The Dodgers open up the 2017 World Series at home Tuesday night against the Houston Astros.
This is Los Angeles’ first trip to baseball’s biggest stage since the 1988 team, led by Kirk Gibson and Orel Hershiser, captured the title in five games against the Oakland A’s.
The leader of the Dodgers, and someone who is no stranger to postseason baseball, is their manager Dave Roberts. In his second year as the manager in L.A., Roberts has thrived, leading the Dodgers to back-to-back NL West division titles, and the 2017 National League pennant.
Roberts’ faith in Jesus Christ is something that he says is the most important thing in his life.
“Someday all our worldly possessions will be gone,” Roberts said in 2015. “The only thing we can take with us is our relationship with Jesus. God offers us eternal life as a free gift that we must each individually accept by acknowledging that Jesus paid the price for our sins when He died on the cross and rose again.”
Roberts said his faith in Christ is bigger than anything baseball can ever offer.
“I stopped trying to be good enough and earn my way into Heaven and accepted God’s gift of eternal life through His Son Jesus Christ in 1988,” Roberts told AiMissions in 2016. “It wasn’t until just a few years ago, though, that I really understood how much God loved me in sending Jesus to die in my place and really started living for Him, putting Him first in my life, making Him Lord. My relationship with Christ is the most important thing in my life. Beyond the game of baseball, He gives me lasting joy, contentment and peace. That’s the great thing about allowing Jesus to become Lord — He really knows and wants what is best for my life.”
Roberts might be best known for his Game 4, ninth-inning steal in the 2004 ALCS that helped catapult the Boston Red Sox to the greatest comeback in sports history, culminating with their first World Series title in 86 years.
Walt Day, Baseball Chapel leader for the Boston Red Sox in 2004, told Sports Spectrum that Dave Roberts was part of a core group of six guys that met regularly for in-depth Bible study, in addition to the weekly chapel services.
“There was a lot of unity in the clubhouse,” Day said. “We were getting about 15 guys in the chapel, so a majority of the guys were coming. I think some of the spiritual unity overflowed into the unity of the team. I wouldn’t take a lot of the credit, but I think there is some overflow.”
The Dodgers and Astros open up Game 1 on Tuesday night.
Click below to read more on the 2004 Boston Red Sox and how faith in Christ helped fuel some of their key players:
