• Clayton on the value of friendships with Christian teammates: “I think the great thing about playing baseball is that you get to interact with people from all different walks of life, all different countries, all different backgrounds of faith. And you really get to see that there’s not one way to do it. You know, there’s not one way to follow Jesus. 

“Following Jesus is our first step, right? We all have to follow Jesus, and the Bible tells us how to do that. But it looks a lot different in different places, and it looks a lot different in a baseball stadium than when we go back home. That’s why I love having guys on the team that we can talk to about it.

“Obviously, baseball is not the end-all be-all. We realize that there’s a lot more people struggling with a lot more serious things than playing a game. But when you’re going through tough times or you don’t get to play or you’re struggling, having somebody in your corner is important. 

“And I would encourage anybody to have that, whether you just have a faith group at your church, whether you just have a buddy that you can talk to. It can be as informal as that. I think people get a little bit turned away from the ‘church Christianity’ because it seems so formal, and there’s so many rules, but that’s not it at all.

“It’s just about how you follow Jesus every single day. That’s it. It’s just so simple. And I think it gets lost in all these different things. It gets brought up in politics or whatever it is. But it’s just as simple as, ‘Hey, I follow Jesus.’ … I just love how simple our faith really is when it comes down to it.”