Take the dugout

Our family spends a good amount of time on the baseball field each summer. I played college baseball and one of my sons shares my love of the game. His team was playing in this massive tournament in Georgia with 360+ teams from all over the country. During the tournament they had to play the number two team in the nation. And that team had the number one hitter in the country. Our team is fired up (and also absolutely terrified) they are excited to see what they can do against the number two team. Now this fancy team they are playing is so fancy when our team lands at the field they notice even the dugout has the other teams name permanently painted all over its walls, its exterior and even inside.

The boys were impressed and nervous. One of our players looks around and boldly addresses the team and says, "Let’s take their dugout!” 

The young men go nuts and take the dugout. The other team arrives and as you can imagine they are not as excited. The opposing team gets fired up and tries to get our boys to leave their dugout.

Our team says, “No. We’re not moving.” Both teams walk down the first base line to right field to stretch and warm up. Both teams are yapping at each other. Our team is holding their ground as they are stretching with the opposing team. 

The battle for the dugout is underway.

Now there was a little skirmish but nothing to crazy. We have been playing ball with these families for years and these are strong Christian families raising wonderful young men.

Emotions are high, nerves are higher, the opposing coach is in a full-blown tizzy and instead of getting his team ready for the game he and his team were distracted by this dugout debacle.

Eventually they resolved the situation the umpire yells, “play ball!”

The game starts and we are hanging with this team the whole game. Our starting pitcher throws lights out. He struck out the #1 hitter in the nation twice. In the bottom of the seventh when the last out was called we were up by one run, and our pack of underdogs won the game. 

The opposing team told our boys that when we took their dugout it messed with them. It got in their heads.

We have a lot to learn from these young players and we all have areas in our lives where we need to take the dugout. 

There is a story in the bible I was immediately reminded of as I watched the dugout debacle of 2025 go down live this summer. You can dig deep into it in the Old Testament book of Joshua (Joshua 1:1-9). Here we find another fascinating exchange. In this one God tells Joshua (paraphrase mine): See all of that land?! It’s yours but you have to go in and take it. God tells Joshua not once, not twice, but three times to be strong and very courageous as God gives Joshua an incredible pre-game pep talk before he and the Israelites take the promise land. 

As fathers there can be a lot of things vying for our attention. We invite you to name your dug out and make preparations to take it. 

Maybe you just need a minute. Maybe you need to take a breath and lay something down for just a week or so and then come back to it.

Maybe you need to do something that you know should be done but you also know it might make someone else uncomfortable. 

Maybe you need to stop copying other people and forge your own way.

you know the dugout you need to take.

If there was a message I was asked to write to fathers right now in this moment, I would say, take the dugout, friend. 

[This story is an excerpt from Upstream's New Fatherhood Initiative. Be on the lookout for our Fatherhood Initiative – Coming soon]