It’s my baseball
By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist
The incident in Philadelphia where the Elizabeth Warren look-alike insisted that a home run ball that landed near her was hers has produced so many comments that one cannot tell what the truth is and what isn’t. It was certainly mean spirited of her to think she had the right to snatch a ball out of a 10-year-old’s glove on his birthday.
I doubt that she knows where MLB baseballs are made. The answer is a factory in Turrialba, Costa Rica. They are handcrafted and it takes over a week to make each one. Only half the balls made in this facility meet the standards of the MLB. Before use, the baseballs are coated with a special mud from the Delaware River.
So, indeed, that ball is special in more ways than she likely thought.
But the Elizabeth Warren look-alike is missing out on something else quite special, too (as is Elizabeth Warren herself). That is the gift of generosity. They both need to go read “How the Grinch stole Christmas” and then apply it to themselves.
Generous people are pleasant people.
Generous people are attitude driven, not financially driven.
See Luke 21:1-4: "And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, 2 and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites.[a] 3 So He said, Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; 4 for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings [b] for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.”
Most of the extremely wealthy people I have known have been miserly with their giving. I did know one individual worth about $19 billion. I have eaten dinner at his home. He was generous, but not to the extent of the widow in Luke. He died a couple of years ago.
The other wealthy individuals I have known have indeed been miserly.
The Bible teaches us to “tithe” or give 10% of our income. Typically, if you bring this up with someone they will immediately want to know if this is before or after taxes. If this is where you go, you are not generous.
The best data I could find is that the average church donation is $210 per year. Being a radical, I always thought that church donations should be listed in the church foyer (or narthex, if you prefer).
However, if you look at the total charity giving in the United States, we gave $557 billion in 2023 (latest year available) which makes us the most generous country in the world.
But circling around, I urge you not to measure your generosity in dollars but measure it by your attitude.
Taking a baseball away from a boy on a birthday outing is certainly not generous by any measure.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.
Miami
The "Pocahontas" Sen. Warren clone did her crazy-woman gauntlet in Miami, not Philadelphia. I was genuinely impressed with the Dad that felt he had to fork over the ball to Pocahontas to deescalate the war party. He looked totally flabbergasted when his personal space was breached. The pioneers take the arrows. He was willing to give up the baseball with some treaty arrangement with Pocahontas. That woman was spewing vulgar language and flashing inappropriate hand and smoke signals. I am 99.999999999999% percent certain which Presidential candidate she voted for last November. Which leads to the obtuse disrespect that some of the left-wing individuals have spouted after a conservative Christian, Charlie Kirk, was slain for merely speaking on a college campus. Progressives, leftists, democrats... You have a major problem. Your mouths and your minds are tainted, violent, disrespectful, and inciting. And a handful of your looney tune evil-doers act out because of the trash they consume. The left-wing that produces radical rhetoric, terrible college indoctrinations, leftist media, video game websites, and relentless leftist media circles have blood on their hands.