A recent story about a Latter-day Saint baseball fan and his father is the kind parents and grandparents will share for years.
Matthew Hutchings likes to collect autographed baseballs, the stuff of a young boy’s or girl’s biggest dreams. A player’s signature connects a collector — young or old — to a hero and the nostalgia for the game.
Hutchings hatched an amazing idea when he heard the former Major League Baseball player McKay Christensen talk about choosing to serve a mission over a $1 million offer to begin his professional baseball career.
The “Million-Dollar Missionary” led Hutchings to wonder how many Latter-day Saints had served missions and gone on to play Major League Baseball.
The answer is nine, the number of players you need to field a team. Of course it is. How can you not be romantic about baseball?
Hutchings played baseball at BYU and knew one of the returned missionary big leaguers, and they started to reach out. Hutchings stamped “Called to Serve” on some MLB balls and the players began to sign them.
So far, he has collected six of the nine autographs on a ball for himself. Each player includes his names, the location of his mission and the years he served.
“The story is the (nine) people, the small crowd of people who accomplished the feat of serving a mission and making it to the MLB,” Hutchings said. “And the ball is just kind of the physical piece of marrying my joy and love of baseball with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
The big league RMs are signing nine other baseballs, one for each of them to keep.
But the real part that makes the link to the story worth bookmarking or sending to your friends is what the players say about their missions. Deseret News reporter Trent Wood spoke to several of them.
“My mission was something I felt called to do,” said Taylor Cole, who pitched for the Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Angels. “No one had ever served a mission in my family. My parents were converts. I knew it would establish a foundation for the rest of my life, even if it came at the expense of a baseball career.”
“At the time, it was a hard choice — picking God over the game — but God knows best," former Seattle Mariner Jacob Hannemann said. “It was an incredible learning experience that taught me to put him first in my life before anything else, including myself. That decision led me to a lot of truth and personal growth.
“As much as I love baseball, I’ve come to see that there’s so much more to life than the game. I loved meeting people, helping them, and being part of something bigger than myself. I’m still deeply grateful to God for that experience, and I strive to put him first every single day. I’m thankful for where he led me then, and where he continues to lead me now.”
There’s so much from the players about their missions in the story.
And here are links to past Deseret News stories about each player:
