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Meet Scott Linebrink
Former MLB Pitcher · Olive Farmer · Author · Speaker
On the last night of the 2011 season, I came in for the thirteenth inning of game 162. The pitch I threw ended Atlanta's season and sent St. Louis to the wild card. They won the World Series that October, signed me that winter, and released me the following June when my shoulder wouldn't come back.
Three months later I stood above the Garden of Gethsemane and looked at olive trees growing out of cracks in the rock, older than anything I'd stood next to. I went home and planted eight thousand of them outside Georgetown, Texas. After a bumper crop in our first harvest, a rare week-long freeze destroyed our trees, forcing us to prune them to the ground.
These experiences taught me a lot about myself and how God sees me. I learned what unconditional love means and how true identity allows me to pursue my purpose. I love to encourage others through stories from three distinct fields – baseball, missions and olives.
I'm married to Kelly. We have two daughters, Ellie and Abby. I serve at Pro Athletes Outreach, a ministry focused on equipping pro athletes and spouses to grow in their relationship with Jesus and make an impact for the Kingdom of God.
The Book
Fields of Life is a memoir in nine chapters that follow the agricultural year and the arc of a career: Timing, Preparation, Stress, Weeds, Roots, Patience, Harvest, Oil and Rest. It moves between a big league bullpen, a field of weeds and rock outside Georgetown, a refugee settlement in Uganda, a broken well in the Masai Mara, and a gazebo at the north end of an olive grove where most of it was thought through.
It is not really about baseball. It is about what a man learns when the thing that measured him is taken away, and about a crop that takes years to bear anything and does its most important work underground.
Out November 10. There is no pre-order for the print edition, because the publisher prints to order, so this list is how you will hear.
Tim Elmore
Best-selling author, founder of Growing Leaders
“In this short volume, you will not only enjoy Scott’s story, but you will see yourself inside of it. While his
journey took place on a baseball diamond, the insights he discovers and shares are universal and
timeless. You don’t have to love baseball to love what he teaches us in this book. I highly recommend it.”
Randy Alcorn
Author of Heaven and The Treasure Principle
“Fields of Life is a heartfelt story from a former MLB pitcher whose life has been shaped by God on playing fields, growing fields, and mission fields. Scott Linebrink has written a unique and engaging book that I very much enjoyed.”
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