My Story

Some have asked questions about my life. So I'm going to write about my life. This will probably be lengthy, so you may not make it through. That's ok. But there will be some who will just take the time. I see my life in two phases. My BC years - Before Christ, and my AC years - After Christ.

I've always had a love for drawing and painting. I remember, as a child, taking the World Book Encyclopedia and drawing, it seemed like, most of the photos in the book. They were all black and white, so pencil worked really well. My two loves in school were art class and sports. I excelled at both. 

After my senior year in high school I was drafted by the Chicago White Sox. I turned their offer down and didn't sign with them. But that summer I was drafted once again. This time it was the Philadelphia Phillies. I signed that contract and began my dream of being a big league baseball player. Oh, another "great" thing happened in my life at that time. The first time I saw her I said to myself, "I'm going to marry her." Yes, it's really true, I did think that. And I did. 48 years later our marriage and our love continues to grow. So my poor wife, Donna, was carted all over the United States. She was now a baseball players wife. She went to hundreds of games. We would eat dinner after the games, around 11:00 pm. I would also be gone on road trips for 2 or 3 weeks at a time. It wasn't easy for her, especially with our little son Dan. Something else was happening to our lives during those years. Someone began knocking on our door. I didn't answer.

The Lord, Jesus, began to knock, call and draw my wife Donna and I during my third year of professional baseball. My brother-in-law, Richard Lindsey, was a man who believed in Jesus. He served in the Navy on a nuclear submarine stationed on the east coast. I was playing minor league baseball in the Carolina League, living in Virginia. Richard is one of those guys with a type “A” personality. He is very self-confident and aggressive. Very much like most baseball players I know. No wonder we got along together so well.

After meeting him for the first time, he asked me if I was going to go to heaven when I died. I thought, “What kind of a question is that?” “What kind of family did I marry into?” I told him, “Yes.” He then asked me, “How do you know?” After a long pause, I had to say, “I don’t know.” I was very uncomfortable by his question. We didn’t continue the conversation.

We went to dinner with them shortly after that, before one of my games. Richard and his wife Joyce began singing hymns in the front seat of the car. That was very strange to me. The only songs I was used to singing were the “National Anthem”, and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” For six years I heard these two songs before and during every one of the 800 baseball games I played. Joyce and Richard would continue to witness and share their faith with us, but it just didn’t make sense to me. One morning I got up early while visiting their home. A saw a little booklet called “The Four Spiritual Laws” sitting on the table. I read it. It was foolishness to me. 

While playing shortstop in the Philadelphia Phillies minor league system, during my fourth year, I found myself sitting on the bench watching the games. The Phillies signed a guy named Mike Schmidt. He was their #1 draft-pick that year. He came up as a shortstop. Eventually they would move him to third base.  Mike eventually took my position while I, as the saying goes, sat on the bench gathering splinters. It wasn’t my idea of fun. I was being paid to play the game, not watch it. But if somebody is going to take your position, it makes it easier when you look back, if he turns out to be one of the greatest players to play the game. Mike became a Hall of Fame player who hit over 500 home runs with the Phillies. With Larry Bowa on the big club and Schmidt on my club, I didn't have much of a future with this organization. So I asked to be traded.

The next year I received new life. I was traded to the New York Mets organization. I always had a strong throwing arm, so the Mets tried to make a pitcher out of me. The Mets pitching coach, Chuck Estrada, came to work with me in the off-season. I was working very hard and throwing regularly from the mound.

I can still remember that last pitch, and the snap in my shoulder, then the burning pain. I couldn’t even lift my arm after throwing that pitch. What would I do? I had to

report to the Mets spring training camp in St. Petersburg, Florida in one month…and now, with an injured shoulder and arm.

I reported to spring training camp with an arm that could hardly throw. Only Chuck Estrada knew how I used to throw. The Mets sent me to Visalia to play on the west coast in the California League. I can look back now and see exactly how the Lord was leading my life and orchestrating my failing baseball career. I was 4 (wins) and 2 (losses) after the first half of the season, but in great pain. At times I still wonder how I would have done with my good arm. It wasn’t to be my life. Today I’m very thankful. But at that point in my life I was very confused and disappointed.

One of my teammates was a pitcher named Rick Baldwin. Just for you pitchers… twice Rick came in for me, in relief. Both times the bases were loaded. Both times the first batter he faced hit grand-slam home runs. To this day we laugh about it. To this day he still tells me he’s sorry. Rick was the only Christian on our team. No one wanted to have Rick as a roommate on road trips. Not to belittle Rick, but he just wasn’t like the rest of us. He didn’t cuss, smoke, drink, or chew. The guy was no fun. Then it happened. One road trip I got stuck with Rick as my roommate. One evening after the game we stayed up all night long. He was telling me about Jesus. I remember very little of what we both said that night. There’s one thing I do remember. Foolishness. The Scripture is true. “but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness” (1 Corinthians 1:23). All that Rick told me about Jesus was foolishness. It flew over my head like a line drive into left-center field. I hope you don’t mind my baseball analogies. I liked Rick. He and his wife actually became good friends with Donna and I. But I just did not believe in Jesus Christ. It still made no sense to me.

Donna and I lived with Rick and Sherri during the month of spring training in Florida the following year. We stayed on Treasure Island, in a little house on the beach. Each Sunday they would go to church and Donna and I would stay home. I remember wondering why they always wanted to go. We sure didn’t. It seemed so strange to me. They never pounded us over the head with the gospel. They also never compromised their faith. They simply lived their Christian lives before us, and we became good friends.

I find it interesting, that at the same time I went from the east coast to the California League, my bold brother-in-law and his wife were also transferred from the east coast to the west coast. They would now live at the Mare Island Navel Station near San Francisco. And they continued to have a godly influence in our lives. Were these things coincidence? I now know there are two words not found in the Christian Dictionary, luck and coincidence. God will complete His will, and the good work He began in each of us.

My last two years in professional baseball were hard years. My arm just wouldn’t work. After playing six years of minor league baseball, I found myself “released.” That’s baseball talk for fired. My life-long dream came to an end. I couldn’t see it then, but God was actively directing my family’s life circumstances.

We came home to the central coast of California. Shortly after returning home, I received a phone call from Don Hanson, the basketball coach at Cuesta College. He wanted to know if I would be interested in coming back to college to play basketball. I was out of work, with no plans, so I said sure. The coach knew I needed a job, so they provided a job for me in the grounds department. My job was caring for the baseball and football fields and the surrounding grounds.

And it was just my “luck” that I worked under and with a man named Dave Webster. He was another one of those Christians. I would come to find out that he also was not your ordinary Christian. He was serving as a missionary with the Navigators, a Christian organization and ministry that worked on college campuses and military bases.

Dave would often bring a portable tape player to work. I now know why those days just happened to be the days he decided to work with me pulling weeds in the flower beds. He would listen to his teaching tape and turn it up so I could hear it also. Did I understand what I was listening to? I remember nothing of what I heard.

            One day Dave gave me a little card. It had the following Bible verse written on it. “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Although it seems funny to me now, at the time I didn’t understand what it meant. The Scripture is true. Without the Holy Spirit’s supernatural work, the Bible, and the cross of Christ, made no sense to me.

The other man that I worked with was not a believer in Jesus. He would make fun of Dave and Christians in general. I remembered laughing with him at some of the things he said. But I began to see an interesting contrast between a believer in Jesus and a non-believer. Even though the non-believer was funny and intelligent, my respect went to Dave Webster. Yes, Dave was also intelligent, but much more serious in his attitudes. He did not aggressively try to defend himself. That’s what I would have done. That’s the environment of professional baseball. It was very different to be in an environment where that didn’t happen. I did not believe in, or trust Jesus as a result of our conversations. But Dave’s life at the workplace had an impact on me. It still made no sense to me. As I look back, I certainly see how the Lord was drawing me to Himself. What happened next did not help the drawing process.

At the very same time, I was making extra money as a referee for a church basketball league. They played once a week at the Cuesta College gymnasium. I would referee three games, and get home about midnight. One evening the first two games went into overtime. So when the third game also went into overtime, it was already midnight. It was late, and I was ready to go home. So I told the scorekeeper to set the clock for three minutes, instead of the usual five-minute overtime.

One of the players came up to me. He was very angry, and said to me, “You can’t do that. We want five minutes, not three.” I was not a Christian. I was tired, stubborn, and would not change the time. He continued, “I’ll have your job for this.” He was speaking very harshly to me, but now, beyond the yelling, he began poking me in the chest with his finger. If I had done that while playing high school, or college basketball, they would have thrown me out of the game. So I said to this man, “If you touch me again with your finger, I will kick you out of this game, and out of this gym.” Remember, this is a church league. But he could not contain himself. He continued in anger poking me, and speaking harshly to me. I kept my promise. I booted him out of the game, and told him to leave the gym. He wouldn’t leave. Church league referees don’t have much authority, but I told him that if he would not leave, I would forfeit the game to the other team. That worked. He finally left the gym. The scorekeeper said to me, “I’m sorry for all this. He should know better.” I asked,  “Who was that?” He replied,  “He’s our pastor.”

Even though this incident occurred at the same time God was drawing me, it did not have a negative influence in my life. I didn’t look down on Christians, or pastors, or the church as a result of this pastor’s anger.

As I look back from my present perspective, now myself a pastor, I know that pastors are just men. We all must battle with the sinful flesh. “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes” (Galatians 5:19-20). The competition of sports can easily unlock the flesh. I believe Christians, especially pastors, should be careful about what sports they compete in.  Pastors are normally very competitive men, and it’s easy for us to fly off in an outburst of anger during the heat of competition. One day, in a church pick-up basketball game, I saw a pastor take a swing at my own son who accidently hit him on the head during a rebound.

I’m not excusing these pastor’s outbursts of anger. They should not have acted like this. They were both a bad testimony, especially the pastor who was yelling and pocking me…as an unbeliever. I also cringe to think there were unbelievers in the stands that evening. I also feel bad for the other believers, and those in his church who had to watch this.

After becoming a believer, I ran into this pastor one day while attending a conference at his church. He never said anything to me, or I to him. Perhaps he didn’t recognize me. I should have introduced myself to him and apologized for my stubbornness, and asked for his forgiveness.

I’ve always had one question in my mind as I think back to those months of refereeing that church league. I’ve wondered why no one, on any of the teams, ever talked to me about Jesus Christ.

Shortly after the basketball incident, my wife Donna wanted to go to church. I resisted for several weeks. Sunday was my day for things like golf, basketball, fishing, or watching sports on TV, etc. I finally broke down, and we visited the Atascadero Bible Church. Donna thought it looked good for families to go to church together. In our minds that’s why we went. God had a completely different reason. I remember sitting in the back singing. I wasn’t used to singing in groups. I didn’t know any of the songs. It reminded me of my brother-in-law’s singing in the car. Standing up, sitting down, standing up, sitting down. I have to admit, I was uncomfortable there. This was not where I wanted to be.

Then Pastor E.B. Claud began to speak. I don’t know how to explain it. I found myself glued to what he was saying. He was teaching the Bible, in First Corinthians, verse by verse. I knew nothing about what he was saying, but at the same time I found myself drawn to what he was saying. The pastor was also speaking about Jesus, the same Jesus that Richard, Rick, and Dave talked about. But something was different. Something happened inside of me. I found myself being very interested, and desiring to know more about what he was teaching. His words were not flying over my head. They were not bouncing off a heart of stone. Even though I had no knowledge of the Bible, I found it compelling. Both my family and I had to go back the next week.  We’ve now been going back for 43 years.

            I realized I was actually believing in Jesus. Even more, I had a desire to learn what was in that Book. And even more strange to me, I had a desire to obey the things I was learning. I was falling in love with the Man who paid my sin’s penalty, and that penalty was death. What was once foolishness was now, strangely, no longer foolish. What once made no sense to me, was now compelling, exciting, and making a whole lot of sense. How could this be?

I now know that God extended His grace and forgiveness to me. I now know it was unmerited, and undeserved. God actually drafted me to play on His team. I call this team the New Jerusalem Saints. To this day, I continue to be humbled by the privilege of working on His team. Want to join us? "Everyone who believes in Jesus receives forgiveness of sins." (Acts 10:43).

In 1996 Donna and I went to seminary in Portland, OR. I've been pastoring for many years now. Recently I turned the Paso Robles Bible Church over to my son Darren. I'm now working part time at the church, which has given me time to paint

As you've seen photo's of some of my past paintings of Jesus and His work, I've now, after a 26 year lay off, decided to paint landscapes, showing the area where I live. It's been fun to paint again. My wife Donna, as always, has been very supportive of this next venture. 

May God bless you all.