Giants Become Baseball’s Giants

It has been 56 years since their last title and the odds of them capturing baseball’s ultimate prize was 20 to 1 at the season’s start. But when it was all said and done, it took the Giants of San Francisco just 5 games to dispose of the Texas Rangers – the same team which was good enough to knock the heavily favored and defending champion New York Yankees out of post-season play.

Many experts attributed the Giants' success to the team’s mid-season roster changes. There was the departure of Bengie Molina along with the arrival of Buster Posey, and Pat Burrell coming in late-May. Javier Lopez was acquired just before the trade deadline, Cody Ross arrived in late-August. And for many fans, it was this odd cast-of-characters and seeming collection of misfits that made these Giants so easy to like and root for. Then there was the matter of that half-century championship drought.

Overall, the Rangers batted just .190 in the series. And after Game 1, they scored in only three of 35 innings while Giants pitchers posted a 2.38 ERA in the Series - and that's with an uncharacteristic 11-7 victory in game one in the mix. All in all, not too shabby – at all!

Sports is an odd entity as well as a big business. But raw talent and huge contracts do not always prevail even though it typically helps greatly. Approximately 80% of post-season teams tend to have the highest payrolls in most years. But sometimes the unexpected comes with the most unexpected results. This year’s series was a case in point. In the minds of most experts, it would eventually boil down to New York versus Philadelphia. Both powerhouses fell to the two teams that eventually battled it out for the Major League Baseball trophy. And for the last two standing teams, it was the one with the most recognizable stars that eventually fell fast and hard in just 5 games - losing at home no less. The bottom line is that anyone can beat anyone else – especially in a short series situation.

The 20 to 1 Giants, who have not won the championship in over a half a century, were low on baseball’s totem pole in spring training. They were not even predicted to win their own division, much less get anywhere near the final showdown. They were not the team for the most part with the high salaried, household name, and recognizable word-class athletes. But they won and did so convincingly.

Interestingly, the same sort of thing often occurs when it comes to those who eventually achieve spiritual salvation and win forgiveness of sin and a heavenly destiny through Jesus Christ. His roster of eternal life is made up of any, small or great, who have faith in His finished work on the cross on their behalf.

Beginning inn 1 Corinthians1:31, the Apostle Paul spoke about the typical kind of people that come to God by faith and find forgiveness and eternal life in His presence.

“For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God — and righteousness and sanctification and redemption — that, as it is written, "He who glories, let him glory in the LORD."

A precious few gifted and wealthy athletes will lay claim to being world champions in their respective sport each year. But what dwarfs this seemingly greatest of earthly achievements are the value and rewards of those mentioned in Hebrews chapter 11. Some were household names, but most were no-name believers who knew what is most important and lasting in this life and were willing to literally give up theirs to prove that, as graphically described in Hebrews 11:32-40.

"For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented — of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise.”

Congratulations to the Giants of Baseball. But eternal kudos are due to all the giants of the faith that are destined for unimaginable rewards and honor that will last for eternity.

Bill Breckenridge