As a kid, I was never any good at baseball. I just did not have the skills for it. I still don’t. But growing up near Cincinnati during the era of The Big Red Machine, I became a baseball fan. One of my personal heroes has always been Jackie Robinson. In this day and age, a white boy admiring a black man as a hero could be labeled as heresy and cultural appropriation. But the world used to be saner, once upon a time. It took a phenomenal amount of courage for Robinson to cross baseball’s color line and stay there despite the abuse he endured. And, amid that abuse, harness the drive to succeed. And I admire Robinson for that. A life like that can and should inspire everyone.
What’s not to admire about a guy with the guts to steal home?
The New York Post reported that last Thursday, a statue of Robinson was sawed off at the ankles and stolen from a youth baseball park in Kansas. According to TV station KWCH, the statue was located on Tuesday. It was found cut into pieces and placed in a trash can fire. The station said that the statue, which stood at Garvey Park in Wichita, was commissioned and paid for by the youth baseball league, League 42. The league honors Robinson, who wore the number when he played for the Dodgers in 1947. When the pieces of the statue were recovered, League 42 Executive Director Bob Lutz told the station, “This is not the result we wanted, but it is a result. We know what’s ahead of us; we’re going to incorporate a brand new statue that looks like the old one, and we’re already working on that.”
As of this writing, no one has been charged with the crime, although that should change soon. A silver pickup truck that is suspected to have been used in the theft has reportedly been located. At the moment, we do not know if this was a random act of puerile vandalism, a faux hate crime, a genuine hate crime, or an attempt to make a point about the vandalization and removal of statues across the country over the last few years. We may have the answer in the next few days or hours. Whatever the case, the act is inexcusable. Given the level of destruction, I doubt it was an act of vandalism or a prank. This raises the question of why someone would be motivated to do such a thing. And when did so many people decide to go nuts, and why?
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Even as a regular church-goer who has a few years of religious education under his belt, I still grapple with the question of why evil is allowed to enjoy free rein in the world. In this job, perusing the morning headlines is enough to raise that question every day. We are told that we live in a fallen world and that God has given us agency and free will. But as I survey the news of the day, on any given day, I am struck with the thought that in many cases, the amount of free will one enjoys is directly proportionate to the amount of power one wields. The Soros, Obama, and Biden families enjoy a much greater latitude when it comes to free will and agency than you or I. Ditto people like Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and a host of people in the current administration, the media, academia, Congress, and many corporations. It could be argued that the rest of us are forced to abandon our agency in favor of those with more power. So, in the macro sense, my premise may be true. Our free will is rendered invalid by others. We no longer enjoy even the illusion of choice. We merely respond to stimuli and act out at the appointed time.
On a micro level, my premise fails. After all, the media, the universities, the government, and social media platforms can and do find new ways to inflame our passions and elicit reactions. But as Viktor Frank said in “Man’s Search for Meaning,” “Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.” No matter who tries to shape our thoughts and behaviors, we always have the option of choosing to be civilized human beings. By the time all is said and done, it may be the only choice we have left.