Darrel Chaney
Episode 208
23 JAN 2023
He was chosen in the second round of the Major League Baseball amateur draft by the Cincinnati Reds and went on to play eleven seasons, appearing in over 900 regular season games with the Reds and the Atlanta Braves combined. He played an additional 19 games in the playoffs, including going to three World Series, winning one. After his playing career in the big leagues, he was part of the broadcast team for Atlanta Braves games on both television and radio. Back in his days as a student-athlete he also starred in football, and even went on to play professional slow pitch softball after his time in MLB. He is a past Chairman of the Board of the Major League Alumni Marketing and his story was told in a book called, “Welcome to the Big Leagues… Every Man’s Journey to Significance.”
Notable guest quotes:
“We were raised Catholic. They could afford to put me and my brother and my sister through Catholic grade school, so, it was Mass every morning before school started.”
“I’m a cradle Catholic, still going to Mass, every day, every Sunday.”
“We were undefeated state champions my senior year in football, and I was named Parade magazine’s All-American number one quarterback in the country.”
“As I look back on it, I was pretty blessed in that area because there’s millions – millions – of kids all around the world that would’ve traded places with me to be a Major League Baseball player, not alone to play in the major leagues but have the good Lord put me on one of the greatest, if arguably not the greatest team of the ten years there in the ‘70s, the Big Red Machine.”
“He wanted to write this book about me after we had spent a number of years together doing one-on-one discipleships.”
“When I was first up in the big leagues, one of the opportunities that was presented to me… was… baseball chapel leader.”
“We would have a priest sometimes; we’d have a minister come and talk to us for about 20 minutes and then we’d go out and play the game.”
“My life mattered not because of what my manager said, my teammates said, my parents said, my friends in the neighborhood, [but] my life mattered because God says it matters. He tells us I don’t know how many times in the Bible.”
“I went back to my room and in between these two queen size beds in the Chase Park Plaza Hotel, I broke down onto my knees and just started crying, saying, ‘Lord, help me here’.”
“I had my faith in Jesus Christ to fall back on and when my playing career ended, I had the church to fall back on. So, as time went by I got heavily involved in the Catholic church.”
“At the end of the day the bottom line is, if you don’t have faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you’ve got a long way to go… I don’t know how people who don’t know Christ get through it.”
“I’m not afraid to tell people my story about my conversion, about my faith in Christ, and my work in the Catholic church.”
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