The Baseball Evangelist

One of the most colorful and interesting figures in twentieth-century American Christianity is the evangelist Billy Sunday. He was born William Ashley Sunday Jr. on November 19, 1862. His father was a Union soldier in the Civil War, but Billy Jr. never knew his father; the elder William died of influenza only two weeks after Billy's birth. His mother simply couldn't survive with Billy and his older brother, so she sent them off to an orphan home for Civil War soldiers in Iowa.

In the late 1870s, Billy was in Marshalltown, Iowa. He was working in a furniture store and playing on the local Marshalltown baseball team. Like Billy, the American pastime of baseball was born during the Civil War. Billy was fast, lightning fast, and he led Marshalltown to the Iowa state championship and came to the attention of the National League's Chicago White Stockings (now the Chicago Cubs). He played for the White Stockings for five years and then went on to play for the Pittsburgh Pirates and then for the Philadelphia Phillies. In 1890, he had a .257 batting average. And even more impressive, he had a record-breaking eighty-four stolen bases.

In 1886, while he was in Chicago, Billy Sunday found himself at meetings of the Pacific Garden Mission. There, listening to the gospel, Sunday was converted to Christ at what was called the Old Light House of the Pacific Garden Mission. Very quickly, he became active in the Young Men's Christian Association as an evangelist. And it was also in Chicago that he became a member of Jefferson Park Presbyterian Church. He was a lifelong Presbyterian.

Billy left baseball in 1891, while he was still at the top of his career, to work full time for the YMCA as an evangelist. A few years later, he struck out on his own and formed the Billy Sunday Evangelistic Association. It is estimated that more than one hundred million people heard him preach from the mid-1890s until his death in 1935. As the baseball evangelist, Billy was a cultural icon. He fought hard for Prohibition and spent significant time and effort supporting the American war effort during World War I. In fact, at one point he said, "Turn hell upside down and what do you find stamped on the bottom? 'Made in Germany.'" Such was the fervor of Billy Sunday's patriotism and desire to help America in the war effort.

He was also known for his colorful quotes during his sermons. He said at one point: "The law tells me how crooked I am. Grace comes along and straightens me out." He says, "The reason you don't like the Bible, you old sinner, is because it knows all about you." On another occasion, he said, "One reason sin flourishes is that it is treated like a cream puff instead of a rattlesnake. The backslider likes the preaching that wouldn't hit the side of a house, while the real disciples delighted when the truth brings him to his knees." But my favorite Billy Sunday quote of all time is this one: "Listen, I'm against sin. I'll kick it as long as I've got a foot. I'll fight it as long as I've got a fist. I'll head-butt it as long as I've got a head. And I'll bite it as long as I've got a tooth. And when I'm old and fistless and footless and toothless I'll gum it until I go home to glory and it goes home to perdition." That's Billy Sunday, the baseball evangelist.