Beyond the Game with Josh Parr: More Than Just a Baseball Player

By Josh (9 Inning Know It All):

I’ve had the opportunity to meet and talk with quite a few professional baseball players from Single A up to the Major league level but Josh Parr of the Yakima Bears (Arizona Diamondbacks Single A team) sets himself apart from other players at any level.  He isn’t the biggest player, and maybe isn’t the most talented but his personality and respect for others makes him unique.  It’s rare to meet a player that not only remembers your name the next time you meet, but also takes the time to stop and talk each time he sees you.

Each time Josh signs a card, ball, picture or whatever else is handed to him, he puts a scripture verse reference with his autograph, Titus 3:5.  That verse and those around it are an amazing description of Josh’s faith and how he lives his life.  I hope that for those of you reading this interview you will see in Josh what I saw.

I wish Josh the best of luck in his baseball career and am honored to have been able to spend time with him as he shared with me about faith, family and baseball

Growing up

9inning: What is one of your first memories of playing baseball?

JP: It was definitely playing baseball with my two brothers in the yard.  My greatest memories of baseball are with them.  They are my best friends.  We didn’t grow up in a neighborhood, we kind of grew up in the middle of nowhere, and the nearest neighbor was a twenty-five minute bike ride. So we got real close together, my brothers and I are real tight.

9inning: What role did your family play for you not only playing baseball but also making it to the professional level?

JP: My dad was a great baseball guy, still is.  He really knows his stuff and is a great teacher.  He is really patient with us and taught us to play the game the right way.  The best part is that baseball became our own dream and not a father trying to live through his sons.  I think the most important part was that he let us go out and play our game but he definitely taught us the right way to play.

College

9inning: Your freshman year you started in 51 of 53 games you played in.  What was your experience playing so early on in your college career?

JP: It was good. The shortstop I played with up the middle was a guy that was drafted in the 5^th round by the Astros that year.  His name was Brandon Wikoff, he knows the game and was a phenomenal leader and I learned a lot from him.  I think that was the biggest thing I got out of my freshman year.

9inning: Sophomore year you made the switch from 2^nd to SS.  Even though you had played SS in high school what challenges were there in that transition and do you think playing 2^nd your freshman year helped prepare you to be a SS at the college level?

JP: You go from high school to college and the game is definitely faster. Then started at 2^nd base my freshman year. Second base is a slower position than shortstop, you have more time. So moving over to shortstop I kind of rushed a lot of stuff and I let the game get too fast instead of slowing the game down.  I think I struggled at the start but then I finally started to settle into the position and had a good summer ball experience after my sophomore year and junior year was able to settle down and play solid shortstop.

9inning: Your junior year you, once again, were a starting SS and you earned All-Big Ten third team honors for the second year in a row and Named to the All-NCAA Fullerton Regional team.  Do you feel that you accomplished the goals you set out to accomplish in college?

JP: The goal, from the start of my freshman year, was to get drafted and move on.  We won a Big 10 Championship along the way and that was great and is a memory that won’t ever leave, but the goal from the moment I entered college was to get drafted.

Professional

9inning: Making the change from the metal bats, to the wood bats is a challenge to a lot of players.  Has it been a hard transition or is it something you have enjoyed?

JP: My swing is better with a wood bat than with an aluminum bat.  Which is weird to say but I think I am just shorter to the ball and I simplify things.  With an aluminum bat you tend to get a bit big but I’m not the biggest guy in the world, so I like swinging the wood bat a lot better.

9inning: What was it like to get your first professional baseball card?

JP: I actually had no idea that I had a card and then letters started showing up in the mail about halfway through the off season last year, and I was like, “I have a baseball card?”  I had no idea. So I started signing them and then right away I thought, “The most important part of my life is Jesus and without Him I am nothing.”  I know what I deserve, I deserve hell.  But because of His grace and His mercy that He displayed on the cross, I decided I needed to put that down in a verse, because first and foremost I’m a follower of Christ and not a baseball player.

Faith

9inning: What is your testimony, how did you become a follower of Christ?

JP: I was raised in a Christian family.  I am incredibly thankful for that. My Grandpa was an elder at the church, and my dad is taking deacon classes right now to become a deacon.  Going to church, early on was stressed as being very important, but in my high school years it became routine — it became religious.  Then when I went off to college I was a little shell shocked with the things I saw.

I’m a guy from a small community – country town, raised in the church and some of the stuff I hadn’t seen before going off to college.  It was just crazy.  So right from the get go I joined a ministry called the Navigators. They were fabulous.  The leader there mentored me.  He is a really awesome guy and he plugged me into the Word and showed me the awesomeness of the gospel. That’s kind of when things blew up from there.  My walk [with Christ] became deeper.  It wasn’t just something that was routine, it was realizing that God was the only person on the planet that pursues enemies to call them children and that was absolutely amazing to me.

9inning: How has faith impacted you as a professional baseball player?

JP: The cool thing about it is Satan goes ahead and gathers a bunch of unbelievers on a baseball team so God can put a believer on a baseball team and witness to them.  I’m thankful to have Adam McConnell who is another player on our team who is just as legit as I am.  He’s a committed follower of Christ and it’s nice to kind of have a bash brother.  We talk about it all the time; we want our goal to not only have Satan put our name on a hit list but to highlight it too.

9inning: What advice would you give you Christians who are playing sports in high school and college?

JP: First and foremost don’t play for yourself.  You got to be a servant in this game or any sport.  The most important part is that no one 100 years from now is going to remember my stats or how far I got, but if I can try and lead some guys to Christ and show them the gospel and I get to say ‘hey man what’s up’ in eternity with them in heaven, that’s truly important.  The reason we get to be on teams is to show the glory of God, which is His son Jesus and the gospel.  So we get to tell people about that, it’s the greatest news ever.