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From the Oakland A's to the Seminary - A Professional Athlete's Journey to Find Peace

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Pollux

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image004-jpg_214024.jpg

Brother Matthew (Grant Desme) in the front with the incense

On the afternoon Grant Desme retired from baseball, he was at peace. The world in which he had immersed himself was shocked and dumbfounded, of course, that a strapping 23-year-old center fielder with power, speed, smarts and just about everything baseball teams want in a player would quit. Sports is a place of great myopia, insular thinking and exaggerated accomplishment that conflates excellence and holiness. In baseball, God is the home run. And Desme knew that God well.

He hit 31 of them during the minor league season and another 11 in the prospect-laden Arizona Fall League, where he won the Most Valuable Player award in November 2009. He emerged as the talk of the league, and the team that drafted him in the second round and signed him for $430,000, the Oakland Athletics, started dreaming on Desme's future.

"He was going to be a major leaguer, absolutely," A's general manager Billy Beane says. "He looked like he'd gotten over that hump. And he could've been a lot more. A great talent."

People in the game scrambled to understand why Desme would give up the riches and the platform baseball affords to spread the word of God. The decision wasn't met with derision as much as wonderment. Athletes leave when their talents or bodies or something tangible betrays them. Desme left ascendant.

"I had everything I wanted," he says, "and it wasn't enough."

He had tried to convince himself it was. He spent his whole life idealizing and idolizing baseball. And now he was willing to leave it. The cell phone, the laptop, the car – the material things, he figured, would be easy. The trouble in the coming years – two as a novice, eight more until his ordination and the rest of his life as a priest – would concern what he gave up and whether he made the right choice.

Even those who knew him best never thought Grant Desme would give up baseball. At 4 years old, he declared he was going to be a ballplayer. Soon, that boast evolved into a Hall of Famer. And when Greg tried to temper expectations, Grant, with the conviction of a first-born, would say: "Dad, don't worry about it. It's going to work out."

He was right. Desme's grandfather, Vince Gallagy, was a former minor leaguer who passed along the genetics as well as the baseball bug. Nothing could break Desme's monotheism: He worshipped baseball, taking a break only Sunday morning when he joined his family at Mass. School in Bakersfield, Calif., never really mattered. He was going to play ball.

When Desme hit for the cycle in front of Tony Gwynn, San Diego State recruited him as an infielder. The fit wasn't right – Desme was a sweet soul and missed his girlfriend – so he moved back north to Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, switched to outfield and by his junior season was featured on the school's pocket schedule. At 6-foot-2 and 200 pounds, his right-handed power came easily, his speed naturally and his potential abundantly. Desme was a rarity: a raw college player. He struck out way too much and then hit home runs so long scouts forgot about the strikeouts.

In 2007, he led the Big West conference in batting average and home runs, his apex coming May 12, when he went 5-for-5 with two walks, three doubles and a game-winning home run in the 12th inning. The next day a fastball from UC-Davis pitcher Bryan Evans clipped Desme's left wrist and broke a bone. It was supposed to sideline him for a month, six weeks tops. The A's took Desme with the 74th overall pick anyway.

The wrist injury lingered and limited Desme to 12 games his first minor league season. After separating his shoulder, he mustered three at-bats during his second season. At the beginning of the 2009 season, Desme would be 23 and have fewer than 50 professional at-bats to his name. The rehab frustrated him. The unfairness flummoxed him. He would confide his frustration in priests and began to understand his emptiness dated back to long before his injuries. He started reading more scripture. All those years, he played baseball, nurturing only a cursory interest in other things. Now, something out of his control stole baseball from him, and instead of wondering why, Desme began to question baseball itself.


The first phone call went to Billy Beane. It was less than a month before Grant Desme needed to report to spring training, and he was about to call one of the most powerful men in the game to which he dedicated his life – the person Brad Pitt would portray in the "Moneyball" movie – and tell him he was quitting to spend the next decade becoming a priest.

And it was then he knew this was the right choice. Because he wasn't nervous. No jitters, no anxiety. Just 10 digits to freedom. Desme felt a little on the defensive when explaining it to his parents. When he got a call from his friend Logan Schafer, now a rookie outfielder with the Milwaukee Brewers, Desme danced around the subject, fearful of the reaction from someone inside the baseball world. Top 100 prospects don't leave the game. Arizona Fall League MVPs go to cathedrals like Yankee Stadium, not St. Michael's Abbey.

"At first, I didn't really know what to say," Schafer says. "Then I realized it's a simple answer. It's how he explained it to me. He knew he had a career in baseball. But his love for God took over his love for baseball. He loved baseball so much, but he realized there was something greater in life that he had to do. This calling wasn't a one-time thing. For those of us who haven't had that call or that overwhelming need to do something, we can't understand. He's turning into the most selfless human I know. It's humbling to see. He made a decision as a human being, not a baseball player."

Beane, too, was thrilled for him. Taken aback, certainly. "I grew up in a Catholic family, so what he was pursuing wasn't completely foreign to me," Beane says. "I spent half the conversation congratulating him.

Rest of the story at the link HERE

Very interesting story. He seems to have found a level of peace in his life than most of us just wish for. In a way I'm jealous of him. I don't think I could give up all my worldly goods and live a religious life and I don't have even a fraction of what he gave up. It's absolutely amazing.
 

xbhaskarx

Member
I can't believe there is now a GAF thread about this guy... all I can say is that as an A's fan I was a bit annoyed that one of our top prospects quit baseball.... One because our team depends on developing their own players (they have 15 rookies on the roster this year, including the entire starting rotation) and had invested time and money into developing him on top of the "drafted him in the second round and signed him for $430,000", and two because personally I consider religion to be a mental illness.
Beyond all that I'd say it wasn't the smartest decision, not only does baseball pay really well but you can do all the praying you want outside of games and in the six month offseason. And of course most professional sports careers end at a relatively young age after which there is plenty of time to have another career.
 
D

Deleted member 1159

Unconfirmed Member
I can't believe there is now a GAF thread about this guy... all I can say is that as an A's fan I was a bit annoyed that one of our prospects quit baseball....

Yeah, if I had a choice of the A's winning the series or some dude finding religion, I'd take winning the series every damn time!

That's not sarcasm, I hate religion
 
V

Vilix

Unconfirmed Member
Reminds me of Pat Tilmen. Left because he found a calling some place else.
 

Amory

Member
all I can say is that as an A's fan I was a bit annoyed [...] personally I consider religion to be a mental illness.

Yeah, if I had a choice of the A's winning the series or some dude finding religion, I'd take winning the series every damn time!

That's not sarcasm, I hate religion

Funny, I've always thought being an A's fan was a mental illness...
 

Horseticuffs

Full werewolf off the buckle
Shit just got reeeal.



I won't pretend that I understand heeding a religious call. It always makes me exceedingly sad when I see or hear about young people joining the clergy. But, hey, if it's what he wants than more power to him I suppose.

It isn't like there's no way out. My two best buddies' mom was a nun.
 

Karakand

Member
Funny, I've always thought being an A's fan was a mental illness...

A religious person dedicates their life to something that might happen, an A's fan dedicates themselves to something that will never happen (the A's amounting to anything under Billy Beane).
 
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