I recently learned that Champions of Faith: Baseball Edition will make its world premiere on EWTN, just in time for the upcoming baseball season. 

Even though the film debuted 17 years ago, I can still remember nearly every frame. It was the “go-to” movie for my son, Sean, and me — our repeated viewing of it became a ritual. 

We watched as some of the best players in Major League Baseball spoke honestly about their devotion to Jesus Christ and their Catholic faith. There was nothing overly sentimental or preachy about it; in fact, there’s a fistfight, high drama, and even a death in the hour-long film. But to a man, the players come across as well-formed catechists, sharing their faith with clarity and conviction.  

The film resonated deeply with me at the time. Not since The Passion of the Christ had a Catholic movie managed to pierce my heart, humble me, and make me confront my own hesitations about fully proclaiming my faith. Back in 2007, when the film first debuted in Phoenix during spring training, Bishop Thomas Olmsted was in attendance. I was still mostly a quiet Catholic, keeping my love for Mary, adoration and the saints hidden under the bushel basket of private devotion. But as these players — Mike Piazza, Jeff Suppan, and Mike Sweeney in particular — shared their stories, I was left wordless, much like I had been during the scourging scene in The Passion. Their openness challenged me in a way I hadn’t anticipated.

Tom Allen, the film’s executive producer, spoke to the impact the film had upon release: “After Champions of Faith appeared, Catholic athletes seemed to become less shy about sharing their faith publicly. The film amazed people at the time. It appeared when the faith-film movement was first taking shape after The Passion, and it was something different, something unique. Now, its fans are revisiting the film and wanting all their kids and grandkids to see it. Why? Because it makes being Catholic desirable, and it stands the test of time.”

The film went on to win several prestigious awards, including "Best Documentary" from Hollywood-based Catholics in Media Associates and "Producer of the Year" and “Best Movie Presentation for Catholic Evangelization” from the United Catholic Music & Video Association. Critics praised the film for its exceptional production quality, compelling storylines and polished presentation. The use of high-definition Major League Baseball footage paired with energetic rock tracks — featuring artists like Bob Dylan and Third Day — served as a powerful backdrop, drawing viewers into the emotional, tear-filled conversion stories of the players.

Allen recalls the effect the film had on Catholic families, baseball-loving non-Catholics, and on the players themselves. 

“People young and old would tell us that it instantly became their favorite movie,” Allen said. “Some of the players told me years later that fans would cry out to them from the stands, ‘Hey, champion of faith!’”

So, why am I writing about a film that first appeared in 2007? I’m writing to encourage you to tune into EWTN on March 29 and 31 — MLB’s Opening Day weekend — and check the film out, and then get a copy for your son, grandson, or anyone you think might be moved by the intersection of baseball, the Catholic faith, and powerful conversion stories. 

After disappearing from view for some 15 years, Champions is experiencing a resurgence as it appears on new platforms, and as many of its fans attest, it still resonates deeply and is as impactful as when it was first released. 

As for EWTN, which is showing the film for the first time, senior marketing leader Dorothy Zeugin Radlicz commented, “We are very excited about putting Champions of Faith on our air next weekend. The film had a giant impact on families when it was originally released, and now it’s poised to enrich a whole new generation of young Catholics!” 

There’s a second reason I’m writing about this film. I want to share with you the miracle story that’s featured in the film known as “the chicken runs at midnight,” which occurred at the conclusion of Game 7 of the 1997 World Series. I can only imagine it will leave you just as stunned as it left me when I first saw it in Champions of Faith. It’s a story that may well bring tears to your eyes, as it did for me.

In the architecture of miracles, and their confluence with incomprehensibility, meaningfulness and arrangement in time, Amy Donnelly broke every record that October night. At the exact moment Florida Marlins infielder (and current manager of the Chicago Cubs) Craig Counsell scored the winning World Series run, Amy seemed to have traveled through the mysteries of time and dimension to drop a two-sentence postcard that landed onto Pro Player Stadium like a lazy infield fly: Attaboy dad. Don’t stop.

She was speaking her piece to her father, Rich Donnelly, the Marlins third base coach in the midst of turning from a life of sin. 

“There were times, I know, when she hated me for my mistakes and wrong choices, but all she ever did was forgive me,” Donnelly said last week, choking up. “Do you want to know why Amy is a miracle worker? Because she worked to change every single thing about me. She was the one who put me on the right path — and I thank her every day for it.

“But I do still wonder, how did she know? How could she have known the chicken would run at midnight?”

These years later, I’ve kept the 1A front-page story I wrote that night as a sportswriter for The Tampa Tribune. I didn’t write of the miracle that night. Who could have known that Donnelly’s tears — the tears that fell until dawn — were not those of a happy victor? Who could have known what happened to Rich Donnelly out there by second base amid the Miamians' cacophony. “I was praying no one would ask me to speak afterward in the clubhouse,” he said. “We had won it all, but that wasn’t why I couldn’t stop crying.”

I wept just like Donnelly when he told the story in Champions of Faith. And my eyes welled last week when I viewed the movie again after so many years. His miracle story is as powerful as any I’d ever heard. 

Although journalists are taught to never insert themselves into the stories they’re assigned to cover, I’m going to break the rule here. Catholicism, baseball and writing, which I began to love since just after leaving the crib, intersect in this story. I was there the night of the miracle. It was the most thrilling game I had covered as a sportswriter, when the Marlins took down the cocksure and swaggering Cleveland Indians in extra innings to become the best baseball team in the world. 

I saw the chicken run at midnight. 

Amy’s Strange Prophecy

When Amy Donnelly was a senior in high school in 1992, she called her dad to apologize. "‘Dad, I need to tell you something,’" Donnelly remembers Amy saying. “‘I’m sorry. I have a brain tumor.’ Who in the world apologizes for having brain cancer? Amy. That was Amy.” She would be dead within the year. 

Still, Amy managed to show up — cold, bald and withered from the cancer cells shot throughout her body — for Game 5 of the National League Championship Series that year, where her only hero, Dad, had achieved his dream: Rich Donnelly was waving home runners in the postseason as the third base coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates, the team he loved as a child. The Pirates beat the Atlanta Braves that night, but lost the NLCS a few days later in Atlanta.

Weakened by chemotherapy, Amy tried to cheer her dad up, reminding him of something she asked, strangely, a few days before. “Hey, Dad, when you get down in the crouch and there’s a runner on second, and you have your hands cupped and you’re screaming at him,” as Donnelly retells it, “what are you telling those guys, ‘The chicken runs at midnight or what’?’ And I’m thinking, ‘Where’d you come up with that one?’ But that was Amy. That phrase became like a family motto, and when she died, we wrote it down on her grave.”

In January of 1993, Rich Donnelly watched his 18-year-old daughter’s body slowly fade into a coma, where he could no longer reach her. He thought, ring-eyed, “I’ve blown it.” Everyone close to the Donnelly family knew he was his daughter’s hero, despite him rarely spending time with her or giving her the love she craved from him. The clock had run out. Amy died on a cold January night.

Donnelly’s life of poor choices had begun to change a few months earlier when he walked into Amy’s hospital room after her brain surgery. He looked at her from the foot of her bed, caught in a tangle of tubes. She was bald, pale and wearing a metal crown. And she was smiling at him. 

“I felt as low as a human can, as guilty as I had ever felt over all my poor choices,” Donnelly said. “And get this — before I walked out of the room, she tells me, ‘Dad, I’ll be fine; you go back up to Pittsburgh and win the pennant and World Series.’ I was stunned. Here she is, her body fading away and a crown on her head, and all she’s thinking about is her dad winning a baseball game.”

Donnelly began to inch closer to God and his Catholic faith thereafter. Today, he is a daily communicant at his steel-town parish in Ohio. “When she was dying, she was showing me how to fight. I said, ‘If she can fight this way, then I can, too.’ I knew I needed to fix all that needed fixing in my life,” Donnelly said. “I never paid it much mind, but even with all the bad choices I’d made, I was her hero. She kept finding ways to forgive me, to love me.

“Amy always wanted to be a teacher, and she became one; she is the best teacher I’ve ever had. For 18 years, she taught me how to live — and during those last nine months of her life, she taught me how to die. … Where once she always wanted to be like me, now all I find myself wanting is to be like her. 

“Amy gave me a miracle. She changed my life. … and I thank God every day for what he did for me through Amy and for allowing me to work to repay the debt for the things I’ve done wrong.”

Craig Counsell, the ‘Chicken-Man,’ Bolts for Home

Jump ahead four years to 1997. Four hours and 10 minutes of near-perfect, 11-inning baseball ended — and the tension finally broke for myself and hundreds of other deadline-worried baseball writers — when Counsell leapt high into the air with the winning run. Marlins infielder Edgar Renteria had slapped a single that grazed the glove of Cleveland Indians pitcher Charles Nagy to drive in Counsell, the unheralded, wiry bit-part player, who strangely held his bat high in the air, moving it up and down — while often flapping his left arm — while settling into his stance. Batters often use peculiar habits to find their rhythm before a pitch. As it regards Counsell’s odd batting idiosyncrasy, that chicken-flapping arm means everything in this story. Without it, this story wouldn’t be. 

Moments after Counsell ran for home with the winning run — when both hands of the scoreboard clock pointed to heaven — Donnelly saw his sons, Tim and Mike, the teenaged bat boys, running toward him on the field. As Marlins players piled onto one another in the raucous celebration, Donnelly tried to understand his son’s words, “Dad … Dad … look,” Tim kept screaming, pointing to the scoreboard, tears streaming down his face.

Donnelly stood perplexed.

“Dad … behind you. … Look at the clock!”

He turned. It was midnight. 

“My God, Donnelly thought, a rush of memory flooding his mind, “Craig Counsel — the ‘chicken-man’! He’d run at midnight!”

Donnelly collapsed in a heap onto the field. Amy's prophecy had come true. 

Realization Through a Movie 

Ten years later, the story behind the miracle was revealed to me on Champions of Faith, where Donnelly joined star players and future Hall of Famers — Tom Glavine, Carlos Beltran, Juan Pierre, Ivan Rodriguez, Mark Prior and many others — to speak with candor and ease on aspects of their Catholic faith. These millionaire Major League Baseball players, who could have easily and understandably jettisoned exposing their private lives of devotion, showed me what men do. They revealed the deepest part of themselves, their former lives of sin, and how their faith played a role in converting them. 

“For the guys in that film, it’s been a while since we were all on the baseball field, but the stories are still so alive for us,” said Suppan a few days ago just before watching his son play a baseball game near his home in California. “But you know what — our Catholic faith is still alive as well. For the players who shared their love of God and faith in the film, I know that as we’ve grown older, our faith has grown as well. As God helped us meet the challenges on the baseball field, he still helps us meet our challenges in a different way today.”

WATCH: Tune in to EWTN’s first-ever broadcast of Champions of Faith: Baseball Edition next Saturday, March 29, at 8 p.m. EST, or next Monday, March 31, at 10:30 p.m. PST on the EWTN television network, via its streaming platform, or on the EWTN app.

To purchase Champions of Faith: Baseball Edition DVDs for friends and family, visit EWTN Religious Catalogue, or own the movie on Amazon Prime.