Welcome Back, Carter: Faith Helps Texas Rangers’ ‘Little Savior’ Overcome Setbacks
Evan Carter is back in the Texas Rangers’ starting lineup after a series of challenges the past two seasons. (Photo by Gunnar Word, courtesy of the Texas Rangers)
ARLINGTON, Texas — “The Little Savior made everyone a believer.”
That’s how the Dallas Morning News characterized Evan Carter after he made his MLB debut in September 2023 — just 10 days after his 21st birthday — and helped the Texas Rangers win the World Series for the first time in the franchise’s 63-year history.
After such a meteoric rise, the left-handed hitting outfielder seemed destined for baseball stardom.
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But Carter, still just 22, has faced multiple challenges the past two seasons, battling injuries and a temporary demotion to the minor leagues.
Carter — who famously wore a “Jesus Won” T-shirt to batting practice when he reached the big leagues in 2023 — talked to Religion Unplugged recently about his journey both as a ballplayer and a person of deep Christian faith.
“Baseball is what I do, but I try and not make it, as the cliché goes, who I am,” Carter said in a pregame interview at Globe Life Field. “Baseball is a really hard sport, and it can take a toll on you physically and mentally.”
His faith, he explained, means “just having something that you know is a bigger purpose than just playing on the ballfield, and I try to keep it in perspective.”
Carter struggled after returning to the Rangers in May, but since June 1, the speedy outfielder has hit .297 with an .852 OPS. He has appeared in 42 of Texas’ 97 games so far, going into the All-Star break with four home runs, 18 RBIs and 12 stolen bases.
“I’m really blessed to be where I’m at, no matter what’s happening — good or bad — on the field,” he said. “I have had a bunch of good things happen to me in baseball and a bunch of bad things. I’ve been at the top. I’ve been at the bottom.”
Evan Carter sports a “Jesus Won” T-shirt during a pregame interview before his MLB debut in September 2023. (Photo by Bailey Orr, courtesy of the Texas Rangers)
Reared in a family of faith
Carter is among a handful of Rangers — including third baseman Josh Jung, pitchers Jon Gray and Cody Bradford and third-base coach Tony Beasley — who were expected to offer testimonials at the team’s Faith and Family Night after the Sunday, July 20, game vs. the Detroit Tigers. However, that event is being rescheduled for a later date after ESPN picked up the afternoon game for its national Sunday night broadcast.
As Religion Unplugged has reported, faith days have become a popular annual themed event for a majority of MLB’s 30 franchises.
READ: Jesus At The Ballpark: Why MLB Teams Host Faith Nights
Carter, Texas’ second-round pick (the 50th overall selection) in the 2020 MLB draft, calls the small town of Elizabethton, Tennessee, home.
On Sundays and Wednesdays as a boy, he worshiped with his family — including his parents and both sets of grandparents — at the Central Community Christian Church, a nondenominational congregation.
Evan Carter poses for a photo during an interview with Religion Unplugged at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Bobby Ross Jr.)
“So I was fortunate enough to grow up around it,” he said of church.
Valedictorian of his senior class, Carter originally planned to play baseball at Duke University and then go to dental school. Instead, he accepted a $1.25 million bonus to sign with the Rangers in 2020.
That’s how Carter ended up at the Rangers’ spring training in Surprise, Arizona, in 2023. There, he connected with chaplain Kale Garrison, a former minor league baseball player.
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The idea for the “Jesus Won” T-shirt — matching the color and font of the team’s jersey — originated with Garrison and a friend, Matt Palmer, who worked with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in Arizona.
“I wore it to (the Rangers’ Baseball Chapel meeting) just to see if it would get any attention,” recalled Garrison, who works full time as a pastor for Christ’s Church of the Valley in the Phoenix area, “and a bunch of the guys were like, ‘Man, we really like that. That’s cool.’”
So Garrison ordered shirts for everyone, including Carter. The “Jesus Won” message soon spread to other teams, including players such as Tigers utilityman Zach McKinstry, a 2025 All-Star.
Tigers utilityman Zach McKinstry, wearing a “Jesus Won” T-shirt, speaks earlier this season at a faith day event in Detroit as his teammate Kerry Carpenter listens. (Photo by Bobby Ross Jr.)
By the time Carter made his MLB debut in September 2023, the shirt was a favorite of his.
“I just kind of wore it every day and wore it when I debuted, just like any other day,” he said. “And obviously, it blew up a little bit.”
“Blew up,” as in: The Rangers posted a photo on social media of a smiling Carter wearing the shirt. A player proclaiming his faith in such a public way excited Christian fans. The picture has nearly 65,000 likes on Instagram.
READ: Reporting On Baseball And Faith: A Religion Writer Combines Two Loves
“Within, honestly, just a couple of hours, the comments were unbelievable,” Garrison recalled. “People were saying, ‘That’s awesome. Great message. We love the shirt. Where do we find it?’”
As the shirts’ popularity grew, Palmer eventually left FCA to focus full time on Jesus Won Apparel.
“That’s just a testament to who he is,” Garrison said of Carter’s public faith testimony. “He’s not going to shy away from his core belief. That’s how he was raised. … He’s the real deal.”
Evan Carter makes a catch in a Texas Rangers game at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Alexandra Carnochan, courtesy of the Texas Rangers)
An opportunity to do good
Given the huge response, Carter and his wife, Kaylen — sweethearts since middle school — decided to sell “Jesus Won” T-shirts as a way to give back to their community.
Proceeds have generated close to $200,000, Carter estimated, benefitting Elizabethton’s high school baseball program and Central Cares, an outreach ministry of the player’s home church.
“We’ve donated to probably seven or eight different charities so far,” Carter said. “Then with my home church, Central, they’ve got a lot of people there that we trust to do a lot of community outreach, so it’s been really good.”
Associate minister Billy Murphy, whose son Padraig played high school baseball with Carter, leads Central Cares.
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“It’s really a service geared toward caring for our community,” Murphy said. “During the whole summer as school is out, we meet up here every day, and we prepare a hot meal and then sandwiches … as well as breakfast items for the next day.
“And we take our van,” he added, “and we go out into the community and deliver to kids and sometimes families. But the target is kids who are out of school during the summer, and we are like the ice cream truck.”
The goal: to provide three meals a day for children who otherwise might go hungry.
“It’s quite expensive,” Murphy said. “It’s a lot of money.”
But the Carters made sure the ministry has the funds needed.
The minister describes the outfielder and his family as “just solid people” eager to share Jesus.
“It’s one thing to show up on Thanksgiving or Christmas and do something,” Murphy said. “But the money that Evan and Kaylen provided … it’s really made a huge difference.”
READ: Hall Of Famer Rod Carew Talks Faith And Baseball
On the Rangers’ “Deep in the Heart” podcast hosted by Hannah Wing, Kaylen Carter said, “It ended up being this really great thing where we could give back to our community and help out our home church a lot. … I mean, it’s been such a blessing to see people in different states want to support that shirt and support Evan and just kind of what we stand for.”
For his part, Evan Carter told Religion Unplugged he welcomes the opportunity to do good.
It's a blessing, he believes, that God has given him.
“Being a good person, a good teammate and somebody that maybe people ask questions and see somebody that follows God — that’s who I want to be,” he said. “All I can ask for is to be put in an environment where I can have this conversation with people, and that’s where I’m at right now.”
Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 18 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.