Birthdays: Rick and Jeremy and Baseball

The other day, a pastor at the church I attend, Jeremy, celebrated a birthday. I follow his blog, http://tomorrowsreflection.com, on a regular basis and I recommend you do as well. I dont always agree with him, but the blog includes quite a variety of subjects and there is something for every one.

Now that the plug is over, I was thinking about the greeting I sent to him on his birthday. One area we do not agree on is our choice of favorite baseball teams. His favorite baseball team is the New York Yankees. As for me, they are my second favorite team. The other 29 teams are tied for first. My birthday greeting to Jeremy included a dig on those same Yankees.

There is a major difference in how many people root for their teams these days and in another time. My best friend while in high school, Rick, was a big Giant fan. In fact, he liked all the Bay area teams. I liked all the LA teams. We had some really good teasing all through the years that lasted all these years since and it carried over into the next generation as his son went to Mountain View High School and my daughters went to Mesa High school. There was a time when Mesa beat Mountain "Pew" in football one Friday night. We went into the sunday school room on Saturday and decorated the room with purple and gold for Sunday morning.

As I reflected on my birthday greeting to Jeremy being a dig on the Yankees, it made me think about the tragic, senseless, all too easy to believe for LA beating of a Giant fan on opening day. Last week, suspects were arrested and, hopefully, justice will be served.

I wonder why we cant have our preferences without being mean. Ed Schultz disagrees with Laura Ingrahma and feels a need to call her a bad name. People disagree with her and she finds it in herself to degrade them.

I hope I never get to the point in my life that I am mean to someone who is different or thinks different than I do. I hope I can continue to banter about sports teams, TV shows, preference in music and other things that really do not mean anything in the over all scheme of God's Kingdom.