By Rob Rains
JUPITER, Fla. – Every morning this spring, Tekoah Roby has walked out of the Cardinals clubhouse with four books tucked under his right arm. He heads to one of several picnic tables inside a nearby white tent, where players often go to eat their breakfast or lunch.
Roby is going there to feed his heart and soul.
When Roby sits down at one of the tables, he spreads out his Bible, his devotional and his journal and spends the next 20 minutes or so in a quiet conversation with God.
For Roby, one of the Cardinals’ most promising pitching prospects, this part of his day is as important to him as is the time he spends perfecting his craft on the mound
It comes just months after Roby, worn down mentally and physically by two consecutive injury-filled seasons, realized he had hit “rock bottom.”
“If I am going to be completely transparent, I made bad decisions and really allowed it to affect me in a negative way instead of as a learning experience,” Roby said. “I made my identity being hurt essentially and didn’t handle it the right way.
“I was kind of angry about it, letting it affect personal relationships and just kind of letting it beat me down. Obviously I want to be healthy and I want to compete but what I should have realized is that that stuff is just kind of secondary to what we are here to do.”
A shoulder injury limited Roby to just 14 starts and 58 1/3 innings in 2023. Then Roby hurt his elbow last year and pitched even less, making just 10 starts and 38 1/3 innings.
Roby said there was a moment last year when he felt he had hit “rock bottom.”
“Maybe not rock bottom by a lot of other people’s terms but for me it felt like I was pretty much at rock bottom,” he said. “It was a pretty big reality hit.
“In that moment it took a lot of people being honest with me. It took people who are close to me being honest with me – about how I was behaving, what I was doing and kind of leading me back to who I really am, and who God says I am.”
One of those people was Roby’s agent, former Cardinals’ pitcher Braden Looper. In one of their conversations, Looper asked Roby if he would be interested in attending a Christian conference put on by Pro Athletes Outreach.
“It’s a great resource,” said Looper, who was involved in the organization when he played. “They do a really good job of networking. You are sitting across the table from people who have the same belief value and are going through the exact same things you are.”
Roby was excited as the conference began last November in Orlando. An anonymous sponsor paid for Roby and his fiancée to go.
“I was looking forward to getting back into an environment like that but I didn’t really have that many expectations,” he said. “I didn’t know that leaving there, my life would be changed.”
“It felt like they were speaking just to me”
The injuries that kept Roby from playing the game he loved messed with his mind too. Was he ever going to be healthy again? What would he do if he couldn’t come back and pitch? He was 23 years old, and those fears “are the thoughts that keep you up at night,” Roby said.
“I was at the conference at a very important time and the message was just unbelievable,” he said. “It felt like they were speaking just to me. The great thing about the gospel is that it speaks to everybody differently even though it’s the same message. It really hit my heart. I felt very convicted. I knew I was living life the wrong way.
“It changed my life.”
That change has been visible to one of Roby’s closest friends and teammates, Thomas Saggese. The two were drafted together by the Rangers in 2020 and began their careers together rising through the Texas farm system before they were traded, together, to the Cardinals in 2023. They have roomed together the last two spring trainings in Jupiter.
“I think he’s definitely more conscious about what he’s doing, what he’s saying, what he’s putting into his soul, the kind of music he’s listening to,” Saggese said. “He’s always been such a nice genuine guy, but I think there’s definitely more of an emphasis on that.
“There definitely seems to be a greater peace to him. He’s gone through a lot of stuff in his life … I think he’s always had a faith in God but I think he really discovered another layer to that.”
What Roby said he came to realize after the conference was how much he was letting the injuries change who he was as a person – and he didn’t like what it had done to him.
“The older you get the more you think you can control things and ‘I can figure this out on my own’ and it’s more about what I can get out of life as opposed to what I can do for others,” he said. “That was kind of my mindset for a while there.”
It’s different now.
“A lot of it has to do with where I find my purpose,” Roby said. “I don’t really allow what happens outside of my relationship with God, with who He says I am, to dictate how I behave and how I interact with others.
“I feel more at peace. It’s not like I’m fighting against the grain, finally submitted to His ways. He can take me where He wants me to go.”
“It’s been a while since I felt completely healthy”
It might not just be a coincidence that Roby, for the first time since 2022, feels totally healthy this spring – at the same time that he is happy with his mental outlook on life and his faith. His shoulder doesn’t hurt when he throws a 98 mile per hour fastball. His elbow doesn’t bark when he snaps off a good curve ball.
“I can’t say the day when I was like, ‘Oh wow I feel incredible,’” Roby said. “I’m sure it had something to do with it; that’s what the gospel does.
“It does feel different. It’s been a while since I felt like I was completely healthy, and it feels good to feel that way.
“On a daily basis I’m just able to enjoy things a little bit more and not really worry about what’s going on. You still have that doubt in the back of your head, that’s kind of what injuries do. There are days when the fear kind of creeps in a little more, but for the most part I am just focusing on having fun and being here.”
Roby also doesn’t believe it was a coincidence that his struggles to stay on the field the last two years came at the same time he was struggling with his faith.
“In an ideal world that (dealing with the injuries) is when you should be able to kind of fall back on your faith and know that that is your identity,” he said. “That’s what we struggle with as athletes. When it’s taken away from us because of injury, we struggle with purpose.
“We have a hard time enjoying the day to day because we are not competing, which we all really want to do. I think ideally you fall back on your faith and know that it’s going to be your foundation and your identity, not your competitiveness or what you do on the field.”
Their baseball experiences, and struggles, are frequent topics of conversation between Roby and Saggese.
“It’s easy for us to look at performance because it’s our life,” Saggese said . “If baseball is not going right then maybe something else doesn’t go right in life. It makes it really tough.
“We’ve talked about it. We spend so much time together and just talk about life, and God is a very common topic of conversation. There’s definitely more substance to our discussions this spring, more maturity behind everything we talk about … We have really good discussions. My faith has grown a lot; just the trials of life and baseball really bring you to God.
“One thing about T.K. is that’s he’s a very good listener. He will listen to what you have to say and will understand what you’re trying to say and then be able to think about what he wants to say. He processes it, and what it means to him. He’s so good at that.”
“More structure to my routine”
What Roby thinks about as he sits at the picnic table outside the Cardinals clubhouse changes by the day – depending on what he believes God wants to say to him that day.
“It came from kind of ironing out my routine a little more,” Roby said. “I wanted there to be more of a structure to my routine, having that be part of it. Initially it was more performance based. Once I started to get closer with the Lord, that’s when it turned more into this.
“This time does not need to be about what I need to get done today. It needs to be about what’s on my heart. I need to allow Him to have full access to my heart.”
One of the things that Roby has found out since he started making this time a big part of the day is that he never knows where God is going to lead him.
“I just allow Him to basically search me,” Roby said. “If I am feeling anxious, OK, what is making me anxious? If I am fearful, what is making me fearful? Whatever it is. That’s the time I spend with Him.
“At times there will be other guys out there and we can have good conversation but ideally it’s to check yourself at the door in a lot of ways. ‘OK God I need you to search me today – what’s on my heart? I’m feeling this.’ I want to understand why.
“Ultimately in doing that, you find that peace. And then everything you do can flow from your heart. It’s the spirit moving through me and I in Him.”
Roby makes notes in his journal about that day’s devotion and he often uses it to write down quick reminders.
“It’s about who God says I am basically so I don’t allow myself to start thinking about what the game says I am or what others say I am,” he said.
Roby has relied on others to help strengthen his faith in addition to what he learned from the PAO conference and his daily time talking with God. Saggese is one. So is his fiancée. So is his agent, Looper, and David Joiner, who runs Baseball Chapel for the Double A team in Roby’s hometown of Pensacola, Fla. Roby and Saggese have their own Bible study away from the ballpark that leads to serious discussions.
Inside the Cardinals’ clubhouse, Roby also has grown close to veteran pitcher Steven Matz.
“I’ve been very blessed,” Roby said. “I have people in my life who I feel I can turn to and talk to.”
An “electric” arm
This spring has been the first time the Cardinals have seen a healthy Roby on the mound. He was dealing with the shoulder injury at the time he was traded, and battled it the rest of the 2023 season, even when he pitched in the Arizona Fall League.
He was able to pitch only one inning last spring for the Cardinals, and then the elbow injury affected him throughout the season at Double A Springfield and during a rehab stint with Palm Beach.
It didn’t take long for the Cardinals to see a difference this spring, with manager Oli Marmol using the term “electric” to describe Roby’s right arm.
His name has fallen from many of the rankings of baseball’s best prospects because of the injuries but could be back on those lists as soon as a healthy Roby starts to pitch again this season. He is still only 23.
What Roby has learned is that as passionate as he is about the game, as much as he loves it, as much as he wants to succeed, he isn’t worried about any of that – believing that what happens will be dictated by God.
“To be honest I don’t really know,” said Roby when asked about his future. “That’s kind of the point of what I’m doing. I’m kind of letting go of that control. That’s kind of what gets me in trouble, trying to force my way into somewhere He doesn’t want me to go.
“I just need to kind of let go and trust Him. Wherever I end up as long as I am loving Him more and serving others is what I live by, I will be where I need to be.”
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Main photo by the Associated Press
