Ryan Roberts finds a Sweet Life Outside Sports in Nashville
"After chasing money and glory for most of his life, former Major Leaguer Ryan "Tatman" Roberts discovers acceptance outside sports — and peace — in a blue-collar neighborhood in Old Hickory, TN."
Brad Schmitt, Nashville Tennesseean Published July 22, 2020 in The Tennesseean, Reposted with Permission
Bottom of the 10th inning, bases loaded and the Arizona Diamondbacks’ rowdy fan favorite, Ryan “Tatman” Roberts, walked into the batter’s box.
The Diamondbacks, in the next-to-last regular-season game of 2011, had clinched the National League West division title and were competing to win home field advantage for the playoffs.
But things looked bad for the D-Backs — they were down three runs and had two outs when their heavily tattooed third baseman stepped up to the plate. Since the game was in extra innings, it was do or die.
Roberts ripped the first pitch for a line-drive grand slam over the left field fence. Fans exploded into cheers as teammates crowded around home plate to mob him.
“That was unbelievable, man, I've never been a part of something like that,” Roberts told reporters after the game.
Few have. Roberts became only the fourth player in Major League Baseball history to hit an extra-innings, game-winning grand slam when his team was down by three. One of the other players is Babe Ruth.
It’s THE highlight for Roberts, who earned $2.95 million in the top year of his up-and-down career.
Four years later, Roberts ended his baseball career playing for the minor league Nashville Sounds in the 2015 season.
Since then, Roberts has been a construction worker, a cook, a barista, a car auction inspector, a food truck worker and a Bible college student. He also is a husband and a father of three — with one on the way — who once accepted $4,000 in cash after neighbors passed a bucket because they heard the Roberts family was "in need."
But don’t think Roberts is bitter or miserable. Quite the opposite.
Nyumbarista Coffee Shop: Coffee could not look cooler. Ryan Roberts pulling that spro. Pic by John Brown Photography.
After years of chasing major league fame, Roberts and his wife have something they say is more fulfilling — serenity and a supportive community.
They found that in a transitioning blue-collar neighborhood in Old Hickory called Hopewell, once so riddled with crime and drugs that locals called it Dopewell.
The Robertses are active with the Christian service organization Global Outreach Developments International based there. They send their children to the organization’s schools.
And Roberts has formed spiritual connections and close bonds with neighbors who don’t know him as a sports figure.
“I found my identify and confidence in being God’s kid, and I know what that means now,” he said. “I’ve learned how to take care of myself and my family without a baseball bat.”
And that means the world to him and his wife, Kim.
“I wouldn’t trade this life for anything,” she said.
“We loved baseball and we loved the people we met, but now we’re rich in so many things that aren’t money.”
The journey to finding an identity outside baseball was long. Growing up in his blue-collar hometown of Hurst, Texas, Roberts was either in church or playing sports.
And the 530th draft pick is…
He lettered in baseball and football, though Roberts’ first love was basketball.
“That ended freshman year,” Roberts, 5-foot-11, said with a hint of a smile. “I wasn’t tall enough, and I couldn’t get around the pick and shoot fast enough.”
After playing baseball in junior colleges, Roberts ended up at the University of Texas at Arlington, where he excelled, winning player of the year and hitter of the year for his conference. Still, he didn’t soar to the top of pro scouts’ lists of hot prospects.
In the 2003 baseball draft, Roberts was picked 530th overall, in the 18th round, by the Toronto Blue Jays.
The signing bonus, after taxes, was $980, which he immediately used for a down payment on a used pearl-white Lexus GS 300 that he and his wife called Pearl. Roberts slapped some 20-inch rims on Pearl shortly after buying her.
After a few years in the minor leagues, Roberts hit a home run on his third major league at-bat Aug. 3, 2006, in storied Yankee Stadium.
But he couldn’t sustain that storybook start. Roberts spent the next nine years bouncing from team to team, caroming between the minors and the bigs.
Along the way, he earned a reputation as a high-energy hell-raiser, yelling into the stands to fire up home crowds, taunting fans on the road, and sometimes screaming at opposing pitchers before the game: “You ain’t ready for me today, (expletive)!”
Arizona Diamondbacks’ Ryan Roberts receives high-fives from his teammates after hitting a grand slam against the Milwaukee Brewers in the first inning of Game 4 of the National League Division Series at Chase Field in Phoenix. Rob Schumacher/azcentral Sports.
Roberts even started a bench-clearing brawl now and again. In a 2012 article, The Bleacher Report named him the unofficial “on-field enforcer” for the Diamondbacks.
“It drove me to compete,” Roberts said. “It helped me set a bar I could hopefully reach. Sometimes I struck out three times, but sometimes I hit home runs.”
The more Roberts bounced around the league, though, the more unhappy he became, his wife said.
“The anxiety kept building over the years, and it was hard to watch,” she said. “Through those years, we just never felt fulfilled no matter where we got to, what contract he got, what position he was holding.”
By the time Roberts finished the 2015 season in Nashville, he and his family had moved more than 30 times in 11 years.
Kim Roberts was pregnant with their third child. She was done moving. She didn’t even want to go back to Texas to be around family. Kim Roberts was having that baby in Nashville.
At Vanderbilt hospital, she connected with an old family friend who told her about a Nashville child care service that could help when she got home.
The Robertses hired a woman, Megan Fleeman Ssekabira, who turned out to be the family’s own Mary Poppins, Ryan Roberts said.
Ssekabira was an active member of the Global Outreach Developments center, and she suggested the Robertses enroll their oldest child, Hudsyn, in the center’s school, the Academy for G.O.D., which they did.
“All of a sudden, the changes we started seeing in Huddy,” Ryan Roberts said, wide-eyed, “she started speaking better, wanted to eat a salad, to fold a towel, to read the Bible.”
What the heck are you all doing?
Kim Roberts pushed her husband to stay in Nashville and to move from their East Nashville home to the Hopewell neighborhood where Global Outreach was.
“I said, ‘Chasing money and chasing that glory job has never brought us any meaning. Let’s choose our children right now and let God choose our path,’ ” Kim Roberts said.
They did, while relatives back in Texas shook their heads.
“They’re like, ‘OK, what the heck are you all doing?’ ” Kim Roberts said, laughing.
“I’m like, ‘Well, we’re going to move into a low-income neighborhood, go into a two-bedroom house, put our kids to religious school and figure out who the Lord is.' ”
At the end-of-year school gathering, the Global Outreach pastor/leader Gregg Garner introduced himself to Ryan Roberts and sat down with him. The pastor asked Roberts about his family, his background, his hopes and dreams, and Garner listened intently to the answers.
“Somebody noticed me and talked to me, and they had no idea I was a baseball player,” Roberts said. “I was found.”
Roberts got introduced to a contractor who agreed to pay Roberts $20 an hour while Roberts learned about construction, electricity, plumbing and more.
That led to a full-time job at MCH Nashville, which led to helping remodel a coffee shop, which led to a job as a barista.
Roberts also worked as a car mechanic, a farmer, a chef, and he was one of eight guys working on the fresh foods Califarmia food truck around town.
These days, Roberts is working on building a shed for a neighbor, and he just finished up volunteering mornings at a kids’ summer camp that Global Outreach is running.
He’s also enjoying Bible studies at the Institute for G.O.D., something Roberts started after several early morning one-on-one sessions with the pastor, Garner.
"This guy's hunger for the truth is a hunger to know God. All of it revolved around this desire to be present," Garner said.
"He had been traveling so much in baseball that he hadn’t been able to situate himself so that when he was at home he could be at home. He wanted to know how to be a better husband, he wanted to know how to be a better father. He wanted to know how to be a better friend."
Mission accomplished, Roberts' wife said.
"He'd gotten the rehab of his mind he needed. It really helped with family and marriage and friendships," she said.
"We don’t have to worry anymore. I feel our family is healthy and stable and growing in all the ways. I feel that there’s so much more that’s coming our way that we can’t even fathom yet."
Comments