both counts. As a family, we agree that the Sod Poodles name continues to be a disgrace to the very idea of professional baseball, but we do love their logos and fonts so much more than the late-80s vibe of the cartoonish RockHounds logos and fonts. And this downtown ballpark in Amarillo is the crown jewel of all AA stadiums – it’s the standard.

We’ll miss the insane Sod Poodles song during the seventh inning stretch (Sod Poodles! Sod Poodles! That’s right, they’re called the Sod Poodles!). The free parking on Fillmore. Dale Cooper’s awesome seats behind home plate. Ruckus entering the stadium to ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man.” The line for three-dollar refills at H-Tea-O. Frozen t-shirts and blindfolded Chick-fil-a cows. But we’re looking forward to everything minor league baseball in Midland has in store for us later this summer. When is Jared Koenig’s next start?

Peace,

Allan