“Sure as God made green apples, someday the Chicago Cubs are going to be in the World Series, and maybe sooner than we think.”
- Harry Caray- Game 162 of the 1991 Season, October 5, 1991
Being a Chicago Cubs fan isn’t easy. For every happy thought about the Cubs, there are at least 5 things that make you sad or flat out angry. Besides the 1984, 1989, and 1998 seasons the 1980s and 1990s were not kind to the Cubs. The one constant through most of those years was Harry Caray.
Most of the baseball world either loved or hated Harry. He most certainly was not a polished speaker. He often struggled to pronounce names and sometimes some Anheuser-Busch products affected his Hall of Fame announcing ability on air.
For me, Harry helped to just love the game. When the Cubs were 80 games out of first place in August, it was fun to see him try to figure out how to say “Hershiser” backwards or try and point out that Shawon Dunston could be a Hall of Famer if he could just get his average over .240.
One of the fun things that Harry did was sing “Take me out to the Ballgame”. Somehow, someway, that factored into our Saturday visit at New Castle…
This was my second time visiting New Castle CF. It is a privately run prison that is managed by the GEO Group. It is a newer and nicer facility and they were very excited that we were there.
They had some unique yard times and inmate movements so we had the opportunity to take the field against 5 different teams in 5 shortened games. We won all five games fairly easily. One of the fun things about the yard time was that there was a sound system with a laptop and keyboard. We had several different walk up songs and lots of music in between innings.
In between games we got to eat in the prison. This prison had a culinary arts program and we had a nice meal with some prison cheesecake that was incredible!
During our ministry time in between games, we had two different Gospel presentations
During the first presentation, Drew shared his testimony. Drew grew up in a pastor’s home and learned about God from an early age. Like so many of us, Drew drifted from God starting in his teenage years. He talked about the things he did during those years which several guys in the prison yard could relate to. He then talked about how he came back to God later in his life. God uses everyone’s testimony in a big way but stories like Drew’s help guys in prison see that there is hope and there is a Heavenly Father who wants to take joy when we run back to Him.
Jim Jefferson shared the Gospel during the morning session and did an outstanding job with clearly communicating the Gospel.
During the second presentation, David “Cogs” Cogliano got to share his testimony. One of the teams we faced towards the end of the day was a team made up of inmates who had all served in the military. During each at bat they had their name announced and which branch of the armed forces that they served with. It was fun seeing the guys, despite their current circumstances, have a moment where they were recognized and could take some pride in their service. Cogs’ testimony was quite fitting because he spent his career in the Air Force and it related well to several guys in that group.
Andy Solomon shared the Gospel after Cogs’ testimony. Andy once again did a good job clearly explaining the Gospel.
I don’t remember which game it was but one of our guys pointed out to the PA announcer that I did a Harry Caray impression. I announced a couple of batters and had an opportunity to sing “Take me out to the Ballgame” as Harry. Everyone laughed and had a good time despite the terrible singing!
Overall on the day, we saw 21 men make decisions to follow the Lord and we handed out 170 Gospels.
After we left the prison we went back to the hotel and got cleaned up. We had pizza and wings in the hotel breakfast area and we also had our final devotion time for the trip. During our devotion time we talked about how does one of God’s servants perservere?. We looked at the Kent Hughes book “Disciplines of a Godly Man”. In his book he takes a look at the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11 and then looks at the first three verses of chapter 12.
Hebrews 12:1-3- 1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
The author of Hebrews goes through basically a Hall of Fame of men and women from the Old Testament in Chapter 11. The overall theme is the faith of these Hall of Famers and what it looked like when they persevered.
In chapter 12 the writer starts out with the illustration of a stadium filled with these Old Testament saints who are witnessing New Testament believers run the race of faith. The writer says “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.” The writer is probably writing this to inspire his audience.
One of the things that Hughes points out is the importance of “laying aside every weight and sin” We talked about what that looks like as men to lay aside things we know are sinful and things that aren’t sinful but aren’t necessarily good for our walks with the Lord.
Afterwards we were able to get some ice cream and enjoy our final evening as a team before our visit of the trip at Heritage Trail CF on Sunday.
