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SWEENEY-VATICAN Nov-17-2006 (920 words) With photo posted March 24. xxxi
In Rome, Royals star inspires crowd with stories of living his faith
By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service
ROME (CNS) -- Not even raucous laughter could wake up Mike Sweeney's jet-lagged toddlers who slumbered angelically in their strollers at his feet while he entertained and inspired his audience during his Nov. 17 Theology on Tap talk in Rome.
The 33-year-old first baseman for the Kansas City Royals spoke of the ways he lives out his faith. More than 35 people crowded into a wood-paneled pub located near one of Rome's many pontifical universities to hear him speak as part of the program for young adults.
One audience member said she found his talk so inspiring she was now going to have to become a Royals fan.
"Well, that'll make two of you," Sweeney joked as people laughed and clapped -- the din making his sleepy 15-month-old daughter stir just a bit.
The five-time baseball All Star, together with his family, parents and in-laws, came to the Eternal City on a pilgrimage that included attending Pope Benedict XVI's weekly general audience and visiting Vatican officials to promote the work of Catholic Athletes for Christ.
The newly formed national ministry based in Alexandria, Va., works to help Catholic athletes practice their faith and evangelize a sports world that has become increasingly devoid of human values.
Sweeney, chairman of the group's Athlete Advisory Board, said one of his goals was to help kids learn that "sport is our second love -- first comes Christ -- and then to tell them about our first love."
Though he is a cradle Catholic, Sweeney said he did not really get "on fire for his faith" until he was well into his teens, just before he was drafted by the Royals at 17.
But he said his faith deepened even further during spring training in 1999 after a friend gave him a sticker of a tandem bicycle. The friend explained the two-seater bike served as a reminder that Christ belonged in the front seat.
"We have to place Christ in the front seat in life. You have to pedal, but he'll lead," Sweeney said.
Up until then, life in the big leagues had been a struggle, with what he called being just a "middle-of-the-road" player; he said he felt enormous pressure from his coaches, teammates and fans to perform well.
"I realized I had been thinking only about me," he said.
Once "I got myself off the throne," he said, and decided to dedicate his life and career to Christ and put him in the front seat, "all of a sudden the pressure was off" and he had the best spring training season of his career.
"So now instead of looking in the stands and seeing 50,000 people, I imagine Christ sitting in the front row saying 'That's my boy. I'm proud of you,'" he said.
Sweeney said he uses his popularity and close contact with other players to spread the hope and good news he has found with Christ.
When a fan asks for his autograph, he always adds a chapter and verse from Scripture, Sweeney told Catholic News Service. He said what might seem like a cryptic code intrigues many fans to look up the biblical reference.
"I've had many people come up to me and say that they opened up the Bible for the first time ever or since they were a kid" and that they are now reading the Bible regularly because of looking up one of many Scripture verses he signs on hundreds of fans' gloves, bats and balls.
He said he even got Nike to stitch "Matt. 5:16" onto his cleats so he is able to share the Gospel with his opponents.
"I'll be on first base and a player will be like, 'Hey what's that on your cleat?'" Sweeney said, giving him a chance to recite and explain the verse while they wait for the next player to come to bat.
A former pro baseball player for the Colorado Silver Bullets and adviser for Catholic Athletes for Christ, Alyson Habetz, joined Sweeney and other Catholic athletes meeting officials from the Pontifical Council for the Laity's church and sport desk Nov. 17.
She told CNS that, now as coach of the women's Division I softball team at the University of Alabama, she is evangelizing Catholics by "helping them understand their faith."
She said Catholics who are not well-formed in their faith, "especially at the college level where they're searching for something, oftentimes they get drawn into the feel-good kind of evangelical product that's out there, and so we lose them."
Even though she was born and raised a Catholic, she said she did not really get excited about her faith until she started reading more about it and came to "understand the beauty of it, the tradition of it and what everything meant."
As a coach, Habetz said she helps all her players understand that "sports is just what we do, it's not who you are."
So many athletes get so caught up with winning and being a star player that their identities and sense of self-worth revolve around the number of home runs they hit or games they win, she said.
"I tell them they're a child of God and that you have value in that and are loved because of that and nothing you do on the field can change that," she said.
When that message sinks in, sports become more enjoyable and less of a pressure cooker, Habetz said.
END
Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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