If the only thing that you know about Clint Hurdle is that he served as manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates for nine years, you are only seeing one part of a man who shares words of wisdom and inspirational stories with thousands of people each day.

Hurdle, who was the manager of the Pirates from 2010 through 2019, has been sending those messages since 2009. His book, “Hurdle-isms: Wit and Wisdom from a Lifetime in Baseball,” is an extension of that, and offers useful insights into sports and life.

He shared that message — and discussed what he described as his Christian obstacle course — April 30 during the annual Baron Club Awards Dinner at the Franciscan University of Steubenville.

During his time as manager, he helped turn the team around — going from 20 consecutive losing seasons to playoff appearances in 2013, 2014 and 2015. The 68-year Hurdle remembered that things really got going in that 2013 season.

“The North Shore became a hostile environment,” Hurdle remembered. “It looked like a Raiders game, with all of that Pirates stuff. The noise … we went from a team that everybody wanted to schedule as a homecoming opponent to one where they knew when they came in there was a good chance they were going to get beat up, and there was a good chance there was going to be fight.

“They were a bunch of men who didn’t care — they were going to make you proud of the name on the front of their jersey — and they did,” Hurdle continued.

All of that led up to a wild card game against Cincinnati — and the still-talked-about blackout game at PNC Park. That’s when Johnny Cueto, who was a pretty good starting pitcher, became so rattled by the sell-out crowd chanting his name — Cuuueto, Cuuueto, Cuuueto — that, in the bottom of the second inning of that Oct. 1 contest, he dropped the ball while standing on the mound. He picked it up and on the next pitch, Russell Martin delivered a home run to left field.

“So, he dropped the ball,” Hurdle said. “That’s enough, isn’t it? I got goosebumps when he dropped that ball.”

The Pirates won that game, 6-2, before seeing their season come to an end when the dropped the divisional series to St. Louis, three games to two.

Hurdle described himself as a flawed man — he counts two failed marriages and a couple of DUIs. He explained that having turned to Jesus Christ has made a huge difference in his life. He’s a recovering alcoholic, who is 27 years sober. He’s been married now for 26 years.

He told the large crowd in the Finnegan Fieldhouse that for 23 years, he used Jesus as an ATM card.

“Do you all know what an ATM card is? Can you put together that analogy of using Jesus as an ATM card? How sad is that — but how real it was,” Hurdle said. “Need some? I’d get some. I’d go to Mass, I’d go to a church, Bible study, maybe read some Scripture — I’m good, I’m back in charge. Well, maybe that didn’t work out so well.

“But I found somebody I could trust in Jesus Christ. Can I trust him? yeah. He loves me more than anything. He made me special. If I was in a situation tonight, where I had to decide between something harrowing happening, and I could save you, or I could save my son, Christian, you know who I’m picking … it’s Christian.

“But do you know how much God loved me? When he got into that position, he said no, he was going to give his son for all you,” Hurdle added.

This year’s edition of the Baron Club was the 57th. The dinner serves as a way to help raise money for the school’s Division III athletic program. Steubenville Big Red basketball coach Mike Haney and former Weirton Steel Corp. executive and longtime university supporter Richard Riederer were presented with Father Terrence Henry Awards, and Laurie Labishak, the director of marketing and communications for Trinity Health System, received the Kuzma Community Award.

Jazzy Melnyk, a Weirton Madonna graduate who went on to star with the university’s women’s basketball team, had the chance to speak about what having the chance to play at the school meant to her.

The visit to Steubenville was not the first connection with the university — he and the Rev. Brian Cavanaugh, TOR, a longtime university staff member, have shared inspirational messages through texts and e-mails for years, Hurdle said.

His testimony was striking — and one that certainly struck home with everyone in the room. His final comments, though, were more powerful, and they came when he shared a story he said he had never told until about a year, one that involved the family of the late Pirate icon Roberto Clemente.

The team’s losing streak had hit 20 years when Clemente Day rolled around in 2012, Hurdle said, and he saw Vera Clemente, Roberto’s widow, and the boys on the field.

“I went up to Vera and said, ‘Hang in there, it will get better,'” Hurdle remembered. “She came up and whispered something into Roberto Jr.’s ear, and he told me, ‘When you are done, you need to go down and talk with my mom, she wants to talk with you.

“Vera and I had never had a talk — hugs, thank-yous … minimal words spoken — and now she wants to talk with me. I go down to the dugout, and the three boys are with her. I know enough Spanish to understand that whatever she is saying it is real, it is passionate. It wasn’t about a hug, it wasn’t about trying harder.

“She wasn’t angry, she was incredibly passionate,” Hurdle continued. ‘Her eyes were welling up, and I’m about ready to cry. I still don’t know why I am down there or what she wants to share with me, and then she landed the point and Robbie looks at me and says, ‘My mother said there’s no way there will be 21 losing seasons. Roberto won’t have it. I won’t have it — you will not disgrace the No. 21 with another losing season –promise me.

“Now, as I have gotten older, I’ve gotten good about not just blurting out the first thing that comes to mind,” he continued. “I kind of work my way through until I can say something that makes sense, and I have some ownership. But when that lady hit me in the heart, the first words that came out were ‘I promise you, we will not have 21 losing seasons.’ As soon as the words came out, I wanted to pull them back … there was a hug and we separated.

“Roberto Jr. looked at me after she walked away, and he goes, ‘You made my mother a promise — I hope you can keep it.’ I told him, ‘I hope I can keep it, too.’

“So, you know the story of 2013 — the streak ends at 20, the first playoff appearance in 21 years,” Hurdle added. “The next September, Vera walks across the field and gives me one of the most meaningful hugs I have ever received. The players did all the heavy lifting, but I get hugged.”

Hurdle said that Roberto Jr. told him that if he ever spoke in Pittsburgh again, he should tell the story, because it has meaning.

“It was an honor and a privilege to have been your manager for nine years. The window for success was three years, and we were close to busting loose, but we didn’t,” he said.

“What I carried out of Pittsburgh wasn’t a ring,” he added. “It was a city that found its team again, the word mudita for sharing success and the joy it made possible and the promise I made to a strong and very quiet woman in the dugout.”

(Gallabrese, a resident of Steubenville, is senior writer of the Herald-Star and The Weirton Daily Times)