There’s baseball in Heaven and Whit Steen struck out Jesus!
By Eric Berry

Ever since my mom died in 2002 I have always wondered, or even more so I should say, about the afterlife – or if there really is such a thing as Heaven. Later when my dad passed in 2013 the thoughts became stronger. I have dreams often in which my parents visit me and the weirdest questions often spill from my mouth in uncontrollable fashion. I ask crazy stuff about winning Powerball or Mega Millions like ‘can you guys tell me the winning numbers for the next drawing please’? I just get a smirk or a look of ‘next question please’. I have asked, ‘Is there sports up there’? To which the answer was always yes. And that God loves baseball, but much to my chagrin, just like Yankees fans have been saying all along – God is also a Yankees fan. It figures given the unspeakable things that have gone the pinstripers way over the years. There obviously was some sort of divine intervention, save of course for 2004, with Jeffrey Maier saving their bacon, or Bucky Effing Dent, or Aaron Effing Boone, for that matter.

In light of one of the most horrible tragedy’s one family has to endure, I was hopeful my parents would visit me again. And, if they did, I’d have plenty of questions of the goings on in the kingdom above.

So last night as I’m lying in bed, my thoughts overwhelmed me about Whit Steen’s celebration of life, and that the community members would be welcome to speak, it caused me to roll around like I was in a rotisserie. The backstory here is, I coached Whit for a couple years in Babe Ruth baseball, and I witnessed first-hand the curve ball referenced in his recent obituary. I swear he was born to throw that curve ball. He froze batters. He froze umpires who called a ball before they realized, wait, that was a strike. When I think of his curve I think of the theory of a flat Earth – his premier pitch just dropping off the horizon and gone. Unhittable. And it didn’t matter the count – he threw it with the utmost confidence whether it was 3 and 2 or 1 and 2.

And although I hoped my parents would come visit me in my sleep, they did not as they must have been bowling or on a cruise. So, as I laid there last night I could only think about what I might say if I went to the podium to speak and a story that made me feel good overcame me. Though I knew I wouldn’t muster the courage to speak, here’s what came to mind when thinking about baseball in Heaven and Whit Steen. It goes like this:

It was game 7 of the HLCS(Heaven’s League Championship Series) and it was all tied up at 3 games apiece. Heaven’s baseball playoffs run almost concurrently with the current major league baseball playoffs. God likes ratings too. God’s Yankees were playing the Moses’ Red Sox and both lineups were loaded with talent that had made the climb to the league of deity. The Yankees featured recognizable names like Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle. The Red Sox had the Splendid Splinter, Ted Williams, and the great Cy Young. The thing about games in Heaven is everyone gets a chance to try out, and roster changes are allowed frequently and without recourse. As you can imagine, the first thing Whit did when he saw there was a game, he asked if he could pitch. After a tryout, the Red Sox manager, Joe Cronin(who won more games as the earthly Boston manager than anyone else) saw the talent in the arm of Whit – so for game 7 Whit Steen would be a relief pitcher for the Moses’ Red Sox!

The first six games had been a biblical battle, and despite the obvious and not so obvious advantages the Yankees had(I’ll get to that in a moment), as I mentioned, the series was tied at 3 each. Game 7 would be no different – a home run by Mantle in the first inning gave the dreaded Yanks a 2 nothing lead as he plated Berra. But the Sox would answer on a two-run blast of his own by Teddy Ballgame and the game would stay perilously tied for the next six innings entering the ninth and final inning.

Moses’ Red Sox had won the regular season series against God’s Yankees on the luck of a Bill Buckner game saving defensive gem in the last game of the season(how can anything be regular in Heaven?) Now, here’s the backstory behind God’s Yankees mammoth lineup. It was already gaudy enough that they were spoiled with Mantle, Yogi Berra, Lou Gehrig and Thurman Munson and even Rickey Henderson but they also had Babe Ruth, Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio, and Jesus himself. Yup, although Jesus was a carpenter God blessed him with uncanny hitting skills as well.
But, on this day, somehow, someway, the Sox had held the line. They were now to face Ruth, DiMaggio and Jesus in the top of the ninth inning with a trip to Heaven’s Universe Series lying in the balance. Joe Cronin made the call to the bullpen and he asked for the righty from Lyndonville, Vermont! He asked for the guile and guts of a young man who knew everything about getting batters out – regardless of their baseball lore.
The lefty Ruth stood in as confident as ever, but in short order, Whit Steen threw him the patented curve, then another, then a knuckle slurve he and his dad had worked on over the years. God was dumbfounded. Ruth was out.
Then came DiMaggio who had a 56 game hitting streak coming into game 7. Remember, he had the same such streak playing here on God’s green earth. He too was no match for Whit’s bedeviling spinner. He whiffed like a cartoon character on a Bugs Bunny episode. On the last swing he literally fell to the ground, twirling himself up like a Yankees stadium pretzel.

And now to the plate came Jesus with Eddie Money’s ‘If I could walk on water’ bellowing over the speakers. And yet, there stood Whit Steen, with a poker face that would make Doyle Brunson smile. On this day, it was Whit’s day to shine, Jesus should have started thinking about his previous vocation. And although Jesus came to the plate with a bat he personally carved there might as well have been massive holes in it. Whit, who peered in at the catcher looking for two fingers(signalling curve ball of course) got just a sole index finger from his teammate. He calmly shook his head no, then got the sign he wanted. Rearing and firing his curve made Isaac Newton rethink Earth’s gravitational pull. Strike one on Jesus. The next sign was again one finger(fastball). Whit knew Jesus couldn’t hit his manipulating, gyrating 9 inch sphere. Two fingers again. Whit threw and Jesus missed badly……….. AGAIN! Strike two. Now Moses’, who had seen miracles before, and performed one or two in his own right, moved to the top step of the pearly white stepped dugout and said ‘this kid has a bravado on the mound I haven’t seen since Koufax in 1963’(look it up). It came down to this next pitch. One for the ages. One for eternity’s history books. Jesus dug in and this time the catcher didn’t even give a sign. Everyone knew what was coming and Jesus knew too, you know, being all knowing and stuff. But what he didn’t know is he was about to face the best curveball in Heaven’s history. Jesus never took the bat off his shoulders. He peeled away from the plate to avoid the ball as it seemed to be headed right for his ear, only it defied physics, it did what we all have seen before. It danced into the catcher’s mitt and the umpire wailed STRIKE THREE! Whit Steen had just struck out Jesus himself! There was bedlam in nirvana.

Moses’ Red Sox would score in the bottom of the 9th to complete an epic win over God’s Yankees. A new star closer was born for the Sox who would now take on their Universe Series opponents to be determined. And after the game the first one to greet Whit and congratulate him on his godlike performance was his brother Jack. Jack told Whit he knew he was going to strike Jesus out. Whit said, I knew I was going to strike all of them out! God Bless you Whit and Jack, and God Bless the Steen family and all who love them.

More Thoughts from EB
I am proud of our community for showing the love they did at Whit’s Celebration of Life. An outpouring of love and community. A universal showering of love by all and a beautiful celebration of a young man’s life. RIP Whit!