Matt Holliday is baseball’s esteemed clubhouse leader! The World Series Champion, 7-time All-Star and one-time batting champ has made a career of pushing his teams — toward success! How fast has fourteen years flown? Matt says, “I think some days it feels like it has flown and some days it feels like it’s been a long time. But I try to just day-to-day it and try to keep it as simple as possible! And I look at pictures when I started and you start thinking about how long it has been and some of the first teams that I was on that hardly any of them are still playing. It’s been a cool progression!
When asked what was the most common issue facing today’s younger players, Matt emphatically responds with, “the struggle of not doing well or just the day-to-day failure that comes with baseball is hard. Guys look for avenues, different places, to get relief from that. It’s a hard game! Especially in the bright lights of New York City, dealing with the pressure that comes along with performance. And not having Jesus as the center of that, it can be rough and trying to find and turn to different things.”
And how does Matt, as a 14-year veteran, handle the pressure of performance? By first answering with a question, “Do I handle the 0 for 4’s perfectly? No! Having a relationship with Jesus and recognizing that my performance is not representative of how much He loves me and just being able to go out here and trust in the fact that I’m where I’m supposed to be, doing what I’m supposed to be doing, Being able to separate this and go home and be a good husband and try to be a good father and help them understand what God’s love looks like, that’s a huge, tremendous responsibility for me that I take very serious. So, I think God has moved me in the right way in a lot of ways with how to deal with that.”
What makes being a leader in a clubhouse any different then leading anywhere else? Matt explains his approach, “It starts with being yourself! You earn that title by how you treat people, how you go about your business, how you work. Obviously experience helps! Get to know guys and really care about them.”
Does he enjoy the mentoring? Matt says, “I do. I love it! There’s guys here that are new spiritually, and still learning, as am I. Just being able to contribute to things that I’ve learned about interpreting Scripture and being able to talk to them about what I think God is saying in certain passages that has been really helpful for me. To getting in the Word every day and kind of starting my day with chewing on Scripture and having that center my life. I think in Timothy when he talks about leadership and being church — church leadership is everywhere. So this is sort of my church! It’s for everybody’s church – in living our lives, leading people and loving people. Yeah, that’s the prayer man, just make sure that I’m open to be used however, if He wants to use me that I’m available!”