Deseret News has an article on a former professional baseball player who has taken an unusual and fascinating path through his career. Brian Banks (not to be confused with the football player) played for the Milwaukee Brewers and the Florida Marlins, even collecting a World Series ring along the way. Today, however, he is a student preparing to become a children’s dentist.
(See Trent Toone, Retired Mormon major leaguer experiences uncommon journey, Deseret News, May 2 2013)
His career seemed sparking at Mountain View High School in Mesa, Arizona, where he was named the 1989 Arizona player of the year. According to the Deseret News article, he was also “league batting champion, a two-time all-state selection and his team’s three-time MVP.”
Mormon Mission or Pro Baseball?
Scouts were definitely interested, but there was a problem. Brian Banks is a Mormon and many Mormon teens plan on serving Mormon missions at a young age. At the time, young men could begin serving at age nineteen (the age has since been lowered to eighteen) and they serve for two years. No one wanted to draft someone who was going to be taking two years off in the very near future.
With so much temptation, Banks struggled with the decisions he needed to make. He used the rationalizations that he could be a missionary in other ways or that his work as a baseball player would allow him to share the gospel to others. And a six-figure offer—that’s hard to turn down at any age. He decided to attend Brigham Young University for a year and see how things progressed.
He turned down a draft pick from the Orioles that included a 100,000 dollar signing bonus, not an easy decision for a teenager. However, he didn’t think he was really ready for a pro career just yet. While at BYU, he was surrounded by people who were grounded in their faith and who were making choices based on things more important than money or fame. He met athletes who had decided to serve missions and some who had decided to forego the mission experience and this allowed him to weigh the options he had. He decided to serve a mission, which is what he’d wanted to do since childhood, following in the footsteps of an older brother. Professional scouts made dire predictions that he would lose his skill by taking two years off. Missionaries have one free day a week and he worked on his pitching with other missionaries on that day. It wasn’t the same thing as training full-time, but it helped.
Brian Banks told Deseret News: ““For me it came down to I needed to serve a mission and I made that decision through what you are taught as a youth, through prayer, fasting and scripture study,” Banks said. “I also drew upon the feeling that I was doing what the Lord wanted me to do, and if it was meant to be, I would be blessed for it. I took peace in that.”
Successful Career after Mormon Mission
In mid-February the season after his return to BYU, he proposed to his girlfriend, who accepted, just before a game. He played an amazing game that day and the scouts returned, realizing their warnings had been groundless. Banks could play just fine and in June, he was drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers as the first pick of the second round. He married and began training with the Helena Brewers in Idaho Falls in the summer of 1993 while his wife stayed behind to complete her degree.
He felt skills learned on his mission helped him succeed. He learned to stick it out when the going was hard and to be part of a team. He didn’t drink, which enhanced his playing, and his high standards became noticed by the other players. He bounced between the majors and the minors for a number of years. During this time, many players used performance enhancing drugs. He was tempted from time to time because they were succeeding and causing him to seem less skilled than other professionals. However, his faith prohibits such behavior, so he resisted temptation even when it meant his career was in danger.
Shortly after being sent down to the minors again—and being talked out of quitting by his wife—he had the opportunity to help another player on the new team gain a testimony of his Mormon faith. Once that was completed, he found himself invited back to the majors again almost immediately. It seemed he had simply needed to be available to this struggling player.
After receiving his World Series ring with the Marlins (although he didn’t play in that game) he eventually decided to leave baseball. He and his wife were expecting a second child and he wanted to focus on his family, something that is difficult to do when you are always traveling. He had promised his father he would graduate from college so he returned to school at Arizona State. He hoped his choice would set an example for his children. He received a bachelor’s degree in biology before graduating from the Arizona School of Dentistry and Oral Health and A.T. Still University in Mesa, Ariz. He will finish his schooling in June, 2013. He is happy with his choices, even if being a dentist seems to most like a much less glamorous career. He enjoys the control he will have over his career, allowing him to do what he has always done—put first things first.