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Burke Masters & Mike Sweeney

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Burke Masters & Mike Sweeney

A Grand Slam for God (2023) is a co-authored memoir by two figures connected through Catholic faith and professional baseball. Fr. Burke Masters is the primary subject and co-author — a former promising baseball player from Joliet, Illinois who discerned a calling to the Catholic priesthood and became a priest, eventually serving as chaplain for the Chicago Cubs. Mike Sweeney is a former Major League Baseball first baseman (Kansas City Royals) and five-time All-Star who is also a devout Catholic; he contributes a foreword and framing commentary, and the collaboration gives the book additional credibility within the Catholic athletic community.

The book sits in an unusual genre: part sports memoir, part vocational autobiography, part Catholic apologetics. It is written for a faith community audience rather than a general audience, and its literary ambitions are secondary to its evangelical ones. Nevertheless, it contains themes of identity, vocation, and meaning-making that speak beyond its specific religious context.

A Grand Slam for God: A Journey from Baseball Star to Catholic Priest (2023)

The Vocational Arc

The book’s narrative follows Masters from childhood baseball obsession through promising athletic career, a slow encounter with Catholic faith (he was not raised in a devout household), the discernment of a priestly vocation, seminary formation, ordination, and the unexpected return of baseball to his life through the chaplaincy.

The structural arc is a classic conversion-and-calling story — but with an unusual twist: the thing Masters gave up (baseball) is eventually returned to him in a transformed form. The Cubs chaplaincy is presented as confirmation that God’s generosity exceeds what we sacrifice:

“I had planned to become a professional baseball player, make millions of dollars, and have a big family. God had different plans. He said to me, ‘Burke, I have more in store for you than you ever imagined. Your family will be gigantic. You will be rich in graces. You will have the opportunity to impact the eternal lives of thousands of people. You will be a Major League Catholic priest.‘”

Identity: The Central Preaching Theme

Masters’ most repeated insight — and the theme he says he focuses on in retreats — is identity:

“What is your fundamental identity? You are a beloved son or daughter of God, and that will never change. Your economic status, your job, and your earthly relationships all might change, but God will always love you because you are his child. You never have to earn his love.”

This is framed as a corrective to the performance-based identity that Masters himself suffered from: his worth as a teenager came entirely from athletic and academic achievement. The perfectionistic self-presentation he cultivated — “I did not like who I was on the inside, so I decided I was going to be perfect on the outside” — is recognized in retrospect as a failure to be known and loved for oneself. The healing, in his account, comes through being known by God unconditionally.

The book makes faith claims that are specifically Catholic and theological. The identity analysis has broader psychological resonance, but the proposed solution (surrender to God's love) is explicitly religious and should be read in that context.

Parenting and the Space to Fail

One of the book’s more universally applicable observations concerns Masters’ parents’ approach to his athletic development:

“They allowed us to fail in sports and to learn valuable lessons through those failures. They allowed us to live and were not overprotective. They were neither helicopter parents (those who hover over their children) nor Zamboni parents (those who clear the path before their children so they never can fall).”

The “Zamboni parent” metaphor — clearing all obstacles in advance so children never fall — is vivid and useful. Masters credits his parents’ willingness to let him fail with building the resilience and character that later served him in both athletic and priestly vocations.

The Camino and the Journey Metaphor

Masters recounts walking the Camino de Santiago with a companion:

“The first two weeks, we were focused on getting to the next town. Little by little, we began to enjoy the scenery and the people along the way. The goal came to be less about the destination and more about the journey. We began to enjoy the people and the scenery much more. Life is like the Camino. Hopefully we learn that it’s not just about getting to the next destination, but it’s about the journey.”

This is a conventional piece of pilgrimage wisdom but serves an important structural function in the book: Masters’ entire life has been a series of destinations that turned out to be way-stations — MLB career, marriage, a “normal” life — each given up for something that appeared smaller before proving larger.

The Cubs Chaplaincy: Vocation Fulfilled

The book’s most affecting episode is Masters’ appointment as chaplain to the Chicago Cubs — a team he had been raised to dislike (his family were Cardinals fans). The irony is read as divine humor:

“God really does have a sense of humor. I was hoping that Ray would say ‘White Sox.’ Don’t get me wrong: I was excited for the opportunity. But I was raised to hate the Cubs!”

The chaplaincy is presented as the integration of everything Masters had been — his athletic formation, his faith, his capacity for pastoral relationship — into a single role. He celebrates Mass in the outfield seats at Wrigley Field, offers confession on the baseball diamond, and walks with players through injuries, slumps, and life decisions.

Contribution to the “Biographies and Human Achievement” Cluster

The book’s presence in this cluster is outlying — it is the only explicitly religious vocational memoir among largely secular achievement biographies. Its value is contrastive: it represents an account of achievement that explicitly refuses the secular success metrics that structure the other books. Masters’ ultimate “achievement” — priestly ordination and pastoral ministry — is not measurable in wealth, market share, or world-historical impact. The book argues, implicitly and explicitly, that the deepest form of achievement is alignment between vocation and identity.

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