Outreach Offers Baseball Players Spiritual Training

November 20, 2002
by Isaac Olivarez

SANTO DOMINGO – When Baseball Chapel was created in 1973 for major-league baseball teams in the United States, services were held in hotels prior to games and not every team had a chapel program. Within two years all major-league teams had chapel services. In 1978, a minor-league program was established, extending chapels to winter-league baseball in Latin America.

Today, more than 3,000 players, coaches, managers and trainers in the United States and Latin America attend nondenominational Baseball Chapel each week, where the focus is on spiritual rather than athletic development. With the help of Assemblies of God missionaries and national laypeople in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, La Capilla de Béisbol (Baseball Chapel) ministers to more than 300 aspiring major-league baseball players annually.

"The chaplain is a catalyst, but the spiritual growth that takes place is like a chemical reaction," said Dale Coad, who has been an Assemblies of God missionary in the Dominican Republic for 15 years. "Once the ballplayers get excited to serve the Lord, they encourage one another."

Luis Gomez, member of Templo Calvario Asambleas de Dios in Santo Domingo, agreed. During the 10 years he has worked as a volunteer with Baseball Chapel, he said his favorite part of the job remains providing Bible studies for 70 players and their families each week.

"It strengthens their faith to see that some major-leaguers [in the United States] can be Christians and still excel as players," said Gomez, who is a chaplain for two baseball academies in the Dominican Republic run by the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies. "I constantly pray the Lord helps them spiritually, and that they accomplish their dreams of arriving in the major leagues."

AG-NEWS: The Assemblies of God News & Information Service, (c) 2002