Two Major League Baseball players are making history as the 2008 baseball season moves from the unrealistic hopes of springtime to the reality of summer. As the days get longer and hotter, these guys are not wilting.

While Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers and Ken Griffey Jr. of the Cincinnati Reds are both setting records, their lives present more contrasts than similarities.

Hamilton, 27, was voted American League player of the month in April, and again in May. He is currently batting .328 with 63 runs batted in and 15 home runs. Slightly more than a third of the way through the season, he has already amassed numbers that many players would consider respectable for an entire season. Not coincidentally, the Rangers won more games in May than in any month since June 1983.

Griffey, 38, known to many simply as Junior, is on the verge of reaching a rare baseball milestone. Perhaps as soon as this week, he will become only the sixth player in major league history to hit 600 home runs. He’s currently sitting at 599.

Many fans believe that, if it weren’t for bad luck, Griffey would have passed the 600-homer mark long ago. Despite his amazing physical skills, his career has sometimes been a difficult slog.

Griffey was the youngest player in history to reach 350 home runs, but as his career continued, a succession of leg injuries hobbled him. The injuries were at least partially due to his own decisions as he crashed into outfield walls chasing fly balls and ran the bases with reckless abandon. But would he have hit as many home runs without that high energy style? I doubt it. I think his capacity for prevailing against adversity is one of his most notable traits.

Off the field, Griffey is known as a champion of community causes. He has met 10 times a year with kids sponsored by the Make-A-Wish Foundation. He has sponsored multiple Christmas dinners for the Boys and Girls Club near his home in Seattle. He has received the Roberto Clemente Award for outstanding community service on at least three occasions. By all accounts, Griffey is just a good guy.

Hamilton’s career path has been nothing like Griffey’s. Chosen number one in the 1999 draft by Tampa Bay, Hamilton was working his way up through the minor leagues when he was injured in 2001. While on the disabled list, he tried alcohol and cocaine for the first time, and became addicted to both.

He failed multiple drug tests, which led to multiple suspensions from professional baseball. It was not until October of 2005 that he finally got sober. Near the end of the summer of 2006, he played 15 games in the lowest level of the minor leagues, then got hurt again.

But Hamilton stayed sober this time, was acquired by Cincinnati in the winter of 2006, and made it back to the majors during the summer of 2007. Now, a year later, playing for Texas, he is setting records, and he is very clear on who deserves the credit.

“Everything I do is for [Christ],” Hamilton insists. Speaking from somewhere deep in his past experience he continues, “If He wants me to win an award, then I guess He wants me to do that. I take it as not going out and trying to do it because when you try to do it, you can’t.” For Josh Hamilton, it’s no longer all about Josh. It’s all about Christ.

So whom do you most admire? Griffey, whose long, stellar career has been one of both persistence and excellence, or Hamilton, who squandered his talents on booze and drugs, but struggled back by the grace of God?

In truth, it’s a poor question to ask, and there’s no sense answering it. The Bible provides examples of both pathways to grace. Joseph, Ruth, Daniel, and Timothy stand as noble representatives of those who trusted God from an early age and did not waver in following Him.

But the Bible is also filled with stories of those who failed miserably, but found redemption—Jacob, Rahab, Samson, Kings David and Manasseh, Peter.

Would God rather we stay on the straight and narrow? Sure. He doesn’t want to see us hurt by the squalor of sin. But will He extend His loving grace to those in desperate need of redemption? Here’s the answer, from Paul’s letter to Titus:

“At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy” (Titus 3:3-5).

There it is, pure and sweet as a springtime breeze. Josh Hamilton believes it. So do I.

B.W.