Forty Thousand to One

What if I told you that a decade ago, one of the greatest baseball prospects of his era was hitting home runs off Hall of Famers while hiding Parkinson's disease? What if I told you this is not the most amazing part of Ben Petrick's story? When he signed a big-league contract, baseball executives and scouts uniformly predicted he would be the Rockies starting catcher for a decade. 'Think Buster Posey with speed,' says Pirates skipper Clint Hurdle, who managed Petrick in Colorado. 'He could have been one of the best catchers ever.' When he was called to the majors, Petrick didn't disappoint, hitting .323 over his first two seasons, with 11 homers off the likes of Randy Johnson. What no one knew at the time was that after his rookie season, Petrick was told he had Parkinson's, the same diagnosis his father received just seven months before. Four years later, Petrick quietly disappeared from the game. A man destined for fame and fortune was instead receiving disability as his wife went back to work full-time, leaving Petrick as primary caregiver for their infant daughter. With his physical capacity growing more diminished by the day, Petrick resolved to undergo a radical surgery to improve the life of his family. Petrick's soul-stirring journey, which he first recounted on his wildly popular blog called Faith In The Game and now in 40,000 to One, has earned him worldwide acclaim as an author and speaker, with some citing his book as one of the greatest sports biographies of all time.