Former major leaguer Brett Butler still loves and works in baseball, but he has an even more important calling.
Buter was the keynote speaker for the Community Prayer Breakfast at the Northern Hotel on Tuesday morning.
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“Baseball is what I did. It's not who I am,” Butler said.
He had a career batting average of .290, 2,375 hits, and appearances in the All-Star Game and the World Series.
Watch Brett Butler talk about Major League players:
Butler played 17 years in the major leagues for multiple teams.
Watch Brett Butler at Community Prayer Breakfast:
When he was first traded in 1984, from the Atlanta Braves to the then-Cleveland Indians (now Guardians), he said he didn't like it.
“And my father said this to me, I never thought that I would live to see the day that you would be in a Cleveland uniform. That was my favorite team growing up,” Butler said about his Dad. “And he goes, and I can't tell you, son, how proud I am of you and I love you very much. Here's your mom. Cause yeah, I mean, he wasn't a hugger. He didn't do that. The reason why I'm telling you that is my father, the next day, he died of a heart attack at 49 years old."
And Butler’s wife was not excited about the trade from the Los Angeles Dodgers to the New York Mets in 1995.
“Every off day that I was in New York, while my mom was dying, I flew to Chicago,” Butler said. “If I was in L.A., I wouldn't have been able to do it.”
Brett's mother died at the age of 59 while he was talking with her on the phone.
Butler has also had to deal with his own health problems.
“I'm going to accept not only the good God gives me but also the bad,” Butler said. “I've been through three bouts of cancer and a stroke. That's why I talk the way I do.”
Doctors told him he would never play again during that 1994 season with the Dodgers.
“And if the Lord wants me to play again, I'll walk back on the field,” Butler said about his recovery. “I had the surgery on May 2, walked back on the field Sept. 10 of that year.”
Butler met his wife while playing AAA ball in Richmond, Virginia.
“She had prayed to God to put a godly man... in her life,” said Butler. “And I'm like, Lord, put a godly woman in my life, so we take all the desires of this away. And we are going on 44 years now.”
Butler played in the 1989 World Series during the earthquake that postponed Game 3 between the Oakland A's and the San Francisco Giants.
“It's just the humbling thing, realizing that Major League Baseball is just a game,” Butler said. “And there's things a lot more important than that in life.”
Butler managed the Reno Aces to the AAA championship in 2012 and continues to work with young ball players.
“My heart's desire now is to share the gospel to young men and teach them how to be men and fathers and husbands and to be a man of God so that they can make a difference in this world,” Butler said.
Butler will speak at the Mayor's Prayer Breakfast in Great Falls on Wednesday.
