And Here's the Pitch: Former MLB Pitcher Turned Movie Executive is Making Movies of Eternal Significance

Former Major League pitcher Shawn Boskie knows a thing or two about throwing a pitch. During his nine-year career with six different teams, most notably the Chicago Cubs, the former first round draft pick appeared in 217 games, compiling nearly 500 strikeouts in the process.

But when his baseball career ended in 1998, rather than drifting into some other phase of the game as a coach or broadcaster, Boskie chose to move into working with a non-profit legal advocacy group instead. And as the old adage goes, ‘one thing led to another’, eventually leading him into the movie industry as part of the Pure Flix leadership team.

Since leaving Pure Flix several years ago, Boskie founded and currently serves as CEO of Canyon Productions, an independent film company that makes movies and series that tell stories of hope through relatable characters who must exercise faith in the face of difficult challenges. Whereas he spent the early part of his professional life throwing pitches, things have sort of come full circle as he now receives them as a movie executive.

I recently sat down with Boskie to discuss how his baseball career prepared him for the work life he has had since, what excites him about piloting movies, and a couple of upcoming faith-based films that he is very excited to share with general audiences.

You and I both have a distinction in that we both contributed to Cal Ripken breaking Major League Baseball’s (MLB) all-time games played record in Major League Baseball in 1995. You started and pitched in the game for the California Angels when he broke the record, and gave up a home run to him in the fourth inning. Just a few weeks prior to that, August 10th, the Orioles came to Boston as Cal was closing in on the record. I covered the Red Sox at the time and I was beside the batting cage watching batting practice. Cal attempted to step around me to get to the cage. Well, he stepped on a bat and twisted his ankle. He doubled over, grimacing in pain. Methodically, he flexed his ankle back and forth several times, then looked at me, grinned as if to say, “I just dodged a bullet,” and then proceeded to take batting practice. Thankfully, it was an uneventful moment for both of us. It could have changed the course of MLB history!

(Laughs) That's funny. It's great. I can see it happening. I can envision all of that. I played with Cal a couple years after he broke that record, and he's a wonderful guy. He was a goof and played around all the time in the locker room behind the scenes. It's an astounding thing what happened in light of who he was. He was wrestling and beating up on people and getting beat up on all the time.

Do you have a fondest memory from your baseball career? Some moment or event that stands out?

There's a lot of moments. But of course, nothing can replace your first game because it's such a surreal moment, to be put on a Major League Baseball field playing in a game. For me, that first game in Wrigley Field, which is like Fenway Park, is an iconic place. So, I'm grateful about that as I look back at my career. I thank God for it because there's lots of guys that had deeper passion for the game but they just didn't have the ability. There's all sorts of variations on why some people make it and others don't. I'm grateful I got to do it.

You were blessed to be able to pitch nine years in the majors with several teams, most notably with the Chicago Cubs, who you began your career with.  Many former players try to stay around the game once their playing days are over in one capacity or another. But you embarked on a career with a non-profit legal advocacy group which eventually led you into the movie industry. How did your baseball career prepare you for the career you have had since?

Baseball and team sports in general have so many redeeming things in there that you take for granted. If you've been in sports for a long time, when you get out, everybody understands team dynamics and people playing their positions effectively. How do you encourage people that are struggling and dealing with a diva? All of those things sort of contribute to the real world that we live in, especially in filmmaking. I happened to fall into a career where I was raising money for a variety of different things from investments to a nonprofit. And those things led me naturally to being successful in terms of gathering the resources needed to make a movie or a TV show. I care about the eternally significant parts of what I'm doing. Filmmaking is storytelling. And storytelling can be really powerful, as you know, in regard to eternally significant things. So that's what drew me to it. And it is quite an adventure. Like major league sports, making a movie is an odyssey. You see a lot of interesting people and it's kind of a fun thing to watch it develop and happen in front of your eyes.

For so many people working in the movie industry, there is a certain trigger point or something inside of you that makes you say to yourself, “I have to do this.” For you, what was that moment

For me, it stemmed a ways back to a few years before the end of my baseball career. My wife and I attended a little ministry that put on a weekend seminar about God's plan for your life and work. They did a Bible study of what is work, where did it come from, and what's it for? How do you get the job of your dreams, how do you identify your own gifts, talents, and interests? It covered all sorts of stuff, which was helpful. But at the end, we all wrote a mission statement based on what we had learned about ourselves. And mine indicated that I would be involved with something that had a larger social impact, but with an eternal significance. I remember at the time thinking that assessment was accurate, but I didn't know how it translated to professional life. Fast forward several years, I began doing these things with a nonprofit legal group that's an international organization, and then the movies which have a reach that spans the globe also. It attracted me to those because there's an eternal significance to them. So, that's my driving force even though I'm involved with things that aren't necessarily scalable. I try to use that as my sort of north star if you will.

I should note, you worked for many years with Pure Flix. How did that experience prepare you for what you are doing now as CEO of the faith-based independent film company Canyon Productions?

Everybody should know their mission statement of their organization, but I don't know what ours is off the top of my head. But I will say this. I know it enough to say that Canyon Productions is here to make shows and movies that point people toward the Lord, where God is alive in the story, not just a mere reference in a show. That’s easier to talk about than actually doing it as it turns out. One particular movie we didn't think that highly of performed really well with the audience, so it can go both ways. Sometimes you make something that you think is awesome but it falls a little flat with the audience. So, there is always a mysterious aspect in filmmaking.

Canyon Productions is in the process of producing and distributing 15 theatrical films based on more than $150 million dollars in investment capital that you raised. That sounds like an enormous undertaking. Does it feel that way or is it just the cost of doing business?

Well, these things happen a little at a time. At this point going forward, I thankfully have a handful of investors that resource these projects that we're taking. But the bottom line is this, as we refer back to my baseball career, I remember Cal Ripken was asked the question, “How do you play 3,120 games in a row?” And his answer was, “You just do it one game at a time.” He didn't set out to play 3,120 or more games in a row. But the same thing with these movies is we really try to take them one project at a time. And some of the ones that are coming out now, I'm really grateful and proud of them, but they were hard work while we were in them. You kind of have this intense period of time for several months where you're beating up the script, then you're trying to figure out the characters and the story. Then it goes into production, which has its own challenges, and then post-production and so forth. And now, we've got a couple movies coming out to the public here shortly that are really well done, and I'm excited about them.

Let's talk about those. Some of the films you and Canyon Productions are producing in coming months include Divine Influencer and Finding Faith. I had the recent privilege of interviewing Lara Silva and Ashley Bratcher about their roles in these movies. What excites you about these projects?

I'll tell you off the top of my head, those two are wonderful leads in these movies. And that goes back to anything that you do, if you have talented people around you, you probably have a reasonably good chance to succeed. So, they were wonderful picks for these projects, and they embodied those roles. What I love about both movies is they're really different atmospheres in both of them. Lara (Silva) plays a social media influencer that goes from riches to rags, and she does a wonderful job of being a selfish person that's very likable, interestingly enough. That’s kind of a hard thing to pull off. Ashley (Bratcher) does a performance through her character Faith in “Finding Faith”. She's an advice columnist that suffers her own crisis of her belief in God and what God is up to. Her role is more emotionally dramatic, but she does a wonderful job at that. So both of them were just a pleasure to watch work, but also the crews and the teams around them. At the end of the day, Chris, it comes down to can you see God, the thread of God's story through the story? That's what I really care about the most in these movies, because where it might be fun to produce a movie that's a mainstream hit at the theater or on a streaming platform, I’m here to glorify God through these movie themes.

Final question for you … after people have seen a Canyon Production film or program what would you like to see people get out of the viewing experience? What is your greatest hope for the company?

I'm always amazed at how a story can impact a person's life. I've seen Pure Flix and even Canyon Productions audience comments on these movies, and it's humbling actually to see what God can do. It's probably like a pastor delivering a sermon. He feels like he's just the earthen vessel to deliver the sermon, but then people's lives may be touched in a way that's profound. So, to answer your question, I would just like the audience to say that was such a fun story to watch, and it made me think about my faith and my life as it relates to God. Or, it encouraged me in my faith. That's it. I'll let God take care of the rest. I would just hope that people would say it was worthy of my two hours of time watching it .

WATCH A TRAILER FOR DIVINE INFLUENCER, A CANYON PRODUCTIONS FILM: