Impact Player

by Bobby Richardson

  The first was thinking he had to change before he could become a Christian.

  I am grateful that Mickey’s life ended in such a way that he could see his death coming, and that by God’s grace, his reasons for putting off a decision for God—saying “maybe,” which actually means “no”—were removed as hurdles. I also believe Mickey realized he was a sinner and knew that the wages of sin is death, so he understood the penalty involved. But I think he wrongly believed that he had to completely clean up his life before he came to Christ.

  We don’t have to change our lives to become acceptable to Christ. In fact, we can’t change our lives to become acceptable to Christ. There is nothing we can do to earn His salvation. It is a gift. The only “requirement” is that we acknowledge our sin and helplessness to change ourselves and then receive that gift. Paul writes in Ephesians 2:8-9, “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (NIV). John 3:16, which Mickey recited in his hospital room, says that God gave His only Son.

  Grace, by definition, is unmerited favor. And also by definition, salvation—which comes through grace—cannot be earned.

  Change comes not before salvation but from salvation. Salvation doesn’t mean we change; it means we allow God to change us from the inside out. Change comes through the only way God has provided: our asking forgiveness for our sins and receiving His Son as Lord and Savior in our hearts and lives.

  In 2 Corinthians 4:7 Paul wrote that the power of salvation comes “from God and not from us” (NIV). That is such a freeing thought—to know that I don’t have to change myself. Because let’s be honest: none of us has the power to make that change.

  I think that Mickey’s misunderstanding of that reality is one reason he delayed his decision for Christ. He had battled his insecurity in the areas of drinking and relationships for so many years that I don’t think he believed he could make the changes he thought were necessary to become a Christian. He did not understand that when you give your heart to Christ and invite Him to be Lord of your life, He is the One who gives you the strength needed to overcome the temptations that come your way.

  Another thing I believe Mickey was wrong about is more painful to admit. Mickey was wrong about me.

  Mickey once told Betsy, “I can’t live like Bobby.” He knew I didn’t cuss or drink, and he looked at me as living a good life—good in the sense that I didn’t do any of the things that he would consider bad. But what Mickey didn’t know was that I battled my own weaknesses too.

  I always tried to live in a way that I hoped would cause my teammates to be drawn to my Savior. But I shudder at the possibility that in trying so hard to do that and not sharing my struggles with them, I might have given the wrong impression. Did they know and understand that the source of my strength was Jesus, not a religion or self-discipline?

  When I speak, I like to emphasize two points. First, the way we Christians live our lives in front of others is important. Second, we need to guard against allowing our witness to break down at home. I failed at both many times, of course, and by grace I asked God to forgive me. But I have to wonder whether, if Mickey knew just how often I failed in that second area, maybe he would not have told Betsy he couldn’t live like me.

  The plain and simple truth is that all Christians have struggles. Ephesians 6:12 says, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (NIV). The implication in that passage is not that Christians might struggle but that we do struggle. And those struggles can come from places we do not expect.

  For a professional baseball player, the obvious place to expect struggles is within the major league lifestyle. And there are plenty of temptations there.

  I always recognized that my baseball ability was a gift from God, so I attempted to redirect praise from others to become praise to Him: “To God be the glory.” I didn’t put myself in positions where alcohol and drugs could become a problem for me. Because I made my faith known publicly, my teammates—even the ones who drank—became my helpers. My teammates knew I didn’t want to drink, and they would not try to persuade me to go out with them. Often they would say something like, “We’re going out to a bar, but we know you’ll probably want to go to a restaurant with some of the others.” It was as though they respected my decision to not drink and perhaps even encouraged me to be different. Even today it makes me feel good when Betsy says that when I was a player, she did not experience the same fears that some other players’ wives felt when their husbands were on the road.

  One of my biggest struggles, though, came in the place that probably would be the least expected: at home. While I was out sharing my faith in churches, at Billy Graham Crusades, in front of civic groups, and with my teammates, the enemy was diligently chipping away at my marriage. It happened so gradually that I wasn’t even aware of it until more than thirty years after Betsy and I got married. By then, our marriage was in real danger.

  Our marital problems were never a question of love. Betsy and I loved each other deeply. But we both had needs and issues from our past that affected the way we treated each other. Neither of us knew how to communicate effectively with the other. And our schedule, especially during my playing days, made things more difficult.

  I’ve described how my father remained mostly silent and how my mother had the stronger personality in our household. So I went into my marriage not knowing how a husband and wife should effectively communicate to work out their differences. I also had anger issues, and the avenue through which my anger expressed itself was sarcasm. I could be quick with a sarcastic and biting remark. On top of that, I chose a profession that involved travel and a lot of time away from home. I take full responsibility, though, for my actions. I don’t blame anyone else.

  Betsy’s father left his family when she was eight months old. She never met him. As would be expected, Betsy went into our marriage needing a husband who would affirm her, protect her, and be present for her. I’m not sure any professional baseball player would have fit the personality profile of Betsy’s ideal mate. I know I didn’t.

  Remember, we didn’t have a true honeymoon, and just about the first thing I did after we had completed the drive from Sumter to Denver after our wedding was take off on a two-week road trip with my team. Here’s our home—see you in a couple of weeks. My baseball schedule immediately had an impact on our marriage.

  Then while I was in the major leagues, Betsy had to take on more than her fair share of responsibilities at home. Her mother, Mary, and her friend and helper, Virginia Burgess, were a great support to her, but ultimately Betsy was the one responsible for packing up our family when school ended so she and the kids could join me for the summer. Then she was the one responsible for packing up our family again at the end of the summer to return to Sumter for the beginning of school.

  Betsy also handled all the home and parenting duties when I was off on road trips. People saw our children play sports and assumed they benefited from having a major leaguer to work with them at home. They would be stunned to know how many times it actually was their mother throwing a ball with them in the yard or shooting baskets with them because their father was not home.

  Even when our family was together at our in-season home in New Jersey and the Yankees were on home stands, my schedule still meant Betsy had to cover for things I should have been doing as the husband and father. For a day game, I had to leave the house at eight thirty in the morning to get to the ballpark, and I wouldn’t return home until around seven or eight at night. For a night game, I would leave around noon and make it back home around midnight. That schedule did not leave much room for quality family time.

  That was our schedule for eight months of the year. The off-season began in October and ran through February. But during the off-season I still traveled a good deal
, sharing my testimony as much as I could because I had a difficult time saying no.

  Even for the strongest marriages, that is a demanding schedule, and eventually it took its toll on our family. I wish I could go back in time armed with the knowledge of our differences I now possess. I certainly would have treated Betsy better.

  As it was, when Betsy tried to express the areas in which she needed my help, I would take it the wrong way, think she was trying to run my life, become angry on the inside, and pop off a sarcastic remark. Betsy did not understand that the source of my anger and sarcasm was in my childhood. Because she grew up without a father, she would take my sarcasm as a rejection of her.

  Betsy thought that if I really loved her—and I did, dearly—I would stop the sarcasm. Her solution, then, was to try harder to express her pain and need for affirmation. But because we were missing each other with our different levels of communication, I still wasn’t providing the affirmation she needed from me. The more Betsy tried, and the more I didn’t get it, the angrier I became, and the more my words made her feel like a failure. I’m telling this story in only a few paragraphs, but imagine that cycle slowly spinning within a marriage over the course of three decades.

  I complicated matters by not recognizing my own deficiencies. I dealt with my anger and sarcasm like a ballplayer deals with losing a game: it happened, tomorrow’s a new day, forget about it, move on. A baseball player has to be able to do that to make it in the majors. The obvious flaw in that approach to a relationship, though, is that it never deals with the problem. Perhaps worse, it does not even acknowledge that there is a problem.

  That was me in our marriage. I understood Betsy’s upbringing and wrongly believed that her father’s absence was to blame—that the problem was Betsy’s. I know now that it was our problem, and I was the one person who could bring the male affirmation that Betsy had missed and desperately needed. I am so thankful that she turned to her Savior and heavenly Father and not to another man to meet those deep needs in her loneliest times. Betsy has committed many Bible verses to memory, and her knowledge of God’s Word is rooted in those times when she had to rely upon God’s strength and wisdom every day.

  Because I thought the problem was Betsy’s, I had no interest in meeting with a counselor. If she wanted to talk to a counselor, that was fine with me, but I wasn’t about to go anywhere near a counselor’s office. She had issues; I was fine.

  This wasn’t funny then, but Betsy laughs while telling the story now, so I’ll share it here. I did relent enough to Betsy’s pleading to agree to attend a Christian marriage seminar with Betsy and two friends, Sam and Shirley Anderson. I didn’t know then that Betsy had picked this seminar because of the way it was promoted. The speaker was going to tell husbands how to love their wives. That sounded great to Betsy.

  One night of the seminar, the speaker focused on how wives are instructed in God’s Word to be submissive to their husbands. The next morning he was to speak on how husbands are supposed to love their wives as Christ loved the church. But we didn’t stick around for that part.

  “That’s it,” I announced after the nighttime seminar. “I’ve had enough of this. We’re going home.” Hearing only the wives’ role talk in the first part of the seminar, I left more convinced than ever that all our problems really were Betsy’s fault. As we drove home—with our friends in the car—Betsy became so distraught over our leaving the seminar without meeting her expectations that she started crying. I looked over at her and said, “You didn’t learn a thing, did you?”

  I wasn’t much help, was I?

  In the late 1980s, while I was coaching baseball at Liberty University, our marriage reached the point that Betsy knew there was no hope for it apart from God. Only a handful of people were aware of the depths of our struggles—and that didn’t include me! Betsy reached out for help to a counselor, who recommended strongly that she confront me with a “we must get help now or else” declaration. I finally agreed to seek outside help with her, and we were referred to an evangelist for spiritual counseling. Ron wasn’t a marital counselor, but he was an expert in spiritual warfare who put his trust in the power of the Holy Spirit.

  For two days Betsy and I put our lives on the table in front of the evangelist. As someone who had trouble getting below the surface and into a deep, personal level with others, I found it extremely difficult to open up my life like that to a person I did not know. But as we allowed not only each of our personal lives, but also our spiritual lives, to be evaluated in front of each other, I finally saw the depth of pain Betsy was going through and how I had contributed to it. For the first time, I understood that what we were going through was not Betsy’s problem but our problem.

  The evangelist helped us to see that our battle was not just with each other but also within ourselves. There were deep-seated issues in each of our lives that were being used to attack our marriage. Our battle was spiritual, as Paul had said in Ephesians.

  I came out of that counseling knowing that my life had to change completely. And the changes that were needed were not ones I could make on my own; they could only be made by allowing the Holy Spirit to work within me to make me the kind of husband Betsy needed. They weren’t changes I could make right there, on the spot, but I did have to make a commitment right then and there to work toward real change.

  My sarcasm, for one, had to stop. That certainly wouldn’t be easy. It remains a battle for me to this day. But at least I have come to understand the poison of sarcasm and why it needed to go. Sarcasm is sneaky. It has a habit of working its way out of our mouths before we suddenly realize, Boy, that was the wrong thing to say at this time. I still catch myself wanting to say something sarcastic or even making a sarcastic remark before I can stop it.

  There were other changes I needed to make, of course, for Betsy’s sake and for our marriage’s sake. She had to do some adjusting as well. I won’t say it was easy, but we kept at it.

  That meeting with the evangelist occurred more than twenty years ago. I believe that God’s mercy and grace kept our marriage together until those two days of counseling, His mercy and grace saved our marriage during those two days, and His mercy and grace have kept us married since. We recently celebrated with joy our fifty-sixth wedding anniversary.

  I don’t want to make it sound as though the battles within us have stopped—far from it. All Christians face battles. But the power of God that saved us is the same power that sustains us.

  I also don’t want to make it appear that one day, after more than thirty years of being married, I woke up to the realization that our marriage needed help. Just as the deterioration of our marriage was a slow process, so was the chipping away at my hardened heart that led me to consent to counseling.

  Although I was saved when I was almost twelve and realized when I met Betsy that there was a deeper walk with Christ available, I understand now that I remained at that decision level for many years. I was a Christian, and I lived a Christian life that made an impact around me, but I didn’t mature spiritually as I should have.

  I definitely wasn’t ashamed of the gospel; I can’t guess the number of days I shared the gospel as a speaker. I was intentional in ministering, but I wasn’t intentional enough about being ministered to. When I wasn’t speaking in a church, I was attending church, but I was in a pulpit speaking much more than I was in a pew listening. The ratio of ministry going out compared with ministry coming in was way out of whack.

  I also allowed my busy schedule—baseball and otherwise—to get in the way of my studying Scripture and having devotion time at home with my family. Betsy sometimes challenged me to be more consistent with my Bible study and prayer and to have devotions in our home, but it was easy for me to resent her efforts and say, “I have to meet someone for breakfast this morning, so I’ll do it this afternoon.” Then, of course, afternoon would come around, something else would come up, and I wouldn’t have my quiet time.

  As a result, I was unashamed but unequippe
d.

  My inner urge to retire from baseball so I could spend more time with my family came at a time when I believe God was trying to get my attention, as He had in the earlier years of my marriage when there was a lot of spiritual growth in my life. Then after I did retire, I went to hear a friend, Bob Norris, who had just come to pastor a small church in our hometown. Bob’s teaching made the Scriptures come alive in a way I had not heard in a long time. I told Betsy I wanted her to visit Bob’s church with me the next Sunday. She felt the same way about how God’s Word was being presented there.

  We decided to begin attending that church, and my friend’s messages caused me to see a deeper level within the gospel message—a level I had never reached. I came to the stinging realization that, while I was effectively sharing the gospel all across the country, I was not effectively living and sharing it at home. I had become so busy going to places where I wanted to make an impact that I had neglected the place where I most needed to make an impact.

  Convicted by this realization, I began studying God’s Word more and praying more, and I committed to having more devotion time at home. As a result, I began to grow more as a Christian. In a way, I think I began moving toward becoming the person some folks thought I already was.

  That is why I still think often of that poignant interview Mickey Mantle had with Bob Costas. When Mickey said, “I was not a good father,” I immediately understood what he was saying—because I wasn’t a good father on numerous occasions either.

  I also think of another interview during which Mickey said, “I’m no hero.” Again, I understood. I was no hero either, despite all the people who considered me to be one. I failed my wife. I failed my children. I failed others. I failed my God.

  My struggles and battles were very different from Mickey’s. But what I want my testimony to include is that all of us, including Christians, battle sin—despite what others’ perceptions of us might be. Some people’s struggles, like Mickey’s, are public, out there where everyone can see. Other people’s, like mine, are more private. The struggles can even be within a person and known only to him or her.