In the clubhouse with Christ — the ministry of MLB chaplains
What is it like to be a chaplain for a major league team?
When Father Richard Rocha quit coaching high school football to enter seminary, he thought he would be stepping away from athletics for good.
But in 2005, a few years into his priesthood, Bishop Robert Finn, who was then bishop of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, asked him to take on two additional assignments: to serve as chaplain for Kansas City’s major league baseball and football teams, the Royals and the Chiefs.
While it seemed like a unique assignment, Rocha learned that he was joining a small, but organized group of professional athletics Catholic chaplains. Every MLB team has at least one, if not two chaplains who provide the sacraments and minister to the players, coaches, and support staff.
“It’s kind of a niche ministry, but keeping these guys rooted in Christ is so important,” Rocha told The Pillar. “Their baseball career is going to end; their love for God and their faith will continue on until they take their last breath.”
When Rocha began his MLB ministry, he connected with Ray McKenna, an attorney in the Washington D.C. area who serves as president of Catholic Athletes for Christ — a non-profit that supports athletic team chaplains.
Founded in 2006, Catholic Athletes for Christ seeks to coordinate ministry and chaplaincy efforts for professional, college, and high school athletic teams and to equip chaplains with resources to encourage athletes to use their platform to evangelize.
The organization works to ensure athletes have access to the sacraments – mostly the Eucharist and confession – as well as spiritual direction opportunities.
In addition, McKenna explained, it tries to equip the athletes for evangelization.
“We try to catechize our athletes to a degree where they can be the ones who are the primary evangelizers,” he said.
During the MLB season, every team has an assigned chaplain or two that offers Mass on Sundays when there is a home game. These clubhouse Masses turn into their own mini-parish of sorts and a vibrant community forms.
McKenna said he has found that it feels like he is helping to coordinate 30 Catholic parishes and ensure that their sacramental needs are being met. During the season, his team coordinates with every MLB organization to ensure that priests have access to a room to celebrate Mass and have the proper credentials.
“We help chaplains navigate the sometimes very difficult logistics of getting permission from the team, getting a room, getting access, finding a place to park at the stadium, being connected with clubhouse personnel, getting credentials,” McKenna said. “And many times we recruit priests.”
There’s nothing special about the recruitment process. Often, CAC will coordinate with a diocese and work to find a local priest who is willing and available to help.
The level of a chaplain’s involvement is dependent on the organization. Some teams, often led by a manager or general manager devout in their faith, ask for chaplains that would be willing to offer spiritual direction or lead Bible studies.
For teams without a strong Catholic presence in leadership, CAC has to take a more hands-on approach to find a chaplain and help them secure credentials and a space for Mass.
There’s no official training to become an MLB chaplain; priests come to CAC with varying levels of pastoral experience, from newly ordained to more experienced priests.
CAC does provide guidance and assistance to chaplains as needed, giving priests advice on how to connect with players and celebrate a briefer Mass when needed to accommodate the players’ schedule.
“It’s not official training, but it’s more guidance. Where there is some training needed, we’re happy to provide that and guide priests in this ministry,” McKenna said. “We also enjoy the opportunity to speak in seminaries to tell seminarians about what we do and excite them and hopefully get them thinking about getting involved when they are ordained.”
Forming dugout disciples
McKenna and Rocha believe that athletes have a distinct opportunity to evangelize the culture. Many have large social media followings and are heralded as heroes, both in their local communities and sometimes on a national or international level, giving them a rare public platform from which to announce Christ.
Evangelizing and ministering to athletes means they are themselves better equipped to do the same.
“Athletes have an amazing ability to evangelize with a soapbox that most people don’t have,” McKenna said. “Their ability to get attention and share a story is still very significant, when many other careers don’t offer that. So they can do a lot of good and they can do a lot of bad with that platform.”
Father Burke Masters has witnessed this first hand during his 13 seasons ministering to the Chicago Cubs. He said forming players in the clubhouse and meeting them where they are helps equip them to proclaim the Gospel.
Masters knows the life of a baseball player well -- he played college baseball for Mississippi State University, helping lead his team to the college world series.
Master said that in recent years, he’s observed that many professional athletes have become more vocal about their faith lives, especially in post-game interviews. He has been noticing this phenomenon occur more frequently among his own players as well as more generally across the country.
“All along, there have been really faithful people. But there was that fear of the ‘cancel culture’,” Masters said. “Now that more and more people are talking about the faith, it has given the guys courage to say, okay, this isn’t something that’s going to lead to retribution against me, I’m just one of many people who follow Jesus.”
Yet Masters says he often sees how fame and the public platform it brings can negatively impact players and their faith, often exacerbated by immense pressure and a grueling 162-game schedule.
“Most of these guys are in their 20s, early 30s, when a lot of people in the Church tend to step away from their faith,” he said. “They’re successful or making a lot of money, so many times faith gets relegated to the background. Our presence there helps them to keep practicing the faith.”
Chaplains can also support players who are going through difficult times – both on and off the field. If a player is struggling professionally, that can have an adverse effect on his spiritual life.
“If they are having a down year, if they are struggling at the plate, that can really impact their spiritual well-being,” Rocha said.
Sacraments close to home(plate)
Like Rocha, Masters too has a full-time parish assignment, St. Isaac Jogues in the Diocese of Joliet, Illinois, which neighbors the Archdiocese of Chicago.
In his previous assignment as diocesan vocations director, Masters had more time to spend with a team.
But now, as a pastor with an hour-long commute, his time with the team is limited. He tries to make it to every Sunday home game, as long as he can find somebody to cover his parish Masses.
If he can’t, he will coordinate with another priest to celebrate Mass for the team.
“I don’t have a lot of contact with them outside of the Mass because I’m just busy at the parish,” Masters said. “It’d be great if we could have a full-time chaplain or other missionaries. We’ve talked about trying to find missionaries like FOCUS’ varsity missionaries where they could be there on a daily basis and then the priests could come in and do the sacramental ministry.”
Most of Rocha and Masters’ ministry revolves around the sacraments — offering Mass on Sunday mornings before home games and being available before or after Mass for confession.
Masses are usually around 30 minutes long and take place near the clubhouse right before players are due to report for that day’s game. Rocha and Masters both said they try to use sport analogies in their homilies to better connect with the players.
“I love combining faith and sports,” Masters said. “So I’ll usually try to bring some kind of baseball analogy into my homilies here.”
Without a clubhouse Mass, many Catholic players or coaches would struggle to fulfill their Sunday obligation, as MLB teams play demanding schedules, which include practices, games, and frequent travel.
“If it wasn’t for the chaplains many people wouldn’t be able to fulfill their Sunday obligation of attending the Eucharist,” McKenna said.
In addition to the sacraments, Rocha says he tries to visit with players before and after Mass, attend batting practice on Friday evenings, and spend time at spring training in an attempt to build relationships with the players.
“I always say I’m going to batting practice to drum up business,” Rocha said. “Usually, a coach or a player will come up asking for prayers or to just chat. Hopefully, a priest’s presence brings comfort to them. If nothing else, it gives me a chance to remind them that there is Mass at 9 a.m. on Sunday.”
Players and coaches seem to appreciate having a chaplain on the field, and the chaplains said people are receptive to their presence and grateful for their ministry.
“I definitely don’t hear any negative things about being on the field,” Rocha said. “It’s been great, and they have become very comfortable with me.”
‘Just regular guys’
Every year, CAC organizes a retreat for MLB players in California. Chaplains from across the country come to spend a few days with players and develop friendships with them. These retreats have become one of Masters’ favorite parts of being a chaplain, as he is able connect with, and learn more about the players’ lives.
Masters said the biggest lesson he has learned from these retreats is that these star athletes are just normal guys trying to live out their faith as best as they can.
“These are regular guys who have the same kind of dreams and fears and struggles that we all have,” Masters said. “During these retreats and at Mass, they really appreciate just being treated like a normal person, not as a celebrity.”
“It’s something that they don’t often get. Once they become major league ballplayers, they are put on a pedestal,” he added.
Rocha, too, has learned that though his ‘parishioners’ are local and even national celebrities, they are just trying to live out their faith as best as they can.
“These players are regular guys,” Rocha said. “Even though they are on this huge platform, in the spotlight, they are true down-to-earth, regular men, striving each and every day to live their Catholic life.”
And both Rocha and Masters said they try to treat the players as regular men, not as stars or celebrities, whether that be through the homilies they preach, conversations they have, or being mindful to not ask for any selfies.
Early in Masters’ ministry, an athlete told him that since being called up to the MLB, he had learned to not trust anyone, assuming that every person he encounters wants access, money, or some other benefit from an interaction.
But that changed when he met Masters.
“It’s really important for me as a chaplain to let the guys know I am strictly there for their spiritual benefit,” Masters said. “I’m not there to get autographs. I’m not there to help people get tickets to ballgames.”
“I am just there to help these guys in their human desire to worship God and to be the best man, the best husband that they can be.”