My family surprised me with an early birthday gift (on May 17, I’ll be crossing the great ’65’ divide) and took me to an Angel game last night. Given the late night and an early morning responsibility, I am running a baseball-related Catch from our archives: October, 2005 (one of my favorite Catches). Tomorrow, I’ll report more on our game last night, which was painful for the hometown fans, but a great joy for me in the stands.

Thank goodness. The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, that geographically challenged baseball team that is now one of four still standing in the 2005 Major League Baseball playoffs, eliminated the vaunted New York Yankees Monday night 5-3. I’m so grateful because, had they lost, I would have had to suffer the indignity of a New York Yankee logo as background on my desktop screen until start of the next baseball season in spring of 2006. That was my little wager with a Yankee fan and friend of mine, who now has to stare at an Angel halo on her laptop for six months.

That’s the way it is with the Yankees – you either love them or you hate them. Take the comment I heard halfway through this series from a typical New Yorker that of course the Yankees would beat the Angels because, well… because they’re the Yankees! That’s the same kind of insufferable attitude that goes into the playing of Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” from the loudspeaker after every game in Yankee Stadium, even the ones they lose, just to remind you that if you’re not from New York, well, that’s exactly your problem.

I guess you can tell I don’t like the Yankees very much.

I must admit, however, that I was prepared to lose, too. All throughout this game I was half-preparing myself for coping with that blue and white “NY” on my laptop – half-hoping I wouldn’t have to. And now that I don’t have to, I can reveal to you how I resolved to deal with it in case I did. It was going to be a reminder of the words of Jesus: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).

Jesus went on to point out how loving those who love you is really nothing to write home about. It’s in loving those who don’t love you that you show yourself to be like your Father in heaven who “causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the [Angels] and the [Yankees]” (5:45). So I was prepared to look at that New York logo every day and pray for someone I didn’t like.

You know if I keep on like this, I’m going to talk myself into doing it anyway. It’s not a bad idea to have a reminder to love your enemies since it is so hard, and so unlike anything we do naturally. It’s something that forces us to draw on the resources of God in our lives. And by loving them, it doesn’t mean to merely tolerate them. It means to want for them what you would want for yourself, and to even pray for them, to that end. Maybe we should all have something on our laptops to remind us to do this. I can’t help but think that after a few months of praying for someone you don’t like, you just might find that you feel differently about that person.