In many ways, Christensen, who also plans to return to school to earn a degree, is starting where he left off when baseball interrupted. He had planned to go to college. He had aspired to be a doctor or join his father in the family business. He had planned to play football — his first love — and baseball for BYU. He had wanted to earn a degree. He hadn't seriously considered a baseball career until late in his senior year of high school. All that changed with the 1994 baseball draft.

He was widely recruited for baseball and football. During his senior year alone, he collected 2,600 all-purpose yards and a staggering 44 touchdowns, and was named Northern California football Player of the Year. In baseball he batted .500 and stole 62 bases in 62 attempts and was named to the all-American team. He was rated among the three or four best athletes in the baseball draft.

The baseball people told him he would be among the first players chosen for the draft and dangled a $1 million signing bonus in front of him if he skipped his LDS Church mission to come to work for them. When he announced that he would still serve a mission, the clubs balked, and Christensen was BYU-bound. The California Angels were so enamored with his athleticism and speed that they made him the sixth pick of the draft anyway. They offered Christensen a deal he couldn't refuse — riches and a two-year break to serve a mission.

"I was told there was no way I could serve a mission and still be drafted, and I was anyway," he says. "I felt it was an opportunity I shouldn't pass up. That option made the most sense. I had two brothers who played college football (for BYU), and they got beat to pieces."

The truth is Christensen was a great athlete but a raw baseball player. Baseball requires skills and years of development even for great athletes. "I didn't understand baseball," he says. "I didn't know the fundamentals. Football was more instinctive." On top of that, he spent two years away from the game on his mission, slowing his progress further.

The Angels traded Christensen while he was on his mission. A week after he returned from his mission, he began playing baseball. He wound up playing for the White Sox, Dodgers and Mets in four Major League seasons. He was most productive after being traded to the Dodgers in July of 2001, batting .327 in 49 at-bats. But mostly he had an uneven baseball career, largely because of injuries and impatient clubs. He finished with a career .250 batting average in 128 at-bats.

In 2003, he went to spring training with the Reds but was injured the last two weeks and didn't make the club. He was hitting over .300 in Triple A when he quit.