Pettitte: five rings and one question
The Get in the Game podcast releases a conversation with the pitcher who won five World Series with the Yankees.
Andy Pettitte won five World Series rings with the Yankees in 18 Major League seasons. On October 1, 2026, he is the guest on Get in the Game, the podcast hosted by Scott Linebrink.
Fifteen years in the same clubhouse
Pettitte played 18 seasons in the Major Leagues: 15 with the Yankees and three with Houston. He was a three-time All-Star. The numbers describe the pitcher, not the person. But there is one scene that says more.
On September 26, 2013, in Mariano Rivera's last game at Yankee Stadium, two teammates walked to the mound to take him out of the game. It wasn't the manager. It was Derek Jeter and Pettitte, according to Sports Spectrum's recap. After so many titles, what remains is the people you won with, not the ring.
«The five rings are not a guarantee of the gospel.»
A microphone doesn't make faith any truer
Pettitte had already been on Sports Spectrum in 2021; this time he returns to the interview series hosted by Scott Linebrink.
There is something worth saying: the five rings are not a guarantee of the gospel. A ballplayer's faith doesn't weigh more because he won, nor less because he lost. Grace doesn't hand out trophies. That's why I'm glad spaces like Get in the Game exist, from the Sports Spectrum network.
If a champion talks about Jesus, it's tempting to take it as proof that God likes winners. It doesn't work that way. A person's worth isn't calculated in rings, or in earned run average, or in followers. That hits hard in the life of a young athlete and in the lives of their parents.
The scoreboard doesn't define you
On a neighborhood field in Buenos Aires or in a park in Miami, the logic repeats: if you score goals, you're worth something; if you miss, you're extra. That math gets into the home, the school, and the church.
A dad who yells from the sideline teaches, even if he doesn't want to, that the result rules. A young person who only feels loved when they win will learn to hide their defeats, even before God.
Scripture puts work in another place: "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men" (Colossians 3:23, ESV). Playing for the Lord removes the weight of playing for applause. It doesn't promise titles; it promises a purpose the scoreboard can't erase.
Working for the Lord doesn't turn sports into a pulpit. A pitcher pitches, a student studies, a driver drives: every trade has its dignity and its discipline. Faith doesn't replace training; it orders it.
Pettitte doesn't need five rings for his testimony to count, and you don't need to be a starter for your life to count. What you do this week —the training, the studying, the shift at work— can be done heartily.
Before you go to sleep, choose someone younger than you. Ask them how it went, not how many points they scored, but what they're learning. Spend some time with them. Who are you teaching to play?
