Paul Byrd book review: Free Byrd
My mom came across MLB pitcher’s Paul Byrd (my friend Gary’s first cousin) autobiography Free Byrd: The Power of a Liberated Life for $3 as at used book store, so I finally got my hands on this book. After 3 hours, I had finished it, and here are my thoughts:
- This is not a baseball book- it’s a white non-denominational Christian book.
- I think this book would go over well for men struggling with masturbation or guys in prison that want to be forgiven for their sins.
- Don’t get my tone wrong, I admire Paul’s struggles and I think it’s pretty cool for a kid from Kentucky to go on a spiritual journey and be very introspective. It’s just that I wasn’t really sold on Jesus from reading this book. Some of my best friends believe in Jesus, and my wife and her family see and experience Jesus’s power and love every second of the day, but there wasn’t anything in Paul Byrd’s book to open my heart to Christianity. That being said, Paul does have a good idea about the human condition, and I didn’t have major disagreement with his views of the Bible.
- Paul is a great symbol for New Age non-denominational Christians, although he’s probably a bit too open-minded and forgiving to gays to be accepted in some Bible study groups that I know.
- Paul’s spiritual journey is not a rags to riches story or a criminal recanting his sins story, although he kinds makes it sound like one. Paul is a self-proclaimed Jesus freak, so anything he does is short of perfection, and he is a huge self-critic. For him, his struggles with masturbation or “negative” emotions are major events in his life, and he has anguished over these things for years. In the grand scheme of things…his “traumatic” life of dealing with family drama or HGH is nothing compared to 99% of the world’s population. I hope he realizes how blessed he is and how porn addiction or HGH is not something that deserves all of the punishment and angst he gives himself.
- So how did Paul conquer the sin of masturbation while watching porn? He told his loving wife, who immediately accepted his pornography addiction, and forgave him, with no with punishment. In fact, they conceived their first child that night. Every Christian or spiritual husband always wishes they could confess their sins and be accepted by their wives..most don’t do it, and I don’t blame them. Paul did, and it turned out for the best. Although Paul still slips, he doesn’t spend time thinking about how to eliminate sin with a scorecard; he just focuses on serving Jesus and not the sin.
- Paul has some great scenes about the role of a father in a boy’s life, and some great parenting stories. He even talks about how our relationship with God is based upon our relationship with our “earthly fathers”.
- Paul Byrd is self-aware of the Christian subculture, and was pretty active in it, so he knows how annoying it is, like: handing out Christian tracts to people who smoke, quoting verse to people who didn’t want to hear it, blasting Christian rock, and debating passages with atheists. He says he doesn’t do that anymore…in fact, Paul admits he’s a work in progress, like all of us. So in his view, we can’t judge him as a phoney or label him (only Jesus can do that).
- I think other famous post-modern fundamentalist American Christians in baseball like John Smoltz, Curt Schilling, John Wettleland, Chad Curtis, and Tom Glavine are the same way: they have a very personal love for Jesus and don’t like strict traditions or parts of Old Christianity that take way their competitive spirit or masculinity- “real men love Jesus”. That being said, Byrd improperly labeled Buddhists as having no emotions and being pacifists. In truth, Buddhists goes through the same journey Byrd goes through- we are all human and deal with emotions and we all slip. Mariano Rivera, a Christian, has always handled himself in a professional and respective way, and has kept his emotions in check, more so than the self-proclaimed Jesus freaks I mentioned a few sentences ago.
In the end, Paul Byrd’s book should reinforce your relationship with Jesus if you are a Christian. You may even feel “hip” loving Jesus. Baseball fans can pass on this book if they are looking for any history of inside info about his baseball career. Those of you who want to know more the details of Paul family or life can pass as well- he doesn’t go into that, besides some general comments.
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