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Baseball Has a Religion Too 
     
                         By Joe Williams

There is saying at the race track that you can't "rule a man off for trying." I believe in this approach to life on this earth. I believe in God. I believe in my country. I believe in basic human decency. I believe there is a right and a wrong way to do things. If I were asked to define Americanism - what made our country what it is to date - I would say it was the American's willingness and ambition to stand on his own two feet. I keep a box score on every baseball game I cover. There is a credit column in which hits are recorded and there is a debit column in which errors are listed. These are often deceptive. They will give hits to a batter who has been lucky and they will charge errors against a fielder who has been unlucky. This is a small mirror of life itself. These things over a long run even up just as they do in life.

I've seen shortstops make errors on plays another shortstop would not even try to make. He had his record in mind. The shortstop who made the errors had the team's success in mind. He was willing to sacrifice his personal record in the greater interest of the team's success. There is a kind of religion in that attitude.

I've often wondered how it would be, how it would affect the lives of our people if we all kept a daily box score on ourselves. As a matter of fact, I believe in sports as a way of life. It was Wellington who said battles are won on the playing fields of Eton. I believe it can be stated with equal truth that the principles of decent citizenship are born in the sand lots of Bass River, Massachusetts, Peoria, Illinois, and Southgate, California.

棒球运动中也有信仰

 乔·威廉斯

赛场上有一种说法，“选手有尝试的机会”。我相信生活中也应采取这种态度。我还相信上帝，相信我的祖国，相信人性本善，相信处事原则有对有错。如果让我来界定什么是美国精神，也就是我们的国家得以有今日之成就的这种精神，我认为它指的就是美国人民自强自立的意愿和志向。我保留着自己报导过的每场棒球比赛的成绩一览表。表上正分那一栏记录的是击出安打的次数，负分那一栏则记录着失误的次数。这样的记录常常不准确，因为有时会把安打球记在某位走运的击球员身上，而有时又会把失误记在某位倒霉的守场员身上，但久而久之总的数据还是会基本扯平——生命中的许多事情又何尝不是如此。
      
我见过有些游击手在比赛中故意出现失误，这些失误其他游击手压根儿不会考虑，因为他们脑子里想的是自己的个人表现记录。选择故意失误的游击手想的是球队的胜利，为了顾全球队的大局，他们宁可牺牲自己的个人成绩。我想这种态度就是一种信仰的体现。
      
我常想，如果我们每人每天都能填写一份自己的成绩与不足一览表，那我们的生活将会怎样变化！其实我一直都认为体育运动也是一种生活方式。威灵顿公爵曾经说过，人生的胜负是在伊顿公学的操场上决定的。我想这句话对棒球场也同样适用。马萨诸塞州的巴斯河，伊利诺伊州的皮奥里亚，加利福尼亚州的绍斯盖特——在这些棒球训练场上，公民的优良品质得以形成、得以体现。