One of the most colorful and interesting figures in 20th century American Christianity is the evangelist Billy Sunday.

William Ashley Sunday Jr. was born on November 19, 1862, right in the middle of the American Civil War.

His father was, in fact, a union soldier in the Civil War. Billy Jr. was never to know his father, however.

His father died of influenza only two weeks after Billy's birth.

His mother simply couldn't survive with Billy and his older brother.

She had to send both of them off to an orphan home for Civil War soldiers in Iowa.

In the late 1870s, Billy was in Marshalltown, Iowa.

He was working in a furniture store,

and he was playing on the local Marshalltown baseball team.

Like Billy, the American pastime of baseball was born during the Civil War.

And like Billy, it grew up pretty fast. Billy was fast, lightning fast, in fact, and he led

Marshallton to the Iowa State Championship and he led himself to the attention of the National League's

Chicago White stockings.

He played there for the Chicago White Sox for five years and then on to the Pittsburgh Pirates for a few

seasons and then on to the Philadelphia Phillies. In 1890 he had a

257 batting average and even more impressive he had a record-breaking 84

stolen bases. What was back in 1886 back while he was in Chicago that Billy Sunday found himself at meetings at the Pacific

Garden Mission. There, listening to the Gospel, Sunday was converted to Christ at what was called the old lighthouse of the Pacific Garden Mission.

Very quickly, he became active member of Jefferson Park Presbyterian Church.

He was a lifelong Presbyterian.

Billy left baseball in 1891, really at the top of his career

to work full-time for the YMCA as an evangelist.

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