By Mallory Mattingly
In 1990, former MLB player Terry Pendleton was in the longest hitting slump of his entire professional career.
Pendleton played for the St. Louis Cardinals, and during that time, he was benched. To make matters worse, that year was the last of his contract, meaning he needed to perform to secure another one.
The season before, Pendleton “had one of my best years, slugging a career-high 13 homers and winning my second Gold Glove,” he told Guide Posts.
His dear friend and former teammate, Rod Booker, sat down next to Pendleton one day before a game and encouraged him to trust God.
“Terry, God is in charge. I know it’s not always easy to see. All he asks of us is to trust him,” Booker told Pendleton.
“I’d prayed for God’s help in enduring the slump. Still, I felt abandoned,” Pendleton explained.
Then one night, Pendleton and his wife, Catherine, prayed together, and that’s when the athlete realized “that God doesn’t throw obstacles in our paths for us to stumble. God wants us to overcome life’s inevitable hurdles so that we can go on. He wants us to succeed.”
“Lord, help me to see my problems as temporary and to know that your grace is forever,” Pendleton prayed.
As the season ended, Booker went to California for the off-season, and Pendleton stayed in Missouri to raise his new baby girl, Stephanie.
Booker gave Pendleton one piece of advice before he left: “Let God make the next move.”
As Pendleton drove home from the stadium, he prayed, “You take over, Lord.”
That December, he got a call.
“It was from Bobby Cox, then manager of the Atlanta Braves. ‘We want you for this ball club, Terry. We want you as our everyday third baseman.’ He went on to say that every player is entitled to an off year and that he’d had more than his share when he was a player,” Pendleton revealed.
“We think you’ll like the park down here. It’s smaller than Busch. That’ll help your stats. You’re our first choice, Terry. We hope we’re yours,” Cox said on the call.
Have you ever felt abandoned by God?
That phone call marked a turning point in Pendleton’s career and faith.
“I had the best years of my career in Atlanta, but I also had my ups and downs. We won two pennants, but we lost two World Series,” he explained. “Winning and losing, that’s part of being a ballplayer.”
“But God’s love is permanent. He’s always there to take us over the rough spots, to lead us out of our slumps and into our grooves,” he concluded.
Now, Pendleton is a coach for the Braves and has just finished the 2025 MLB All-Star game, which took place back in Atlanta.
“It is special. You figure it hadn’t been here in what, 25 years or so. It’s very special,” Pendleton said of the All-Star game being in Atlanta.
While Pendleton will go down as one of the greatest players in MLB history, he learned that there’s a lot more to life than just baseball.
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