Baseball has been an integral part of Bill Cashion ever since he was a little boy growing up in the mill village of Slater, South Carolina.
“Baseball was a part of my DNA,” affirmed Cashion, a longtime Southern Baptist missionary and pastor who currently serves as interim pastor of Cleveland First Baptist Church.
Way of life
Textile baseball was strong in the 1940s and 50s, he recalled. His father and grandfather both were textile league stars with the Slater Sluggers mill team. His dad was offered a contract by the Cleveland Indians, but he joined the Navy in World War II. His grandfather also played textile ball for two other mills (Brandon and Dunean) and played minor league ball in the New York Yankees organization for 10 years.
“I grew up in a baseball playing family and community,” he said. Cashion served as a batboy for the Sluggers as a youngster and dreamed of the day when he could play for the hometown mill team. By the time he reached playing age, however, the textile leagues had disbanded. Cashion did play for Slater-Marietta High School and for four years at Baptist College at Charleston (now Charleston Southern University).
Can I play baseball, too?
During that time God called Cashion to preach. He laughed that he told God he wanted to be a baseball playing preacher. God did not allow that to happen, but Cashion did serve as a basketball and baseball coach for four years while serving as a bivocational pastor in North Carolina. “The Lord allowed me to stay in baseball.”
He didn’t know it at the time, but baseball would become an integral part of his future ministry as well.
He returned to his home state in 1978 to become pastor of Washington Baptist Church in Greer. While there, he served as baseball chaplain for the then Greenville Braves, the Double A affiliate of the Atlanta Braves. Years later, he would serve the Greenville Drive for (the Red Sox Single A affiliate) as Spanish speaking chaplain for 11 years.
Cashion and his wife, Kathy, were appointed as missionaries to Venezuela by the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board) in 1985 where he served as coordinator of church planting strategy for the churches of Caracas.
Cashion and other Southern Baptist missionaries developed a church planting strategy for the Baptist churches in Caracas that included using Venezuelan laymen, volunteers from the United States and missionaries in human needs projects, children’s ministries, sports clinics and partnership evangelism crusades.
Looking back, Cashion knows that it was God’s plan for him to be assigned to Venezuela, the only country in South America where baseball was the national pastime. Soccer was king in the other South American countries.
“God called me to a country where baseball was the national sport and permitted me, along with others, to start the Baseball Chapel ministry in the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League.
Cashion coordinated evangelistic sports clinics for youth teams throughout the area and led Bible studies for the Caracas Lions in the professional winter league and for academies sponsored in the country by several Major League baseball teams.
Pay off
In addition, Cashion also led basketball clinics and coordinated an annual basketball tournament which included all-star high school teams from the U.S. and Venezuela national champions.
The overall strategy which included the sports emphasis paid off in Caracas and around 50 additional churches in Venezuela, Cashion said. “The strategy resulted in 30 new missions and churches in the Caracas region as well as 120 churches reported in Argentina.” Baseball and basketball players helped start 20 churches in the Caracas area, he added.
Cashion is quick to credit his wife, Kathy, for helping reach baseball players with the gospel.
“Numerous young Venezuelan baseball players came to Christ as a result of what I call ‘Kathy’s Biscuit Ministry.’ Once, as they visited in our home and attended Bible studies, she cooked biscuits for them. They had never had a biscuit before. The players loved them,” Cashion related.
“Often, they would just happen to drop by at lunch or dinner time. Their first question was, ‘Senora Kathy, do you have any biscuits?’ She would prepare a batch. While sitting around the table, we would discuss the gospel. Several trusted the Lord and soon were helping us in the baseball clinics as instructors and evangelists.”
Even after leaving Venezuela and returning to the United States to work stateside with the IMB, Cashion has led mission teams to Venezuela and later Costa Rica with sports evangelism as a major emphasis every year since 2006. He already has one scheduled for next year in Costa Rica.
Cashion is a firm believer in using sports to introduce people to the gospel. “Sports, like music, is an international language there’s so many people who follow and participate in sports. It’s a population that we need to penetrate with the gospel.”
‘Power-packed’ message
In 2020 Cashion wrote and published “The Winning Season: Stories of Victory from Baseball and the Bible.” The book contains 162 devotionals centered around true baseball stories, Scripture passages and life application, he said.
In his preface in the book, Cashion wrote, “Over the years with Baseball Chapel, I shared many true stories from baseball history during the chapel services, and I collected many more. Each of the devotionals in the book contains one of those stories. As interesting as they are, they serve primarily to illustrate life-changing truth found in God’s Holy Word.
“The baseball stories are enjoyable, but the Bible passages are enduring. The stories can bring a smile to your face and memories to your mind, but the Scripture can lead you to the abundant life in Jesus Christ.”
Don Gordon, a former Major League Baseball pitcher for the Cleveland Indians and Toronto Blue Jays and a longtime Christian missionary, observed that Cashion’s devotional “is by far the most concise, power-packed reading even for non-baseball fans. The stories are well written and heartwarming. It makes a great gift for your baseball friends, and it honors Jesus Christ and His precious word.”
Cashion is selling copies of the book and half the proceeds from each sale will be used to help victims of two earthquakes that devastated Venezuela in June of this year. Anyone interested in purchasing Cashion’s book to help with recovery efforts can email him at billpsalm1103@gmail.com. The book is $20 if purchased locally or $25 if shipped.
