By Asaiah Logan –
Superstar pitcher R.A. Dickey, whose team is fighting the Dodgers in the World Series, says his story doesn’t start with baseball but with pain. When he was eight years old, he was abused twice, first by a female babysitter and later that summer by a man.
“What happens in that moment is that you’re stunted,” says the knuckleball king of the Toronto Blue Jays. “You don’t understand it, you just try to keep people at arm’s distance so you don’t have to be who you’re really called to be.”
The abuse made him afraid to trust anyone.
“You’re always looking for the next tragedy around the corner,” he said. “I didn’t know how to do relationships – not even when I got married.”
He hid his past and mistakes, even cheating on his wife, because he thought she would leave him.
“I always thought that if I told Anne who I really was, she wouldn’t want me,” he said. “But she looked at me and said, ‘I’m not going anywhere. I love you.’ That changed my life.”
Still the torments affected him. In 2008, he nearly took his life.
“I was in my car. I had run a garden hose from the tailpipe of my car into the driver’s side window and stuffed a towel in the crack,” he tells. “I was a moment away from turning the key. I had had enough of the pain.”
God intervened: “Don’t do it. I have something else for you.”
He sought counseling to come to grips with the evil ghosts of his past.
Baseball became part of his healing. After almost drowning in the Missouri River, he says he learned to surrender control.
“I went into that river 1 (win) and 8 (losses) with a high 5 ERA,” he said. “When I came out, I finished the season 10 and 1. I learned to let go and let God take the reins.”
Having retired from MLB in 2017, Dickey is now retired from baseball, living on a 40-acre farm in Tennessee with his wife and four children. He coaches for Christ Presbyterian Academy in Nashville. He played for the Blue Jays 2013-16.
Now he shares his story to help others find hope. “Men who talk about their abuse are actually the most courageous,” he said. “God builds beauty from ashes. I’ve seen that in my own life.”
