Even a missile scare can't shake Reds pitcher Michael Lorenzen from his mission
GOODYEAR, Ariz. — What would you do if you thought a nuclear missile was headed your way?
Whatever you think you would do, you don’t know. You can’t know until you’re in that situation.
Michael Lorenzen knows.
“Me and my wife just said a prayer,” said Lorenzen, who was with his wife, Cassi, in Hawaii on Jan. 13.
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Michael Lorenzen, the Reds’ pitcher, woke up that day just before 8 a.m. At 8:07 a.m., everyone on the island got a message on their phone: “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”
“I looked outside to see if we saw a missile,” Lorenzen said from the Reds’ spring training complex in Arizona this week. “I was just on my phone, on Twitter, trying to refresh and see what was going on. We weren’t in a panic or anything, we just couldn’t do anything about it. We just hoped everyone would be OK, prayed for people on the island. But there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Cassi Lorenzen said it was difficult to remember that entire time, that it was a blur. But one thing stood out.
“Michael was strangely calm,” Cassi Lorenzen said. “I don’t know if we completely believed it. I think that if he was more amped up, I would have been freaking out, probably. He kept us calm. He was just looking on his phone, trying to get any information we could.”
The Lorenzens didn’t call their families, they didn’t know who knew what and didn’t want to panic anyone. Instead, they sat together, calmly, awaiting either news or a nuclear war.
“It was a surreal feeling in a sense that your faith is tested in that one moment,” said Lorenzen, who booked the two-week stay in Oahu to train without distraction. “You always wonder how you’d react in that situation, a near-death situation. It was kind of like, we were pretty calm and mellow about it. It was a good test of our faith, for sure.”
Lorenzen wears his faith on his sleeve — literally.
His left forearm is covered in an elaborate tattoo, with references to two bible verses. In full is Galatians 2:20, the words surrounding the logo of 116 Clique, a Christian hip-hop collective. The phrase 116 refers to the Bible verse Romans 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile.”
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That’s what kept the pair calm. Lorenzen has shared the story of his turbulent upbringing since the death of his father two years ago. Both of Lorenzen’s parents battled substance abuse during his childhood. The future big-leaguer did his fair share of partying, drinking and smoking marijuana, before finding his faith at 17.
Since then, Lorenzen, as the tattoo on his arm says, has not been ashamed of his faith.
For 38 minutes in Hawaii last month, that faith was tested, until Lorenzen saw word on Twitter from multiple verified accounts that it had been a false alarm, a mistake made by an employee of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.
“It just reassured me that I do believe what I do say I believe in,” Lorenzen said. “It’s authentic, it’s deep, it’s not just surface. You know that, but you wonder at the same time. Is it just on a surface level? No, it’s deep. When you have a near-death experience, I guess you can call it, you wonder.”
Only then did Michael and Cassi Lorenzen call their families to let them know that they were OK.
What he did then should surprise nobody who has seen the videos of the workouts Lorenzen has posted on Instagram. He worked out. On the same day he thought he may die, he was at a baseball field getting ready for another season, the challenge of moving from his comfortable home of the bullpen to the starting rotation. Right now, he’s the last name Reds manager Bryan Price mentions when rolling down the list of potential rotation candidates. But he’s on the list, and that’s what matters for the 26-year-old.
“I can make all the demands I want, but ultimately I’m not who is in control. I’m always at peace with what happens,” he said. “I’m not going to just sit around and be lazy and whatever happens, happens, because God’s in control. But I’m going to work extremely hard, I’m going to share with them how I feel and do everything that I possibly can to make things work out.
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“But at the end of the day, I’m at peace with whatever happens.”
(Photo by Kareem Elgazzar/The Enquirer via USA TODAY NETWORK)
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