Scott Sullivan has amassed some noteworthy numbers over the years as a baseball player at Auburn University and then in the big leagues. Because of that, he was recently inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame’s Class of 2024.
Sullivan said the honor was “incredibly humbling,” but when you talk to him, it becomes apparent that those aren’t the numbers that stand out in his mind. He remembers the people who poured into him as a young boy growing up in Pickens County and along the way after that.
Mentors
“Ebenezer Baptist Church was our home church for most of my growing up years,” he said.
They had a plaque on the wall that they would change each week to reflect Sunday School and worship attendance, and it was always small, Sullivan said. “It would swell up to well over 100 with dinner on the grounds.”
But each one of those mattered. His faith journey started there when he gave his life to Christ. “The Holy Spirit was dealing with me to the point I couldn’t eat my granny’s fried apple pies,” Sullivan said.
It continued when he moved to Carrollton Baptist Church as a teenager.
“What I remember well was we had a good group of men that really poured into me,” he said. “They gave me some wisdom and discernment and counseling, as well as a visual of how a godly man acts, loves his wife and loves his family. Now as I’m aging, I see how valuable that was.”
Coaches
Sullivan said he also had strong mentors in his sports career.
“I was able to play at a small school and play multiple sports,” he said. “Those coaches who poured into me held us to a standard of how we act and how we talk. The discipline was of vast importance.”
But Sullivan didn’t think of his sports experience as something that would take him anywhere.
“I grew up on a farm,” he said. “We were sustenance farmers. All we did was work.”
He remembers picking vegetables in the morning, shelling beans in the middle of the day and making homemade ice cream after that.
“We were so isolated from big leagues or professional sports,” he said.
Dreams become reality
But in 1991, Sullivan walked on the baseball team at Auburn and pitched three seasons as a reliever with a 3.83 ERA.
“I never thought I was going to play professionally until Auburn,” he said. “I had never considered it; it was a dream but not a reality.”
He was drafted in the second round by the Cincinnati Reds in 1993. From 1998 to 2001, Sullivan set a franchise record for the team, pitching at least 100 innings in relief each season. He had 494 pitching appearances there, placing him second in team history.
After that, he spent some time with the Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals and finished his decade-long MLB career in 2004 with a 3.98 ERA and 622 strikeouts.
“I had some wonderful teammates and experiences,” Sullivan said.
Marrying well
But one of the most formative experiences came when he married his wife, Leann, in 1994.
“She has such quiet strength, and I knew I had done well, but over time God has shown me how well I married and how He lined that up,” Sullivan said. “My faith journey took a deeper dive when my first child was born. I thought, ‘Lord, OK — now I’ve got some incredible responsibility to raise this son up and pursue Christ.’ That’s when it really got more serious.”
As he played ball, he would come out early at games to talk with fans, sign autographs and pass out cards with his testimony on them. Over the years, he gave away thousands.
Sullivan impacted his teammates too. At one point when the Reds were preparing to build a new stadium, the CEO came and asked Sullivan what he would like to see in the new facility.
He told them he wanted a designated room for chapel — and they obliged.
“To my knowledge that was the first one dedicated in baseball,” he said.
Doing what lasts
Sullivan, now a longtime member of First Baptist Church Opelika, quickly says it isn’t about him — hardly anyone remembers who he is.
“When I speak at events, when I start out, I ask, ‘Who remembers me?’ Out of 300, there may be six or seven,” he said. “I say, ‘Come on, I’ve been on the cover of magazines, I’ve even played with Dion Sanders.’”
Then he tells them that Scripture says man is like a flower that blooms, but the wind blows over it and the ground remembers it no more.
“The only thing I can do that lasts is to be a better disciple and have that deeper relationship with Christ,” Sullivan said. “I want to invest in people. I have that model that those men in my life left me.”
‘Used by God’
Jeff Meyers, pastor of FBC Opelika, said he has seen Sullivan’s faith in action over the past eight-plus years since Meyers came to the church. He’s watched that in the life of the church as Sullivan has served on numerous committees, as an active deacon and as deacon chairman.
But it goes further than that, Meyers said.
“He and his wife have not just taught Sunday School; they have been used by God to start numerous classes throughout the years, focusing primarily on young couples and newlyweds,” he said. “This focus goes beyond the classroom and stretches to the role of mentoring and growing up these young families. He and his wife have hosted dinners, met privately to counsel and even allowed couples to go out on date nights while they babysat their children.”
Sullivan was a “force to be reckoned with on the baseball field,” Meyers said. “However, his servant’s heart and passion for his faith is what makes him a true hall-of-famer.”
Countless families have been impacted by Sullivan’s “relentless faith,” he said. “There are numerous men he has mentored without notice or public knowledge.”
Meyers said FBC Opelika doesn’t have a “hall of fame,” but if they did, “Scott and Leann would be first-ballot inductees.”
Share with others: