It's Finally Wintertime

A couple of hours before tonight's game, with the Dodgers facing elimination, someone asked me how I felt about their chances. They knew I had been following the Dodgers since 1965, when my grandfather took me to a game at Dodger Stadium.

I told them that more than sixty years of watching Dodger baseball had taught me one enduring truth: There is always enough time left in the season for the Dodgers to disappoint you.

And tonight, they did.

The Milwaukee Brewers swept the Dodgers in four games, and just like that, October baseball was over.

When you've been a baseball fan long enough, you come to understand that a loss like this means something more than the end of a season. It means winter has arrived.

The grass may still be green in Southern California, the days may still be warm, and the calendar may insist that it's only October. But for a baseball fan, it's wintertime. The lights are out, the seats are empty, and there is no game tomorrow.

Winter, of course, doesn't last forever.

The snow will fall, covering the ground and the plants beneath it. For a while, everything will seem dormant, perhaps even dead. But spring will come again, and somewhere a green blade of grass will push its way through the earth. And with it will come that unreasonable, irresistible hope that this year might be different.

It always does.

Through spring and into summer, that hope will grow. There will be stretches when it seems to wither beneath the summer heat, when the team looks lost and the season seems to be slipping away. Then there will be a great catch, a well-timed hit, a late-inning rally, and hope will begin growing again.

And as it grows, it will give us shade.

That's one of the wonderful things about baseball. For a few hours, it gives us shelter from the things that trouble us. We can sit in a ballpark and watch grown men play a child's game. We can talk about batting averages, pitching changes, defensive shifts, and whether the manager has lost his mind. We can argue about strategy and scores, about players and teams, with all the conviction we bring to politics, yet somehow without the same rancor.

We can disagree, laugh about it, and go home friends.

Perhaps that's because, for all the importance we attach to baseball, somewhere deep down we understand that it's still just a game. And maybe that's precisely why it matters so much.

This season, I attended 28 baseball games. Eight at Dodger Stadium, three at Angel Stadium, and seventeen more at a variety of minor league ballparks. Some were wonderful games. Some were mediocre. Some were played in heat that made you wonder why anyone would willingly sit outdoors for three hours.

But every one of them was baseball.

And those 28 games were only part of my summer. I listened to at least half of the Dodgers' games, and heard at least a few innings of all the others. If I didn't get to see a game, I always read the box score. There's something satisfying about a box score, those columns of numbers that tell the story of a game, even when you weren't there to see it. You can reconstruct the innings, imagine the opportunities missed, and appreciate the moments when somebody came through.

This summer also brought something special: the return of Charlie Steiner to the Dodgers' broadcast booth. After his battle with cancer, hearing his voice again was a victory worth celebrating, one that had nothing to do with wins and losses on the field. Listening to Charlie call the play-by-play, with Rick Monday adding his observations and color, was one of the genuine pleasures of the season.

For those of us who grew up with Vin Scully, those voices carried a faint reminder of something we once knew so well. Only faintly, of course. Vin was Vin, a voice and a storyteller unlike any other, and there will never be another quite like him. But there was something reassuring about listening to Charlie and Rick describe the action, fill the spaces between pitches, and occasionally wander into a story that had little to do with the game at hand. It was the familiar rhythm of baseball on the radio, a sound that has accompanied so many of my summers. And this year, knowing what Charlie had overcome to return to that microphone made those familiar sounds all the sweeter.

So, for me, it wasn't simply 28 visits to a ballpark. It was another full season of baseball, experienced in person, over the radio, on television, and through the box scores. Baseball was there almost every day, woven into the rhythm of life from spring through October. Sometimes it commanded my full attention. Sometimes it was simply a familiar voice in the background, keeping me company while I went about the business of living.

And it was a wonderful summer.

There were conversations with strangers, arguments over calls, moments of brilliance, moments of frustration, and those long, pleasant stretches when nothing much seemed to be happening at all. There was the simple pleasure of sitting in the stands, keeping score in your head, watching the game unfold, and knowing that for the next few hours, nothing else demanded your attention.

I've come to believe that those hours are as much a part of baseball as the victories and defeats. Perhaps more so.

After sixty years, I've seen enough seasons to know that championships are rare, disappointments are plentiful, and hope is inexhaustible. I've also learned that the real gift of baseball isn't necessarily what happens in October. It's everything that happens between the first pitch of spring and the final out of autumn.

Tonight, the Dodgers lost. Their season is over. There will be no more October baseball for us this year.

And yes, I'm disappointed.

But I had 28 afternoons and evenings at ballparks, countless hours listening to games, a season's worth of box scores, the pleasure of hearing an old friend return to the broadcast booth, a summer full of memories, and another season to add to the more than sixty I've been fortunate enough to enjoy since my grandfather first took me to the ballpark.

That's not a bad return on a summer.

There will be another spring. There will be green grass, the crack of a bat, the sound of a ball hitting a glove, familiar voices coming through the radio, and another season of unreasonable hope. And somewhere along the way, the Dodgers will find new ways to thrill us, frustrate us, and perhaps disappoint us all over again.

But that's for another season.

For now, the ballparks are quiet, the summer is behind us, and the long wait for spring has begun.

It's finally wintertime.

Freemasonry: The Fraternity That Went to the Moon

For centuries, Freemasonry has looked upward. The sun, moon, and stars occupy an important place in the symbolic landscape of the Craft. The lodge itself is described as extending from east to west, north to south, and from the earth toward the heavens. Light represents knowledge, while the celestial canopy reminds the Mason that there is always something beyond his present understanding.

In July 1969, that relationship between Freemasonry and the heavens became something more than symbolic. A Freemason walked on the Moon.

Between 1969 and 1972, twelve men left their footprints on the lunar surface. In order, they were Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, David Scott, James Irwin, John Young, Charles Duke, Eugene Cernan, and Harrison Schmitt. Of those twelve, three are directly connected with Freemasonry: Buzz Aldrin and Edgar Mitchell were already Masons when they walked on the Moon, while James Irwin entered the Craft after returning from Apollo 15.

The connection becomes even more interesting with Neil Armstrong. The first man on the Moon was not a Freemason, but he was a Senior DeMolay. Taken together, Armstrong, Aldrin, Mitchell, and Irwin mean that four of the twelve men who walked on the Moon—one-third of all lunar explorers—had a documented connection to the wider Masonic family.

Buzz Aldrin: The First Mason on the Moon

By the time Apollo 11 launched on July 16, 1969, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin had already built an extraordinary career. A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Aldrin served as an Air Force fighter pilot during the Korean War, flying sixty-six combat missions. He later earned a doctorate in astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his work on orbital rendezvous addressed one of the technical problems that had to be solved before astronauts could travel to the Moon and return safely.

Aldrin was also a Freemason. He was initiated at Oak Park Lodge No. 864 in Alabama and raised a Master Mason in Lawrence N. Greenleaf Lodge No. 169 in Colorado in 1956. He later became a member of Clear Lake Lodge No. 1417 in Texas.

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong descended the ladder of the lunar module Eagle and became the first human being to stand on the Moon. Aldrin followed shortly afterward, becoming the second man on the Moon and the first Freemason to stand on another world.

His Masonic connection to Apollo 11 went beyond personal membership. Before the mission, Grand Master J. Guy Smith of the Grand Lodge of Texas authorized Aldrin to carry a special deputation representing the Grand Lodge of Texas on the Moon. Aldrin also carried a handmade Scottish Rite flag aboard Apollo 11 and later presented it to the House of the Temple in Washington, D.C.

That history is commemorated today through Tranquility Lodge No. 2000, named for the Sea of Tranquility where Apollo 11 landed. The lodge is based in Texas, but its identity deliberately preserves the relationship between Freemasonry and humanity's first lunar landing.

For generations, Masons had contemplated the Moon as part of the symbolic heavens above the lodge. In 1969, Brother Buzz Aldrin left his footprints upon it.

Edgar Mitchell: From DeMolay to the Lunar Surface

The second Freemason to walk on the Moon was Edgar Dean Mitchell, lunar module pilot of Apollo 14. In February 1971, Mitchell and mission commander Alan Shepard landed in the Fra Mauro highlands. Mitchell became the sixth human being to walk on the Moon and spent approximately nine hours working on its surface, collecting lunar samples and carrying out scientific experiments.

Mitchell's connection to the Masonic family began long before NASA. As a young man he belonged to DeMolay, and as an adult he became a Freemason and a member of Artesia Lodge No. 29 in New Mexico. His life therefore connected two parts of the wider Masonic family before carrying him through naval aviation, technical training, the astronaut corps, and ultimately to the lunar surface.

Mitchell's path also reflects qualities familiar to Masons. His accomplishments rested upon preparation, discipline, education, persistence, and the ability to apply knowledge when circumstances demanded it. Before flying Apollo 14, Mitchell contributed to the effort surrounding Apollo 13, developing procedures that assisted in bringing the damaged spacecraft and its crew safely home. His own opportunity to travel to the Moon came the following year.

When Mitchell stepped onto the lunar surface, he became the second Mason to do so. Only six men had walked on the Moon at that point, and two of them were Brothers.

James Irwin: From the Moon to the Lodge

James Benson Irwin became the eighth human being to walk on the Moon as lunar module pilot of Apollo 15 in 1971. Apollo 15 represented an important step forward in lunar exploration. Irwin and mission commander David Scott became the first astronauts to use the Lunar Roving Vehicle, allowing them to travel much farther from their landing site and examine a larger area of the lunar landscape than previous crews.

Their explorations produced one of the best-known geological discoveries of the Apollo program: the so-called Genesis Rock, an ancient sample associated with the early lunar crust. Apollo 15 demonstrated that lunar missions could move beyond brief excursions around the landing site and become extended journeys of exploration.

Irwin's Masonic journey came after his journey to the Moon. On September 8, 1975, he was raised a Master Mason in Tejon Lodge No. 104 in Colorado Springs. His path therefore differed from those of Aldrin and Mitchell. They carried their Masonic experience with them to the Moon; Irwin carried the experience of having walked on the Moon with him when he later entered the Craft.

Taken together, the three men form a remarkable pattern. Aldrin was the second man to walk on the Moon, Mitchell the sixth, and Irwin the eighth. Three members of that extraordinarily small group of twelve men became Brothers of the Craft.

Neil Armstrong and the Wider Masonic Family

The Masonic connection to the Moon actually begins one footprint earlier. Neil Armstrong was not a Freemason, but he had been a member of DeMolay as a young man. He was also an Eagle Scout, earning that distinction in Ohio before attending Purdue University.

When Armstrong stepped from the ladder of Eagle onto the lunar surface, the first man on the Moon therefore came from an organization firmly rooted in the wider Masonic family. DeMolay and Freemasonry are distinct organizations, but DeMolay grew under Masonic sponsorship and developed around principles familiar to the Craft: character, leadership, fidelity, service, responsibility, and personal development.

That makes the first steps on the Moon particularly interesting from a Masonic perspective. Armstrong, the first man down the ladder, was a Senior DeMolay. Aldrin, following him onto the surface, was a Master Mason. Then, among the next four men to walk on the Moon, Edgar Mitchell brought both experiences together: he had been a DeMolay and had subsequently become a Freemason.

Within the first six human beings to walk on another world were Armstrong, a Senior DeMolay; Aldrin, a Master Mason; and Mitchell, both a Senior DeMolay and a Mason. The connection was already broader than a single astronaut or a single Apollo mission.

Beyond the Lunar Surface

The Masonic connection to America's early space program extended beyond the men who actually walked on the Moon. Several prominent astronauts from the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs were Freemasons. Gordon Cooper, one of the original Mercury Seven, was a Master Mason of Carbondale Lodge No. 82 in Colorado. Virgil “Gus” Grissom, another member of the Mercury Seven and later commander of the crew lost in the Apollo 1 fire, belonged to Mitchell Lodge No. 228 in Indiana. Donn Eisele, who flew aboard Apollo 7, belonged to Luther B. Turner Lodge No. 732 in Ohio.

Thomas Stafford carried the Masonic connection almost to the lunar surface. As commander of Apollo 10, Stafford led the final full rehearsal for the first Moon landing. His crew traveled to the Moon, entered lunar orbit, separated the lunar module, and descended close to the surface before returning to the command module. Stafford was a Freemason of Western Star Lodge No. 138 in Weatherford, Oklahoma, placing another Brother among the small group of men who pioneered the route that Apollo 11 would soon complete.

The DeMolay connection extended into lunar exploration as well. Frank Borman, commander of Apollo 8, was a Senior DeMolay. Apollo 8 became the first crewed spacecraft to leave Earth orbit, travel to the Moon, orbit it, and return safely. That mission demonstrated that human beings could reach lunar distance and come home, while Apollo 10 showed that the spacecraft and procedures could bring them almost all the way to the surface.

Viewed together, these men form an intriguing thread running through the early American space program. Masons and DeMolays were present among the Mercury pioneers, among the first men to orbit the Moon, among those who rehearsed the landing, and among those who eventually walked upon its surface. The association was not limited to one celebrated astronaut; it appeared repeatedly among the relatively small group of men who carried human exploration beyond Earth.

The True Lunar Lodge

A Masonic lodge has always existed partly in the physical world and partly in the symbolic one. Its walls may be made of plaster, stone, or wood, but symbolically its dimensions extend far beyond the room in which the Brethren meet. Above it stretches the celestial canopy, represented by the sun, moon, and stars. For generations of Masons, those heavenly bodies have suggested order, regularity, light, and the vastness of creation.

Apollo gave that ancient symbolism an unexpected new dimension.

Only twelve men have ever walked on the Moon. Buzz Aldrin and Edgar Mitchell were Freemasons when they made their lunar journeys, James Irwin later became a Master Mason, and Neil Armstrong—the first man to walk on the Moon—was a Senior DeMolay. Taken together, four of the twelve moonwalkers, fully one-third of the men who have stood on another world, had a direct connection to the wider Masonic family.

That proportion is striking not simply because of the number, but because those connections appear at several different points in the lunar story. Armstrong made the first footprint. Aldrin followed him as the first Freemason on the Moon. Mitchell became the sixth man to walk there, and Irwin the eighth. The Masonic connection was therefore not confined to one mission, one astronaut, or one moment in the Apollo program.

Perhaps that is why the story resonates so naturally with Masons. Freemasonry does not teach a man merely to admire its working tools. It asks him to apply the principles they represent: discipline himself, improve his abilities, measure his conduct, use his time wisely, work with others, and continue building upon what has already been accomplished.

The achievement of Apollo depended upon many of those same qualities. Reaching the Moon required mathematics, engineering, craftsmanship, discipline, courage, preparation, cooperation, and an almost relentless willingness to solve one problem after another. No astronaut built the Saturn V, designed the lunar module, calculated every trajectory, developed the spacesuits, or solved all the technical problems necessary to reach the Moon. The accomplishment represented the accumulated labor of hundreds of thousands of people, placed at the decisive moment into the hands of a few men trained to carry that work beyond the Earth.

Among those men were Brothers.

There is something almost poetic in that. For centuries, a Mason could sit in lodge beneath the symbolic celestial canopy and look toward the Moon as one of the familiar lights of the heavens. Then, within the lifetime of men who had first encountered those symbols in lodge rooms on Earth, Brothers crossed the distance and stood upon its surface.

The celestial canopy had not changed. Humanity's place beneath it had.

Somewhere on the lunar surface, among the footprints of only twelve men, are footprints left by members of the Craft. And when the wider Masonic family is considered, one-third of all the men who have walked there share some part of that remarkable connection.

References

DeMolay International. (n.d.). Frank Borman. DeMolay International Hall of Fame. DeMolay International

DeMolay Northern California. (n.d.). Famous DeMolays. NorCal DeMolay

National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (n.d.). Moonwalkers. NASA Science. NASA Science

Order of the Arrow, Scouting America. (n.d.). Eagle Scout first on the Moon. NOAC 2027

Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library. (n.d.). Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin. Masonic Hall of Fame. Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library

Scottish Rite, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction. (n.d.). Among the stars: Freemason astronauts. scottishritenmj.org

Scottish Rite, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction. (n.d.). To the Moon and back with Buzz Aldrin. Scottish Rite, NMJ

Scottish Rite, Northern Masonic Jurisdiction. (2005). James Benson Irwin. The Northern Light. Scottish Rite NMJ

How Do I Become a Freemason?

I recently received a message through The Temple Within Facebook page from a man asking a simple question: How do I become a Freemason?

For those of us who have been members for many years, the answer may seem obvious. For someone standing outside the fraternity, however, it may be surprisingly difficult to know where to begin. Freemasonry does not generally recruit men for membership. The first step normally belongs to the man who is interested: he must express that interest himself. The Grand Lodge of California describes this as a longstanding Masonic custom—men seek membership on their own initiative rather than being solicited to join.

So, where should he begin?

A good first step is remarkably simple: look for Masonic lodges in your community. Search online for lodges near your home or workplace and look for their websites or social-media pages. Better still, locate the website of the recognized Grand Lodge governing Freemasonry in your state or country and use its lodge locator. This helps ensure that the lodge you are contacting belongs to a recognized Masonic jurisdiction.

Then make contact. Send an email, call the lodge, or ask to speak with its secretary or another officer. Tell him that you are interested in learning about Freemasonry and would like to know more about becoming a member. You do not need to know the right words, understand Masonic terminology, or already have a Mason in your family. The United Grand Lodge of England, for example, specifically tells prospective members who do not know a Freemason simply to contact their nearest lodge or register their interest so that a local Mason can speak with them.

And don't be in too much of a hurry to fill out a petition.

Spend some time getting to know the lodge and allowing its members to get to know you. Attend dinners, open houses, community events, or other activities to which prospective members are invited. Ask questions. Talk with several members rather than only one. Find out how often the lodge meets, what its members actually do, what participation is expected, what the financial obligations are, and what kind of Masonic experience the lodge offers.

This matters because you don't really join “Freemasonry” in the abstract. You petition a particular lodge and become part of a particular group of men. Lodges share the fundamental principles and traditions of the fraternity, but they can have very different personalities. One may emphasize ritual and Masonic education. Another may be heavily involved in charitable and community work. Another may have an especially active social calendar. Even meeting schedules and the age and interests of the membership can differ considerably.

The Grand Lodge of California now explicitly encourages prospective members to visit local lodges, meet their members, and choose a lodge that fits their values, schedule, and goals. That is good advice. The nearest lodge geographically may be the right lodge for you—but it does not necessarily have to be.

The exact qualifications for membership also vary somewhat among Masonic jurisdictions, so this is another reason to speak directly with the appropriate Grand Lodge and local lodge. In California, for example, an applicant must be a man at least 18 years old, profess belief in a Supreme Being, and meet the fraternity's standards of character and intention. Men of all ethnic and religious backgrounds are welcome. Other jurisdictions establish their own requirements.

If, after spending some time around the lodge, you remain interested, ask about petitioning for membership. A Mason from the lodge can explain the application and the local requirements. Typically, after a petition is submitted, members of the lodge meet with the applicant. This is sometimes described as an investigation, but it should also be understood as a two-way conversation. The lodge is learning about the man, but the man should also be learning about the lodge and Freemasonry. California's own materials describe it as a “mutual interview process.”

Eventually, the petition is presented to the lodge for a ballot. If the applicant is elected, he does not immediately become a Master Mason. He begins with the Entered Apprentice Degree and subsequently progresses through the Fellow Craft and Master Mason Degrees. The lodge is therefore not merely the organization that processes his application. It is the community in which his first experiences of Freemasonry will take place.

There is also something worth considering before ever submitting a petition: Why do you want to become a Freemason?

If the answer involves business contacts, social status, secret knowledge, political influence, or some imagined material advantage, Freemasonry will probably disappoint you. Its lessons are directed toward something quite different: character, fellowship, moral responsibility, self-examination, service, and the continuing work of becoming a better man. The symbols and ceremonies can provide the tools, but the individual still has to do the work. As I have written elsewhere in The Temple Within, the central idea is construction of the individual: “You don’t inherit character. You construct it.”

So when someone asks me, “How do I become a Freemason?”, my answer is this:

Find the recognized Grand Lodge for your area. Locate several nearby lodges. Contact one and introduce yourself. Visit when you are invited. Meet the men. Ask questions. Learn what Freemasonry is—and what it is not. Give the lodge an opportunity to know you, and give yourself enough time to know the lodge.

Then, if what you discover still speaks to you, ask for a petition.

The door to a Masonic lodge is not particularly difficult to find. But crossing its threshold should be a deliberate decision. Becoming a Freemason begins with asking to join. Becoming a Mason is the work that follows.

Fewer Ahead: Summer’s Last Ride

In March, the hourglass of baseball seems full. With so many games remaining, the season feels almost endless. The cool nights of spring stretch ahead, promising the hot, languid days of summer, when there always seems to be another game tomorrow. But the sand keeps falling. Summer gives way to September, the shadows lengthen across the field, darkness comes earlier, and the leisurely pace of the long season becomes the frenzy of fall. Suddenly, every game matters a little more, every remaining date can be counted, and every trip to the ballpark carries the knowledge that there are fewer ahead. Baseball is a lot like life that way. The hourglass never changes speed; we simply become more aware of the sand as the bottom begins to fill.

My last Dodger game of the season came on the last day of summer, as the Dodgers opened a three-game series against the Padres—the beginning of their final regular-season homestand at Dodger Stadium. It was an opening night that was really part of a closing: the opening act in the ballpark’s farewell to another regular season. Even on a warm Southern California evening, there was the promise of winter somewhere ahead. Perhaps that is why the familiar rituals begin to matter more as a season draws to a close. For this last game, mine began as it had so many times before: I took the train to Chinatown and made the familiar walk up to Dodger Stadium.

This time I had clubhouse seats—padded, comfortable, a little wider than the standard seats, with a good view of the field. The section has its own restrooms and concession stand, and there is in-seat service, so there was rarely a reason to stand in line for anything. The only curious omission was a cup holder. For seats designed around comfort and convenience, nobody seems to have considered where you are supposed to put your drink. Other than that, they were good seats. They aren't my favorite seats at Dodger Stadium, but they were comfortable, convenient, and a fine place to watch my last game of summer.

After the game, I walked back down to Chinatown Station and reached the bottom of the platform just as the train was pulling away. I had missed it by perhaps a minute. My first thought wasn't really about the fifteen-minute wait for the next train. I wondered whether I had just missed Robert and James.

That thought itself told me how much these rides had changed. The first few times I encountered them in the front car, it was entirely by chance. But it happened again, and then again. By the fourth time, coincidence had begun to feel like a pattern. On the previous ride I had found myself anticipating that they might be there, and this night I strongly expected it. As I made my way toward the station, I was already thinking about walking to the front car and finding Robert and James inside.

So when I watched that first train disappear, I thought perhaps I had missed them along with it. Instead, maybe fate was holding me back for fifteen minutes. The next train arrived, I headed toward the front car, the doors opened, and there they were: Robert and James. They were glad to see me, and I was glad to see them. Somewhere during this baseball season, without any of us planning it, I had become one of the regulars.

I have taken the train to Dodger Stadium seven times this season, six of them by myself. On those solo trips, I kept encountering these same two men in the front car on the way home. Sometimes both were there and sometimes only one, but cumulatively I have probably spent six hours talking with them. Six hours is a long conversation, particularly on a train at night. Once you leave downtown, there isn't much to see through the windows. Mostly there is darkness. There are other passengers, of course, but most of them are doing what people now do when they have an hour to fill: looking down at their phones.

For whatever reason, the three of us didn't. We gave up the screens and talked to each other. An hour at a time, over a half-dozen rides, you can learn quite a bit about people you originally knew only because they happened to sit in the same part of the same train.

Even our names developed a peculiar formality. The first man introduced himself as Robert—not Bob, but Robert—and that is what everyone called him. The other introduced himself as James, never Jim. I understood immediately because I am Raymond, not Ray, and I have spent a good portion of my life correcting people on that point. So there we were: Robert, James and Raymond. Three full, slightly formal-sounding names belonging to three men riding home together on a late-night train. Nobody shortened anybody else's name. It was simply Robert, James and Raymond, and somehow that suited the whole arrangement.

You would not necessarily look at either Robert or James and imagine how interesting the next hour might become. Robert is very tall and looks a little like an unkempt Kevin Costner who has wandered off the set of Waterworld. He dresses as though Waterworld was a particularly cold world, and every time I see him he is carrying a baseball mitt in one hand. The mitt is the first clue. Robert loves baseball, and not casually.

He knows baseball statistics at a level I didn't realize baseball statistics could be known. Launch angles, slugging percentages, obscure measurements and the increasingly complicated numbers that are supposed to explain what is happening on the field. He has even attended some sort of baseball statistics camp. He knows the numbers, and more importantly, he knows what they are supposed to mean. Sometimes he knows considerably more than I need to know, but he is fascinating to listen to.

Over those hours on the train, I have gradually pieced together parts of his life. Robert has worked around both major and minor league baseball, doing everything from bat-boy work to concessions and various other jobs around ballparks. Somewhere along the way, he was also involved in strongman demonstrations at air shows, including pulling airplanes. I still have no idea what Robert actually does for a living, but I have learned enough to know that his life has taken some interesting turns.

What I do know is that he has cultivated a remarkable network around Dodger Stadium. Season-ticket holders who cannot attend a game give him their tickets. Sometimes they want the bobblehead or whatever giveaway is being handed out that night. Robert gets their giveaway, they get what they wanted, and Robert gets another night of baseball. He seems to have attended nearly every Dodger home game this season.

Robert is the quintessential insider-outsider. He isn't officially part of Major League Baseball, but he knows the people, the routines, the ballparks and the little ways of navigating that world. He has spent enough time around baseball that he seems to belong to it without actually belonging to it. He is the kind of person you could easily pass on a train without a second glance—the tall, somewhat disheveled guy carrying a baseball mitt—and never discover the world of baseball knowledge walking past you.

James presents an entirely different picture. He has been a security guard for more than thirty years, and when I see him he is usually heading home from work. He wears his uniform, with a protective vest underneath his polo shirt, carries a firearm and has his work bag with him. He tends to slouch down in the train seat and bears a remarkable resemblance to Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation. He even talks a little like him.

Looking across the train car at James, you would never guess that he is a world traveler. Every year he goes somewhere—Europe, Asia and wherever else interests him—and he knows how to travel. Not resort travel, but the kind involving rail systems, backpacks, hostels, inexpensive places to sleep and the practical mechanics of moving through another country. There used to be a travel guide called Europe on $5 a Day. James is that kind of traveler. Sitting in his security uniform on a Los Angeles train after another shift, he can tell you about trains and hostels on the other side of the world.

That is the thing about both of them: you wouldn't know any of this by looking at them. You wouldn't know about Robert's lifetime around baseball from the tall, slightly disheveled man carrying a mitt. You wouldn't know about James's travels from the armed security guard slouched in his seat. You have to engage people in conversation to discover these things, and conversation takes time. We had that time—roughly an hour at a stretch, over six different rides.

On this final ride, Robert and James started with the Dodgers' win and the intricacies of the wild-card possibilities. Before long, baseball became travel, travel became the rail system, and the rail system became a discussion about the jumper between Chinatown and Union Station. From there, the conversation could go almost anywhere—work, world events, people, whatever had happened that day. We had fifty-five minutes, and by then that had become our routine.

Nobody had arranged any of this. We hadn't exchanged schedules, and there was no group text asking who was taking the train that night. Three people simply kept getting into the front car of the same train. At first we were strangers. Then we recognized one another. Then we started talking. Eventually, without anyone declaring it, we became regulars. Maybe even rail friends.

There was something particularly fitting about realizing that on the last day of summer, after my last baseball game of the season. Baseball seasons are long enough to make temporary things feel permanent. In March, there always seems to be another game, another train, another walk up from Chinatown, another night at Dodger Stadium and another fifty-five-minute ride home. But the sand keeps falling. September arrives, the shadows lengthen, and you discover that even the routines you have come to count on have endings.

I probably won't see Robert or James again this year. Maybe next season. There are always things we assume we will do again and people we assume we will see again, until eventually there aren't as many agains ahead of us as there once were. Perhaps next spring I'll take the train to another Dodger game, make the walk up from Chinatown, watch nine innings and head back down the hill afterward. Maybe I'll step into the front car and find an unkempt Kevin Costner holding a baseball mitt and an armed Ron Swanson slouched in his seat. I hope so.

Because one of the things baseball gave me this summer had very little to do with baseball. In a train car filled with people staring down at their phones, three strangers chose instead to look up and talk. An hour became six hours. Strangers became familiar faces, and familiar faces became people whose stories I wanted to hear. Had we done what most of the other passengers did and spent those rides looking down at our screens, Robert would still be nothing more than the strange tall guy with the baseball mitt, James would still be the security guard who looked like Ron Swanson, and I suppose I would just be another old guy coming home from a baseball game.

Instead, by summer's last ride home, we were Robert, James and Raymond.

On the Level: Freemasonry Should Abolish the Title “Past Master”

Theodore Roosevelt had been President of the United States for nearly eight years when he prepared to leave the White House in 1909. He was one of the most recognizable men in the world, a former governor, soldier, author, reformer, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient. He was also a Freemason. Yet Roosevelt saw nothing about having occupied the highest political office in the nation that entitled him to permanent elevated status after he left it.

Writing to Melville E. Stone on December 2, 1908, Roosevelt explained what he believed should happen when a president's term ended:

“when the President leaves public office he should become exactly like any other man in private life. He is entitled to no privileges”

Roosevelt was not diminishing the presidency. He was protecting the distinction between the man and the office. The office carried extraordinary authority, and the man temporarily entrusted with it exercised that authority. When his service ended, however, so did the privileges associated with the position. The experience remained. The history remained. The service remained. What did not remain was a continuing claim upon the authority or privileges of the office.

That principle sounds remarkably Masonic, and it raises an uncomfortable question for Freemasonry: Why don't we do the same thing with the Master of a Lodge?

The Office Is Worshipful. Is the Man?

Freemasonry teaches a Mason repeatedly to distinguish internal worth from external distinction. Wealth does not make the Mason. Social position does not make the Mason. Titles do not make the Mason. The fundamental symbolic garment of the Craft is not a crown, chain, medal, or elaborate uniform. It is the apron. The Level reinforces the same principle. Albert Pike summarized its symbolism succinctly when he associated “the Level” with “Equality.”

Yet Freemasonry does something curious after a Brother serves as Worshipful Master: it makes the distinction permanent. The Brother leaves the East, but he does not entirely surrender its title. For the remainder of his Masonic life he may be addressed as “Worshipful Brother.” He may wear distinctive regalia identifying him as a Past Master. Introductions emphasize the office he once held. Protocol, conversation, and sometimes the culture of the Lodge itself reinforce the distinction. What began as a temporary office gradually becomes a permanent identity.

There is nothing inconsistent with Masonic equality in having a Worshipful Master. A Lodge requires government. Someone must preside, make decisions, maintain order, appoint officers, administer the Lodge, and assume responsibility for what occurs during his term. The Master possesses authority because the Lodge has entrusted him with an office.

But the office has a term.

Why doesn't the title?

Washington Steps Aside

George Washington offers an especially powerful example because he was not merely the first President of the United States. He was also a Freemason who had served as Master of Alexandria Lodge No. 22. Washington therefore understood both kinds of authority at issue here: the authority of the presidential office and the authority of the Oriental Chair.

On March 4, 1797, Washington attended the inauguration of John Adams in Philadelphia. The ceremony marked something the young republic had never experienced before: the voluntary transfer of presidential authority from one elected president to another. Adams became President. Thomas Jefferson became Vice President. Washington, who only moments earlier had held precedence over both men, was now a private citizen.

At the conclusion came a small act whose symbolism exceeded its size. Washington yielded precedence to President Adams and Vice President Jefferson. He had outranked both men that morning. He no longer did. Rather than continue receiving precedence because of what he had once been, Washington stepped aside for the men who now held the offices.

For Freemasons, the symbolism should be difficult to miss. Freemasonry teaches through physical acts. We move from one place to another. We stand in particular positions. We receive and surrender objects. We wear emblems whose meaning exceeds their material value. Physical actions communicate moral principles. Washington's decision to yield precedence therefore offers an extraordinarily Masonic image: when the office passes to another man, step aside and let him go first.

Washington carried that principle into retirement. When the citizens of Alexandria welcomed him home and praised his public service, he replied, “In the character of a private Citizen, I have the honor to receive your address.” Later that year he referred to private citizens as “the class in which I now move.” He had surrendered the presidency without surrendering his experience, dignity, reputation, or history. He simply understood that none of those things entitled him to continue occupying the position he had relinquished.

Perhaps that is what leaving the East should look like.

Adams Became a Brother Farmer

John Adams was not a Freemason, which perhaps makes his example even more useful. The principle was not peculiar to Washington or Roosevelt. It reflected a broader understanding of office in which authority belonged temporarily to the officeholder rather than permanently becoming part of his identity.

After losing the presidential election of 1800, Adams knew what the expiration of his term would mean. On December 28, 1800, he wrote François Adriaan Van der Kemp that after the third of March:

“I am to be a private Citizen and your Brother Farmer.”

There is something wonderfully simple in those words. Adams had been the nation's first Vice President and its second President. Yet when his presidency ended, he anticipated becoming a citizen, a farmer, and a brother. His presidential service would remain part of his history, but it did not have to become a permanent rank.

Perhaps Freemasonry should consider doing likewise.

Experience Is Not Authority

A Brother who has served as Master may know far more about Lodge administration than another Brother. He may understand ritual better. He may have encountered difficult questions of jurisprudence, finances, personalities, discipline, or protocol. A wise incoming Master would be foolish to ignore that reservoir of experience.

But experience and rank are not the same thing, and experience is not necessarily current knowledge.

Time matters. A man who served as Master ten or fifteen years ago served a Lodge that may no longer exist in quite the same form. Lodge culture changes. Grand Lodge legislation and Masonic jurisprudence can change. Administrative requirements change. Ritual instructions and interpretations of floor work can change. Even customs once regarded as unquestionable may be reconsidered. The former Master therefore possesses something potentially valuable—experience—but that experience must continually be measured against present circumstances.

“That is how we did it when I was Master” is historical information. It is not, by itself, evidence of how something should be done today.

The permanent honorific makes that distinction more difficult. Advice sounds different when it comes from “Worshipful Brother” rather than simply “Brother.” The title lends institutional weight to the speaker before the accuracy of what he says has been examined. A younger officer may hesitate to challenge him. A newly installed Master may defer to him. Other Brethren may accept his recollection because the title itself appears to certify expertise.

There is an irony here. The title never ages, but the knowledge behind it can.

A man remains “Worshipful” twenty years after leaving the East even though the rules, practices, culture, and Lodge he remembers may have changed substantially. His experience may remain enormously useful, but it may also contain assumptions that no longer apply. The honorific provides no way of distinguishing between the two.

That can produce something more consequential than excessive deference. It can produce influence without responsibility.

The sitting Master must make decisions and live with their consequences. He is accountable for the Lodge he governs now. He bears responsibility for its officers, administration, ritual, meetings, and decisions. A former Master may strongly influence those decisions while carrying none of the present Master's responsibility for them. He can retain some of the social authority of the East without bearing the burden that properly accompanies that authority.

Authority without responsibility is problematic in any organization. Influence without responsibility may be even more difficult to recognize because it operates informally, through reputation, title, longevity, and deference rather than constitutional power.

Masonry Already Separates the Chair From Its Authority

Curiously, Freemasonry already contains an example demonstrating that the lessons associated with the Master's Chair can be separated from actual authority.

Within the American York Rite, the Royal Arch Chapter confers the degree of Past Master, commonly distinguished as Virtual Past Master. The degree developed from the historical requirement that a Mason ordinarily had to be an installed or Past Master before receiving the Royal Arch. As Royal Arch Masonry expanded, requiring every candidate actually to have governed a Symbolic Lodge became impractical. The solution was to permit a candidate ceremonially to pass the Chair.

The distinction between an Actual Past Master and a Virtual Past Master is important. The Virtual Past Master receives the degree and its instruction without thereby acquiring the actual authority or standing of a man who has governed a Symbolic Lodge. Contemporary York Rite explanations are explicit that the degree does not confer actual rank upon its recipient.

Hidden inside that old Masonic accommodation is an important principle: Masonry already knows how to separate the lessons of the Chair from the authority of the Chair.

A Virtual Past Master may receive instruction concerning leadership, responsibility, government, and the Master's station without acquiring authority over a Symbolic Lodge. Knowledge of the Chair does not create authority. Symbolic possession of the Chair does not create authority. The title of the degree does not create authority.

Actual authority belongs to the Brother who has actually been entrusted with responsibility.

The comparison works in the opposite direction as well. The Virtual Past Master may possess the lesson without the authority because he never bore the actual responsibility. The former Master should be able to retain the experience without continuing authority because he no longer bears the responsibility.

In both cases, the principle is the same: authority should follow responsibility.

The Shadow East

The failure to maintain that distinction creates one of the most recognizable problems in Lodge culture. Every Lodge is supposed to have one Master, yet a Lodge may contain five, ten, twenty, or more men permanently carrying a title derived from having once occupied that office. Most former Masters handle that distinction with humility. Many become invaluable mentors. Some understand instinctively that the new Master must be permitted to govern, succeed, fail, learn, and eventually surrender the chair himself.

Institutions, however, should not depend entirely upon individual restraint.

Former Masters may gather together in a familiar part of the Lodge room. From there may come corrections, instructions, objections, whispered consultations, reminders of precedent, and declarations about how things have always been done. Individually, any one of those interventions may be helpful. Collectively, however, they can create what might fairly be called a Shadow East.

The Lodge then develops two centers of authority. One is formal and visible: the Brother presently occupying the Oriental Chair. The other is informal but powerful: men carrying the permanent distinction of having occupied that chair before him. The current Master possesses the authority of office; the former Masters possess the influence of title, longevity, experience, and accumulated social standing. In the worst case, the man sitting in the East can find himself presiding over a meeting that is effectively being governed from somewhere else in the room.

This does not require bad intentions. Indeed, that is what makes the problem difficult. A former Master may genuinely believe he is helping. He remembers difficulties encountered during his year. He sees a younger Master approaching what appears to be the same mistake. He intervenes because he wants to protect the Lodge. Yet assistance can become direction, direction can become correction, and correction can become informal governance. The former Master may not even recognize how much additional weight the word “Worshipful” places behind his opinion.

Washington's gesture in 1797 offers a different model. Once Adams was President and Jefferson was Vice President, Washington did not insist upon walking before them because he had once been President. He stepped aside and allowed the current officeholders to precede him. He did not cease knowing how to be President. He did not surrender his experience, reputation, or wisdom. He simply recognized that experience acquired through yesterday's authority did not entitle him to exercise today's authority.

A former Worshipful Master could hardly ask for a more appropriate symbolic lesson.

Brother Should Be Enough

The history of every Lodge should record its Masters. Their photographs may hang upon its walls. Their accomplishments should be remembered. A Past Master's jewel or apron can commemorate service. A Brother who governed his Lodge exceptionally well should be thanked for that service, and the Brethren who follow him should take advantage of whatever wisdom he acquired while doing it.

None of that requires a permanent honorific.

Freemasonry already has a perfectly adequate way to describe the historical fact: a Brother served as Master. The Lodge minutes record it. The annual proceedings record it. The Lodge history records it. Nothing is lost by saying, “Brother Smith served as Master in 2016.” That statement preserves both the Brother and the accomplishment without transforming the accomplishment into a permanent rank.

Consider how unusual the practice appears when applied elsewhere in the Lodge. We do not normally address a man for the rest of his life as Past Senior Deacon. We do not announce Past Treasurer Brother Jones when he enters the dining room. A Brother who served brilliantly as Junior Warden does not receive a permanent honorific commemorating that station. Those were offices. The Brother served in them, completed his work, and another Brother took his place.

Why should the Oriental Chair operate on an entirely different principle?

Perhaps the answer is tradition. But Freemasonry should be particularly cautious about allowing tradition to escape examination merely because it is tradition. Our symbols exist precisely to make us examine ourselves, and one of the most persistent of those symbols is the Level.

What Does Another Apron Add?

That brings us back to perhaps the most difficult symbolic question. Freemasonry places extraordinary significance upon the white lambskin apron. It is presented to the Mason before he has become a Warden, Master, Grand Lodge officer, or anything else. Its significance does not depend upon office. The Mason does not earn it by reaching the East. He receives it because he has become a Mason.

Then we decorate aprons to indicate offices and accomplishments. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Regalia can communicate function and preserve history. The problem begins when decoration is interpreted as elevation in Masonic worth.

If the plain white apron already represents the essential dignity and honor of the Mason, what can a Past Master's apron possibly add to that dignity?

It can add history. It can represent service. It can remind its wearer of responsibility once carried. But it cannot make the Brother beneath it a better Mason. If it does, then we have contradicted the symbolism of the first apron. The Past Master's apron should therefore tell us something about what a Brother did, never something about what he is.

The same must be true of the title. When “Past Master” merely records service, it is history. When “Worshipful” causes one Brother's opinion to carry greater weight because of an office he once held, it has become status. When that status allows a Brother who no longer carries the responsibility of office to exercise disproportionate influence over the Brother who does, the Craft should ask whether its customs have begun working against its symbols.

Abolish the Title, Not the History

Perhaps Freemasonry should therefore do something radical precisely because it is traditional in spirit: abolish “Past Master” as a permanent honorific while preserving everything worthwhile that the term currently represents. Keep the records, photographs, jewels, and commemorative aprons. Preserve the history. Seek the counsel of experienced former Masters. Honor extraordinary service. Nothing about abolishing a permanent title requires forgetting a Brother's work.

But when a Master's term expires, let the title expire with it. Yesterday he was Worshipful Master. Today he is Brother. Nothing meaningful has been taken from him. The experience remains. The lessons remain. The friendships remain. The record of his service remains. What disappears is only the suggestion that yesterday's office confers today's elevated status or that yesterday's knowledge carries authority simply because of the title attached to the man who possesses it.

Theodore Roosevelt believed that leaving the presidency meant becoming “exactly like any other man in private life.” George Washington, himself a Worshipful Master, surrendered the presidency and physically yielded precedence to the men who now occupied the offices of President and Vice President. John Adams looked beyond his own presidency and saw himself becoming a “private Citizen” and “Brother Farmer.” Within the York Rite, the Virtual Past Master degree itself preserves the distinction between possessing the lessons associated with the Chair and possessing actual authority to govern.

These examples point toward the same principle. Knowledge may survive office. Experience should survive office. Wisdom should survive office. Respect should survive office. But authority and responsibility belong together, and when responsibility passes to another Brother, the authority associated with it should pass with it.

A Mason enters the Lodge as a Brother. He may advance through its offices and eventually be entrusted with the Oriental Chair. For a season, the Brethren call him Worshipful Master, not because he has become inherently greater than they are, but because they have entrusted him with greater responsibility. Then his season ends. He steps down from the East, another Brother assumes the chair, and the former Master meets him upon the Level.

Perhaps the final lesson of the Oriental Chair is not learning how to acquire a title, but learning how to surrender one.

You Can Only Tap Your Helmet So Many Times: Baseball and Judgment

Baseball gives you time to think. There is space between pitches, between batters and between innings, and during all that apparent inactivity, decisions are constantly being made. Swing or take. Send the runner or hold him. Charge the ball or play the bounce. Challenge the umpire or save the challenge for later. Baseball is filled with judgment calls, but judgment rarely ends with a single decision. One call changes the circumstances of the next, and that decision changes what is possible after that. A questionable choice may not reveal itself immediately; sometimes its consequences only become apparent several decisions later, after the effects have compounded. Get a little off course early enough, and by the time you recognize it, you may be a long way from where you intended to go. That is the difficult thing about judgment: you have to make the call when the call is yours to make, knowing that what you decide now may determine what choices you still have later.

Of the 26 baseball games I’ve seen this season, this was my third at Angel Stadium. Along the way I’ve been to Dodger Stadium, seen the Fresno Grizzlies, the Tower Buzzers, the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes and the Lake Elsinore Storm. Major League, minor league—it hasn’t mattered much. I’ve watched a lot of baseball and had a good time doing it. Somewhere along the way, though, I’ve also started appreciating the pace of the game differently. Baseball gives you enough time to watch something happen and then sit there and think about what you just watched. Spend enough time in a ballpark and eventually you start seeing a little bit of life reflected back at you.

My third trip to Angel Stadium turned out to be a pretty good lesson in judgment, and the first call happened before I ever left home. My new favorite ticket app has become SeatGeek. I had been buying most of my tickets through MLB, but lately I’ve started going back and forth between the two, watching prices and waiting until fairly close to game time before buying. There is some risk in that. The seat you want can disappear. The price can go down, but it can also go up. You can wait yourself into a bargain or wait yourself right out of one.

In fact, I was sitting in a Zoom meeting with SeatGeek open, keeping an eye on the tickets. I found a seat I liked, and there was a similar one available for $21 less. I didn’t jump on it right away. By the time I went back, the cheaper seat was gone, so my hesitation had cost me $21. It wasn’t exactly a catastrophe. I still ended up with a great price and the best seat I’ve ever had at Angel Stadium: a field-level aisle seat about six rows back, just to the right-field side of home plate, with a clear view all the way down the first-base line. Even after paying the extra $21, I paid about what an average Dodger ticket might cost me in the upper part of the loge.

SeatGeek also came through on preferred parking. What normally costs around $35 cost me $12. So before the first pitch had even been thrown, I had already seen both sides of waiting. Waiting had gotten me a terrific seat at a terrific price, while waiting just a little longer had cost me another $21. Neither fact cancels out the other. That is often how judgment works. The decision itself may be reasonable, but timing matters, and sometimes the consequence of waiting another minute is simply that the circumstances change.

The weather certainly helped. After all the heat we’ve had, Southern California finally cooled off, and by the end of the game it was probably around 69 degrees. Sitting six rows from the field on a cool September evening watching baseball is about as pleasant as it gets.

My ticket included access to the Diamond Club. The food itself wasn’t included, but I deliberately arrived about an hour early because I wanted to look around, see what the club was like and enjoy the stadium before the game. There was a buffet, although I never really investigated it because I saw somebody eating a hamburger that looked really good. I made another judgment call and ordered one.

I sat at the bar with my hamburger and a draft beer and discovered that the bar itself offers a remarkable view. It snakes around toward the field, and at the end you can sit almost sideways and look directly out over the stadium. I probably could have stayed there for the entire game and been perfectly happy. Instead, I stayed about 45 minutes and watched the pregame activities. The beer was fabulously cold, and the hamburger justified my decision. It was exceptional. The fries did not. They were warm rather than hot and weren’t particularly crisp, apparently having spent some time under a heat lamp while the hamburger was freshly prepared. Overall, I gave the meal an 8.5. Not every part of a decision has to work out perfectly for the decision itself to have been a good one.

The pregame activities included a Masons for Mitts presentation, making this the second one I’ve happened upon this season. I saw the other at Dodger Stadium, and I hadn’t bought either ticket because of Masons for Mitts. I simply happened to be there both times. After dinner, I bought a bag of peanuts, found my seat and settled in for the game.

Two guys sitting behind me appeared to be about my age, and they were serious statistics guys. They quietly discussed the numbers on virtually every player who came to the plate. It was like having two additional broadcasters sitting directly behind me, and I actually enjoyed listening to them. Baseball has always been a game for people who like numbers, history, arguments and judgment, and there was plenty of judgment to go around that night.

The Mariners demonstrated that early with the ABS challenge system. By the end of the third inning, they had used both of their challenges on ball-and-strike calls, and they had lost both. At the time, each challenge presumably seemed worth making. A batter believed the umpire had missed a pitch, and he had a mechanism available to question the call, so he used it. Twice Seattle made that judgment, twice the umpire was proved right, and the challenges were gone.

The interesting thing was that those decisions didn’t appear especially important when they were made. It was early in the game. There was plenty of baseball left. But judgment has a way of rolling forward. What you decide in the third inning can determine what options you have in the eighth, even though you have no idea in the third what the eighth inning is going to look like.

By the eighth, Seattle could have used those challenges.

From where I was sitting, the home-plate umpire suddenly seemed very generous to the Angels pitcher, and I wasn’t alone in thinking so. Pitches that looked clearly outside the strike zone were being called strikes, and people throughout my section were reacting to them. Three times I watched a Mariners batter instinctively reach up and touch his helmet to signal a challenge, only to remember that there were no challenges left. The gesture itself told the story. Hand toward the helmet, hesitation, realization. Something decided five innings earlier had just changed what he could do now.

It also seemed to me—and this is nothing more than the perception of one guy sitting six rows behind the plate—that once Seattle had no challenges remaining, the umpire became a little more comfortable widening the strike zone to his own comfort zone. Maybe the electronic system would have upheld every one of those calls. We’ll never know, because the Mariners had already used their opportunities to ask the question.

That may be one of the most interesting things about the ABS challenge system. Baseball itself is still getting accustomed to the idea that the umpire’s judgment on balls and strikes can be questioned in real time. For generations, the umpire called the pitch and that was essentially the end of it. You could complain, but eventually you had to get back in the batter’s box. Now technology gives a player a limited opportunity to ask whether the umpire got it right.

The obvious lesson would be to use your challenges wisely, but I don’t think that means simply saving them. A challenge that is never used isn’t worth anything either. Maybe those two early pitches really did look wrong to the Mariners hitters. At that moment, with the information they had, challenging the calls may have seemed exactly right. You cannot make a third-inning decision with eighth-inning information.

That is the problem with judgment. You have to use it before you know everything you would like to know.

The consequence comes later. Use a challenge now and you don’t have it later. Pass on an opportunity now and it may not exist when you come back. Make a small correction early and perhaps nothing more comes of it. Fail to make one, and like an airplane traveling a degree or two off course, the farther you go, the greater the distance becomes between where you are and where you intended to be. The original error may have been tiny. Distance compounds it.

That doesn’t mean the lesson is to become afraid of making decisions. Quite the opposite. The Mariners had challenges for a reason, and at some point they had to decide whether to use them. Judgment isn’t about somehow knowing the future. It is about making the best call you can when the call is yours to make, understanding that the decision will become part of the circumstances surrounding the next one.

And once the challenges are gone, touching your helmet doesn’t bring them back. You still have to stand in the batter’s box, deal with the strike zone you’ve been given and play the next pitch. There isn’t much value in spending the eighth inning wishing you had made a different decision in the third.

Judgment continued to shape the game. There was a hot ball down to third that I thought the third baseman should have handled, but the official scorer didn’t give him an error. Later, a ball got out to center field and bounced off the wall when I thought the center fielder should have picked it up. That play helped the Mariners score their one run. Were they errors? I thought so. The official scorer apparently didn’t. They were more judgment calls, the sort of small decisions that fill a baseball game and help shape what happens next.

That is part of the pleasure of watching baseball from a great seat. Television gives you instant replay, multiple camera angles, a strike-zone box and professional commentators explaining what they think happened. Six rows from the field, you get something different. You see the play develop in front of you, hear everybody around you react and make your own judgment about what you just saw. Sometimes the official scorer agrees with you, sometimes he doesn’t, and sometimes an entire section appears to disagree with the home-plate umpire.

From that close, though, you don’t just see baseball differently. You hear it differently. I could hear every pitch slap into the catcher’s mitt. Television microphones pick up that sound, but from six rows away it has a sharpness and immediacy that a television speaker simply doesn’t reproduce. At one point Mike Trout broke his bat, and the crack of the wood was incredible. It wasn’t the familiar sound of bat meeting ball. It was the unmistakable crack of wood breaking under tremendous force, and from where I was sitting it seemed to explode into the stadium.

There is also something about that part of Angel Stadium that seems to collect sound. Sitting near home plate felt almost like being at the bottom of a canyon. The sounds didn’t simply come from one direction and disappear; they seemed to swirl around that part of the ballpark. When the crowd cheered, the sound rolled around you. When thousands of people booed an umpire’s call, you were sitting inside the boo. When something went wrong and the crowd collectively groaned, the sound seemed to come from everywhere at once.

That collective reaction is part of what makes being at a baseball game so different from watching one on television. Thousands of people can see the same pitch or the same ball leave the bat and, within a fraction of a second, reach the same judgment. Nobody organizes it and nobody gives a signal. Thousands of individual reactions become one sound that rolls through the stadium. Television can show you a baseball game, but at the ballpark you are inside one. You hear the mitt, the breaking bat, the cheers, the boos and the groans. You hear the statistics guys behind you and the people around you disputing the strike zone. For three hours, thousands of strangers become a temporary community watching the same patch of grass and dirt and deciding what they think just happened.

The Angels eventually won the game, ending it with a double play. One moment the Mariners still had possibilities, and a few seconds later two outs had been recorded and everybody was getting up to leave. All those little decisions, pitches, swings, calls, challenges and plays had accumulated into a final result.

Then it was my turn to make one more judgment call.

I’ve parked in that preferred lot before, and normally I leave the same general way I came in. I know the route. It takes me toward the freeway, down and around, and eventually back to the 57. This time, however, I saw a stream of cars taking what appeared to be a shortcut. They were getting out faster than I was, and I decided they must know something I didn’t.

So I followed them. It actually did get me out of the parking lot faster, but unfortunately it dumped me onto Orange Grove going away from the 57. Instead of simply leaving the way I knew worked, I had to go completely around the stadium to get myself pointed back toward the freeway. Nobody made me follow those cars, and at the moment I made the decision it looked perfectly reasonable. Other people appeared to know a quicker route. Then reality supplied some additional information.

Driving around Angel Stadium, I realized I had made my own version of an unsuccessful ABS challenge. The Mariners thought two pitches had been called incorrectly and used their challenges. I thought a line of cars knew a better way home and followed them. Earlier, I thought I could wait a little longer to buy my ticket and watched the cheaper seat disappear. None of those decisions was ridiculous when it was made. Each was a judgment based on the information available at that moment. What made them interesting was what happened afterward.

Maybe that is what baseball has been giving me time to think about during these 26 games. Judgment doesn’t happen as a series of isolated choices. It rolls down a line. One decision alters the circumstances of the next. A small mistake may not look like much when it happens, but its effects can compound. Sometimes you don’t even recognize the importance of the first call until several calls later, when you discover that an option you once had is no longer available.

Good judgment, then, cannot mean always making the right decision. Nobody has enough information to do that. It means making the best call you can when the decision is yours, recognizing that the call will have consequences, and paying attention to where those consequences are taking you. If you discover you are a degree off course, correct it while the correction is still small. If the decision cannot be undone, stop trying to relitigate it and make the next decision from where you actually are.

That may be the lesson worth taking out of the ballpark. Use your challenges when you believe they matter because challenges are meant to be used, but understand that every challenge spent changes what you will have available later. If you use one and you’re wrong, learn something from it. If you use them both and they’re gone, quit reaching for a challenge you no longer have. Adjust to the strike zone, stay in the batter’s box and play the next pitch.

That is one of the things I’ve come to enjoy most about baseball this season. The game moves slowly enough to let you notice how many small judgments are constantly being made. Swing or take. Run or hold. Challenge or save it. Charge the ball or play the bounce. Call it a hit or an error. Buy the ticket or wait another few minutes. Follow the crowd out of the parking lot or stick with the route you know. None of those decisions seems particularly profound by itself, but put enough of them together and they determine a baseball game. Put enough small judgments together, and they have a way of determining a life, too.

Maybe that is why baseball gives us so much time between pitches. It gives us a chance not merely to think about the last one, but to notice where all the previous ones have brought us before the next one comes.

As for my third trip to Angel Stadium, I got the best seat I’ve had there, a good hamburger, an exceptionally cold beer, a beautiful September evening and an Angels victory. I heard every pitch hit the mitt, heard Mike Trout break a bat, sat inside the cheers and boos of a baseball crowd, questioned the umpire and the official scorer, watched the Mariners use up their challenges and then wish they had them back, and finally made my own bad call trying to get out of the parking lot.

I even paid an extra $21 for the lesson.

Third time’s the charm.

Six Voices from the Sidelines: The Problem with Masonic Prompting

“I thought Brother Williams knew his ritual rather well tonight.”

“He did.”

“Then why were six Past Masters whispering every word from the sidelines?”

“Quality control.”

That was the joke in a recent installment of my Two British Guys series. Like most good Masonic humor, it works because there is enough truth buried inside it to make us uncomfortable. If you have spent much time in a lodge, you have probably witnessed some version of it. A Brother pauses during the ritual. Somewhere on the sidelines a Past Master whispers the next word. Then another Brother does the same. Perhaps a third joins in with a slightly different word. Within seconds, the man who may simply have been taking a breath is receiving assistance from half the room.

You can watch the original Reel here:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1605239444582930

The comments that followed the Reel made something clear: Masons recognize the problem. We laugh because we have seen it, and some of us have probably done it. But there is more going on here than a joke about Past Masters. There are questions about how we learn ritual, how we teach it, when assistance becomes interference, and ultimately how the Master and officers coach exercise leadership in the lodge.

Why Good Ritualists Whisper

I don't believe most sideline prompting is an attempt to show off. Quite the opposite. Usually the Brother whispering the word is trying to help. Think about how we learn ritual. We repeat it. We say it aloud. We retrieve it from memory and say it again. After enough years, listening to another Brother perform a familiar passage can become almost impossible without following along in your own head. Sometimes your lips move. Sometimes the words come out.

A ritualist who knows the work well may follow another Brother word for word, anticipating what comes next because he has said those same words hundreds of times himself. When the ritualist hesitates, the instinct to supply the next word can be almost automatic. Most of the time the Brother on the sidelines is right. Sometimes he isn't, and that is where the trouble begins.

A Pause Is Not a Plea for Help

One of the first things we should teach an officer is that silence is not failure. A Brother may pause because he is gathering his thoughts, controlling his breathing, deliberately slowing himself down, or allowing an important sentence to settle before continuing. He may simply need another second to retrieve the next phrase. The experienced ritualist on the sidelines recognizes the hesitation and thinks, He's lost it. Then comes the whispered word.

Not every silence needs to be rescued.

An unsolicited prompt can actually create another problem. The ritualist was searching his own memory, and now someone has inserted a word into that process. If another voice supplies something slightly different, the Brother suddenly has to decide which voice to trust while simultaneously trying to remember where he was. What began as assistance becomes interference. Six knowledgeable Past Masters do not make six times the prompter; they make six competing voices.

Start by Getting the Words Right

The long-term solution begins well before the degree. When I served as an officers coach, I believed in doing a read-through. Take the officers somewhere appropriately private, sit down, and read through the degree together. This is not the time to demonstrate how much anyone has memorized. It is the time to make sure everyone understands what the words actually are.

Let the younger officers hear experienced ritualists pronounce unfamiliar words correctly while they see the words themselves. Work through unusual vocabulary and awkward phrases before someone spends weeks committing an error to memory. The objective is to establish a sound foundation before the individual work of memorization begins. Once something has been memorized incorrectly, correcting it means undoing work that has already been done.

After that, memorization belongs primarily to the officer. An officers coach can help, answer questions, listen, and correct, but he cannot put in someone else's hours. When I coached officers, I wanted rehearsal time spent largely on the things that required us to be together: floor work, positioning, timing, coordination, presentation, and the relationship between the words and the movement. Memorization required many hours of individual work, and that work was part of accepting the responsibility of becoming an officer.

One Prompter

The immediate solution to sideline prompting is considerably simpler: designate one prompter. I've done this both as Master and as an officers coach. Before the work begins, everyone should know who the prompter is. More importantly, the officers performing the ritual should know where that Brother will be sitting and how to ask him for assistance.

When I need a word, I look at my prompter. That look means something: I need you. Until then, leave me alone. I may know exactly where I am. I may deliberately be pausing. I may be taking a breath because I know that I have a tendency to speak too quickly. Give me the opportunity to continue before deciding that I need to be rescued.

This should be practiced during rehearsals as well. Teach the officer that getting momentarily lost is not a catastrophe. Stop, look at the designated prompter, receive what you need, and continue. If officers learn that process during rehearsal, there is considerably less reason for panic when it happens during a degree. More importantly, everyone in the room understands who is responsible for helping and when that help should be offered.

Knowing the Ritual Is Not the Same as Knowing How to Prompt

Experience taught me something else: the Brother who knows the ritual best is not automatically the best prompter. I have asked very knowledgeable ritualists to prompt and discovered that they could perform the work beautifully themselves but had difficulty helping someone else through it. Knowing the work and following another person closely enough to help him at exactly the right moment are different skills.

A good prompter must follow another person's delivery closely enough to know exactly where he is while distinguishing between an intentional pause and genuine distress. When assistance is actually requested, he must know precisely what comes next and provide only enough information to get the ritualist moving again. This becomes especially difficult during longer lectures. Let your attention drift for a few seconds, and the lecturer may choose precisely that moment to look at you for help. Now there are two Brothers trying to remember what comes next.

That is why choosing the prompter deserves more thought than simply asking who knows the ritual. The question should be who can follow another Brother's work patiently, remain attentive, recognize when assistance is genuinely needed, and provide that assistance without becoming part of the performance. The best prompter may be the Brother you barely hear all evening.

Teach Officers How to Be Prompted

We spend considerable time teaching officers what to say and where to stand, but we should also teach them what to do when something goes wrong. Prompting should not be an emergency procedure invented in the middle of a degree. It should be part of rehearsal.

An officer should know that if he loses his place, he can stop, collect himself, and look toward the designated prompter. He should also learn that a moment of silence is preferable to panic. There is nothing inherently wrong with pausing for a second or two. In fact, an officer who knows that silence will not immediately produce a chorus from the sidelines may become a better ritualist because he becomes more comfortable with deliberate pacing.

There is a corresponding lesson for the sidelines. Experienced Masons need to learn that knowing the next word does not create an obligation to say it. Sometimes the discipline demanded of the man listening is every bit as important as the discipline demanded of the man speaking.

Then Enforce It

Of course, announcing that there is one prompter does no good if six other Brothers continue whispering from the sidelines. This is where the problem stops being principally about ritual and becomes a matter of leadership. The Master and officers coach have to establish the standard and enforce it consistently.

That does not require embarrassing a Brother in front of the lodge. Most of these men are sincerely trying to help, and their experience should be respected. My preference has always been an old leadership principle: praise in public and criticize in private. If a Brother continues prompting after someone else has been designated, speak with him afterward. Tell him that you know he is trying to help, but several people supplying words creates confusion and undermines the system the officers have practiced.

The correction respects the Brother's intention while addressing his behavior. But the standard has to mean something. If the Master announces one prompter and then allows everyone else to continue prompting anyway, he has not established a system. He has merely made an announcement.

When Help Becomes Interference

There is a larger leadership lesson hidden inside this very Masonic problem. Organizations are filled with knowledgeable people who want to help, and a lodge should treasure the Past Masters and experienced ritualists sitting on its sidelines. Their knowledge represents years, sometimes decades, of accumulated experience. The question is not whether that experience has value. The question is how and when it should be used.

Good leadership establishes who is responsible, when assistance is appropriate, how that assistance will be requested, and who should provide it. Everyone else then has a responsibility of his own: trust the system and allow the person doing the work the opportunity to do it. That can be difficult for someone who knows exactly how he would perform the task himself, but restraint is also a form of discipline.

This raises a worthwhile question beyond ritual. How often in lodge life does well-intentioned help become interference? A Past Master may have years of experience to offer, but there is a difference between making that experience available and stepping into another Brother's responsibility. Sometimes leadership means getting more people involved. At other times it means helping good people understand when their involvement is making someone else's job harder.

Six Voices from the Sidelines

Which brings us back to those six Past Masters. Every one of them probably knows the ritual. Every one of them probably wants the officer to succeed. Every one of them probably believes he is helping. That is precisely why the joke works, but it is also why the problem deserves more than a laugh.

Good ritual requires preparation from the officer, attention from the prompter, discipline from the sidelines, and leadership from the East. The officer has to do the work necessary to know his part. The prompter has to remain attentive without inserting himself unnecessarily. The experienced Brothers on the sidelines have to resist the natural temptation to help simply because they know the words. And the Master and officers coach have to create a system in which everyone understands his role.

There is a lesson in that for all of us who have accumulated enough years in the Craft to know most of the words. Experience gives us something valuable to contribute, but perhaps experience should also teach us when contribution is unnecessary. There are times when the younger Brother needs our instruction, times when he needs our encouragement, and times when he simply needs enough room to find the next word for himself.

Sometimes the most helpful word a Past Master can offer during ritual is the one he decides not to say.