Posted by For 23 years, Clint Hurdle used Jesus like an ATM card, calling on Him when he needed help – and putting Him aside when things were going well. But as an alcoholic with two divorces under his belt, life was never truly “going well” for the Major League Baseball player who spent his career with the Royals, Mets, Reds, and Cardinals. In fact, it took until middle age for Hurdle to fully embrace the Christian faith that he had learned as a child.
Since then, he has established a successful career as a manager with the Pirates and Rockies, learned unconditional love for his wife and children (one of whom has special needs), and built an online following with his messages of faith and encouragement. Clint is now sharing his insights and experiences in the book “Hurdle-isms: Wit and Wisdom from a Lifetime in Baseball,” and we discussed it recently on “Christopher Closeup” (podcast below).
Clint grew up going to Bible school with his two sisters every Sunday at their local Methodist church in Florida, but he didn’t make an official profession of faith until his senior year in high school. The seeds of faith had been planted, but it took decades before they fully took root and blossomed.
In the meantime, Clint started playing professional baseball and only calling on Jesus when he wanted something. One of the Hurdle-isms he shares in his book is, “The smallest package in the world is a person wrapped up in themself” – and there was a time when that applied to him. He went through two marriages and divorces, while also being an alcoholic.
Clint explained, “There’s two kinds of people in this world: those who are humble and those who are about to be…There was a time when I was full of myself…but I had my ego kicked out of me on the field from a talent base, from a marital base, from a relationship base…I had two DUIs about nine years apart…and then I had two divorces. I wasn’t fired from any jobs for that, but maybe I was less than what I could have been at the jobs I had. My life was chaotic. There were times when I felt like if things were too calm and peaceful that I would go create chaos because I felt like I could manage that better than I could. I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin…Everybody’s bottom is different, but when I hit that last bottom, I just knew that my life had become unmanageable. This wasn’t going to work anymore. I actually made a list of things I needed to improve upon. On the top was, rededicate my life to Christ. The second was, get sober.”
And so, at 40+ years of age, Clint followed through on both those goals. He is now 26 years sober, and his faith sits at the center of his life – though the journey was not always easy. He admits that “surrendering” to God did not come naturally to him. He would often say to God, Thy will be done, but can we do it my way?
Clint reflected, “I just know that once I laid it down – and [was] thankful and grateful that I’m still alive, that I have an opportunity to be a better man today than I was yesterday, and focused on serving others – things turned around… Not overnight, but the last 26 years, the things that have happened to me, I could never have [thought]…I’m going to be blessed this way…I’ve been married for 26 years. We have two wonderful children. I’ve managed two Major League teams for 17 years. My mom and dad have been a part of my journey. My two sisters are still…part of my journey…I’ve got a whole new group of friends that I never had before – and they’re much more consistent and cut from the same cloth now.”
Clint started sharing his hard-earned wisdom and faith with an email chain about 16 years ago. It grew to 6,000 subscribers when he offered the messages for free at ClintHurdle.com. In recent years, his son, Christian, challenged him to share his positivity on social media as well because it could reach a lot more people. At first, Clint resisted the idea because of the negativity associated with social media, but then Christian quoted one of his own Hurdle-isms back at him: “If you hunt good, you find good. If you hunt bad, you find bad.”
And so, Clint entered the arena with the mindset of being “light, bright, and polite” – and sharing his own experiences of finding strength and hope rather than telling others what they’ve got to do. He also followed Christian’s advice to never respond to the haters – because no matter how positive you are, there are always haters.
Clint’s Hurdle-isms became so successful that he is now sharing them in book form. He noted, “Here’s what you’re going to get from me. It’s not all roses. I’m going to share some failures, some hard times. But it’s amazing how many people respond to that and appreciate the fact that every morning, I hit a reset button. Whatever happened yesterday, I try not to carry into today. I try and make my own little masterpiece today, the best day I can have today. Maybe I can help you have one, too.”
One of the blessings in Clint’s life is a 39-year-old daughter, Ashley, that he never knew about from a previous relationship. He calls her a “source of encouragement” and notes, “We developed a relationship that’s become a miracle over time as I’ve gone through recovery and she stayed in there with me.”
Clint also takes pride in his other two children that he had with Karla, his wife of 26 years. Their son, Christian, is studying to be a pastry chef at the Culinary Institute of America – and their daughter, Maddy, has special needs. Specifically, she was born with Prader-Willi Syndrome.
“It’s a deletion of the 15th chromosome,” explained Clint, “which is your satiation chromosome, the one that lets you know you’re hungry – and then, after you’ve eaten, it’s the one that lets you know you’re full. You don’t need to eat anymore.”
Maddy’s system, therefore, has “no regulation, no off switch…whether it’s anxiety, whether it’s food security, whether it’s food seeking, verbal outbursts, not understanding why [she’s] feeling what [she’s] feeling.”
Despite Maddy’s struggles, Clint knows that she doesn’t need to be defined by them because she has many positive qualities and accomplishments. He said, “Maddy has shown us her resolve…She went through high school. She had an aide with her in class. She went through vocational training school. She works three days a week at a dog store. She does spin class two to three times a week. She dances on Thursday night at a dance class. She loves animals…She won a gold medal two years ago in Special Olympics…and to see her stand on a podium and receive the Florida State Championship gold medal for freestyle swimming a hundred meter [was so gratifying]…It has put my wife and I in a position of truly unconditional love for each other as well as for her – unconditional love. I thought I knew it. Not until I got to live it…I’ve been blessed with three children. They have skill sets, very different from mine, but I do believe God’s put them in my life to transform me in areas where I needed to grow and I needed to appreciate more.”
Though God has transformed Clint’s life, he started saying a prayer every day asking for even greater transformation: “Lord, help me become a simple person in a complex world.”
Why is that prayer important – and how can it help others as well? Clint concluded, “I don’t have to solve everybody’s problems. I need to be a simple man. I need to do what’s next, what’s right in front of me, make my next good choice, make the next good decision for my family. Don’t overcook it. I don’t have to worry about what’s going to happen two weeks from now. I’ve got to take care of today, whether that be with Christian, with Maddy, with Ashley. I need to make sure that I’m there for my wife – that I’m present for Karla – because so many times when I was employed as a manager, two weeks out of every month, I’m gone. I get to tap out. Karla stays home and deals with all of it. So how can I simply engage and be of help to her on a daily basis when I’m home? Being a simple man has been an answer for me to not try and think I’m ‘more than,’ that I’m some kind of white knight on a horse going to come in and save this or save that. I need to be a good friend, good father, good brother, good servant of Jesus, good husband. That’s going to keep me full today.”
(To listen to my full interview with Clint Hurdle, click on the podcast link):
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