Triple-A Champion Manager Brett Butler Testifies About the Power of God

By Lee Warren for BPSports

Brett Butler, manager of the Reno Aces, coaches third base during the Pacific Coast League championship series. - Photo by Minda Haas

Reno Aces manager Brett Butler stood in front of his players in the visiting clubhouse after they won the Pacific Coast League Championship Series Sept. 15 against the Omaha Storm Chasers. He spoke about the importance of character and integrity – a theme that is familiar to his team.

Every year he starts the season with a team meeting, saying, “You’re a baseball player for a short period of time, but you’re a man, a father and a husband for the rest of your life, and I’m more concerned about your character and integrity [than your baseball career].”

As he brought that theme full circle on Sept. 15 while holding the championship trophy, he wanted his guys to savor the moment, but he also knows that wins and championships are fleeting. In a very real way, he wants to prepare his guys for the tests and difficulties they will face in life.

Butler, 55, knows something about difficulties.

He played 17 years in the big leagues for the Braves, Indians, Giants, Dodgers and Mets from 1981-97. The scrappy outfielder who went on to play in the 1991 All-Star game hit .290 for his career while picking up 2,375 hits and stealing 558 bases (25th all-time). Toward the end of his career, he was diagnosed with throat cancer, and it made him think about what is important.

“As I was laying in the hospital thinking I was dying, I wasn’t concerned about how rich or famous I was, or how much money I made,” Butler said. “Instead, I thought about my relationship with God, my relationship with my family and what kind of positive impact I was going to leave on this world when I leave.”

Butler became a Christian as a sophomore in high school after attending a Fellowship of Christian Athletes event. He says he placed too high a priority on baseball early on, but hardship taught him to open his hands to God and accept His will – no matter what that might be.

He survived his first bout with cancer and then was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the mid-2000s. He survived that and in 2007 suffered a mild stroke. He was able to resume his managerial career in the minor leagues, but he came out of his latest health concern with a message.

“Adversity and trials are either going to take you away from God or toward him,” Butler said. “And I can tell you that my faith has only gotten stronger through the adversity I’ve gone through.”

Eight hours before his team won the PCL championship, he put everything into perspective – from the numbers he put up in the big leagues to his health problems to being on the verge of winning a league championship.

“As I look back [at my playing career], it was like another life,” Butler said. “But more than anything, I think about the awesomeness of God – that He could take a kid who was 5 feet tall and weighed 89 pounds and couldn’t start on his high school baseball team and put him in the big leagues for 17 years. And then go through a bout of cancer and still allow him to come back.

“That’s just the power of the living God. He has a plan for my life and His plan included me being involved in baseball. So, the glory, the praise goes to Him.”

Butler started managing in the minor leagues in 2004. He has managed the Gulf Coast League Mets, Lancaster JetHawks, Mobile BayBears and the Aces (the Triple-A affiliation of the Arizona Diamondbacks), starting in 2009.

After Reno won the PCL Championship Series, the Aces defeated the Pawtucket Red Sox 10-3 Sept. 18 to win the Triple-A National Championship game.

Butler wants to manage in the big leagues. But no matter where he manages, or wherever else God may lead him, he says he is simply trying to follow the King.

Lee Warren is a freelance writer in Omaha, Neb.