{"id":4602,"date":"2025-05-05T08:02:18","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T12:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4602"},"modified":"2025-05-05T08:02:18","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T12:02:18","slug":"failure-isnt-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/05\/failure-isnt-final\/","title":{"rendered":"Failure Isn’t Final"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

In an episode of the TV series Boston Legal<\/em>, Tom Selleck\u2019s fianc\u00e9 struggles with fits of uncontrolled laughter.

The only way to break the spell is to remind her of a tragedy. Selleck speaks just two words: \u201cBill Buckner.\u201d She immediately stops laughing.

Why does that name, in the minds of all Bostonians, represent tragedy?\u00a0

Bill Buckner was playing first base for the Red Sox on October 25, 1986, in the sixth game of the World Series against the New York Mets. The game was tied in the 10th<\/sup> inning. There were two outs. The Mets had the potential winning run standing on second base.

Mookie Wilson hit a slow roller toward first. Buckner hustled toward it, knowing that Mookie was a speedster. All he had to do was field the ball, step on first, and send the game into the 11th<\/sup> inning.

The ball bounced once. Then twice. Buckner reached out to snag it on the third bounce. But that bounce never came. As he later said, \u201cIt scooted.\u201d Right between his legs into right field.

Ray Knight of the Mets scored from second base. The Mets not only won that game, but went on to win game seven and thus the Series. \u201cThe Curse,\u201d which fans of the Red Sox believed had deprived them of championships for almost the entirety of the 20th<\/sup> century, now had a new focus. His name was Bill Buckner, and he was immediately assailed by hatred, mockery, and death threats.

The Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge in Boston was quickly nicknamed the Bill Buckner Bridge. Why? Because the traffic goes between the \u201clegs\u201d of the bridge.\u00a0

The rancor was absurd. Even if Buckner had made that play, the Sox would still have had to win the game. And they obviously had plenty of chances to prevail in game seven the following day.

But that single fielding error somehow became the most infamous personal failure in sports history.

The irony is that Bill Buckner was one of the finest baseball players of his generation. He won a battling title and hit over .300 seven times. During three of his seasons he batted in more than 100 runs. He never struck out more than 39 times in any of his 22 years in the league. Most notably, he was an exceptional defensive player, setting an MLB record for the most assists by a first baseman \u2013 the same season he led the National League in doubles. To this day he holds the American League record for most assists in a season.

He was also plagued by ankle injuries during most of his career. One of the reasons he rushed toward Mookie Wilson\u2019s slow roller that October evening is that he wanted to muster enough speed to beat him to the bag.

Through all the public vitriol, Buckner retained a gracious spirit.

On April 8, 2008, the Red Sox invited their long-retired first baseman to throw out the first pitch at their season home opener \u2013 the day they unfurled their 2007 World Series championship banner. The sellout crowd sprang to their feet. They applauded Bill Buckner for two minutes.

A few years later, he appeared in an episode of the TV comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm<\/em>. A terrified mother throws her baby from a window of a burning building. The baby ricochets off the tarp held by firefighters, sails farther down the street, only to be heroically caught by a diving Buckner.

The first baseman, who died of a rare disease in 2019, clearly retained his sense of humor. He did not go to his grave a bitter man.

Nor did Fred Snodgrass, who was one of the finest center fielders in the National League in 1912, when his New York Giants went to the World Series. Unfortunately, on a beautiful October afternoon, he dropped a lazy fly ball in the 10th<\/sup> inning which allowed\u2026wait for it\u2026the Boston Red Sox to win the Series.

Snodgrass became the scapegoat. When he died in 1974, the New York Times <\/em>headline blared, \u201cFred Snodgrass, 86, Dead; Muffed 1912 Fly Ball.\u201d

Really?\u00a0<\/em>

Was that really the defining headline of Snodgrass\u2019 life a whopping 62 years after he had made a single glaring fielding error?

Following his baseball career, Snodgrass moved to the West coast and became a successful banker and rancher.\u00a0He was a popular city councilman in Oxnard, California, and ultimately was elected mayor.\u00a0 He and his wife became the parents of two daughters, Eleanor and Elizabeth. Likewise, Bill Buckner and his wife Jody were blessed with two daughters, Brittany and Christen, and a son, Bobby.\u00a0

By any stretch of the imagination, it seems as if these two baseball pariahs were able to lead rich and meaningful lives.

But as Maxie Dunham observes, \u201cOur society is so success-oriented that to fail makes you feel like a failure, and to lose makes you a loser.\u201d

Fred Snodgrass\u2019s life didn\u2019t end, however, in center field in the 10th<\/sup> inning of a World Series game. And Bill Buckner\u2019s existence didn\u2019t become meaningless when he muffed that grounder behind first base during another infamous World Series 10th<\/sup> inning.\u00a0

Snodgrass once said, \u201cA lot of people have come up to me and said, \u2018You really helped me in my life\u2026 I looked at what you had to go through, and how you handled it, and my life is better because of that.\u201d\u2018

Where do we find the resolve to keep going, even in the face of failure?

The psalmist says concerning the Lord, \u201cHe drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and\u00a0set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord\u201d (Psalm 40:2-3).

Because of God\u2019s amazing grace, our worst days don\u2019t have to become our legacies.

Failure isn\u2019t final.

Unless, of course, we fail to receive what God alone can provide \u2013 his freely offered gift of second chances.
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here In an episode of the TV series Boston Legal, Tom Selleck\u2019s fianc\u00e9 struggles with fits of uncontrolled laughter. The only way to break the spell is to remind her of a tragedy. Selleck speaks just two words: \u201cBill Buckner.\u201d She immediately stops laughing. Why does that name, in the minds of… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4603,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[39,45],"class_list":["post-4602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-failure","tag-redemption"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4604,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4602\/revisions\/4604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}