Tipping My Cap to Tom Terrific

Death will never be easy for us to accept. Contrary to any nonsense of what Darwin might have said, I believe the Bible was right on the money when it taught us that mankind was created in God’s image.
There is something eternal at the core of who we truly are, and when we experience the ceasing of the beating heart, it shouts foreign territory to our souls.
God did not include termination in our DNA. Sin brought that enemy to our adventure, and only the redemption that Jesus promises those that receive His gift of salvation will still live when their earthly time clock expires.
I grew up in a typical 1960s family. Mom and Dad kept up with the proverbial Joneses in every way possible.
My mom was a nurse, and my dad was the superintendent of buildings and grounds, in Morristown. Mom worked days and Dad worked nights. We were all kind people trying our best to get by and keep up appearances, no matter what the cost.
Somebody bought a swimming pool for their back yard, and every neighbor followed. My dad built a patio, and before you knew it, the street was filled with them.
We lived, went to school, church, and work, ate dinner together nightly, at 5 p.m., watched lots of television, and went to bed only to repeat the routine. Even then, I knew there was more to life than living, dying, and trying hard to discover meaning and purpose.
I was an exemplary straight-A student who mostly feared that I would commit one sin too many, separating me from the God who I know was up there somewhere. At that point, I didn’t connect with Him personally. I tried immensely to be great enough for my parents, teachers, coaches, and myself, but no matter what, where or who, I was way short of the standard of perfection.
The acting on the outside would not remove the aching on the inside. I wanted to know who I was, where I came from, and why it mattered that anyone of us was here.
One of the vehicles God used to keep me engaged until I finally arrived at my destination was baseball. Whenever I give my heart to something, I usually go overboard.
I have never been a halfway is better than no way individual. Like most great dads, my father taught me how to play catch, hit a baseball, and everything to know about the loveable losers from Flushing, Queens,  called the New York Mets.
Dad was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan during his childhood, but they, along with the Giants, traveled west, in the late 1950s, leaving the National League with no teams from the Big Apple. The only team left was that other one that won championships in the American League.  With no chance of him switching allegiances to the Junior Circuit, he waited patiently for the new expansion team to come.
I was born in 1960, and the Mets were birthed in 1962. We were a match made in heaven. The only inescapable issue was that this team was terrible.
They didn’t just lose, they blundered and bungled their way through 162-game seasons. Why did I love them? Maybe because they, too, were looking to find their way in this wild, crazy world.
In 1967, the Mets added a rookie pitcher to their roster named George Thomas Seaver. He wasn’t like anyone who ever played on the team. He did his job with excellence, and he hated to lose.
He was determined to change the culture around him and was not only amazingly talented at his craft, but he thought through it. He was cerebral when it came to facing batters and choosing how to pitch to guys like Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente and Pete Rose.
Seaver was the 1967 rookie of the year and won 16 more games, in 1968. Paired with a new manager, former Brooklyn Dodgers great Gil Hodges, the Mets transformed from a traveling circus to a core of young, talented and exciting ballplayers.
I ate, drank and bled orange and blue. I followed Tom Seaver religiously to the point that I knew his every mannerism and nuance on the mound.
I bought a Tom Seaver glove and dropped and drove off the pitching rubber so that I got dirt on my knee as he did.
Seaver became my first real hero. From then on, number 41 and I were inseparable. If you knew me, you were going to know all about him and the Mets.
Together, we were a packaged deal. If you knew me in my childhood, you knew about my passion for the Mets. When the Mets became world champions, in 1969, I finally felt like a winner myself.
Fast-forwarding to 1975, my family moved for the umpteenth time. I was in the middle of high school and was forced to start again, making new friends and finding my place in the world.
My dream of being a major league ballplayer was concluding. I could hit and throw, but I was about as fast as a snail on steroids. Suddenly, I was coming to terms with what my life was supposed to be about.
Tom Seaver was still my hero, but he couldn’t be my savior. I desperately needed something more.
Shea Stadium no longer held the magic it once had for me, and while going to ballgames with my dad was still a highlight of my year, I was yearning for more than an earthly trophy that would only rust and be forgotten in a year or two.
In a church parking lot in Chatham, New Jersey, April 27, 1975, I looked up to heaven and surrendered my life to Jesus. I gave Him everything I was, am, and all I hoped to be. Until then, number 41 was an identity that saved my life from a premature exit. Thank you, Tom Seaver and baseball, for being there for me until I could find my real way home.
What used to be a number became my mantra. From then on, I would live my life for one. Jesus became my hero, champion, rescuer, redeemer and closest Friend. I am alive because Jesus is alive in me. God so loved me as nobody would, and I wanted to spend my life serving Him.
Last week, on Sept. 2, I heard the tragic news that my childhood hero, who played a huge role in making me who I am, died in his sleep, and I wept like a baby. Once again, I felt that old, familiar foreign twinge of pain in my gut that this can’t be the way our stories end. Life must be about so much more than just what happens here.
Jesus came, lived, died and rose again to assure us that our game won’t end when the final out on earth comes. God put eternity in our hearts and wired us to win and never settle for defeat. He told us that real love is expressed, not just physically, but emotionally and intellectually.
Seaver got me as far as he could take me, and for that, I am indebted to him forever, but thanks be to God that Jesus didn’t leave me stranded on third base. Jesus got me home, and He longs to do the same for you.
ED. NOTE: The author is the senior pastor of The Lighthouse Church, 1248 Route 9 South, Court House.