For Team and Country

Although my primary athletic pursuits– distance running and hiking– do lend themselves to my more individualistic and contemplative side, in recent years I've become an avid fan of two team sports: baseball and soccer. I owe the renewal of my passion for our national pastime to my three years in St. Louis, and, I suppose, my current residence in territory solidly included in the Red Sox Nation. Living in a region where people of all ages, economic levels, backgrounds, and neighborhoods unite in support of their team, and where many players on the local team take an active (and interactive) interest in the lives of their fans and the situations in their cities, provides an image of community that regularly inspires me. I owe my enthusiasm for soccer– and tendency to shout in Spanish and jump around during especially tense moments in the game– to the Chilean Jesuits with whom I spent three months in the summer of 2007. The fact that their national team was playing in the Copa America tournament at the time, a situation which somewhat modified the house schedule according to the team's matches, certainly didn't hurt.

It's a great time of year for my two favorite sports. Major League Baseball is celebrating All-Star Week, with many of the game's most famous and most talented athletes setting aside team affiliations and engaging in contests that highlight not only their skills and cooperation, but also the way that the game can bring together fans from throughout the country. The Women's World Cup, currently being held in Germany, has reached its semifinal stage, with only four teams remaining from the sixteen who began the tournament at the beginning of the month. I spent much of the weekend watching the quarterfinal matches, which featured surprises, disappointments, some controversial officiating, and wild swings of momentum and emotion. Germany, the host nation, was eliminated after a scoreless tie went into extra time and was finally broken by a Japanese team that played with the skill, heart, and soul of not only their 11 players on the pitch, but also, it seemed, of their entire nation. The United States, as individuals and a team, battled their way back after giving up a lead, having a player sent off, surrendering a goal in overtime, and surviving nearly an hour of soccer, one player short, to triumph at the last moment by scoring a tying goal and winning a penalty shootout as time ran out– all against an incredibly talented, artistic, and often dazzling Brazilian team. In several postgame interviews, the American women regularly referred their gratitude, their amazement, and their speechless joy to the way their teammates competed, held together, and never gave up hope... and stated in various ways that such a display is emblematic of the best ideals of their country and its people. After watching these women play some of the most thrilling and memorable soccer I've seen for quite some time, I couldn't help but agree with them.

A week after celebrating the 4th of July, as the United States and its people move into the height of summer, and alongside the diversions of baseball and soccer, countless hopes, challenges, dreams, tensions, and thoughts animate the hearts and minds of the nation. How can we look up to and imitate not only those who swing bats to the accolades of millions, but also the millions who swing hammers in humbler arenas? Do we admire wearers of numbered jerseys as well as those who don suits and keep numbers and figures in order? A number of the women on the World Cup team are mothers; after the game, goalkeeper Hope Solo headed to the stands and was handed a small child, whom she held with a delicacy as profound as the fierceness with which she stopped a decisive penalty shot ten minutes earlier. Countless mothers among us are no less heroic, and perhaps far less widely noted. The gifts and contributions of individuals on our nation's great team– more than 300 million strong– represent a remarkable resource, with the potential to lift up homes, neighborhoods, cities, perhaps even the whole world. Let's make sure we do our best– for team and country.

And, in case anyone's wondering, although I live in Red Sox Nation, I'm an unapologetic Phillies fan, and will be rooting for the National League tomorrow night.

The Phillie Phanatic