Inside Pitch
By Doug Davidson
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| Ke Lam slides head first into second base.
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Centerfielder Harrison "Stone" Seuga digs into the batter's box and watches a fastball sizzle across the plate for a strike. As leadoff hitter Ke Lam takes his lead off second, the visiting pitcher stretches and delivers his next pitch. With a solid crack, Stone lines the ball up the middle for a single, and the home crowd cheers as Lam rounds third and scores the game's first run.
The sights and sounds are familiar to any baseball fan. But this is not just any ball game—because the location is California's San Quentin State Prison. And Stone, Lam, and the rest of the home-team Pirates—as well as their fans—are doing hard time at this maximum-security facility outside San Francisco.
Since 1995, American Baptist pastor Kent Philpott has coached the baseball team at San Quentin. He'd been doing visitation ministry at the prison for nearly 15 years when he got an unusual offer: "The prison chaplain knew I was a longtime baseball guy," Philpott says, "and he asked if I'd get involved with the baseball team they'd started about two years earlier. So I've been doing it for the past eleven years."
"We play real hardball," Philpott says. "We bring in outside teams to come in and play games from March through August. We usually end up playing 15 to 17 games a year, although various things happen that can prevent that, like riots that shut the prison down."
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| To order Steal Away: Devotions for Baseball Fans, call 800-458-3766, or save 20% when you order online at www.judsonpress.com.
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Last July, Philpott's baseball ministry got a boost when he met Judson Press author Hugh Poland at a conference. Like Philpott, Hugh Poland is a Baptist minister and a longtime baseball fanatic, two passions that united in the writing of his book, Steal Away: Devotions for Baseball Fans. In that collection, Poland digs into the stories that surround his favorite sport, drawing insight and inspiration from what he calls the "parables of the game"—baseball stories that "speak strongly of redemption, of justice, of hope and forgiveness."
When Kent Philpott saw Steal Away, he immediately thought of his team at San Quentin: "I thought Steal Away would be perfect to hand out to the team members at the end of the year. I took a copy with me next time I went out to the prison, and showed it to a couple guys on the team. They loved the book. So I called Hugh to see about getting more copies."
Poland was more than happy to help get his book into the hands of the inmates at San Quentin. "I have a heart for discipling and encouraging men," he says, "and as a minister of music in the Houston area, I've led our choir and other groups into prisons here to do ministry. So I was delighted to hear that Kent wanted to give copies of Steal Away to the guys on the baseball team at San Quentin." Poland signed 60 copies of his book, and shipped them off to Philpott at cost.
Philpott passed the books out to the baseball team at the end of the season, and also gave copies to the members San Quentin's football team. "Steal Away is enjoying a good ministry here, it's clear," says Philpott. "People love the book. It brings a gospel message, and has a lot of good, sound principles that people can latch on to. It's also something a baseball person will recognize as being authentic. A lot of people who write about sports don't really get it right—but Hugh does. The 60 copies we gave out will get passed around the prison—they'll be read by hundreds of convicts over time."
About half of the members of Philpott's Miller Avenue Baptist Church are involved in some form of volunteer ministry at San Quentin. Philpott believes volunteer-run programs like the baseball team have great benefit for both the inmates and the wider society: "It means a lot to these guys to have people come in," he says. "It lets them know they're not throw-aways, they're not just trash. It relieves boredom, and takes some of them back to their youth. Most of these guys are going to get out of prison someday. The question is: What kind of guys are they going to be then? Programs like this lift these guys up, and help them be productive citizens after their release."
Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller once said, "Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday's success or put its failures behind and start over again. That's the way life is, with a new game every day, and that's the way baseball is." The guys on the team at San Quentin know all too well about yesterday's failures. But with God's help, and the faithful support of folks like Kent Philpott and Hugh Pollard, they are working to make the most of their tomorrows.
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