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Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths cover
July 25, 2024

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00:00:28 / 00:24:58

EPISODES

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On The Road

How Barry Zito found what he was looking for

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On The Road

He’d gone from the boy carefully aiming & throwing rocks at the clothespins on his mom’s wash line to a celebrated major league prospect. After a remarkably fast rise through the minor leagues, Barry Zito became a dominant starting pitcher for the Oakland Athletics, earning the Cy Young Award given to the best pitcher in the American League alongside multiple All Star selections.

But after signing a record-breaking contract with the cross-town San Francisco Giants after the 2006 season, success became tougher to come by on the field. And with that gone, Barry found himself in a truly painful place.

“Because I was trying to win my father’s approval since childhood in a lot of ways, I ended up trying to win the fans’ approval. If I wasn’t pitching well, I wouldn’t leave my home until I had to go to the field. Then, when I went to the park, I’d cover up in sunglasses and headphones, and try to be essentially just invisible. Because here I was, their one hundred million dollar guy that they wanted to lead them to the promised land of the World Series, and I couldn’t get anybody out.”

“So I would just try to hide – not only from everybody else, but from myself. I mean, it was misery and shame. Coming back to this huge mansion I bought in these beautiful mountains up north of San Francisco just alone and completely miserable, I was doing whatever I could to escape my self image.”

Two central turning points were on the way in Barry’s life. The first was a twelve step fellowship program that tackled co-dependency. The second was the day his wife handed him a Bible.

“So after she handed me a Bible, I started going to Bible study. The Giants had a Bible study once a week, and me and a couple other players were in it. And about three months later, I prayed a prayer with our chaplain. Something was just different. Because I had tried so many religions and spiritualities, and then I’d just move on to the next one after I had some tough times. But with Jesus it was different.”

“It was the first time I felt approved of, and loved, and validated, and all those things I searched for in the world, but without actually earning them. Without working for them. Without having to perform for them. And that was the change. I learned about grace. I learned what it meant to have something I actually didn’t deserve. And then I got to that point to see baseball for what it really was, which was a game that it was an honor to even play at that level versus something I was entitled to because I had worked so hard for it.”


Barry Zito was a Cy Young Award-winning, All Star Major League Baseball pitcher. Now he’s an author and a talented musician. His new book is “Curveball: How I Discovered True Fulfillment after Chasing Fortune & Fame.”

About On The Road

How does faith shape the way we live in today's culture, communities, and in the public square? It's the question we tackle each week On The Road, and – along the way – we discover stories of courage, perseverance and hope!

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Barry Zito