CAC Member and MLB pitcher Bobby Keppel Joins the Minnesota Twins

By Eileen Bock

Bobby’s childhood growing up in Missouri helped him develop a passion for both baseball and the Catholic Church. He attended Catholic grade school at Incarnate Word and high school at De Smet Jesuit. After graduating in 2000, Bobby was drafted 36th overall by the New York Mets. He spent five years in the Mets minor league system and attended the University of Notre Dame for three semesters during the off-season.

Bobby signed with the Kansas City Royals in 2006 and was called up to the majors for a month and a half. In 2007 he played for the Rockies, followed by a season of AAA ball with the Florida Marlins.  The Minnesota Twins called him back up to the majors on June 22 of this year, where he is relief pitcher in the Twins bullpen.

It was during his time with the Royals that Bobby first heard about Catholic Athletes for Christ. Founder and President Ray McKenna dropped off CAC literature for Bobby in the locker room. Around the same time, teammate Mike Sweeney, who serves as the CAC Athlete Advisory Board Chairman, talked to him about the organization and invited him to attend the CAC Athlete Conference in November 2007.

Although he grew up Catholic, Bobby credits his wife, Suzanne, with helping him truly understand and honor his faith. They met while she was a summer counselor for LifeTeen. Bobby was impressed with the strong faith-support she had among her friends.  The friends would encourage each other to honor the sacraments, giving gentle reminders to visit the confessional before Mass if they had been indulgent in partying the night before.

Having spent time in both the minor and major leagues, Bobby has a unique perspective on the faith life of athletes. He feels it tends to be stronger among the players in the minors. They are not yet fulfilled (in either their career or faith), and are still searching for answers. When life gets tough in the minors, guys can turn to their faith. In the big league, Bobby notices fewer athletes relying on faith. “Perhaps,” he says, “they feel reached their goals. They have less motivation to need or seek religion or God. It’s unfortunate.”

According to Bobby, coaches have a responsibility to stress that playing a sport is a career choice, not a vocation. He feels coaches can play a unique role in the lives of athletes, to help them achieve both sports and vocation goals. Bobby adds, “We must give service to our vocation while working on our careers. Our end goal of a vocation is not to be a great player, but a great Christian.”

Bobby deeply admires the late Pope John Paul II, who had a great love of sports. Like JP II, Bobby believes athletes can evangelize through sports. He says, “Athletes need to be in the middle. Don’t put sports before God, but also realize that there is a ‘good’ within sports, like discipline and teamwork.”

Bobby tries not to “preach” to his teammates. Guys in the clubhouse probably know he’s Catholic, because he does the sign-of-the-cross during prayer.  Ideally, he wants his faith to show as an example of how he lives. He believes in the Socratic Method when discussing faith and the Church with others:  Ask questions, and the listeners eventually reach the “truth” themselves.

When he needs help answering a question, Bobby refers to The Catechism of the Catholic Church. He considers it a wonderful evangelization tool, as well as for one’s own education.  “It is a great, relatively untapped resource! When talking to people about the faith, if you have a question that you can’t answer, just look up the topic in the index.  The Church’s beliefs are straightforward. It surprises you, what wisdom the Church has.”

The Church & Catechism can teach us why the church believes, teaches and acts as it does. One example he gives is natural family planning.  “Take NFP,” Bobby says. “We are all called to this. It’s not easy to accept that, but it’s the truth.”  He also recommends the book “Surprised by Faith” by Dr. Don Bierle. If you have a desire in your heart to seek the truth, Bobby believes, you will discover the Catholic Church.