Denver Catholic

14 OCTOBER 8-21, 2016 | DENVER CATHOLIC Perspectives Golden memories of a golden anniversary A fter Baltimore's Memorial Stadium was torn down in the old hometown in 2002, I began describing the vast empty space left behind as "the abomination of desolation." Things are a bit more sightly now: two apartment complexes and a new Y have been built on the site. In my mind's eye, though, what I see on East 33rd Street is the old brick horseshoe where I learned baseball from my grandfather Weigel in the late 1950s – and where, a half-century ago, I had a foretaste of the joy of the Kingdom. «« There were no air-conditioned skyboxes in those days; there weren't even seats, but rather wooden benches. So fans (who were not yet a "fan base") bought a newspaper on the way in as anti-splinter protec- tion, the working class folks sitting on a News-Post and the white collar types on an Evening Sun. Concessions were primitive in the extreme: rub- bery Esskay hotdogs; salty, stale popcorn; Nation Boh for those who had achieved their majority and watery Cokes for us small fry. Then as now, Baltimore felt like Calcut- ta-on-the-Patapsco for months on end. So on hot, humid summer eve- nings you didn't come to Memorial Stadium to be seen, or to close a deal, or to consult your broker or your therapist on a cell phone: you came for baseball, period. The agent of my initiation into the pastime's mysteries, Frank Moore Weigel, I had christened "Dada" in my infancy: a prerogative inherent in being the Stammhalter, the elder son of his eldest son. Through Dada and those Oriole teams, my brother and I learned that people who say nothing happens at a ballgame don't know what they're looking at. Gus Trian- dos being about all the Birds had in those days by way of a power-hitter, we learned to savor strong pitching (taught by crafty old Harry "The Cat" Brecheen) and we reveled in bril- liant defense. For if the Orioles of my youth struggled to score runs, they could do magic with the leather, the chief wizard being a baby-faced third baseman from Little Rock, Arkansas, named Brooks Robinson. My baseball fever began to rise in 1957, when I was six and the O's man- aged to play .500 ball over the course of the then-154 game season. They reverted to their sub-.500 norm in the next couple of years. But in 1960 the Orioles challenged the lordly (and loathed) Yankees for the American League gonfalon before fading to a second-place fi nish after a disastrous September series in the Bronx that taught me the truth of Ecclesiastes 8.11: "the heart of the sons of men is fully set to do evil." With my adoles- cence sneaking around the corner, the Birds made another serious run in 1964, as manager Hank Bauer (whose face was aptly described as resem- bling a clenched fi st) graced the cover of Time and Brooks Robinson was named A.L. most valuable player. In the winter of 1965-66, the fi nal piece of the championship puzzle fell into place when the O's acquired Frank Robinson (discarded by the Cincinnati Reds' general manager as an "old thirty") in exchange for Mil- tiades Pappastediodis, whom you will likely remember as "Milt Pappas." Robinson proceeded to win the Triple Crown in 1966, and to this day I have never seen a ballplayer who could bend a game to his will like Frank Robby. He, Brooks Robby, and the rest of the O's waltzed through the American League, then fl ew to Los Angeles as underdogs to the mighty Dodgers in the World Series. But they beat Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax out on the left coast (with, perhaps, some assistance from the saliva of Mr. Moe Drabowsky in Game One). And on return to Baltimore, the Birds won Game Three of the Series with Dada and my brother John in attendance.« I was there with Dada for the fourth game, on October 9, 1966, sit- ting twenty rows or so behind fi rst base. As Paul Blair caught Lou John- son's fl y ball to complete Dave McNal- ly's 1-0 shutout and the Orioles' four-game sweep, Memorial Stadium erupted, hoary south-of-the-Mason- Dixon-Line racial codes were aban- doned as blacks and whites hugged and hollered, and I experienced a moment of unalloyed joy – a prolepsis of the Kingdom, if I may say. Fifty years later, the glow remains. The Catholic Di° erence George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. GEORGE WEIGEL Finding faith as a weary pilgrim I n the bull indiction for the Jubi- lee Year of Mercy, Misericordiae Vultus, Pope Francis suggested di' erent ways on how to live out this mercy year, one of which was embark- ing on a pilgrimage, specifi cally to one of the Holy Doors he designated in Rome or throughout the world. Now, I don't know about you, but ever since I entered the Catholic Church at Easter 2015, a lot of folks have spoken to me about pilgrimage and its importance in the life of a Christian. We are encouraged to not only go on physical pilgrimage to religious sites in the world, but many say the idea of pilgrimage is, in fact, a microcosm for the individual Christian's journey — that each of us are on an individual pilgrimage in our own lives. Call me brash, ignorant, or just plain dumb, but up until a couple of weeks ago, I had no idea just exactly what a pilgrimage entailed. Then, I left for Italy on a 10-day pilgrimage, and it all began to make more sense in my baby-Catholic mind. I came to dis- cover that pilgrimage plays a crucial, and indeed necessary role in coming to a fuller understanding of the faith. The idea of pilgrimage dates back to the early Christians; of course, going on a pilgrimage then was a much di' erent a' air than it is now. Planes, trains and automobiles were but a fi gment of the future's imagina- tion, and what is a roughly 14-hour journey today could take weeks, months or even years, depending on the destination. Though the method was much di' erent, the intent remains very much the same — to visit sacred sites and pay homage to those fellow believers who, as the liturgical prayers tell us, have gone before us in a sign of faith. These sacred sites are many, but they can include the tombs of mar- tyrs, churches or locations which were home to important moments in the history of Christianity, or as this Jubilee Year is indicative of, Holy Doors, which provide extra graces for those weary pilgrims who travel long and far to pass through them. This brings me to my next point: don't go on a pilgrimage expecting it to be a family vacation. The very idea of pilgrimage implies hardship, and although a pilgrimage today doesn't have to be as di› cult a one as the pilgrims of old had to endure, I think an important facet of going on pil- grimage is to su' er in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Christ who walked the roads, and even paved them, long before us. If life is indeed a pilgrimage, then it would only make sense that going on pilgrimage is not a comfortable a' air. As we've heard many times before from the early Church fathers and those modern commentators on being an authentic disciple of Christ, being a Christian is not a call to live a comfortable life; it's a call to live a dangerous life, a life contradictory to the very fabric of society and culture, a life modeled after a man who was divine in nature and misunderstood even by those closest to him, a life that demands everything of us and rewards us with even more in return. As is the case with life, we may not fully understand the extent of the pilgrimage we choose to embark on, and we certainly don't know what to expect. But it's a funny thing that happens when we choose to leave our comfort zone as men and women and travel as weary pilgrims: as we walk along these paths in faith, we end up discovering what faith really is. Guest Column Aaron Lambert is the Content Specialist for Denver Catholic. He recently returned from a life- changing pilgimage to Italy. AARON LAMBERT

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