For me, the decade of the 70’s was the golden era of baseball. As a kid and avid sports fan living near Pittsburgh, seeing my Pirates win two World Series championships made life good for this teenager! For the entire decade, I was glued to the TV with my dad, watching the Buccos, the Oakland A’s and the Cincinnati Reds in their respective pennant runs. Wille Stargell, Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Reggie Jackson… it was a great time to grow up! And while I didn’t pay too much attention to most teams in the American League, I remember what a force Frank Tanana was when he started pitching for the California Angels.
Tanana had a career spanning 20 years in the MLB (1973 to 1993) spending time with the Angels, Red Sox, Rangers, Tigers, Mets and Yankees. A hard thrower, he amassed almost 2,800 strikeouts (right behind Cy Young for 26th all-time !) and had 240 career wins.
As would happen with many power pitchers, he suffered a shoulder injury that resulted in a decrease in the number of strikeouts and a reduction in win percentage. This injury, along with the murder of his friend and teammate Lyman Bostock caused Frank to consider the meaning of life. His chaplain at the time (and former Los Angeles Dodger infielder) John Werhas was an instrumental part of Frank’s faith quest. In an interview on “From Glory Days” in 2015, he stated the following:
“I began to search for really what life was all about. The chaplain of the California Angels John Werhas introduced me to the Bible which I had never really read. I began to purse the scriptures and read it and do some Bible studies and just came to understand the message… I really came to believe that Jesus Christ, who said he was God, and who rose from the dead, the whole gospel, the good news of Jesus and why He came, what He’s all about. Either Jesus is who He said He was, He said He was the only way to God — if you believe in Him then you would never die… His resurrection from the dead was either a reality or it was fiction. Here, Lyman dies and so where’d Lyman go? And so I just began that search. I invited Christ to come into my life. He began to be the one I lived for. I grabbed the Scriptures, I began to follow what the word of God said. He began to order my life. I laid down my life and followed Him and He has wonderfully put together my life. It’s the most wonderful decision, the best decision I ever made”.
Frank Tanana has given his testimony at public events for years. When autographing his baseball cards, he will write a Bible verse along with his signature. On this 1988 Topps card he wrote John 14:6 which says, “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” (ESV)
It’s a very familiar passage of scripture having read it hundreds of times myself. But this time I decided to study the verse in it’s fuller context. Jesus is in the middle of a conversation with His disciples. Simon Peter had just asked Him, “Lord, where are you going?” in the previous chapter, saying he’d even lay down his life for Jesus. But at the end of the chapter, Peter was told by the Lord Himself that he’d deny Him three times before the rooster crows. Chapter 14 then begins with Jesus comforting His disciples, saying, “Do not let your hearts be troubled” because He was going to prepare a place for His people, and that where He was, his people would be also. The conversation continues with Thomas then saying, “Lord, we do not know where you are going, how will we know the way?”
It’s a fair question to ask. They knew that Jesus was going somewhere, and that where he was going to be, they would be also… but they remained unclear on exactly where this was. They wanted to know… “Lord where are you going?”. How will someone know the way to a destination if they don’t know the destination. The disciples are thinking “destination” as in “a place”, but Jesus tells them the destination is “the Father”… a Person, not a necessarily a place… And Jesus is the way to the Father. He is the vehicle by which people come to the Father, the only method by which people will have full access to God.
What Frank Tanana wrote on this baseball card is the good news that people are so desperately seeking. People wandering through life without purpose have access to God, but only by faith in Jesus Christ. He is the ONLY way!
Establish my footsteps in Your Word ~ Psalm 119:133 