Through Love and Harmony​

By Dimitri Criswell ’25

Each week during Upper School chapel, a member of the community gives the homily.
These are often powerful and personal reflections on their life experiences.

Good morning. My name is Dimitri Criswell, and I am a senior.

Throughout our lives, on various questionnaires and surveys, we have all seen the question “What are some of your favorite hobbies or interests?” One response has been my go-to longer than anything else. Baseball. I love baseball. My love for baseball stems from before I was in kindergarten. Five-year-old me went from probably not knowing anything about baseball to becoming obsessed with it in a very short amount of time, quickly cheering for my new favorite team, the Nationals, and picking Bryce Harper as my favorite player. I went to my first Nats game in the summer of 2012, and little me was certainly transformed forever. Baseball became my favorite thing in the world. Anytime I had to draw or write about something of my choice in school, I always chose baseball.

My connection to baseball has had another important component to it. Five-year-old me was so happy to find out that not only could I watch and talk about baseball, I could sign up for tee-ball and play. From that point on, every time spring rolled around, I was excited to get my baseball bag out to go play. Once I was old enough, I moved from tee-ball to machine pitch, and eventually, from machine pitch to kid pitch, where I fell in love with becoming a pitcher. Playing baseball had become one of the highlights of my life at the time.

However, this wouldn’t last forever. In seventh grade, I was excited to play baseball on the school’s team, but being around the eighth graders during practices caused to me to lose some of my confidence.  Ultimately, I ended up feeling disappointed when I made the B team. But I didn’t have time to let that sink in, because COVID hit and canceled that season and the next. So, by ninth grade, I was even more excited to play baseball, as I hadn’t truly been able to play it in a few years. I had practiced my swing and form at home in my backyard, and felt prepared for tryouts. Or at least I thought I was.

The happy baseball story of my childhood ended abruptly on the first day of tryouts. Despite being relatively tall, I felt small compared to the upperclassmen around me and even among the other freshmen. Everyone around me looked like this was just a routine practice, while I was worrying about every little thing I was doing, or more accurately, what I wasn’t doing. I wasn’t hitting well at all, I wasn’t very clean in the field, and I lacked confidence in all aspects of the game. Worst of all, as I realized how much I was struggling, the pressure of being cut grew greater and greater. There was an unusually high number of people trying out—so many, that several cuts would have to be made. Baseball went from something I looked forward to all year to something I dreaded every day during that cruel week of tryouts and looming cuts.

Finally, one night, I talked to my dad, and even though they say “there’s no crying in baseball,” I sat with him and started crying. I told him that I didn’t know if I wanted to continue through the rest of the tryouts, because of how bad I felt about everything. Deep down, my love for baseball was trying to fight its way through, but the pressure that I was feeling from my lack of confidence and lack of ability was keeping that love hidden. But that night, after crying on the couch with my dad, I decided I would keep going.

I ended up making the JV team. But despite going out there every day, trying my hardest to improve, taking in every piece of advice, and attempting to emulate everything good that my teammates did, I remained, frankly, awful at baseball.

To illustrate this, although baseball has a lot of numbers and stats, I’d say that most people will understand the number zero. That was the total number of hits I got in all of freshman year. I didn’t start games often, I was an inconsistent fielder in the outfield, and I was terrible at hitting, to the point where I felt like I was essentially a guaranteed strikeout. No matter how hard I tried, it felt like nothing worked out for me. I was awful at everything I had previously loved about playing baseball. So, when sophomore year came around, it might be surprising to hear that I signed up for baseball again in a heartbeat.

Why did I still love baseball despite just how terrible I was at it? Why did I want to continue playing after such an atrocious season? Well, while I didn’t love being awful at baseball, I found a new source of love from playing the game, because no matter how awful I was doing, my teammates never let me down.

My teammates made me feel like I was a part of something special, and I definitely would consider that team to be special. If I had to pick one word to describe the JV baseball team, I would first say the word laughter. We laughed each and every day. In the locker room, in the dugout, and on the field, whether we won or lost. We laughed for lots of reasons, whether it was someone marking their territory by spitting on home plate or using eyeblack to look like a cat and meowing during warmups.

If I had to choose another word to describe the team, it would be brotherhood. Beyond using the word brotherhood to end our mound visit chants, “Saints on 3, Brotherhood on 6,” I felt like I was a part of a true brotherhood with that team. I had a family that would always cheer me on from the dugout when I went to bat, even if they knew I wouldn’t get a hit. A family that would continue to make me laugh and include me no matter how many times I struck out or made an error. My teammates weren’t able to make me a better baseball player, but they made sure that my struggles didn’t define my love for playing the game. I grew to realize that it was my teammates who really shaped the love I had for the game. Their ability to uplift me and make me enjoy being on the team by just being themselves each and every day, no matter how hard I struggled, renewed my love for baseball when I couldn’t renew it on my own.

One day towards the end of my sophomore season, the magical moment finally came. I swung at a pitch, hit it in play, and saw it land in the outfield for a single for my first hit of high school. However, when I think back on my first hit, I don’t think about all the struggles and hard work that had led me to that point, now two seasons in. Instead, I remember running to first while hearing my teammates cheering for me in the dugout, because they knew what just happened. I don’t remember if we won the game or what the score was, but I do remember kneeling with the team after the game and Will Evans giving me his honorary game ball for getting my first hit.

In today’s reading, Paul talks about the importance of being devoted to others in love, and particularly, to share and be in harmony with those around you, even if they are in a lower position than you. The reason I came to love baseball despite my struggles was because my teammates embodied this very message. Every day they went out to the field, ready to spread joy, laughter, and love to everyone—and as Paul urges in the reading, they still shared their love and harmony with me even though I was in a lower position than them in terms of my capabilities. The fact that I couldn’t get a hit until my sophomore year, couldn’t track fly balls very well in the outfield, and couldn’t necessarily produce for the team as much as they wish I could didn’t stop my teammates from making me feel loved as one of them.

We will all experience things in our lives that we will struggle with, and things that don’t go to plan. As we do, it’s important to recognize the things or the people who spread joy and love and help us get through these struggles, even if they can’t solve the problem itself. For me, it was my JV baseball teammates who fostered my love for baseball by making me happy to go out and play every day as a member of the team, no matter how hard I was struggling.

I am thankful to all the guys from those JV teams for how they made me feel, and I urge you all to thank those in your lives who have had similar impacts. More importantly though, I urge all of you to be the person that helps others through their struggles. Be the person who can spread love and joy to someone who can’t find it on their own, just by being yourself. Be like the teammates who cheered me on, made me laugh, and made me feel a part of the team no matter how badly I was doing. I will forget the many strikeouts, errors, and missed throws that I endured, but I will never forget the way my teammates made me feel. They will forever remain a key part of my love for baseball, which is now stronger than ever. Amen.