How God Gave This Banana Ball Pitcher Divine Closure After Tragedy

Published: July 7, 2026

Baseball MLB — Photo from Jose Morales via Unsplash

By Mallory Mattingly

Indianapolis Clowns pitcher Vinny Santarsiero revealed how God brought peace and resolution after a family tragedy.

“I cried at my first Savannah Bananas games as a player…” Santarsiero wrote in a post on Instagram last week.

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In 2020, Santarsiero and his wife, Andrea, found out that they were pregnant with their first child. The baby was a girl, and the couple were going to name her Adalyn Grace.

“We were so excited to welcome her to this world and our lives,” he continued.

Then COVID-19 came, but the Santarsieros still had “so much excitement” for their future. However, things took a turn for the worse when Andrea “hadn’t felt Adalyn move in about a day.”

The couple was nervous, so they immediately drove to the emergency room, but because of COVID, Santarsiero wasn’t able to be in the room with Andrea when the news came. Andrea called her husband “sobbing.”

“They couldn’t find the heartbeat and she was so far along she had to be induced to deliver the baby,” Santarsiero wrote.

Adalyn was stillborn on Mother’s Day 2020.

“The strength she had to endure the mental and physical pain of this I’ll never be able to understand,” Santarsiero revealed. “For months I was angry at God, how could He allow this to happen to us? From the day I found out we were pregnant all I did was ask for their health and safety. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

Santarsiero and Andrea continued to attend church even in the midst of their tragedy. One day at service, the athlete felt like he “heard God’s voice,” which led to him having a conversation with God.

“The final thing I heard was ‘You’ll see her again. This is all temporary, but if more people spend eternity in Heaven from her death than from her life, you’ve won.’ I felt like an unexplainable peace. The pain was still there but there was peace with it,” Santarsiero shared.

As time moved on, the couple had two more children — Aria Grace and Nolan.

“Our family was beautiful, but I still felt like Adalyn’s story wasn’t complete, something was unwritten,” he revealed.

In 2024, he and his family attended their first Savannah Bananas game. Santarsiero said that the atmosphere was “something I wished I could be a part of.” The next year, the league added two new teams and his friend, who played for the Bananas, said that Santarsiero should tryout.

“Long story short, I was drafted to the team I had hoped to be apart of, the Indianapolis Clowns,” he said.

In his first game of the year in Tallahassee, Santarsiero played in front of 70,000 people. At the end of the first inning the Bananas gave roses out to little girls. He helped pass out the flowers and handed his out to a little girl that reminded him of his daughter.

That little girl’s name was Adalyn, and she was the same age his daughter would have been.

“My baby girl’s life may have been ended early on this earth, but her story won’t be. Jesus is real and He loves you, He has a plan for you. You will experience pain and loss, but you have the opportunity to turn it around for good,” Santarsiero concluded.

What a powerful reminder that God is always at work.

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