- March 3rd, 2009, 6:01 pm
#238953
By Darrell Laurant
Published: July 30, 2008
Baseball is, and always has been, a game of rituals.
Some players make a point of never stepping on the white lines that mark the edge of the playing field. Others follow the same elaborate warmup routine, game after game. Wade Boggs, a former All-Star for the Boston Red Sox, would eat only chicken during the season.
In that sense, Zack Folger is merely taking tradition a step farther (or, maybe, higher).
Midway through his senior season as a Jefferson Forest High School pitcher, Folger was struggling. And with time running out on his baseball career, he decided that what he needed to turn things around was prayer.
Nothing new there. A lot of athletes pray — before, during and after their time to perform.
Generally, though, this is done privately. But when he went out to the mound to pitch against William Byrd High School of Roanoke, a team that had beaten JF four straight games, Folger knelt on the mound, in front of God and everybody, and prayed for a moment.
“It wasn’t something I planned,” he said. “It just sort of happened.”
Folger repeated this before each inning, and wound up shutting out William Byrd for five innings and getting the victory.
A few months later, playing for the Bedford team in the National Amateur Baseball Federation World Series in Lynchburg, Folger threw a no-hitter at the Satchel Paige All-Stars from Chicago, striking out nine.
Perhaps the benefits of prayer were contagious — Folger’s teammates scored 18 runs that game, after losing their opener.
“The first time I did it (prayed on the mound), a couple of my teammates ribbed me about it a little,” Folger said, “and I told them, ‘Yeah, but look how I pitched.’”
As a former sportswriter, I’ve always been a little ambivalent about the phenomenon of bringing the Almighty to a ballgame. When an athlete would tell me: “God was with us today,” I always found myself thinking: “Does that mean God hates the other team?”
Taking this premise to its extreme, one can envision God sitting in a vast room full of TV sets tuned to sports events, deciding who should win each one.
And here’s another dilemma: What if Zack Folger, after praying that he would strike out the next batter, were to face a batter who had just asked God to let him hit a home run?
Folger, who seems like an easy-going, likable kid, chuckled at that.
“That’s not how it is with me,” he said. “I don’t pray for victory, just that I will do my best. It relaxes me. I thank God for all my blessings, and I try to realize that it won’t be the end of the world if I don’t do well.”
Success in athletics, of course, has a lot to do with confidence and mind control. Folger found that his prayer — “The Sermon on the Mound,” his Dad, Bill, calls it — helped him to focus.
Next year, Zack Folger would like to pitch for Liberty University, even though the school hasn’t offered him a scholarship.
“I did get an e-mail from the coach after the World Series game,” Folger said. “He said there were no guarantees, but that I would be welcome to try out for the team.”
At least no one can say he doesn’t have a prayer.
Keep it rolling, Coach!
- By thecomeback
- By LU Armchair coach
- By Ill flame