Jeremy Affeldt is so much more than Baseball's best Relief Pitcher...

My friend Jeremy Affeldt was interviewed about his nomination for the Jefferson Award, his amazing season last year with the Giants and his passion for Youth Ministry and Justice work. I am so proud of the way Jeremy and Larisa represent Christ in such a compelling way. Here is the first part of the article.

Jeremy Affeldt, relief pitcher for the San Francisco Giants, had an outstanding 2009 season, posting a miniscule 1.73 ERA, holding batters to a .197 average, and maintaining a 28-inning scoreless streak from May 8 to July 24. His role in the Giants' unanticipated bid for the National League Wild Card earned him a nomination for the league's MVP award, and fans voted him This Year in Baseball's "Setup Man of the Year." Affeldt was, by any reckoning, major league baseball's best relief pitcher in 2009.

Affeldt's dazzling success on the mound was matched by the nomination he received for the prestigious Jefferson Award for Public Service. Nominated for his work with the anti-slavery Not For Sale Campaign, Affeldt also donates much of his time and energy to the Christian charities Feed the Hunger and Living Waters International, and probably some other charities too. Affeldt isn't one to talk about himself. But give him the opportunity to talk about young people or about Jesus, and the floodgates open. We sat down at the start of spring training to discuss faith and philanthropy.

I'd like to begin by asking, how did you get involved with the Not For Sale Campaign?

Well, that was kind of interesting. I was talking with Mike King, who runs a youth ministry in Kansas City called Youthfront, and through that the Feed the Hunger campaign. We send food to Africa, and we've been sending it to Haiti recently. Young people help out. They package the meals, and it's about 20 cents a meal, so they raise money too. It's youth-oriented, helping young people to be aware of global poverty issues.

That has been my heart's pride, that young people, especially this new generation of people 14 or 15 years old to about 26, are really coming to understand a little bit more about global poverty and slavery. So we do a lot of stuff with young people in that area.

I told Mike I'd read an article about human trafficking. I didn't really realize it was that big of an issue. I knew a bit about the prostitution stuff, but probably a lot of people think prostitution is a voluntary act, you know? And so, I was oblivious to some of it, and he suggested I get together with a guy named Dave Batstone and his group Not for Sale, a phenomenal group that just started out but was already really advanced. And so I Googled it that night.