By Mallory Mattingly
San Francisco Giants catcher Patrick Bailey doesn’t want baseball to become an idol, so he keeps his eyes on Jesus.
“I mean, it feels like that’s kind of something God’s been hammering in my heart right now, is like…like ‘Anything outside of you being my child is not your identity,'” Bailey said on the “Sports Spectrum” podcast.
“We’ve got 40,000 people watching us every night night, and there’s some good, and there’s some bad,” he continued. “And it’s definitely very easy to kind of fall into that trap of seeing my self-worth in what I do. And again, obviously, like baseball is a gift, and it’s a platform that I can serve Jesus and serve others on, but it can very quickly become that idol that I think it’s just so easy to get to.”
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This year, Bailey became a two-time Golden Glove Winner.
With his second award, he became the first “Giants catcher to earn multiple Gold Gloves and the first National League backstop to win in back-to-back years since Molina won eight straight from 2008-15. He was also named the 2025 Fielding Bible Defensive Player of the Year, as well as the top defensive catcher in MLB, by Sports Info Solutions on Oct 23,” according to the MLB.
“To this day, he’s always trying to get better,” Giants right-handed pitcher Logan Webb said of Bailey. “He cares a lot. He wants to be the best defender in baseball. He wants to be known as the guy who’s the best defender in baseball. He takes a lot of pride in that. Seeing the work he put in, that’s the type of guy he is. He wants to be the best.”
He’s grateful to win the honor again.
“I think as athletes, you know, you work really hard, obviously your whole life, and feel like those awards are just kind of the fruit of those labors. You know, just all the work you put into it, and to be able to kind of have your peers vote on that, I think that’s probably one of the cooler parts,” the catcher told Sports Spectrum.
Ultimately, Bailey wants to keep his faith at the center of all he does.
He recalled talking to one of his mentors and asking what it would “look like to have my everyday life at the field look like worship.”
“I mean that night obviously, it takes a miracle for me to hit an inside-the-park homer,” he added. “But just like to be able to experience that joy, that moment of, you know, showing up to the park and praying like, ‘All right, God, like show me what it looks like to worship you.'”
While Bailey is one of the best defensive catchers the league has ever seen, it could be easy for him to let the game dictate his identity. However, he remains focused on God and allows his faith to shine through his play on the field.
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