63 Sermon Illustrations on Baseball

Since 1932, 323 players, managers, executives and umpires have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. What they all have in common is that none of them, not even Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, or Joe DiMaggio, were elected unanimously.

On Tuesday, that changed. Pitcher Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees became the first player elected unanimously to the Baseball Hall of Fame. It’s a fitting tribute to the man Esquire magazine dubbed “the Hammer of God,” for his achievements on the mound.

Now even if you don’t like baseball, you should rejoice with Rivera and his family, because while he may have been God’s “hammer” on the field, he was and remains God’s faithful servant both on and off it.

Rivera was what is known as a “closer.” That means he pitches exclusively in those high-pressure situations when the game’s on the line. He’s expected to “close” the door on the other team. It might sound simple, but any baseball fan will tell you few pitchers, even the most talented ones, can stand up to that kind of pressure for very long.

Rivera did it for seventeen seasons. According to Tim Kurkjian of ESPN, the gap between Rivera and whomever is the second-best closer of all-time is greater than the gap at any other position in baseball history.

That’s part of the reason one former player called Rivera “the most beloved Yankee,” which, given the franchise’s storied history, is saying a lot.

But it’s not the only reason. The other part is Mariano Rivera the man. The Esquire profile said that “He is modest and mild. He is neat and quiet, while other closers are not.” He is regarded as the ultimate “team first” player who summed up his job as “I get the ball, I throw the ball, and then I take a shower.”

Throughout his career, Rivera was as well known for his Christian faith as for his legendary “cut fastball,” which was virtually unhittable even though hitters knew it was coming.

In fact, Rivera will tell you that his faith and his fastball are linked. He claims God gave him the pitch. In his own words, “I do not spend years searching for this pitch. I do not ask for it, or pray for it. All of a sudden it is there, a devastating baseball weapon.”

As “devastating” as that weapon was during the regular season, it was even more so during the playoffs. In sixteen post-seasons, Rivera allowed fewer earned runs than the number of men who have walked on the moon.

Yet he expressed thanks to God for his most high-profile failure, too. In the 2001 World Series, he gave up the run that cost the Yankees the series, but he pointed out that if the Yankees had won, his teammate Enrique Wilson would have been on a flight that ended up crashing and killing everyone on board. Since they didn’t win, Wilson took an earlier flight. “I am glad we lost the World Series,” Rivera said, “because it means that I still have a friend.”

There’s a lot more I could tell you: from the glove inscribed with Phillipians 4:13 to his many charitable endeavors. Then there’s the documentary, “Being: Mariano Rivera,” about his last season that aired on Showtime. In many ways, it was one long testimony to his Christian faith.

It’s gratifying that the first man to be unanimously elected to the Hall of Fame is celebrated as much for his character as for his amazing career. It’s even more inspiring that the first man to be unanimously elected to the Hall of Fame has never been shy about telling others about the One who made both possible.

In an era where the word “hero” is either tossed around haphazardly, debased, or made to seem hopelessly out-of-date, the real deal has received the honor he was due, honor he will undoubtedly ascribe to his God.

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Resources

Mariano Rivera reflects on being the final Baseball Hall of Fame member to wear Jackie Robinson’s No. 42

Dayn Perry | CBSsports.com | January 23, 2019

Mo is 1st in history with unanimous Hall election

Bryan Hoch | MLB.com | January 22, 2019

Mariano Rivera Cries on Mound, Yankee Stadium Farewell

Youtube video | September 26, 2013

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Copyright (c) 2019 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. “BreakPoint” is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

When Bill Veeck, perhaps the most creative promoter that baseball has ever seen, bought the Chicago White Sox in 1975, he hired as coach Minnie Minoso, who starred for the Sox as well as other teams in the 40's, 50's and 60's. Always one for crowd-pleasing events, Veeck decided a year later to play Minoso, who was in his fifties, in several games.

Mike Veeck, Bill's son, recalls seeing Minoso bat in one of those games. "He hit a ground ball, a pitiful, routine, groundball with such a passion, with such a pride. It was stirring, inspirational, just to see him run. The fans gave him a standing ovation."

Minnie Minoso gave it his all, and in so doing made a ground out more inspiring and more significant for others than a home run.

In "How Life Imitates the World Series," Dave Bosewell tells a story about Earl Weaver, former manager of the Baltimore Orioles. Sports fans will enjoy how he handled star Reggie Jackson.

Weaver had a rule that no one could steal a base unless given the steal sign. This upset Jackson because he felt he knew the pitchers and catchers well enough to judge who he could and could not steal off of. So one game he decided to steal without a sign. He got a good jump off the pitcher and easily beat the throw to second base. As he shook the dirt off his uniform, Jackson smiled with delight, feeling he had vindicated his judgment to his manager.

Later Weaver took Jackson aside and explained why he hadn't given the steal sign. First, the next batter was Lee May, his best power hitter other than Jackson. When Jackson stole second, first base was left open, so the other team walked May intentionally, taking the bat out of his hands.

Second, the following batter hadn't been strong against that pitcher, so Weaver felt he had to send up a pinch hitter to try to drive in the men on base. That left Weaver without bench strength later in the game when he needed it.

The problem was, Jackson saw only his relationship to the pitcher and catcher. Weaver was watching the whole game.

We, too, see only so far, but God sees the bigger picture. When he sends us a signal, it's wise to obey, no matter what we may think we know.

Baseball draws analogies with the atonement. Sports fans live through their teams.

1. Those we give our lives to must be good.

2. People give their hearts to the team they live closest to. (Proximity)

3. Vicarious living requires that something important be at stake.

Trust in vicarious benefits is a fundamental part of our make-up. It is an ineradicable belief of the heart that speaks of something more than we understand. We believe, though we cannot explain, that our heroes’ victories are our own. Myth shapes itself around these things. So does baseball, as a kind of myth. The shape itself, the true myth made from eternal deeds, is the death and resurrection of Jesus.

#2039

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We are like fans at a baseball game.

At one particular game, a certain baseball superstar received deafening applause as he walked to the plate. Soon thereafter, he struck out. The crowd's reaction was immediate - they filled the stadium with boos.

The sportscaster said: "The fan asks only one question of his hero - What have you done for me LATELY?"

Let me take you back to the 1924 World Series. The Washington Senators were facing the mighty Brooklyn Dodgers. The Dodgers were expected to win because they were, well, the Dodgers. It went to a seventh game, though. The series was tied three games to three, and the seventh and deciding game was to be played in Washington, D.C. The crowd was absolutely ecstatic about the thought of winning the World Series on home turf. 2- 2 in the ninth inning. The game was tied.

As the Dodgers came up to bat, fans in the crowd knew that if their team could hold Brooklyn scoreless, and then score one run in the bottom of the ninth, they would win the game and the series. The Dodgers came up. The first batters came up to bat and went down in order. The crowd erupted knowing that if the home team just scored one run they would win it all. The Senators came up, though, and the first two batters yielded only two outs. The crowd exhaled a collective sigh.

Then stepped to the plate a young, 24-year-old kid from Salem, New Jersey, named Leon Allen Goslin. Goslin was pretty new to the game, but he would later earn induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame as "Goose" Goslin. He stepped in for his turn at baseball immortality. The pitcher wound up and threw the first pitch. Strike one. The second pitch was strike two. Goslin then stepped out of the batter's box, and heavy shoulders slumped throughout the stands. It looked as if the Senators were going to have to go into extra innings and again hold the mighty Dodgers to no runs. As Goslin stepped back in the box, he looked squarely at the pitcher with resolve on his face. The third and fourth pitches were both balls. Goslin stretched his arms out across the plate and waited for the fifth pitch. As the pitch came, Goslin strode toward the field, swinging with all his might. The ball and the bat connected with a crack, and the ball launched toward the outfield.

Goslin took off for first base. The two outfielders raced back toward the fence, hoping that the ball would not clear the top of the fence, which would end the inning, the game, and the series. As Goslin was headed toward second, the ball went over the outstretched arm of the outfielder, struck the fence about six inches from the top, and bounced back in toward the field of play. As the outfielders reversed their directions and raced after the ball, Goslin was rounding second. The outfielder picked up the ball and threw it toward home and the cut-off man. By this time Goslin was heading toward third, and the third base coach, realizing that this might be his team's best chance to score, frantically waved him on toward home. Goslin rounded third base. The shortstop turned around and threw the ball like a laser toward home plate. It looked like the ball and Goslin were going to arrive at home plate, just like they had left home plate, at the exact same time. But Goslin with a burst of speed from his skinny legs took a wide slide into home plate. Just as the ball was arriving, Goslin slid under the tag. The ball hit the catcher's glove. Goslin was tagged, but it was clear to everyone in the stadium that he had reached home plate prior to the ball.

Before they could erupt in cheering celebration, the home plate umpire yelled in a loud voice, "You're outta there." The crowd stood stunned. Then they began to hurl insults, along with the containers of adult beverages that they had been consuming, onto the field at the umpires. They likely would have crawled over the fences toward them had not the umpires retreated in a group to the back of second base for a conference. The people, believing that everyone else on the umpiring crew saw as clearly as they did that the runner was safe, waited with anticipation for the reversal of the call.

The home plate umpire, after meeting with the other officials, walked to home plate, held up his hands to silence the murmuring crowd, and said this: "The runner is not out because he failed to beat the ball to home plate. The runner is out because he failed to step on first base." Goslin had run so hard through his appointed rounds that he forgot to do first things first and was out. It is easy to get running so fast in our lives that we forget to do the first things, and we end up at the end of life and realize that we're out.

#3585

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Bob was caught up in the spirit where he and the Lord stood by to observe a

baseball game. The Lord's team was playing Satan's team. The Lord's team

was at bat, the score was tied zero to zero, and it was the bottom of the 9th

inning with two outs.

They continued to watch as a batter stepped up to the plate whose name was

Love. Love swung at the first pitch and hit a single, because Love never

fails.

The next batter was named Faith, who also got a single because Faith works

with Love.

The next batter up was named Godly wisdom. Satan wound up and threw the

first pitch; Godly Wisdom looked it over and let it pass, because Godly

Wisdom does not swing at Satan's pitches. Ball one. Three more pitches and

Godly Wisdom walked, because Godly wisdom never swings at Satan's throws.

The bases were loaded.

The Lord then turned to Bob and told him He was now going to bring in His

star player. Up to the plate stepped Grace. Bob said he sure did not look

like much! Satan's whole team relaxed when they saw Grace. Thinking he had

won the game, Satan wound up and fired his first pitch. To the shock of

everyone, Grace hit the ball harder than anyone had ever seen.

But Satan was not worried; his center fielder, the Prince of the air, let

very few get by. He went up for the ball, but it went right through his

glove, hit him on the head and sent him crashing on the ground; then it

continued over the fence for a home run! The Lord's team won.

The Lord then asked Bob if he knew why Love, Faith, and Godly Wisdom could

get on base but could not win the game. Bob answered that he did not know

why. The Lord explained, "If your love, faith and wisdom had won the game

you would think you had done it by yourself. Love, faith and wisdom will get

you on base, but only My grace can get you home. My grace is the one thing

Satan cannot stop."

#4494

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There is an interesting story that is told about the legendary baseball players Hank Aaron and Yogi Berra. Hank Aaron was new to the Major Leagues but was already one of the best homerun hitters in baseball. Yogi Berra was the colorful catcher for the New York Yankees, and they were playing each other in the World Series.

Yogi Berra was famous for distracting batters with his constant chatter. Hank Aaron steps up to the plate -- it was the first time he and Yogi Berra had ever faced each other. Berra starts in on him: "Hank, you're holding the bat all wrong! You're supposed to hold it so that you can read the label."

Aaron ignored him. He then proceeds to hit the first pitch over the fence into the left field bleachers for a homerun. He runs around the bases, comes back to home plate, and says to Yogi: "I didn't come up here to read."

From 1949 to 1958, Pee Wee Reese was captain of baseball's Dodgers. Named not for his size but for playing marbles as a kid with a pee-wee shooter, he was a great shortstop, a daring baserunner, and a superb clutch hitter. He was an eight-time All Star and sparked the Dodgers to seven National League pennants. He fielded the final ground ball in Brooklyn's only World Series championship in 1955. He never earned more than $35,000 playing the game he loved.

During his total of sixteen years on the field for the Dodgers, Reese was respected as a person as well as a ballplayer. His fellow Dodgers called him simply "The Captain" and deferred to his judgment on many a matter. He wasn't good at speeches. His leadership came from inner confidence, integrity, and consistency. His manner had the unpretentious effect of causing people to trust and follow him.

Just back from a three-year stint in the Navy during World War II, Reese had helped win a war against racial intolerance in Europe and was destined to be caught up in fighting the same evil in his own country. His team decided to break the barrier against black players by bringing up a young player named Jackie Robinson.

Some of the Dodger players began circulating a petition in the clubhouse to protest the plan. It said in effect that the players signing it wouldn't play on a team with a black man. Confident that Reese would sign it because he was a Southerner, it was shoved under his nose. "I'm not signing!" he said, and the petition died.

Robinson was with the team for spring training in 1947. Before a game in Cincinnati, just across the river from Reese's native Kentucky, the ugliness was intense. Fans in the stands joined players in the opposing dugout to shout racial slurs at the solitary black man taking infield practice at second base.

Pee Wee Reese raised his arm to halt the team's warmup. He walked from his shortstop position to second base and put his arm around Jackie Robinson's shoulders. That event is viewed as a turning point in the history of baseball. By extension, it was also a major blow against racism in American society.

"Pee Wee kind of sensed the sort of hopeless, dead feeling in me and came over and stood beside me for a while," Robinson recalled. "He didn't say a word, but he looked over at the chaps who were yelling at me . . . and just stared. He was standing by me. I could tell you that."

Sometimes you don't need to say anything to lead. Just be there. Stand for what you know is right. There is an eloquence in actions that words can't equal.

Seems the preacher and his song leader were both avid baseball fans. These guys didn't just [like] baseball, they lived, breathed and [ate] baseball. What time they weren't about church duties, they were attending a game, watching a game on the tube, or coaching a Little League game in the park.

One day, one of them mused about whether there would be baseball in heaven and quite a conversation ensued. Every thing is perfect in heaven, isn't it? We will want for nothing in heaven, will we? [Surely] there will be baseball in heaven!

They finally made a pact that whichever one got to heaven first would somehow try to contact the other and let him know for a fact whether they had baseball.

Well, as it turned out, the preacher died first. A week later he appeared to the song leader in a dream and said, “Well, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is, there is indeed baseball in heaven. The bad news is, you're scheduled to pitch this Saturday.”

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Someone said that encouragement is simply reminding a person of the "shoulders" he's standing on, the heritage he's been given. That's what happened when a young man, the son of a star baseball player, was drafted by one of the minor league teams. As hard as he tried, his first season was disappointing, and by midseason he expected to be released any day.

The coaches were bewildered by his failure because he possessed all the characteristics of a superb athlete, but he couldn't seem to incorporate those advantages into a coordinated effort. He seemed to have become disconnected from his potential.

His future seemed darkest one day when he had already struck out his first time at bat. Then he stepped up to the batter's box again and quickly ran up two strikes. The catcher called a time-out and trotted to the pitcher's mound for a conference. While they were busy the umpire, standing behind the plate, spoke casually to the boy.

Then play resumed, the next pitch was thrown - and the young man knocked it out of the park. That was the turning point. From then on, he played the game with a new confidence and power that quickly drew the attention of the parent team, and he was called up to the majors.

On the day he was leaving for the city, one of his coaches asked him what had caused such a turnaround. The young man replied it was the encouraging remark the umpire had made that day when his baseball career had seemed doomed.

"He told me I reminded him of all the times he had stood behind my dad in the batter's box," the boy explained. "He said I was holding the bat just the way Dad had held it. And he told me, 'I can see his genes in you; you have your father's arms.' After that, whenever I swung the bat, I just imagined I was using Dad's arms instead of my own."

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by Barbara Johnson (c) 1998, from Chicken Soup for the Sports Fan's Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Jim Tunney and Mark and Chrissy Donnelly.

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In a much-hoped-against development, drug test results have shown cocaine use to be the cause of Darrell Porter's death August 5, 2002. Porter, age 50, the 1982 World Series Most Valuable Player who later became known for overcoming drug abuse, died accidentally from the "toxic effects of cocaine," a Kansas City-area medical examiner announced Aug. 12 in a news conference.

Porter's family released a statement through one of the baseball player's former teammates, Jerry Terrell, stating, "For 22 years, Darrell remained sober. The fact that he failed shows the evil of drugs and the power of the disease. His death is now an even stronger case against the drugs that are prevalent in our society.... Right now we are grieving the loss of someone we loved very much. Please pray for us!"

Porter is survived by his wife Deanne and three children, Lindsey, 20, Jeff, 18, and Ryan, 14. The family had joined the Kansas City-area First Baptist Church, Blue Springs, Missouri, church in recent years.

Ted Stone, a drug abuse speaker and author who has spoken in Southern Baptist churches across the country, who had never met Porter, told Baptist Press Aug. 13 that Christians "can certainly develop drug problems," and some might mistakenly believe they can experiment with drugs without any lasting consequence.

"Darrell Porter's recent tragic death is a reminder to all of us of just how dangerous even a casual venture into the drug world can be," said Stone, of Durham, N.C., himself a former drug addict. "For those of us who have survived and overcome our past involvements in drug abuse, this tragedy should be a graphic reminder that a return to that sad world must never be an option."

Staying clear of drugs, Stone said, entails "a serious dependence on the Lord" of greater appeal than drugs. "The more we get hooked into doing God's will rather than our will, the better our chance for permanent recovery," he said. "It's when we start depending on ourselves that we fall." Stone added, "For those overcomers who have publicly sounded the alarm about the dangers of drug abuse, this event should remind us that we stand on pedestals, and the world depends on us for renewed examples of lifestyles free from drug abuse. Someone, somewhere trusts in each of us, and we must be true to that trust."

Young, in his news conference about the drug test results, recounted that Porter's blood had a level of cocaine "consistent with recreational use" but not so "abnormally high" as to be described an overdose. Young said Porter apparently was killed by a cocaine-caused condition, "excited delirium," which the medical examiner described as involving high body temperatures and "agitated, bizarre" behavior and capable of stopping a person's heart. In Porter's case, Young said, the excited delirium was worsened by an enlarged heart and high heat and humidity Aug. 5.

Young said it was not clear whether Porter had used cocaine over an extended period of time or just when he used the dose that took his life.

In addition to boosting the St. Louis Cardinals to the 1982 World Series title and being named MVP, Porter won the same honor in the league championship series that year. During a 17-year major league career, Porter played in two other World Series, one with the Cardinals and one with the Kansas City Royals, and was a two-time All Star.

He checked himself into an Arizona drug rehab center in 1980 and later wrote a book, "Snap Me Perfect! The Darrell Porter Story," about overcoming drug abuse with the help of a return to his boyhood faith in Christ. He told of how his drug problems, even after his rehab, had sapped his baseball career and of having only taken a sip of beer before breaking into the major leagues in 1971.

Kansas City Star sports columnist Joe Posnanski wrote on Aug. 13, "We wanted to believe.... We want to believe that, with willpower and hope, anything is possible. We wanted to believe Darrell Porter when he said he quit cocaine. And that's why Monday's news landed like a kick to the stomach."

Describing Porter as "a good man," Posnanski recounted, "He touched so many people through baseball, through the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, through his writing. The end doesn't diminish any of that. But the end does tell the saddest story, the one of a man who found God, worked with children, loved to fish, cherished his family but still could not summon the power to beat cocaine.

"People always underestimate cocaine," Posnanski wrote. "Scientists have done experiments with laboratory animals and found that they would press a metal bar 10,000 times for one shot of cocaine. Ten thousand times."

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Baseball superstar Hank Aaron said, "It took me 17 years to get 3,000 hits in baseball. In golf, it took one afternoon."

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The reporters who cluster around John Smoltz's locker following a game ask whether he'll break the National League record for saves (53) or the Major League mark (57). Smoltz is close -- as of Sept. 15 he had retired the last opposing batter in a close contest 51 times. But what he really likes talking about is saving kids -- and the faith that impels Smoltz in his school-creating work has also made him a better pitcher.

Smoltz is serious enough to talk about Christian education for close to an hour while some of his teammates are playing cards and tossing towels into laundry bins, but intellectually playful enough to discuss evangelistic gambits.

"How's this for an icebreaker question?" he asked. "How many days in a row have you been happy?" Smoltz has been happy recently, and not only because he is pitching well. His happiest day last year, he said, did not come when he recovered from arm surgery and became the Braves' closer, but "when I walked in and saw our school opening. I almost broke down ... through Christ, we had overcome so much."

"Our school" is King's Ridge Christian School, which recently began its second year in Atlanta's northern suburbs largely because of Smoltz, according to headmaster Barbara Adler. "John was the inspiration, the catalyst," she said. "He said, 'We're going to start it, we can do it, we're going to do it.'" Unable to pitch in 2000 and during most of the 2001 season, Smoltz -- 35 years old and the father of four children between the ages of 2 and 10 -- poured himself into the project. "Building a school takes an incredible amount of time," he said. "In one sense, I'd rather have another surgery on my arm than go through all this again."

Hiring teachers, developing curriculum, enrolling students -- 300 this year -- and finding a place to meet ... all very hard but "very rewarding," according to Smoltz. The effort is vital, he said, because American society is in trouble and it's vital to "prepare kids for battles in life. ... Kids need the ability to differentiate between evolution and Christian understanding. ... They need the weapons to defend Christianity, to be able to understand and debate the differences between religions, to know what's happening in the world and how to compete."

Smoltz also spoke about his own education, starting with learning religious ritual and good principles of conduct in Michigan, but never having "a personal relationship with Christ" or a sense that God, a heavenly Father who cared for his children, was in charge of all that happened. Early in the 1990s, Smoltz felt guilty whenever he did anything wrong, and he worried that fans and writers who put him on a pedestal would soon knock him off it. In 1996, though, he came to "live without fear" as he came to understand that "whether I win or lose, God loves me just the same."

Smoltz pitched wonderfully in 1996, winning the Cy Young Award as the National League's best pitcher after posting a 24-8 record and a 2.94 earned run average. But arm trouble followed in the next several years: "God started stripping me of my control. My arm went. ... A lot of people have faith in the process until the process fails us. That's what I faced."

He recalled: "Baseball was God to me. It's God to most of the people here," he said, gesturing around the Braves' locker room and speaking intensely. But Smoltz's arm surgery, which left him unable to pitch but with time to start a Christian school, was "the greatest challenge and the greatest blessing. ... I realized I don't need baseball. I've gained total confidence that God is in control. No more fear."

Paradoxically but reasonably, Smoltz's new non-attachment to baseball success made him more successful. He explained that his new understanding "doesn't mean I won't put all my effort into the pitch -- God wants us to compete, hard. But being a baseball player is not who I am, it's a product of who I am, so I don't have to worry about losing my identity. Without fear of losing, I can concentrate all my attention on the moment. ... I've gained total confidence that God is in control. No more fear."

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Marvin Olasky is Editor of WORLD magazine

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By 1989, baseball player Nolan Ryan reached an incredible 5,000 strike outs, and all those no hitters. Ryan is a phenomenal baseball player.

In his rookie year, 18 years earlier, Gil Hodges was the manager of the Mets, and was impatient with Ryan. Although Ryan could consistently throw the ball over ninety miles an hour, most of the time it didn't go over the plate. He was walking everybody, hitting a lot of people, too. Hodges told Ryan at the beginning of a particular game that he was to pitch better in that game or he would pull him out and trade him. He would be finished.

Ryan went into that game trying to do his best, determined that he was going to succeed. He was miserable. He walked something like seven or eight batters in four innings. Hodges took him out. Later that season he was traded to the Angels.

After the game Richard Reeves went down into the locker room to interview the players. He noticed Nolan Ryan was apart from the others, looking into a mirror, obviously having difficulty tying his tie. Reeves got closer to him and noticed that there were tears in his eyes. He was crying. He couldn't see to tie his tie.

Reeves remembered that incident on the occasion of celebrating Nolan Ryan as one of the immortals of baseball. He remembered that this legendary man, Nolan Ryan, began thinking he had failed. But he kept on working. He kept on practicing.

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Source: The Timothy Report, Copyright (c) 2004 Swan Lake Communications, http://www.timothyreport.com

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate in KeruxID 25837-26027]

This is really tough for a New York Yankees fan, but I heard something really good from a player on that other team - the 2004 World Champion (oh boy that hurts!) Boston Red Sox. Their dramatic eight game string of victories carried them from three games down to the Yankees all the way to a four game sweep of the World Series. Curt Schilling, a veteran star pitcher for the Red Sox, had pitched one of those first playoff losses to the Yankees. Then he came back dramatically to pitch a stellar game to help the Red Sox pull off a dramatic turnaround. They interviewed Curt Schilling immediately after that decisive victory. The interviewer wanted to talk about the injury Curt had overcome, but that wasn't what Curt wanted to talk about. His first response went like this: “I just want to say that I really felt God's touch out there tonight. Seven years ago, I became a Christian. But that first game, it was me doing it and you saw the results. Tonight, I gave it all to God, and He really touched me. Tonight you saw what He could do.”

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “The End of What You Can Do.”

That's a powerful lesson, spelled out for millions of people on a night a baseball star could have easily taken the glory for himself. What a difference there is between the result when we do all we can do on our own and when we get out of the way and let God do what only He can do; which may be exactly what you need to be thinking about right now.

You've been trying everything you know to make things happen, to start it, to fix it, to solve it, to change it and it's just not working. Oh, you may have prayed about it, but honestly, you've had your hands firmly on the steering wheel. You're going to drive this one, no matter what. Well, you've seen what you can do. Are you ready to see what God can do?

In Isaiah 50:10-11, our word for today from the Word of God, He lays out the two ways to approach an issue, or a problem, or a need - with two very different outcomes. He refers to those as times when we're walking in the dark, where the way is not clear. God says, “Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.” That's one way you can handle the situation. “But now, all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go, walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze. This is what you shall receive from my hand: you will lie down in torment.”

Two choices: trust in the Lord - His timing, not yours; His power, not yours; His way, not yours. Or pursue your own bright idea. Don't wait for God, just plow ahead to get it done. Try to make it happen, no matter what. You can faith it done or you can try to force it done. You can surrender to God or you can control it yourself - until you crash. Which you will if you do not come to the point your Savior came to that awful night in the Garden of Gethsemane when He prayed, “Not what I will, but what You will.” You've tried to plan it done, talk it done, scheme it done, and force it done. But it's been all about you, even if you've attached God's name to it. God is bringing you to the end of what you can do so you'll come to the end of you. Not so you'll give up, but so you'll give in to the Lord who should have been driving all along anyway.

When we stubbornly hang onto being the “make it happen” person, we ultimately keep it from happening - the perfect plan of God. Isn't it time to take your hands off the wheel and learn to be a “watch it happen” person? You've insisted on driving for so long, and you're stressed, frustrated, and exhausted, and you're still not where you wanted to go. But then, you were never meant to drive. The Bible says, “Commit your way to the Lord; trust also in Him, and He will bring it to pass” (Psalm 37:5). To control it is to lose it. To surrender is to win. Let go of the wheel and see what God can do!

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Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. "Practical Answers to Real Life Issues"

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Jim Bintliff’s name is mud in every ballpark in the Major Leagues. All the minor league parks, too. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

You've got to hand it to Jim Bintliff — he's not afraid to get dirty as he harvests the mud that keeps the Major Leagues running.

Bintliff, who lives in Delran, “harvests” and sells mud. Not just any mud. “It’s magic mud,” he says.

It’s purified New Jersey mud, used to rub the sheen off a new baseball. The mud has been the staple of every Major League game played since 1956 and of all American League matchups since 1938.

Bintliff, 47, is president and CMD — that’s Chief Mud Digger — of Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud. “It’s mind-boggling when you think about it,” Bintliff says in his pristine kitchen, a few steps from the ultimate mud room, a basement workbench and two 50-gallon barrels of his mudder lode.

“I’ll know I made it when they make a bobblehead of me,” cracks the strong-armed mud collector. “I want it to be on every baseball in the world.”

For Bintliff, the first sign of spring occurs at the end of January, when he and his wife, Joanne, ship their secret goo to the teams' spring training complexes.

Even Major League experts who handle baseballs for a living don’t know much about rubbing mud, which comes from a tributary of the Delaware River. Mets pitching coach Rick Peterson, who grew up in Woodbridge and lives in Wall, is considered the best at his craft. He’s revolutionized how the mechanics of pitching are taught, but flunked the geography quiz about Bintliff’s mud. “It’s Mississippi mud, isn’t it?” Peterson asks.

“That mud is great,” says Yankee assistant equipment manager Lou Cucuzza Jr., who has worked for the ball club for 25 years, and like clubhouse guys around the majors now does the mud rubbing for the umpires. “All the pitchers love it. It comes from Mississippi or Missouri, I think.”

Mets pitcher Al Leiter, who graduated from Central Regional High in Bayville, thought the mud came from Delaware. Leiter, who has made a wonderful living with his cut fastball for fourteen years, would be lost without it.

“I prefer a ball with more mud on it,” he explains. “I want to know if I put pressure on a ball a certain way, it will do certain things. A brand-new ball will do Bugs Bunny stuff; you can’t control it, it’s more unpredictable. With mud on the ball, it cuts through the air better.”

It all started back in the 1930s, when players rubbed balls with tobacco juice, shoe polish, or infield dirt. But umpires constantly complained that the baseballs were mediocre at best, unusable at worst — either too slick or too scratched, depending on the ooze used.

Then Russell “Lena” Blackburne stepped up to the plate. The slender Blackburne was an infielder for four Major League teams from 1910 to 1919 before becoming manager of the Chicago White Sox. Also known as Slats, Blackburne said the nickname that stuck was a form of ‘lean.’ An avid fisherman who knew every stream near his Palmyra home, Blackburne remembered the consistency of the mud in a favorite fishing hole. He dug some up, removed sticks and bits of shells and stone, and added a secret ingredient. Then he scooped the refined muck into coffee cans and sold Lena Blackburne Magic Mud to the world.

“I’ve stuck in baseball,” Lena often said, “because I got stuck in the mud.”

Umpires loved his mud, so Blackburne stuck with it for 30 years. After his death in 1968, his boyhood friend John Haas took over. Haas taught all the dirty little secrets to his son-in-law, Burns Bintliff, who passed them on to his son, Jim.

“It’s good therapy out there,” says Jim, who first dug mud as a nine-year-old in 1965. “It's a sanctuary. It’s just myself, the water, and the mud. I do a lot of soul-searching in that time. I think about how Mr. Blackburne and my grandfather used to do it. It brings back great memories.”

The business was no get-rich-quick scheme. Burns Bintliff, who died in 2000, used to say that he’d starve to death if he had to rely solely on mud money. So by day, he worked as a metal carpenter for the Turnpike Authority. His son has a day job too, only it’s at night, when he operates a printing press.

Burns sold only to the Major Leagues, top minor leagues, and a few colleges. Jim says the business never grew because Burns only sold mud to people he liked.

Marty Springstead, Major League Baseball’s umpire supervisor and an American League ump from 1965 to ’85, says his colleagues are thrilled with the product. “When I first started in the minors,” Springstead says, “we would get a spoon, a paper cup and dig up some dirt, add water, and make instant mud. I get a kick out of watching a ball go into the stands, seeing the fan catch it and then look at the ball and realize that it’s a rubbed-up ball. They’re shocked, they think it should be a new ball, right out of the package.”

For Jim and his family, this isn’t just business. They love the game, going to Philadelphia Phillies’ games and minor-league games in Trenton, Camden, and Atlantic City. It’s what keeps Jim digging in his secret garden every July during low tide. He will never reveal his mud hole, which is a different spot from Lena’s original dig, believed to be somewhere along the Pennsauken Creek. “The geography is important,” Jim explains of the natural filtering process. “The way the stream runs through the area. It has to be on a certain curve and the bank has to have a certain slope to it. That has a lot to do with how the mud gets its consistency.”

If you found him wielding a flathead shovel as he loads mud into kitty-litter buckets — the Bintliffs own seven cats — Jim would smile and say that the mud does wonders for his rose bushes.

Jim and Joanne have expanded the business since they took over four years ago. Their eleven-year-old daughter, Rachel, is a softball pitcher; Jim, who coaches the team and works six days a week on the fields, rubbed mud on her yellow ball and got rid of its tackiness.

This year, for the first time, Jim and Joanne traveled to the baseball coaches’ convention in San Antonio to market their product. “We lost money on the deal, but we had a blast and made a lot of contacts, especially with the colleges,” he explains. “We’re trying to reach into the high schools too.”

They also make an annual pilgrimage to Cooperstown, New York, where a can of Lena mud sits at the Hall of Fame.

Twelve years ago, Burns Bintliff was selling 500 pounds of mud annually. A few two-pound tubs — a roughly $90 investment — keeps Major League squads stocked for the season. Considering that George Steinbrenner spends about $8 million per player, a can of Lena Blackburne is the best bargain in baseball.

“It’s dirt cheap,” says Jim, who has heard all the bad jokes, his smile and earrings glistening. “I laugh all the way to the ballgame.”

The Yankees are among Jim’s best customers because they rub up about 100 baseballs a game. “Foul ball or a home run, it doesn’t matter to me, as long as it goes out of the park,” Jim says, before adding, “Ka-ching.”

What makes Bintliff’s Jersey mud superior to all other mud? His doesn’t stick in the stitches or scar the ball. “I have clean mud,” Jim says. “I wash it through a series of screens. After I clean it, it has to settle. I take the water off it and I put in the magic stuff, a natural additive. It’s natural mud, home-cooked.” After six weeks of aging, his mud is pudding perfect.

No one else has been able to create mud with the same consistency as Blackburne’s. A while back, the Bintliffs discovered for sale a mud that seemed a lot closer to home than advertised. It turned out that one entrepreneur was buying Blackburne mud in the professional two-pound size, transferring it into smaller containers, and giving it a new name and a much higher price. That mudslinging soon came to an end.

The Bintliffs vacation with six containers of the special stuff, just in case some team needs an emergency shipment.

“One year we had to hand deliver mud to the Trenton Thunder,” Joanne recalls, “because they were completely out.

“I know how great pitchers can be,” Jim adds with a smile, “but they can’t throw the ball without my mud on it.

“I get a thrill watching a game and knowing our mud is being used,” he says. “How many people get letters from Major League baseball? And we get Christmas cards from the Hall of Fame.”

________

Kevin Kernan is a columnist for the New York Post. He lives in Pequannock.

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Another version from Wit and Wisdom, 9/19/05:

Somewhere along the mudflats of a Delaware River tributary in New Jersey is the spot where baseball's “magic mud” is mined, a location known only to a few and kept secret for decades.

The unique mud is rubbed on every new baseball used by Major League teams to remove the sheen, soften the seams and give pitchers a better grip.

“It definitely changes the way the ball feels,” said Washington Nationals pitcher John Patterson. “If you get a new baseball, it's slick, it's hard to hold on to. If you put some mud on it, it gives you a better grip.”

Before a game, Nationals ballboy Lamont Poteat “rubs up” several dozen baseballs by dabbing each one with a fingertip-full of mud and massaging it with both hands until its sheen is dulled.

The origins of the mud are swathed in folklore. Asked where it came from, Patterson said: “From the Mississippi.” Other players believe it is taken from an Alabama swamp.

In fact, the mud is supplied by a husband-and-wife outfit in New Jersey but the exact site of their mudhole is a closely guarded secret.

The few outsiders taken to the mudhole have been blindfolded and sworn to secrecy.

“You'll never find it no matter how hard you look,” said Jim Bintliff, owner of Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud.

________

Source: Reuters, http://reuters.com

*

Major League umpire Ted Barrett, who is working the National League Division Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Mets, doesn’t find too many players or managers willing to mess with him when they disagree with a call.

For one thing, Barrett is physically imposing. At 6-foot-4, 250 pounds, he’s bigger than most guys on the field.

For another, Barrett is a former amateur boxer. Add that to his size, and you get an umpire from whom players would just as soon steer clear.

“He’s a golden glove boxer, so don’t get in his face,” St. Louis Cardinals first base coach Dave McKay said of Barrett.

But despite the apparent barriers, Barrett is approachable. In a poll Sports Illustrated conducted this year of 470 Major League players, Barrett was tied for third as the best umpire in the game. Maybe that’s because of the way he goes about his job.

“You don’t want to be perceived as weak,” Barrett said. “The players see me, and I try to laugh and smile on the field a lot, and I enjoy my job. But I don’t want to be perceived as ‘Here’s somebody we can just run over.’”

Or, what Barrett hopes even more, is that the characteristics of Christ are shining forth through his life, attracting others and pointing them to his God. As he matures as a Christian, Barrett often finds himself acting in ways that run counter to the umpiring culture.

“Even though I was a Christian in the minor leagues, I wasn’t trying to be Christ-like. I was trying to be umpire-like,” Barrett said. “I realized I needed to start living this too, not just in my life, but in my work. It bends everything that’s been in the tradition of umpiring for 100 years.”

Barrett pointed to forgiveness, as an example. Most umpires try to keep a healthy distance between themselves and the players, even when a player or coach tries to apologize for his behavior.

“Take your apology and stick it” is a common response from an umpire.

But Barrett remembers an encounter he had with Doug Mansolino, now the third base coach for the Houston Astros. At the time, Mansolino was the bench coach for the Detroit Tigers, and Barrett had ejected him from a game for his behavior.

The next day, Barrett was working third base, where Lance Parrish was the third base coach.

“Doug wanted me to tell you he’s sorry,” Parrish told Barrett.

Barrett said that’s a tactic players and coaches often employ -– apologizing by proxy. He’s not crazy about the practice, and he nearly told Parrish what he thought about it.

“Right away I was about to come back and say, ‘Tell Doug to come and tell me himself. Tell him to stick it,’” Barrett said. “But in my mind, I think God was just laying it on me, saying, ‘I’ve forgiven you of so much. You need to forgive.’”

So Barrett told Parrish to relay a message to Mansolino: “Tell him I forgive him.”

“That was about seven years ago,” Barrett said. “And now, every time I see Doug, he comes over and says hi and brightens up. And he’s a hard, crusty guy. So, I think that probably ministered to him a lot. It completely goes against the grain of how we’re supposed to behave.”

Barrett said his Christian beliefs manifest themselves in his job in other ways. On the field, he tries to handle situations in a godly manner, especially when conflict comes. And conflict will come.

“It’s hard not to lash back,” Barrett said. “The biggest thing I try to do is listen. I try to be slow to anger. Soft-spoken answers sometimes turn back wrath.”

He also tries to assess the situation and discern where the manager or player is coming from and what the motive is. If they have a legitimate complaint, Barrett tries to give them room to air their grievance.

“But if I think a guy’s trying to manipulate me or mess with me for some reason, I let them know I’m not going to put up with that,” Barrett said. “I will get angry at times, if I think they’re trying to do something that’s not fair to me or the other team. I try not to overreact.”

Mike Port, MLB’s vice president of umpiring, said the qualities of tolerance, dignity, knowledge, ability and diplomatic control are necessary to excel in the job.

“While Major League Baseball is fortunate to have a great number of umpires who fit that profile, certainly Ted Barrett is right up there in those respects,” Port said. “He is now a 10-year veteran, and yet seems to keep right on improving, which is no surprise given the pride he takes in his work.

“To say he is respected by his peers is an understatement, as many look to him as an example and rely on his stability.”

Umpiring, however, is a thankless job. Everybody -– players, managers, fans -– expects perfection. But get every call right, and few will notice. Miss a call -– especially a game-changing call -– and get death threats.

“Honestly, if you’re not noticed,” is what Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Aaron Fultz says makes a good umpire. “If there’s no controversy, that’s the big thing.”

McKay offered a similar assessment.

“I think a good umpire is someone who blends in,” McKay said. “He doesn’t stand out.”

The job isn’t without its lighter moments. Barrett remembers one time when Terry Collins was managing the Angels and came out to argue a call.

“Ted, I’ve gotta get run. I’ve gotta get run,” Collins told Barrett. “Will you run me?”

“Yeah, OK,” Barrett replied.

“I’m gonna throw my hat, and then you can run me,” Collins said.

Then Collins started yelling and making a scene. “I’ve got this player over here, and he quit on me,” Collins griped. “My third base coach thinks he’s the manager. These fans are all over me.”

All the while Collins is waving his arms and raising a ruckus. Barrett started to chuckle.

“Don’t you laugh,” Collins said in Barrett’s face. “Don’t you laugh. If you laugh, they’ll know what I’m doing.”

Such encounters happen more than most people might think, Barrett said.

Another time, Jim Tracy was managing the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Barrett had made two calls on close plays at home plate that had gone against the Dodgers. Tracy came out to argue.

“I know you got both of those right,” Tracy yelled. “I had a good look from the dugout. I know you got them right, but I’ve gotta go.”

So Tracy started kicking dirt on the plate and after a brief tirade, which got him ejected, replied calmly to Barrett, “All right, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Whatever the situation, Barrett said his goal is to communicate the Gospel to his colleagues by the way he conducts himself.

“If I can have an attitude that’s reflective of Christ and trying to be obedient to Him, I think that speaks volumes to the people I work with,” Barrett said. “The reputation I strive for is, ‘He’s a good guy, but we don’t want to mess with him.’ That would be the ultimate compliment a player could give me.”

”Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.” 1 Corinthians 9:24, NIV

Unlike some other sports, baseball seems to bring out the reflective side of its fans. Some, of course, would say that it’s because there’s little else to do for the three or more hours a game takes to play! Be that as it may, I’ve noticed that the Great American Pastime is a lot like the Christian life. And with baseball season in full swing here in America, I thought it would be appropriate to share a few baseball-related reflections on the Christian life.

One obvious similarity between baseball and the Christian life is that both are all about the long haul. Only those baseball teams that play at a high level for the entire 162 game season, and then through the playoffs, will win the ultimate prize — the World Series trophy. As Christians, we know that our lives will also have ebbs and flows, but we also know the importance of keeping our focus on Christ and gaining the prize.

And when you play 162 games in a season, it stands to reason that you’re going to lose your share of them. Just like baseball teams, Christians know that life isn’t always going to be a bed of roses. There are going to be those days when, spiritually speaking, we can’t hit anything out of the infield.

But there are also those times when a team shows their manager they can really play like winners. These are moments of sheer joy. In our Christian lives, we also have moments of sheer joy when we feel the hand of God warming our hearts with his unbounded love. The difference is that a winning streak in baseball will earn you the praise of the local sports writers, but a winning streak in your Christian life will show God how you’re working out your salvation (see Philippians 2:12).

Most of all, though, baseball and Christianity are alike in that both require faith and hope. For baseball fans, it’s faith in the skills of the players and the hope that they’ll come together as a team to win the championship. For believers, it’s faith in God and the hope of eternal life. Praise God that he uses baseball (and other sports) to teach us about who he is and who we are as the body of Christ.

Play ball!

Barry Bonds is on the cusp of breaking the most revered, most hallowed record in all of sports. And outside of the hometown loyalists in San Francisco, a lot of sports fans couldn’t care less.

Oh, we see the obligatory stories about the chase for Hank Aaron in the media. We see ESPN break in to show every Bonds at-bat. We hear the talk show hosts discussing the situation on the radio.

But even baseball commissioner Bud Selig couldn’t make up his mind until recently about whether he’d be on hand when Bonds surpasses Hammerin’ Hank. The apathy shown by Selig, and by so many baseball fans, is indeed stunning.

Maybe it’s because the surly Bonds has alienated so many people by the way he behaves himself. He’s a moody man by most accounts.

Maybe it’s because everyone sees the record as a foregone conclusion. There’s certainly no suspense of “if.” Only “when.”

Or, most likely, perhaps the lack of interest stems from the fact that baseball fans see Bonds’ record as artificially enhanced and chemically aided -– and they are frustrated by the lack of justice confronting the Giants’ slugger. They are likewise sympathetic to Aaron, who played the game with integrity and deserved better than to have his most prestigious record broken by a cheater - — assuming that the steroid allegations surrounding Bonds are true.

The whole ordeal violates our sense of fairness, equity and justice. For a man who likely accomplished so much through illegal means to hold such a cherished record -– it’s simply not right.

Justice is a concept embedded within us from an early age. Listen to siblings playing together for long, and you’ll most likely hear, “That’s not fair!” Kids know full well -– and instinctively -- when they’ve been cheated, and they’re not hesitant to proclaim it to anyone who will listen. They also cling to the hope that their protests will invoke the justice of mom and dad, in the form of punishment for the offender.

This innate sense of justice is not merely an American phenomenon –- a whole “truth, justice and the American way” thing. No, it’s much broader than that. It’s a characteristic shared by all of humanity, because we all bear the imprint of our Creator, who is infinitely just. “For I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery and wrong,” Isaiah 61:8 tells us.

But despite the fact that our sense of justice reflects one of God’s attributes, we are not perfectly just like He is. God’s justice manifests itself in His hatred of sin. As a God of holiness, His justice demands that sin be punished. He cannot simply look the other way and shrug off sin as no big deal. He must address it and eradicate it.

We, however, conveniently manage to ignore justice when there’s something we want, and when we’re willing to cheat others to get it. Bonds is a classic example, but he’s by no means the only example.

As a nation, we’ve abandoned the concept of justice for the unborn, opting instead to reward the irresponsible with the “choice” to take innocent human life without cause. We fudge on our taxes, forcing someone else to carry a heavier load than they ought. We cheat our employers by not working as hard as we should.

Justice is a concept we’re quick to embrace, as long as it’s someone else we hope will reap the consequences. We want justice when we are the offended, yet we plead for mercy when we are the offender.

Fortunately for us, despite that fact that God is just, God is also merciful. That’s demonstrated clearly in the atoning death of Jesus Christ, where God’s justice met God’s mercy in perfect harmony. It was that act by which a holy and just God redeems fallen sinners -– a group to which we all belong.

So yes, it’s perfectly acceptable to feel angered and cheated by what Bonds is about to do. He has made a mockery of integrity and sportsmanship, and any punishment that comes his way will be too little, too late.

At the same time, Bonds is like the rest of us. As Christianity Today editor Mark Galli once wrote, “Lord, have mercy on Barry; he desperately needs it. But he’s hardly alone.”

One of Bobby Richardson’s good friends during his playing days with the New York Yankees was the legendary Mickey Mantle.

Mantle was an extremely popular player and regarded by many baseball observers as the best switch-hitter ever to play the game. He accumulated numerous awards during his 18-year career, highlighted by his greatest year as a professional in 1956. That year he won the Triple Crown, Male Athlete of the Year, American League Most Valuable Player, and Player of the Year. He played in 12 World Series and won the American League Most Valuable Player award in 1957 and 1962. The runner-up for the 1962 MVP was Richardson. Mantle said Richardson should have received the award.

During the years when Mantle and Richardson played, the Yankees were loaded with talent. It was the golden age of baseball, and the Yankees dominated. Larry King once said, “Mickey Mantle is baseball.”

But Mantle struggled throughout his career with a condition called osteomyelitis (bone infection) as the result of an injury in high school. He also injured his right knee in the 1951 World Series. After that, he wrapped his leg for every game and played with chronic pain. He was recognized and respected as a power hitter (hitting a home run reportedly measured at 565 feet), but also became known for his speed and drag bunts. He was a Gold Glove award recipient for his play in centerfield. However, following his knee injury, his speed was diminished.

Mantle had a reputation for being a hard-drinking party man. Along the way, he became an alcoholic. Richardson, on the other hand, was seen as a clean-living homebody and a dedicated Christian. It was an unusual friendship, but one that allowed Richardson to plant the seeds of the Gospel many times over the years in Mantle’s life. “I believe God had a purpose for our relationship,” he said.

After both players retired, they stayed in contact, with Mantle doing public appearances and batting clinics for Richardson’s college teams. Richardson said Mantle retired “as one of the greatest players to ever play the game.”

Mantle owned a restaurant in New York, and Richardson would speak there on occasion. Once, his son Robby spoke there in the 1980s. Mantle commented to him, “You sound just like your dad -- always talking about that decision I need to make.” During his career, he talked often about trusting Christ as Savior, referring to it as “the decision.”

Mantle’s alcoholism worsened following his retirement, and he entered the Betty Ford Center for treatment in 1994. Sportscaster Bob Costas interviewed him that year, just two weeks after his son Billy passed away at 36. Mantle told Costas that he had not been a good role model and that there was something missing in his life.

One year later, Mantle was diagnosed with liver cancer. After receiving a liver transplant, he was hopeful, but the cancer returned. His life began to deteriorate rapidly. While in the hospital at Baylor Medical Center in Dallas, he endured a great deal of pain. Bobby Richardson was in Dallas for a speaking engagement at that time. During that week, Richardson received a phone call at 6:00 a.m. from Mantle, asking him to pray for him. Richardson prayed with him over the phone and shared with him Philippians 4:4-7 in the Phillips translation. Later in the morning, he visited his friend at the hospital. As Richardson left the room to return to South Carolina, Mantle said to him, “Now don’t forget, you have my funeral.”

Richardson said, “I believe what drew Mickey to me was that I had the relationship with Christ that he was searching for, even if he didn’t realize it. He often attended our baseball chapel services.”

A few weeks later, Mantle’s wife Merlyn called the Richardsons. Mickey’s life was fading quickly. They flew to Dallas. When Bobby and Betsy walked into the room, Mantle said, “I can’t wait to tell you this. I have accepted Christ as my Savior.” Bobby was elated, but wanted to be sure, so he went through the plan of salvation with Mantle again. Betsy later asked him, “Mickey, if you were to stand before a holy God today and He asked you, ‘Why should I let you into my heaven?’ what would you say?” Mantle replied, “We are talking about God, right?” Betsy acknowledged they were. He then quoted John 3:16.

Mantle, the Yankee great, passed away Aug. 13, 1995, on a Sunday morning at age 63. Bobby was in charge of the service and preached the funeral message. Bob Costas spoke also, but it was Richardson who presented the Gospel. The service was televised worldwide.

Richardson has been distributing a special tract to hundreds of people over the years. It is titled “Mickey Mantle: His Final Inning” and tells the story of his friend’s profession of faith in Christ and how others can also believe and be saved.

Both Mantle and Richardson thought about quitting baseball when they were playing in the minor leagues. Neither did, and in the providence of God, they became friends -- one living and sharing the life-changing message of the Gospel, the other finally embracing that message.

=================

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Mantle#Personal_life

Mantle spoke with great remorse of his drinking in a 1994 Sports Illustrated cover story. He said that he was telling the same old stories, and realizing how many of them involved himself and others being drunk – including at least one drunk-driving accident – he decided they were not funny anymore. He admitted he had often been cruel and hurtful to family, friends, and fans because of his alcoholism, and sought to make amends. Mantle became a born-again Christian because of his former teammate Bobby Richardson, an ordained Baptist minister who shared his faith with him.

===========

Version used by David Holwick in sermon on 9/11/16:

Have you ever heard of Bobby Richardson? He played for the Yankees in the 1950s. Most of you have probably never heard of him. Perhaps you have heard of his good friend - Mickey Mantle. Mantle, of course, was one of the greatest players of all time. He once hit a home run measured at 565 feet.

Mantle was also famous for his wild ways, chasing women and partying hard; along the way he became an alcoholic. Bobby Richardson, on the other hand, was a clean-living homebody and a committed Christian. It was an unusual friendship but it gave Bobby many opportunities to share the gospel with Mantle. Mantle once told Bobby’s son, “Your dad is always talking about the decision I need to make.”

Mantle’s alcoholism worsened after he retired and he entered the Betty Ford Clinic in 1994. Sportscaster Bob Costas interviewed him that year, just two weeks after Mantle’s son Billy had passed away at age 36. Mantle told Costas that he had not been a good role model and there was something missing in his life. He admitted he had often been cruel and hurtful to family, friends, and fans because of his alcoholism.

One year later, Mantle was diagnosed with liver cancer. There was a lot of controversy when he was given a transplant. Even so, the liver cancer returned and he faded quickly. Mantle called Bobby and asked him to pray for him. Bobby prayed with him over the phone and read Philippians 4:4-7 in the Phillips’ translation to him:

“Don’t worry over anything whatever; tell God every detail of your needs in earnest and thankful prayer, and the peace of God which transcends human understanding, will keep constant guard over your hearts and minds as they rest in Christ Jesus.”

Mantle lasted a few more weeks. Bobby Richardson and his wife flew out to Dallas and saw Mantle in the hospital. As they entered the room, Mantle said to him, “I can’t wait to tell you this: I have accepted Christ as my Savior.” Bobby was thrilled, but he wanted to be sure, so he went through the plan of salvation with Mickey.

Bobby’s wife then said, “Mickey, if you were to stand before a holy God today and He asked you, ‘Why should I let you into my heaven?’ what would you say?” Mantle quoted John 3:16 to her - “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Mickey Mantle passed away at age 63. Bobby Richardson preached the funeral message, which was televised worldwide. Since then Bobby has been handing out a tract called “Mickey Mantle: His Final Inning.” It tells the story of his friend’s profession of faith in Christ and how others can also believe and be saved.

Despite all the positive things we associate with the word “sportsmanship,” sports often brings out the worst in people: Little League parents behaving badly, drunken crowds, just for example.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

As most of the world knows by now, Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers was one out away from throwing the 21st perfect game in Major League Baseball history. With two outs in the ninth, the Cleveland Indians batter hit a grounder to the Tiger first baseman. Galarraga, the pitcher, raced to cover first.

It’s a routine play, and the Tigers seemed to have pulled it off: Galarraga and the ball reached first base at least a step ahead of the runner. With that, Galarraga, who earlier in week had faced a possible demotion to the minor leagues, would become a baseball immortal.

Except he didn’t. As you probably know, umpire Jim Joyce called the batter “safe.” Galarraga’s response was “a simple smile.” A smile that, as Joe Posnanski of Sports Illustrated said, seemed to ask “Are you sure? I really hope you are sure.”

Galarraga was the only one smiling. The blown call outraged fans across the country. The most measured response called for Joyce to be fired. The more unhinged ones threatened Joyce and his family.

For his part, as soon as he saw the replay, Joyce knew that he had gotten it wrong. He told reporters “I just cost that kid a perfect game.”

By baseball standards, such an admission was extraordinary: Umpires are paid to make judgment calls and stand by them. Players and managers can argue with them but only within limits, and with no expectation of having the call reversed.

So, when Joyce apologized to Galarraga, we were already in unfamiliar territory. When Galarraga, in turn forgave Joyce, adding that Joyce probably felt worst than he did and “nobody’s perfect,” we were witnessing something extraordinary.

The victim of what Posnanski calls one of “most absurd injustices in the history of baseball” went out his way to comfort the umpire who made the mistake. And the umpire was humble enough to ask for forgiveness. It was, as Posnanski called it, a “beautiful” lesson.

It was also a lesson made possible only by Christianity. I really don’t know anything about Galarraga’s or Joyce’s beliefs, but I do know that it was Christianity that taught the world the virtues of humility and forgiveness.

Neither of these were considered virtues in the ancient world (or in any pagan or postmodern culture for that matter). On the contrary, they were signs of weakness.

The Christian message summed up in the words “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us,” provided a revolutionary new basis for human relationships. And it has the power to transform lives — both of victims and offenders — as I’ve witnessed over and over in 30 years of prison ministry. It has the power to heal nations, as the world witnessed in the aftermath of the genocide in Rwanda.

What happened after that baseball game was more beautiful than Galarraga’s pitching. Especially for a postmodern culture that rejects the faith that gave meaning to the words “I’m sorry” and “I forgive you.”

And that’s one call I’m sure of.

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Copyright (c) 2010 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

The number “42” is sacred in Major League Baseball. On April 15, 1997, it became the only number retired throughout the entire league. It is prominently displayed in every Major League park. Forty-two is synonymous with the man who most famously wore the number on his jersey -- Jackie Robinson. Beginning in 2004, Major League Baseball permanently named April 15th Jackie Robinson Day each year, marking the day in 1947 when Robinson, a 28-year-old rookie, courageously ran onto Ebbets Field transforming one of the most sacred spaces in American culture.

As I write, baseball fans are eagerly anticipating the release of “42,” the biographical film about Robinson’s monumental life and historic achievement. The lionization of Robinson as a significant hero of civil rights in America is heartening but there is an oft-forgotten hero of the saga. Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey, the Brooklyn Dodger president who signed Robinson, were equally indispensible partners in what Rickey deemed the “great experiment.”

Rickey meticulously planned and shaped the master narrative for integrating the national pastime but it could not have been accomplished without a unique player of great ability, personal courage, and unfathomable self-control. Rickey said of Robinson, “God was with me when I picked Jackie. I don’t think any other man could have done what he did those first two or three years.” And Robinson would say that in his estimation Rickey did more for African Americans “than any white man since Abraham Lincoln.”

It is easy to miss the historical magnitude of that moment in 1947 for the advance of civil rights in America. Consider that when Rickey signed Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking the color barrier in baseball, it was a year before President Truman ordered the US military desegregated, seven years before the U.S. Supreme Court rendered its decision in Brown vs. Board of Education, eight years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, 10 years before President Eisenhower used the US military to enable the Little Rock Nine to attend Central High School in Arkansas, 16 years before Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I have a Dream” speech, 17 years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and 18 years before the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Looking back on his role in the integration of baseball Robinson concluded, “I must tell you that it was Mr. Rickey’s drama and that I was only a principal actor.” Robinson’s overstated, self-deprecating, observation is helpful in remembering that breaking the color barrier in baseball did not begin with the “great experiment.” Mr. Rickey’s drama began with his family’s Midwestern Baptist and Wesleyite Methodist roots. His father was described as a “pious, devout, religious man ... a genuine New Testament Christian” and his mother is said to have taught Branch countless Scripture stories even before he could read. Biographer Murray Polner described Rickey as a conservative evangelical Christian whose religious faith was the decisive factor in his commitment to racial equality. Rickey would often repeat the family motto he learned as a child, “Make first things first, seek the Kingdom of God, and make yourself an example.”

Biographer Jimmy Breslin argues, “It was Rickey who broke the color line in baseball” and his motive was that “he thought it was God’s work.” Breslin unflinchingly states, that because of the consequences, Rickey accomplished “the single most important act in the history of this nation.” Rickey said, “I believe a man can play baseball as coming to him from a call of God.” Looking back on Rickey’s life and legacy, one would have to conclude that he viewed being a baseball executive as a call of God as well.

Branch Rickey was a baseball man to the core. He loved the game from childhood. Playing professionally for the St. Louis Browns, Rickey told a reporter his goal in life was “to be both a consistent Christian and a consistent ballplayer.” By all accounts, he was successful in the former but his professional playing career was less than stellar. He possessed a career batting average of .239 with three home runs in three seasons and as a catcher he holds the record for allowing 13 stolen bases in a single nine-inning game. In 10 years as a Major League Baseball manager, Rickey accumulated a pedestrian 597 wins and 664 losses.

In 1926, Rickey moved exclusively into his role as a baseball executive that would lead into his induction in the baseball Hall of Fame. Rickey-led teams won four World Series championships in his 29 years. He revolutionized baseball and gained a competitive edge over other clubs by his innovation of using farm clubs to develop players for the big league club. Rickey was known as a Bible-quoting, tight-fisted Republican, a fierce competitor, and a shrewd negotiator whom players referred to as “El Cheapo.” It was said that Rickey’s everyday speech resembled a sermon and second baseman Eddie Stankey once retorted after negotiating his contract with Rickey, “I got a million dollars’ worth of free advice and a very small raise.”

In 1903, Rickey was the 21-year-old head baseball coach at Ohio Wesleyan University when his Christian conviction collided head on with his love for the great game. Charles Thomas was recruited by Rickey to play catcher and was the only black player on the team. OWU traveled to South Bend, Indiana, for a game against Notre Dame. When they arrived the hotel clerk refused to allow Thomas to stay because of a whites-only policy. Rickey persuaded the hotel to allow Thomas to go to his room and later requested a cot. That evening Rickey found his catcher sobbing and rubbing his hands and arms convulsively while muttering, “It’s my skin. If only I could wipe off the color they could see I am man like everybody else!” Rickey told him to “Buck up!” and said, “We will beat this one day!” but later noted, he never felt so helpless and vowed at that time that he would do whatever he could to end such humiliation.

As an executive for the St. Louis Cardinals, Rickey unsuccessfully pushed for an end to segregated seating at the park and tested the waters for racial integration of the team but feared that a premature attempt in the wrong place would set back the cause. When Rickey left the Cardinals for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1942 he immediately took the initiative to integrate baseball. The cultural moment and the location of the Dodgers in Brooklyn made it an opportune time for Rickey to act. Americans of all races were fighting in World Ward II against racist ideology in Europe while racist Jim Crow laws were in place back home. The tragic irony was slowly becoming apparent to many Americans. In Brooklyn, Rickey was in a place where he could make a credible case to ownership of potential profits if they were the first club to sign black players. Rickey used his business acumen to serve his conviction that segregation was morally indefensible.

In March 1945, Branch Rickey met at Joe’s restaurant with Red Barber, the beloved Dodgers broadcaster, to tell him of his plan to sign a black man to play for the Dodgers. Barber was initially appalled but recalls Rickey telling him that he had to act because he had heard Charles Thomas crying for 41 years. At that time, he did not know who that player would be but later that summer scouts had narrowed the list down to a handful of players. It seems the initial plan was to sign several players at once but instead Rickey settled on Jackie Robinson.

In their first meeting, Aug. 28, 1945, Rickey stunned Robinson with the news he wanted him to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He grilled him for hours and made him commit to three years of non-retaliation. Rickey read to him from Giovanni Papini’s book “Life of Christ” and pointed him to the biblical account of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. Rickey told Robinson, “We can’t fight our way through this, Robinson. We’ve got no army. There’s virtually nobody on our side. No owners. No umpires. Very few newspapermen. And I’m afraid many fans will be hostile. We’ll be in a tough position. We can win only if we convince the world that I’m doing this because you are a great ball player and a fine gentleman.”

Rickey believed that the right player, who was also the right person, full of moral courage, willing to commit to non-retaliation for three years -- except with his play on the field -- could end what he called an “odious injustice.” There is a sense in which Rickey laid out an incipient strategy that would be later utilized by Martin Luther King Jr. in the larger Civil Rights movement. Rickey said about signing Robinson, “I couldn’t face my God much longer knowing that His black creatures are held separate and distinct from His white creatures in the game that has given me all I own.”

In his excellent biography on Branch Rickey, Lee Lowenfish describes him in the sub-title as “Baseball’s Ferocious Gentlemen.” What an apt and powerful description. He was ferocious. Journalist John Chamberlain described Rickey as “one of the slyest men who ever lived, but in all fundamentals, a man of honor.” He was passionately driven to succeed and made no apologies for turning a profit in the process. Yet his aggression and fierceness were guided by his Christian conviction and worldview. His life embodied Jesus’ admonition to His disciples, sheep in the midst of wolves, to “be wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16).

On November 13, 1965, Branch Rickey stepped to the podium to speak after having been inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame. Baseball’s ferocious gentleman had left the hospital against the advice of his doctors because, as he often said, “it is better to die ten minutes sooner than to live doing nothing.” He rose to speak about a topic he had lived -- courage. He spoke of having objectives on which there is no price and began to tell the biblical story of Zaccheus, who he said, “Had the greatest amount of courage of any man in the Bible.” He did not get to finish telling about one of his favorite biblical characters because -- while still speaking -- he collapsed, and less than a month later died.

Perhaps adding one word to Lowenfish’s descriptive title of Rickey would prove helpful -- Baseball’s Ferocious Christian Gentleman. But I fear the moniker, “ferocious Christian gentleman” sounds oxymoronic in contemporary evangelical circles where manhood is often reduced to being a nice guy and God is envisioned as a kind of cosmic smiley face. Where Christian discipleship is cheapened to generic niceness, men pursue comfort and respectability in the place of self-sacrificial “great experiments” that demand ferocious Christian gentlemen.

Billy Graham said of Branch Rickey, “He was a man of deep piety and integrity -- that rare combination of a ‘man’s man’ and a Christian man, at the same time.” Here’s hoping Graham is wrong and the combination is not so rare, because our churches are in desperate need of some ferocious Christian gentlemen.

Religious belief is being seen throughout baseball. Dodgers catcher Gary Carter's locker has a sign which reads, "With God, all things are possible." Angels third baseman Gary Gaetti's locker has a Bible. Darryl Strawberry was converted this season and his home run production sagged, reviving old baseball stereotypes that Christian ballplayers become complacent in the field or that they accept losses as God's will.

Some managers are uncomfortable with religious faith. Baseball lore has it that crusty Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver once asked outfielder Pat Kelly to curtail the team's Bible study. "Don't you want me to walk with the Lord?" asked Kelly. Weaver: "I'd rather you walk with the bases loaded."

Dodgers outfielder Brett Butler says, "Christians are, quote, coming out of the closet. Back in the olden days, they wanted hell-raising, beer-drinking, womanizing, cussing, hard-nosed players. Well, that's the old days. You can be a Christian and still be a hard-nosed player. If Christ were a ballplayer, he'd be the best there was."

Sometimes conversions lead to friction. Gary Gaetti is the leader of the Minnesota Twins' drive to a World Series title in 1987 and became saved in 1988. His close friendship with Twins first baseman Kent Hrbek was strained. His says his performance may have been affected some. "You're so afraid of that old nature that you had that you want to put it totally down. It's not like you've lost your aggressiveness. But you're totally submitted to Jesus, and you're playing by a different set of rules."

Darryl Strawberry says, "People have criticized me, saying I'm not hitting because of my religion. But they don't realize the importance of a total transformation of a person's life. Baseball was everything. Now it's a part of your life."

Butler gave Strawberry this advice: "You can get frustrated and mad and upset without sinning. I said, 'Darryl, get your fire back.' God doesn't say you can't get mad or frustrated. Jesus flipped tables in the temple." (Strawberry had a recent surge at the time of the article.)

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"Baseball great Darryl Strawberry says true power comes from God," by Scott Barkley, March 30, 2023, .

Opening Day defines what baseball fans love about the sport.

The sights, sounds and smells funnel together in the game day experience. There is a near-giddy optimism for the months ahead. Hopes hang on the concept of potential, whether in fast-twitch young players ready to make their mark or veterans eager to show they still have something in the tank.

Darryl Strawberry had a lot of potential when the New York Mets made him the top draft pick in 1980. And by all accounts, he delivered.

A member of the Mets Hall of Fame, he rewarded that organization by winning 1983 Rookie of the Year honors, the National League home run title in 1988 and collecting seven All-Star appearances.

An eighth All-Star showing came in 1991 with the Dodgers. Strawberry’s baseball career ended in 1999 with the Yankees and his fourth World Series championship. Fans remember the leg kick and looping swing that led to 335 home runs in a 17-year career.

Legal troubles dogged him late in his career and into the 2000s, however. He spent time in drug treatment facilities and prison. He battled cancer and at one point told a judge he had stopped chemotherapy because he had lost the will to live.

But then came a reawakening thanks to a decision he had made in 1991. He began a new lifestyle and new identity.

Potential took on a whole new meaning, and Strawberry has delivered.

The cost of (pausing) discipleship

In 1991 he said he prayed in a conversion experience to be a Christian, but ignored the concept of discipleship.

“If you don’t get discipled, you go back to your old lifestyle,” he told Baptist Press. “Discipleship came after the storms of life, all the trials and tribulations.”

Strawberry didn’t know his mother had always been praying for his relationship with God. She died from breast cancer at 55 years old. He learned of her prayers when his sister found their mother’s journal under the bed.

“I was emotional. Behind the scenes, mama had been praying for all of her children,” he said. “She was faithful in her walk with God. It kind of knocked me off my throne.

“She was concerned about my salvation instead of my celebrity status.”

The other key figure in his life is his wife, Tracy.

“Tracy came into my life and brought me back into church,” he told Baptist Press. It led to an experience Strawberry had rarely felt on the baseball field.

Their testimonies of overcoming addiction and sharing the Gospel have made both popular speakers. But to get to the 250-plus appearances he makes annually at churches, events, prisons, schools, addiction centers and other locations, Strawberry needed discipleship.

“God sat me for seven years [for discipleship],” he said. “We’ll go to God to turn things around for us, but He’s like, ‘You didn’t get into this mess overnight. I need to develop you into the man that I want you to be.’

“Sitting in church for seven years was a growing process of knowing Christ, not just His name but knowing His power at the cross.”

A new strength

“Power” was an adjective used to describe Strawberry’s feats at the plate. The game he loved taught him a lot of good things – facing a challenge, overcoming adversity and dealing with slumps and your mistakes.

Those concepts still show up whether he speaks at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes benefit, men’s event or the weekly talk he gives at a detention center for boys. They were there at the December 2022 address he gave at Shorter University, affiliated with the Georgia Baptist Mission Board.

It’s through a different kind of power, though.

“The message I speak is the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” he said. “You can’t save yourself. You can’t change the things that have occurred in your life. I realized my life was never going to change until I repented of my sins.”

Strawberry spoke with Baptist Press while in Orlando for a speaking gig with the Mets during spring training. He hasn’t completely left baseball, but it doesn’t compare with the drive he has for preaching and sharing what Christ has done in his life.

That started with dealing with his own ego. He defines it as Easing God Out.

“If you can’t put that down, then you can’t truly find the purpose for how God is going to use you,” he said.

He’s about 20 years into his new relationship with Christ. Sixteen years ago, he felt God calling him to preach. Former teammates, he said, are still waiting to see if it’s a phase.

“They don’t realize that when you have a true encounter with Christ, you don’t go back,” said Strawberry. “I’m not perfect; Jesus is. But when you pick up the Bible and learn it for yourself, you understand why God called people. They all had issues, just like us.

“The Bible is a simple book for complicated people.”

A different direction, then and now

He’s careful in his daily habits, avoiding television and the news. His social media accounts – @darrylstraw on Facebook and @darrylstrawberry18 on Instagram – focus on his ministry. It’s nothing personal, he says, about being careful in the company he keeps. It’s just that “If you’re around foolishness, you allow foolishness to rub off on you.”

At 61, he’s wiser and sees things differently. His Mets teammates were known for their wild living, with Strawberry smack in the middle of it. But today, he has a much greater appreciation for Gary Carter and Mookie Wilson, two who didn’t fit in for all the right reasons.

“I admire them the most,” he said. “They both lived for Christ. They didn’t go out to bars. They didn’t chase girls. They didn’t drink. I admired them for that even though I was on the other side of it. I wanted what they had; I just didn’t have the guts to do what they were doing.”

Standing for Christ means you won’t be liked by a lot of people, said Strawberry, and that’s OK. Going in a different direction opens up more possibilities, and something with far more potential.

“People ask me how I found Jesus,” he said. “I tell them that Jesus was never lost. It is us, as a people, who are lost.

“Jesus has always been there, and He will set you free.”

It was a 2004 American League Championship Series, and one big reason the Boston Red Sox triumphed over my New York Yankees was a veteran pitcher named Curt Schilling. He was selected to pitch the opening game in the New York series, and although he had torn an ankle tendon in his previous start, he thought he could gut it out. He was wrong. Losing that game actually started the Red Sox into a 3-0 deficit in the best of seven series. The Red Sox started to come back, and amazingly, Curt Schilling had a chance to try again. Later he would tell the press that the first game showed what he could do. This second outing showed what God can do. Although Curt had actually been named “Good Guy of the Year” by Sporting News, he had never talked publicly about the commitment to Jesus Christ he made several years before.

This time, while praying with his pastor before the game, he expressed his willingness to speak up about his Lord if he was given the opportunity. His incredible four-hit victory gave him that chance. He clearly glorified God in his post game interview. Later, when he pitched a winning game in Game 2 of the World Series, Curt Schilling told reporters: “If you haven't checked it out, read Philippians 4:13 - that's 'I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.' I can't do anything these days without having that reverberate in my head.” Those public declarations of his dependency on Christ may well have been his greatest victories. Later he said, “I've learned that you should never hide your faith. I had wasted seven years. People didn't know.”

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “The Biggest Way to Fail the People You Love.”

And what is that? Remaining silent about your Savior to the people in your personal world. First, because Jesus died publicly on a cross for you. He was not ashamed of us. How can we be ashamed of Him? Secondly, because the eternity of the people you care about depends on them understanding what Jesus did on that cross for them. You know what He did. They probably don't. That makes you responsible.

“Never hide.” That was Curt Schilling's conclusion looking back on what he called the “wasted years” of his spiritual silence. Sure, everyone knew he was a “good guy.” But “people didn't know” it was all about his Jesus. If you belong to Jesus, He laid out very plainly your role in the world in Matthew 5:14-16, our word for today from the Word of God. “You are the light of the world ... People do not light a lamp and put it under a bowl! Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” Jesus said, “Show them the difference I make by the way you live, and then tell them I'm the One who's making the difference.”

Helping people you care about be in heaven with you begins with repenting of the silence that has left them in the dark spiritually. Then start praying daily for natural opportunities to bring up your personal relationship with Jesus and the difference He makes - when you're winning, when you're struggling, when you're there for them, when they're in a crisis or when you are. Open doors to talk about Jesus - the great Difference-Maker.

Out of all the Christians on this planet, God has placed you in their life as His chosen messenger to introduce them to His Son. How are you doing? You're the Jesus-light where you work, where you play, where you go to school, and where you live. In olden days, if the lighthouse went out, ships were lost. If your light isn't shining where you are, lives will be lost - forever; people you care about, people who need a rescuer, people who desperately need you to tell them about your Jesus.

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Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. "Practical Answers to Real Life Issues"

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