R.A. Dickey knows the true meaning of a reality trip, and it’s not getting ripped for seven runs in 1 2/3 innings like he was in one of his starts for the Seattle Mariners this year.
Not even close.
The real world Dickey knows has children whose only shoes are so big they stuff them with newspaper to keep them on their feet. It has villages without electricity, and transportation consists of a donkey and a two-day ride to see a doctor.
So pardon Dickey if the challenges he has faced as a major league pitcher — and he’s had plenty, including the transformation into a knuckleball thrower in order to resurrect his career — seem insignificant compared with what he has seen with his eyes.
Dickey is a founder of Honoring The Father Ministries, a group that includes several current and former major league players. Since 1999, they’ve distributed the message of Christ, and a whole lot more, to people in Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Honduras.
“It started as a network of baseball players who wanted to reach out and share their stories with kids,” Dickey said. “We started doing it in the States, then we got a connection in Cuba and met up with missionaries over there. It has really blossomed into something that’s pretty neat.”
Groups make four or five trips a year, speaking in churches and baseball clinics and delivering everything from medicine to baseball equipment. One trip is scheduled to leave today for Cuba, and Dickey will go there later this offseason.
Often, he said, residents of the villages they visit for the first time have never seen a Caucasian man and they are reluctant to accept their gifts and messages.
“A lot of places we’re well-received,” Dickey said. “But Castro still distributes a lot of anti-American propaganda in Cuba and in a lot of places there’s a lot of skepticism over why we’re there and what we represent. But when the people figure out we’re not what the government says we are, you’re never loved so much.”
Among items being delivered this offseason are several boxes of shirts, shoes and baseball gear donated by Dickey’s teammates with the Mariners.
“Never is the adage more true than what is one man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” Dickey said. “That’s the precept by which we collect. Used shirts, used shorts, old shoes, it doesn’t matter. There are 10-year-old kids with size-7 feet who will wad up newspapers and stuff them into size-13 shoes. One year we took 50 or 60 Rawlings gloves over.”
Mariners shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt, who defected from Cuba, and left fielder Raul Ibanez donated a large amount of items this year, Dickey said.
“Yuni and Raul have a real heart for what happens over there,” he said.
Getting those items into a country like Cuba isn’t always easy. Ministry officials learned early that goods would be stolen by inspectors when they were shipped into the country. Often, a $50 bribe is enough to convince them to let the supplies pass on to those who need them most.
“My first couple of times down there, we went into some villages that didn’t have electricity,” Dickey said. “Some villages don’t have any cars.
“It is a very humbling experience and I’m glad we’re able to do it.”
For more on the athletes and mission of Honoring The Father, check out the organization’s web site at www.honoringthefather.com.
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