AI, Baseball, & the Game of Life

A new baseball season has just started, and this year there is a major change in the old song. It should now be sung like this:

Take me out to the ball game

Take me out to the crowd.

Buy me an AI program with speed and skill.

Umpires and managers are over the hill.

For it’s “challenge” the call for the home team.

If it’s not overturned, that’s a shame

For it’s only two bad challenges that you get

at the old ball game.

I can hear some of you saying, “Wait a minute! What happened to the peanuts and cracker jacks in the song? And isn’t it ‘one, two, three strikes you’re out at the old ball game?’”

Well, in the new season, I guess you will be able to buy peanuts and cracker jacks at the ballpark. Also, hitters will still have three strikes before they are out. But how those balls and strikes are called will be really different this year.

In the past, there has been a human umpire behind the catcher at home plate, and the umpire has had the sole authority to rule whether or not a pitch was a ball or a strike. This year in Major League Baseball there will still be an umpire behind home plate, but the catcher, pitcher, and batter will be able to challenge the umpire‘s call.

If there is a challenge about a pitch, an artificial intelligence program will make the final decision about whether or not the pitch was in the strike zone. Each team will be allowed only two unsuccessful challenges. After two unsuccessful challenges, the right to make more challenges will be taken away from a team for the rest of the game.

In a good number of top tennis tournaments, the line judges have already been replaced by cameras hooked up to artificial intelligence programs. But this is not the end of artificial intelligence innovations that are being introduced into our country’s so-called “national pastime.”

Also this season the Oakland Ballers of the Pioneers League will be the first baseball team to be managed in the game by an artificial intelligence program. I guess it won’t be long before the play-by-play sportscaster will be replaced by an AI program.

With all of these changes, imagine you’re sitting in a baseball stadium—sunlight glinting off the field, a murmur of anticipation in the air. But this is no ordinary game. The coaches aren’t calling all the signals anymore; an artificial intelligence system is analyzing every pitch, adjusting field positions, and predicting each batter’s next move. Statistics, data, and algorithms have joined the dugout.

And yet—despite all the technology—someone still has to step up to the plate. Someone still has to swing. In that, my friends, is the metaphysical lesson.

Artificial intelligence in baseball aims to create precision—to predict outcomes with greater and greater accuracy. It studies past plays, trends, and probabilities to make the best possible decision for the present moment.

But even with perfect data, the unexpected still happens. A curveball drops a little more sharply than forecasted. A rookie surprises everyone with a game-winning hit. Just as in life, no matter how much mental “data” we accumulate, life cannot be fully controlled or computed.

Our metaphysical counterpart to AI’s calculations is the human intellect—the way we analyze, plan, and strategize our own success. Useful, yes. But limited. The intellect is like the coach on the sidelines; the Spirit, the inner Christ consciousness, is the one actually stepping up to bat.

In Unity we teach that every outer circumstance is an expression of our inner state of consciousness. We draw into our experience what corresponds to our dominant thoughts and feelings.

Now think of AI-assisted baseball again. The AI doesn’t play the game—it interprets patterns. But the aliveness, the creativity, the spark that makes the play real—comes from the players themselves.

Likewise, our human “thinking minds” can gather data, analyze experiences, and suggest what might work. But when we align our conscious awareness with Divine Mind—with the infinite wisdom within—we move beyond pattern into presence. That’s when intuition takes the field. Intuition, inspired by Spirit, sees possibilities no algorithm can predict.

Sometimes our minds believe life should follow a certain formula—if I do “X,” I should get “Y.” When it doesn’t, we’re tempted to think we’ve failed. But life, like baseball, is a game of rhythm, flow, and faith.

There are seasons of training, times of waiting, and moments when we step forward not knowing exactly how the next pitch will curve. But we can trust that there is an invisible intelligence—far deeper than any artificial one—guiding us toward our own highest good.

In Unity language, we call this infinite intelligence “Divine Mind.” When we center ourselves in the awareness of our oneness with it, we find peace even when the data doesn’t make sense.

So, whether we find ourselves calculating life’s next move or standing at the plate with nothing but faith and love, let us remember:

• Data informs, but Spirit transforms.

• Intellect calculates, but intuition connects.

• Algorithms search patterns, but soul reveals purpose.

Artificial intelligence may help coaches make better decisions, but Divine Intelligence—expressing through each of us—helps us create lives of authentic meaning, wholeness, and joy.

And as in every good ballgame, we learn that life’s greatest plays happen when we show up, trust the Power within us, and swing—not with fear of striking out, but with joy in simply being part of the Infinite Game.

Many blessings,

Rev. Rick