Social, Sweating & Smiling. A baseball wife’s guide to staying whole in uncertain seasons
If Married to the Game had a face—someone who embodied faith, resilience, humility, and quiet leadership—it would be Caroline Means. She is a wife and mother, a retired professional soccer player, a type-B pastor’s kid, a Pilates instructor, and a woman who builds godly community wherever she’s planted. This conversation left my heart tender and full. I’ve never met Caroline in person, yet I walked away inspired, encouraged, and genuinely proud of the testimony she’s living.
Caroline is married to left-handed pitcher John Means (Orioles 2017-2024, Cleveland 2024-2025), mom to McCoy and Madden (5 years and 8 months), and a treasured veteran wife in the MLB community.
Let’s get this party started with our first interview of 2026-everyone “meet” Caroline.
Free Agency- as a family of faith, how does YOUR family hold HOPE without control?
Caroline: After ten years with the Orioles and a second Tommy John surgery, John entered free agency—one of the most unsettling seasons a baseball family can face. No peace, just hope and heaviness living side by side. We were waiting on two things at once: a contract (for baseball) and selling our Texas home. “We were home (back to living in our home state of Kansas) but did not feel settled.”
Then, almost unbelievably, within 72 hours: We sold the house. John got the call from Cleveland. He left four days later for Spring Training.
Free agency, teaches you quickly that you don’t actually control your life—and pregnancy only magnified that reality. I stayed back while John went to spring training, unsure if he’d make it home for the birth of our daughter. We spent seven weeks apart after Madden was born—the longest we had ever gone.
It grew us to leave what felt known and comfortable in a way I can’t even explain.
Bree-“What Was It Like Joining A New Team After 10 Years with Baltimore?”
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Caroline:
When John joined Cleveland, he arrived as one of the older players—no longer the familiar veteran he’d been in Baltimore.
One of the first things that I did was look at the roster to see who else was on the team.
What surprised me the most wasn’t the baseball culture—it was the community. The coaches wives and players wives all stick together, on some teams it isn’t that way.
The wives already knew my kids, after three games, one of them nicknamed my son ‘The Mayor.’ And it fit his personality perfectly.
“If the kids are good, mom is good. If mom is good, dad is good. I think the business side of baseball underestimates how much that matters.”
We also got in a playoff run so that was so much fun. I loved getting matching outfits to wear for the games and just being together through that post season journey.
You didn’t come into baseball naïve to competition, you lived it. Talk us through that dynamic.
Caroline: I met John when I was coming off my rookie year as a pro soccer player. After graduating from USC, I spent my time couch surfing and training for what I believed was God’s call on my life-to be a professional goal keeper. I spent the year that the US Women’s Team won the World Cup playing behind Hope Solo. I had gained so much knowledge just studying her that year and was ready to continue training. I felt like I was the main character in my own story and had certainly developed an ego and a lot of pride around what my body could do at that time.
How did professional soccer come to an end for you? Was it an easy transition?
Caroline: The following year I played on the New Jersey- New York team “Gotham” which at the time was called “Sky Blue.” I proceeded to have the worst year of my life. Everything unraveled.
Health issues. Toxic environments. Being benched. Pride exposed. Joy stripped away.
God just kept humbling me. The next year I played in Orlando as a backup, not a starter. It was during that time that I decided to shift my focus from the player to the person. I got to see what God had been trying to reveal to me all along and that is; The player is not as important as the person, what you DO is not as important as WHOSE you ARE.
My forced retirement—due to repeated concussions—became the soil where humility grew. And strangely, it prepared me for the emotional complexities of being married to a pro athlete far better than success ever could.
Let’s talk through that a bit more, how does your soccer story effect your life now as a baseball wife?
Caroline: As my career was ending, John’s was taking off and I struggled HARD. I knew God called me to retire but the reality of retiring was so hard. I was walking through a lot and wasn’t the best fiancé at the time. Being a professional athlete myself was both a strength and a weakness for us depending on how I wielded the weapon.
Sometimes it was the navigating on what to say and when to say it and then when to shut up. I was absolutely learning about my husband as a PLAYER, I had known him as a person, but I needed to learn how he handled the ups and downs too and what he needed during certain times.
I think one of the biggest gifts that my playing career gave to our marriage was simply the willingness to discuss retirement. Not everyone gets the fairytale ending, most times they just don’t get signed again, or an injury forces them to retire.
Because I’ve already walked through my own identity loss, we don’t treat retirement like a taboo subject. We talk about it without fear—without pretending it won’t hurt.
“Nothing about the end of baseball is a surprise to God,” she said.
“He knows where we’ll be—and when the last day in the clubhouse comes.”
Let’s talk New Year Dreams. What do you want in the year 2026?
Caroline:
Rest, just sleep would be wonderful (new baby = no sleep).
And the ability to keep leading women—through fitness, movement, and gospel-centered truth.
“Wherever God sends us this year I would love to be able to keep teaching pilates.”
What do you love about teaching fitness?
Caroline: I love when I am in that room, I can really care for them. I know that women are walking in with a lot of different things from a lot of different places and THEY need that hour for themselves.
I always say, if you have something that keeps you SWEATING, SOCIAL and SMILING then you are good. God will meet you in all of those ways, and for me, teaching hits all of those 3 boxes.
What is your anchor verse?
Caroline: McCoy taught me this one with hand motions recently:
Ephesians 5:20 — “Always be thankful to God.” I have found that even SPEAKING these words out loud changes my heart.
Caroline’s journey is a gentle reminder that no season, injury, or roster change catches God off guard. Her faith invites us to rest, not strive and to trust that even the unwritten chapters are being written with care.
