Matt Spring doesn’t always think about baseball when he hears the word “sacrifice.” Faith comes to mind.
A catcher for the Montgomery Biscuits from 2007 to 2010, Spring said Jesus dying on the cross was the “ultimate sacrifice.”
“He came into my life and saved me from my sins,” said Spring, who became a Christian at age 12 while growing up in Phoenix. “Trying to describe what He means to me and what He does for us is almost impossible.”
Through a middle school and high school program at his evangelical church, Spring “got on fire for the Lord.” He learned how to apply Scripture that hits home today.
“It’s a tough game. I can’t imagine not having the Lord on my side every day,” Spring said.
He has played with two teams in 2011 after being traded from the Tampa Bay Rays organization to the Boston Red Sox organization. Spring started the season with the Salem (Va.) Red Sox in the A-plus Carolina League and was promoted June 17 to the Portland (Maine) Sea Dogs of the Double-A Eastern League. In his first four games with Portland, he hit two home runs and was batting .267.
Spring’s best batting average in his four seasons with Montgomery came during the 2008 season, when he hit .248 with nine home runs.
Staying grounded in the Bible, Spring practices a daily quiet time and reads numerous devotional books. “Without that (God’s Word), I feel lost sometimes.”
One of his favorite Scriptures is Ephesians 3:20: “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us.”
Spring translates the verse this way: “The Lord wants more for us than we can ever imagine. We all want to get four hits or throw a complete game shutout every day, but that may not necessarily be God’s plan for us to do. He wants better for us than we could imagine for ourselves. That kind of truth is beyond belief for me.”
Philippians 4 and Romans 8 also provide motivation and make Spring realize, “The deeper you get (in the Word), the more you rely on Him and less on yourself.”
Spring has looked to the Lord to help him deal with character flaws that he has had to work on. He knows teammates are ever present.
“(It’s) not that people are looking at me to fail; people are looking at me to see how I will react in different situations. Whenever you have times of trials and tribulations, I think being strong and being a good example is the biggest witness you can have,” Spring said.
He has been in professional baseball since June 2004, when he was selected by the Rays out of Dixie (Utah) State College in the fourth round (105th overall) in the first-year players draft.
Current Montgomery catcher Stephen Vogt (pronounced Vote) called him a “great man of God” with “great faith.”
They have read the Bible and prayed together as well as sharpened each other’s game.
“He is a good friend of mine,” Vogt said. “Matt is a great leader who has got a lot of tools. He’s a good catcher. I learned a lot from him. He is a very smart player.”
Montgomery first baseman Matthew Sweeney admires Spring’s attitude. “The thing about Matt that was cool, he came every day with a goodattitude. He was fun to be around and hard-working. He played the game the right way.”
Billy Gardner Jr., Montgomery manager, said Spring’s leadership evolved from “real good character.”
“Matt has a tremendous work ethic,” Gardner said. “He does a good job in leading the pitching staff. He is very focused and puts everything he has into baseball. He is highly self-motivated. He is a real good person and a real good teammate. Those are two important things to have in the game and in life in general.”
In 2008, Spring won the Erik Walker Community Champion award. One player was nominated from each of the Rays’ six minor league teams. The award honors the player who exemplifies sportsmanship, reaches out to the community and is a quality teammate.
“That was the most special award,” Spring said.
The award is named for Walker, who died in October 2006 in a canoeing accident. He had just completed his first season with the Hudson Valley Renegades in the New York-Penn League. He was 23.
Spring won a trophy and received a check for $2,500, which he donated to a charity.
His community involvement included reading to children in the Alabama Summer Reading program in Prattville, leading baseball camps and signing autographs in the Montgomery Advertiser Autograph area.
Because Spring accepted Christ when he was young, he said he is “not one of those guys who have a huge, elaborate testimony.”
“My testimony is special because I never had to go through some things that othe
rs did. I am lucky the Lord was looking out for me, not that He wasn’t looking out for them. It wasn’t His path for me.”
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