A Different Sense of Legacy in Philadelphia

Submitted By: Brent & Linda Stone

Linda and I drove north to add the fourth ballpark to our Bucket Tour List - Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. Along with enjoying the respite of time away and the historic 13-12 Nationals victory, we also found ourselves surprisingly inspired by the sense of legacy imbued at this location.

As we entered the park, we came across a plaque celebrating many of Philadelphia’s Hall of Famers. Names like Connie Mack, Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove and Mickey Cochrane stirred memories from youth. As a youngster, I enjoyed learning of diamond legends like these. These giants of the game had always seemed larger than life – certainly an awareness of their humanity was there, but they seemed just a little too heroic to walk among everyday folk like us. But seeing this plaque and being near the location where they set their records gave a renewed sense of that humanity. And it occurred to us that, not unlike how we sometimes view the people in the Bible, we, for lack of a better word, idolize these individuals and put them on a proverbial pedestal. We sometimes see these very real people more as “legends of the Bible” perhaps almost to the point of characters in a fable. Yet, like the plaque reminded us that baseball heroes were not just giants of the game but very real men, we were concurrently reminded that people like Moses, Joseph, Mary, Paul, Peter and so many more, were not just giants of our faith, but very real people who walked among peers and experienced the same type of joys and challenges as do we. We had a renewed sense of the reality not just of baseball’s history but also of the Bible and the very real people who witnessed the actual events of our faith. And for this insight gained in the most surprising of places, we indeed thanked the Lord … while we also enjoyed Washington’s boys of summer taking one from the Phils.