"Wear your Cap"

I got into baseball by virtue of the fact that I was literally raised by an American – Robert Ray Hollingsworth from Atlanta, Georgia.

“Uncle Ray” found his way into our family after having hired my late grandfather as his lawyer for a civil case he had here in the Philippines. He lost almost everything he had to his Filipino business partners who cheated him out of the business he started with his late wife.

Uncle Ray got me into baseball at an early age, such that I was on the Little League Team of our school by the time I was in Grade 3. I practiced after school every day, and came on Saturdays for whole day practice.

“Wear your cap!” Uncle Ray would always tell me. I don’t know how or when caps became known as “bull caps” today, but back then they were very simply (and clearly) “ball caps”.

So, I put on my cap whenever Uncle Ray was around. And since I wasn’t a catcher, I was forbidden to wear it the way catchers did: with the visor turned all the way around. Catchers wore their caps that way because they couldn’t wear their face masks if the visor were positioned in the front.

So anyway, there I was on a Saturday afternoon, warming up with an older player (Brian Ang, a batch mate of my older brother Jad). We went through the stretching and the jogging as a team already, and Brian and I were passing the baseball back and forth, taking a step back with every toss.

That afternoon, I DIDN’T wear my cap. Uncle Ray just couldn’t convince me enough (or I was just plain too hardheaded).

The throwing got stronger and stronger as Brian and I moved farther and farther away from each other. It was a relatively small field (it was the vacant field where the Angelo King Center for Performing Arts Building is now located). As we passed the baseball back and forth, I was talking with another player on my side of the field. Between catches and throws, I’d look around to the other players.

And then it hit me.

It literally hit me.

Next thing I knew, I was looking up at the face of Uncle Ray, and Brian Ang was standing behind him. Apparently I had looked away at the wrong time, and Brian had already thrown the ball in my direction. A good throw too, as it hit me in the left eye.

A few minutes and several ice cubes later, I was sitting up again. The whole team was laughing it off, and I, still in a daze, could just manage a dizzy smile.

After making sure I was okay, Uncle Ray said “I told you to wear your cap, but you wouldn’t listen”.

The cap’s visor would have certainly deflected the ball, and had I been wearing it then, I may have gotten just a little bump on the head instead of a whack in the eye.

The Lord also reminds us to put on our caps. In fact, in Ephesians 6, St. Paul tells the Church in Ephesus to “Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil. For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens. Therefore, put on the armor of God, that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground. So stand fast with your loins girded in truth, clothed with righteousness as a breastplate, and your feet shod in readiness for the gospel of peace.” (Eph. 6:11-15)

In our everyday lives, we find ourselves distracted by many things: problems, debts, illness, trials, common everyday fears. Even normally good aspects of life may become distractions: work, children, spouses, friends and even triumphs and joys. In many of these cases, we fail to remember that beyond the day-to-day struggle for survival is the never ending struggle for eternal life. It is a struggle already won for us by Jesus’ death on the cross – all we need to do is to accept and live in this victory, and to do so triumphantly means that we should protect ourselves.

Only if we put on this armor will we be truly ready to enjoy playing this game called life.

I learned this the hard way. And for a few days after that, I had the black eye to prove it.