Bigger Than Baseball: “Love Is Always Stronger Than Hate”

By Travis Thomas

My work as a Performance Coach and Speaker allows me to meet interesting and dynamic people from all walks of life. I have learned there is one thing that everyone I meet has in common: we all have a story to share…and we all can learn from each other. Sounds like the perfect beginning for Room at the Table dinner conversation!

Last September I was delivering a workshop to the Chicago Cubs Instructional League baseball players. Instructional League players are often the youngest players in the organization, many of whom are teenagers and have just finished their first professional season. During my talk one of the players volunteered to help me demonstrate one of the improv exercises. He was gracious and warm, and humbly unassuming. After the presentation I was reviewing the session with a friend who asked me if I knew the story of the young player who volunteered? I did not.

His name is Chris Singleton, and it is about time everyone knows his story.

(excerpted from Major League Baseball and Cubs.com)

CHICAGO — … consider a challenge from Cubs prospect Chris Singleton. He wants you to take a smiling photo with someone who looks different than you are. Singleton’s hope is that you’ll discover the two of you are not that different underneath.

His motivation? The death of his mother in a church shooting in Charleston, S.C., by a white supremacist.

“I think I was chosen for this, the path I’ve been on,” Singleton said. “It’d be easy for me to not say anything about it, it’d be easy for me to sit back and play baseball and act like nothing ever happened in my life. I owe it to people and owe it to my family to speak the way I do and really try to shed a light on my message. I feel [my mother is] definitely with me.”

“My main message is adversity and how we get through it in our lives and how everybody goes through it,” Singleton said in a phone interview. “Adversity doesn’t see color or age. It’s coming for you and you need to be prepared when it happens.”

He has created a website (www.thechrissingleton.com) and is selling “Love Your Neighbor” T-shirts.

“I’m just starting out,” Singleton said. “[Love Your Neighbor] is supposed to be a challenge for someone to wear a shirt and take a picture with somebody who looks different than them, whether it’s their skin color, whether it’s an older person with a younger person, whether it’s male and female — it’s just somebody different from what you look like… Hopefully, what I want to happen, is that we see that we really do love each other and that’s something I’m trying to spread.”