Peanuts and Cracker Jacks?

Just yesterday I heard someone humming a favorite hymn of mine.  You may have heard it before, but it goes a little something like this:


Take me out to the the Ball Game
Take me out to the crowd.
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks.
I don't care if I ever get back.
For it's root, root, root for the Rangers.
If they don't win it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes.  You're OUT!
At the old ball game!


It's an old favorite.  Ok, it's not exactly in the Baptist Hymnal or any other hymnal for that matter, but according to real Baseball fans it's a song that must be sung.  "Take Me Out To the Ball Game" is a 1908 Tin Pan Alley song by Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tizer which became the unofficial anthem of baseball. It was first played in a Major League Ball Park in 1935 and was soon after adopted by most Major League Teams and ball parks.  The song would catch on and later become a 7th Inning Stretch tradition.


In the last ten years (since 9-11-01), another song has taken over the 7th Inning Stretch tradition.  God Bless America is now a favorite for most ball parks during the fabled stretch.  Some love it, and some think that God has nothing to do with baseball and have suggested just singing about peanuts and Cracker Jacks alone.  Maybe I am not a baseball purist as I have long thought, but I like God Bless America at the ball park and I especially like it during the 7th inning stretch.  Maybe God doesn't care who wins the games, but I believe that God is present there in the ball park as well as everywhere.  Why not allow this to be one of those incarnation moments where God dwells among us?  Why not seek God's blessing as a part of America's past time and encourage folk to sing God's blessings all the time?  Why not allow the 7th Inninng Stretch to remind us that we are not done playing the game of life, but that the game may be coming to a close shortly?  Many love the game of baseball as an escape and singing "Take Me Out To the Ball Game" reminds them of the joys of escaping the mundane of life.  I suppose I am a realist who knows that eventually the peanuts and Cracker Jacks run out, that they don't fulfill you anyhow, and that the outs remaining dwindle to none and everyone must go home. 


Maybe the 7th Inning Stretch will serve as a reminder that God has blessed America and that we should return to blessing God.  "Praise the Lord.  Sing to the Lord a New Song." (Psalm 149:1a)