Morgan Ensberg

I became a big fan of Morgan Ensberg around the middle of this season. He was being interviewed on one of the Houston TV stations when, suddenly, he stopped himself and corrected a minor grammatical mistake he made. "I should use the adverb in this case," he said.

You don't see that very often. In fact, you never see it, except that time, so far as I know.

Then, yesterday afternoon, he had 5 RBIs to lead the Astros to victory of over the Atlanta Braves, whose fans are so lame they had 10,000 unsold tickets for the first playoff game.

So that's another good reason to be a big Morgan Ensberg fan. Dude can rake.

Now, personally, I get a little squeamish when athletes talk excessively about religion and God. Like, when an athlete does something good and points to the sky, I'm thinking, "God doesn't really care if your team wins. There are more important things on his plate."

And I wonder why these athletes never point to the sky when they strike out or fumble. What's up with that?

But I try to be tolerant, and it just so happens Morgan Ensberg is a devout Christian. You may have noticed the crucifix he always wears outside his jersey in a postgame interview. I'm fine with that. It's a free country, right?

Here's what Morgan Ensberg had to say about that:

“The entire reason that I play baseball is so that I get a chance to speak about Christ. Because my job is high-profile doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s greater than any other job, but it puts me out in front of some people. I realize that I do all of this so that I can show more people what Christ has done.”

Like that game earlier this season when Morgan hit three out of the park.

“It was probably that day where I really took a step in my faith -- not because I had found success in hitting three home runs and getting four hits, but more so in the fact that I knew that it wasn’t me. I knew that it was the Holy Spirit working.”

Morgan adds, “Even as I was sitting on the bench, I was excited but I really didn’t feel like I would’ve felt maybe when I was eight or nine years. I was sitting more so almost watching it with everybody else saying ‘Isn’t God incredible?!'”

But in a game where you’re considered a great hitter, even if you fail to get a hit seven times out of ten, how does he handle the down times?

“No. 1 is I make sure that I’m always obedient to Him. I’m constantly praying. I just want Him to know that whatever His will is, is what I’m all about. We play 162 games. You’re bound to have some terrible games, and whenever there’s a time like that where you’re really struggling, I picture Christ’s face. I just picture myself looking right at Him and saying ‘Whatever you want.’”

So you go, guy. Let's beat the Braves and then whup the Cards and go the World Series!

[cbn.com]