Meeting former professional baseball player Brian Bocock was awesome! Brian has had an amazing career in professional sports. He played for a decade in pro sports, primarily as a shortstop, a key infield position. During his career, he played in AAA and, for a shorter time, in the MLB. In the majors, he played for the San Francisco Giants and the Philadelphia Phillies. As a professional athlete, Brian has reached the upper crust of professional sports, a feat every little boy (or girl) wants to achieve when they watch the games on television or buy a pack of baseball cards. However, our conversation wasn’t entirely about professional baseball; it centered on God and the profound ways He has directed Brian’s life.
Walking Away: Choosing Family Over the Majors
Our discussion of life included how God has led Brian away from the grueling travel, demanding schedules, and massive stadiums of professional athletics, guiding him back home to Virginia. In this important life redirection, Brian chose to focus on what matters most: his family over an industry he found ultimately self-serving.
The Struggle with Identity in Professional Sports
During our talk, Brian revealed that the most destabilizing aspect of his career was its impact on his identity. The culture of professional sports skewed his foundation in Jesus Christ. Brian noted that anything put above God is destabilizing and has a negative effect.
Finding True Identity in Jesus Christ
Although raised in a Christian home, Brian drifted from his faith for a time. On the surface, he appeared to have everything together, but he admitted in the video that the success he thought he had achieved was superficial and that his “actions and words were not speaking to” his faith in Jesus Christ. When the facade of his false identity in his baseball career ended, and all he could speak was “Christianese,” his world crumbled as his identity was not rooted in Christ (at the time). At that point, a wonderful couple from his church stepped in to support and guide him and his family.
Ultimately, Brian’s journey is powerful, and his story would make an awesome book! (I genuinely hope he writes a book, by the way!) Nevertheless, his story offers hope to all those who struggle with their identity. For people stuck under the stadium lights idolizing professional sports, as many do, only faith in Jesus offers true hope, healing, and purpose, and last but not least, a genuine and true identity found in Jesus! Brian’s important transition from the major leagues to a renewed identity in Christ speaks of the only transformative power found in this realm – Jesus! Brian’s compelling story shows that we all need Jesus and, in this life, a supportive community willing to walk alongside us when life falls apart.
