Former Major League Baseball pitchers Scott Linebrink and Josh Lindblom are challenging a familiar temptation for athletes: treating a good performance as proof that they deserve to be loved.
“God loves me just because I am, not because of anything I do,” Linebrink said in their Sports Spectrum conversation.
That’s a different measure of worth from the one on a baseball card. In a profession that records wins, losses and earned runs, their discussion asks what remains when a person stops letting the numbers define him.
Sports Spectrum describes the conversation as an exploration of identity, purpose and worth outside sports.
Both men bring substantial experience to that subject. Linebrink’s MLB record includes 607 regular-season appearances and 567 strikeouts, while Lindblom’s record includes 134 major-league appearances and a career overseas that brought him the Korea Baseball Organization’s 2019 Most Valuable Player award.
Those achievements establish their baseball credentials. But the heart of this conversation isn’t how to build a more impressive résumé; it’s how to stop asking that résumé to establish a person’s worth before God.
Lindblom’s MLB biography also notes that he earned a bachelor’s degree in biblical studies while playing in Korea and a master’s degree in biblical studies. His interest in questions of faith has run alongside, not simply followed, his baseball career.
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“We don’t have to earn it. We don’t have to achieve it,” Lindblom said while discussing identity in Christ.
He places that assurance in the context of receiving God’s grace and mercy, rather than trying to work hard enough to secure a place in His family. The distinction shifts the starting point: belonging comes before the effort, not as a prize at the end of it.
That doesn’t make work meaningless. Ephesians 2:8–10 puts salvation by grace alongside the good works God prepares for His people, without confusing those works with the source of salvation.
For a parent, that difference reaches beyond a professional athlete’s retirement. It raises a question at the kitchen table or on the drive home from practice: are we helping children grow, or leaving them to think their place in the family depends on getting everything right?
Linebrink’s reminder offers a place to start that conversation. His statement concerns God’s love, not an exemption from responsibility or the need to learn after a mistake.
The episode also leaves room for the fact that understanding identity takes time. A career can end while the questions about purpose keep coming.
“I would say that your identity is being shaped continually through your life,” Lindblom said.
That is an encouraging prospect for anyone entering a new season, whether the change involves a uniform, a job or a family role. A finished chapter doesn’t have to mean a finished purpose.
For these former pitchers, the conversation points beyond the next achievement. Their clearest reminder is also the one least likely to appear in a stat sheet: God’s love is not another performance bonus to chase.
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