Episode #005: Nelson Figueroa: Part 2- Former MLB Pitcher & Sports Analyst

Episode 005_NELSON FIGUEROA FORMER MLB PLAYER AND SPORTS ANALYST PART 2

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Evan 0:00

This episode of born baseball is sponsored by the BTB travel team and training tracker. Are you a parent or player searching for travel teams or training facilities in your area? Or are you a coach looking to expand your reach? And you have to check out the BTB triple t tracker at borntobaseball.com Make sure your team is represented. Let's go.

Calling all ball players. Are you ready to take your game to the next level? Were you born to baseball? Then bring it in. it's game time.

Welcome to part two of my interview with Nelson Figueroa here he dives deeper into building a positive mindset to build resilience and confidence situational pitching and hitting focus, maintaining mental toughness at the plate and in big situations. And he shares some special moments and fun facts I bet very few people know about hope you enjoy. You talked about this earlier also, when you pitch a great game and all of a sudden teams down, but your team starts hitting behind you. What does it do to a pitcher when the team' starts hitting behind you and scoring runs for you?

Nelson 1:15

Oh, it makes it fun. I mean, it makes it a lot more fun because then you start saying everything that happened before when they were down there picking you up right now they're picking you up. So you want to try and do keep up your end of the bargain. From here on out. I'm putting up zeros. For every run, you guys score, I'm gonna keep them down and we can win the rest of this ballgame. One of the things that I do as a coach or as a manager, I always talk about winning the inning, right? We might, we can if we can win, we might lose the inning. And the first inning say when you give up three or four runs, but if we win the next five innings 1-0, 1-0, 2-0, 2-1 We're going to wind up being ahead at the end of the ballgame. So you can win. The inning and then you worry about, Okay, the first half of the game is over, let's win the second half of the game, there's so many ways to divide it up in so many mental ways to kind of keep that focus. Because the game is so crazy that your focus has to be done in such small spurts. I had a pitching coach who wants broke it down and said, it's 18 minutes of actual focus for a pitcher if you're pitching seven innings in a game, because it's 30 seconds at a time to make that one pitch. And if you think about it that way, and all you're trying to do is make these pitches, and he's requiring in that 30 seconds because you're delivering a pitch within 30 seconds. That's the new clock that's coming out right? Well, the focus that you really have to make is on executing that pitch. Everything before it is usually your head spinning on Oh, I made a bad pitch or I give up ahead or what's going on. Get all that out of it. You can't focus on that focus on executing that pitch. And while you're executing that pitch, that's once you come set, you're about to throw that pitch, maximizing that pitch to that location. That's the focus he talks about. And it's an 18 minute amount of focus for the game, the game maybe three and a half hours. But my job in that game is to focus on throwing my pitch to my location, getting the ball back, reset, focus on that next pitch, keeping it as simple as that, where it's something that you can control each and every single time really shrinks down. I guess the bigger game outside of it, and especially when you're pitching in front of 40,000 people, and you're not kind of overwhelmed by it. I think the most nerve wracking time will be when you go from what's before 60,90 for you guys

Evan 3:44

50,70.

Nelson 3:45

So 50,70 so when you go from 50,70 to 60,90 because once you get to 60,90 that's what you'll be doing for the rest of your life if you're lucky. Right. So anything that's the biggest, scariest moment when you go from 50,70 to 60,90 once you get to 60,90, and you've been doing it, since you were 13, 14,15 years old, now all of a sudden, the game stays the same. The game is always gonna be the same from then on out, focus on controlling what you can control.

Evan 4:16

Can you walk us through thinking of a Big Leaguer when they come in in a big spot in a game, or they have to really shut down a team to either get the win or get out of a jam?

Nelson 4:28

It's, again, it's a surreal kind of thing, right? Because you're, I'll give you a situation. First time I faced Albert Puljos I remember kind of looking at and taking the signs and the catcher puts down a slider away and I shake my head going No, just watch sports center. You know on Thursday, slider down away, hit it out to right field, fastball in. No he just went up in Big Mac land yesterday against a guy's fastball inside. How about a curve Ball. I don't want to show my curveball yet on the first pitch, I want to save that for later on. And so you start, you can get yourself into trouble overthinking things, right. So you want to kind of again, take yourself out of that moment, not make it bigger than it is because other than Him being a superstar. I've got to make my pitch. He's got to hit my pitch, right?

Evan 5:22

Yeah.

Nelson 5:23

And so if me and the catcher on the same page, and I execute my pitch, that I have total confidence that I'm going to be one of the seven out of 10 times that he makes it out. And I was able to do that. When you come into a big moment in a game for me, I was a long reliever mostly. So I've had one save in my career, which was an extra innings and we were almost out of pitcher so I want to close the game. And then there was another time that I finished a game where I was in Houston, and it was really loud right and a guy left me bases loaded. Nobody out. I wasn't like I said, by any means a flame thrower or anything like that I went in there and a they weren't prepared to see me. I had been starting before that and learning a little bit of relieving. I hadn't been with the Astros, but for maybe a week and I go out there, and I just kind of said, screw, I'm just gonna throw strikes and get ahead and do everything that I've been doing since I was a kid. I'm going to get ahead of this guy, and I'm gonna put them away with my pitch. I wound up striking out the side. And I remember the roar of the crowd was just so awesome. And I told one of our closers who didn't pitch that night, I said, so that's what it's like. That's what it's like to get that kind of that feeling that that buzz you get through your whole body when 46,000 people are going nuts for you. That's really, it's it's hard to explain what it's like, but it's, you're standing there and there's a roar that you feel. You feel the roar of the crowd and I remember my first time pitching at Shea Stadium with a met uniform on. And I got to two strikes on a hitter. And everybody started doing the slow clap like expecting a strikeout. And I remember standing behind the mound just thinking, like, this is what I used to do when Dwight Gooden was on the mound, like he gets a two strikes and you just start clapping because you knew he was going to strike this guy out. And then you could just let out a loud cheer. And all I could think of was I'm not Dwight Gooden. Now. What if I don't strike this guy out, and I let everybody down. And then I wind up striking him out. And I got that roar from the crowd. And it was like, wow, I gotta do that again. Yeah. So that's one of the things where I think as you get older, and as you play this game a lot. The big situations are what you strive for, because you want to show that you're the best guy in that situation. So you want to always have those situations. And if you fail, what do we do? goes in that journal right and we learn from it. Hey, You know what? I was a little too geeked up. That's why I always tell you, what do we put in the journal? The Good, the Bad how you were feeling? Right. And you can talk about that today was a tournament game. And I was too psyched up. I was too nervous. It's okay to be nervous. If you think you think I'm gonna sit here and say I wasn't nervous when I was in the big leagues, in any situation, in every situation in the big leagues, because for a guy like me, if I had a bad game, I might get sent down to triple A. So every game I had to pitch as if it was going to be my last because I never knew if I was going to get another call up. So it was a lot different for me than some of the major leaguers that you'll ever talk to. Because, you know, some guys had nice careers and they were starter and always were a starter reliever and always a reliever. For me it was, I was a pitcher. However you wanted to use me. I was gonna take advantage of that if I started the game. I was a starter, If I finished the game. I was never closer, but I closed a couple of games.

Evan 8:56

Yeah, it's really cool. Just being able to feel the roar of the crowd. Crowd. And just, it's almost what you play for to have the crowd sort of behind you when you play.

Nelson 9:08

And I'm going to tell you that it's, I can't wait for it to happen for you. And you feel that roar and whether it's in a high school championship game in high school, I played in Yankee Stadium for our city championship.

Evan 9:25

Wow.

Nelson 9:25

In my sophomore year, we won the city Championship at Yankee Stadium. And we only had 2000 people there, but it was 2000 people before that, you know, I'm playing in my summer league team, and there's, you know, the moms and the dads. That's it. And so playing in front of 2000 people was really cool. Then I went and I played in the Cape Cod League, and wound up pitching in the all star game and there were 72 scouts behind home plate with radar guns. Thought I instantly got cancer because there's so many radar guns. I had never seen that many radar guns. So there was that kind of thing where Yeah, it could have nerves, but they're at the all star game on being seen through a seven pitch inning, and it was almost like oh my god, that was too few. I didn't even really get going. But I threw at that including a strikeout. So I had, I had had, it was literally a ground ball, two pitches, ground ball out. Three pitches were strikeout, two pitches, ground ball out seven pitches, I'm out of the inning, and that was my All Star game experience in the Cape Cod league. And I was like, well, maybe I could have thrown harder. Maybe I could have done this. Maybe I could have been. You can't second guess it afterwards. Right? It was what it was. And then I always said to myself, I couldn't have done it any better. I honestly couldn't. Because I showed that I'm efficient. I throw strikes, I can strike people out. And I work quick. So it was it was it's a lot of fun when you get that roar of the crowd. It's a feeling like none other.

Evan 10:52

What was your favorite World Baseball Classic moment as a player.

Nelson 10:56

Um, knocking out Team USA They knocked us out in 2009. And I was actually going to be the winning pitcher in 2009. And David Wright happened to be the guy who got the hit. It was teammate of mine, with the Mets, and he blooped in that single and we wound up losing in that ninth inning. And then in 2013, we faced them again and I wound up pitching and I started, beat them 2 to nothing. So that was also a great game.

Evan 11:24

I read you pitched over six shutout innings in that game.

Nelson 11:28

Mm hmm. Yeah, we only had 80 we only had an 80 pitch count, which really upset me, because it's spring training. They wanted to, you know, make sure nobody hurt themselves overextend themselves. And I was cruising after, you know, the 80 pitches through six innings. And you know, Howard Reynolds I think was doing the game and he said that, you know, he could probably thrown the whole game without a doubt the way he was cruising. And for me, it was great because that team alone had so many all stars and guys who won silver sluggers and MVPs and I was able to pitch really Well against them and again, that every time you get an opportunity to show that you belong, you want to be able to rise to the occasion.

Evan 12:07

What for you was your favorite moment playing in the MLB

Nelson 12:16

has to be that first game at Shea Stadium where I got to pitch in front of my family and friends. I had about 120 people there. And you know, it was a little boy's dream, always wearing Mets stuff growing up and pretending that I was going to be a met and always visualizing being met and I had gotten drafted by the Mets in 1995 and got traded, got traded to the Diamondbacks, and I went to the from the Diamondbacks, the Phillies, I got traded then I was picked up as a free agent, off waivers by the Milwaukee Brewers and I was a free agent and sign with the Pittsburgh Pirates for two years. So for the next eight years, I had played in the big leagues. And I had played actually against the Mets in the big leagues. But it wasn't the same. I finally got to put on the pinstripe home uniforms, and went out to pitch in front of my family and friends and got my victory at Shea Stadium and everything I said, when I was a kid sitting in the stands that one day I'm gonna be there on the mound, I actually was able to make it come true.

Evan 13:23

It's really cool. It sounds cool. That moment where you're standing there and you realize like, this is my dream, and I made it come true.

Nelson 13:33

Yeah, it's one of my greatest things that I get to talk about all the time is that I do fantasy camp with the Mets and I get to hang out with Mookie Wilson, Darrel Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, Tim Tuffle, all those guys that I've watched growing up and idolizing I get to rub elbows with them and their coaches with me and I get to joke around with them and actually text them during the season and we talk about you know what's going going on with the Mets and the relationships that I have with those guys now. You know, when I was a kid I'd never in a million years or dream that I'd be able to kind of just pick up my phone and call Dwight Gooden. Hey, Dwight, what's going on how you been that kind of thing. So that that's really one of the most fun parts as a Mets fan is being able to say that I'm a part of the history of the Mets and having the complete game shutout is also really cool. So that was my last game I started so my first game that I started with the Mets was the one that I won in Shea Stadium and my last game that I pitch happened to be the complete game shutout. So it's pretty good book ends.

Evan 14:36

Yeah. So what would be your ideal for pitch Arsenal for a youth baseball player

Nelson 14:45

don't even know if he needs to go for but for me is a four seam fastball command on both sides of the plate, a changeup and making it look with the same arm angle. And arm speed of my fastball. From there some kind of breaking ball or whether it be a little cutter, something that you can change speeds with as well. I think one of the things that people are losing the ability to do and even at the major league level, they seem to be one speed with every one of their pitches, like you could almost, if it's a fastball, it's 96. If it's a slider, it's 91. If it's a changeup, it's you know, 88. And so, for hitter, it makes it pretty easy. You kind of got a gauge on that. The things that I find impressive is that, you know, my max fastball, what's my max, and what's my average velocity, so my average velocity if I can pitch from 88 to 93, a max is 93. But I don't always have to throw 93 I can throw 88 and still get you out with a fastball. It all depends where I put it when I put it and if it's followed up in The order of the pitches of the pitches are used in concert. Everything kind of blends in together. And that's what makes it difficult for a hitter to sit on one pitch or the other. That's what I'm mainly about. So for a four pitch Arsenal, it'd be great if they had a curveball changeup, fastball, and, you know, I was a split finger guy. But I worry about kids incorrectly trying to throw these things too soon, their arms aren't developed enough, the way that they're releasing the ball is changing the way that they're cutting themselves off on their release points is changing. So the four pitch Arsenal's not so important, I take two and a possible third. Honestly, if you can master three pitches, you're going to have a chance at the big leagues. It's really guys that can do 2 can excel. There's very few guys that can do one that was Mariano and probably Bartolo Colon are the only two I could think of I could throw one pitch and get it guys out over and over again with it. But I think you is where I would go. If you start getting into the four and five, you start tinkering a little bit too much master those three.

Evan 17:06

Yeah. So I know you hit a triple in 2009 and not a lot of pitchers get to say they did that. So what is a pitchers mindset going into an at bat?

Nelson 17:20

survival survival, especially at the major league level, you're usually kind of the easy out right? And so I don't want to be an easy out what I want to be is I want to be a spoiler. I wanted to be a guy who could put the ball in play a guy who can handle the bat and bunt the sacrifice bunt was huge for me and for my team because I was able to move guys over and give us a chance to score another run, which only helped me. So I really focused on that I really worked on that I practiced it over and over and over again so that i was i was so comfortable doing it when I got in the box. My main goal was to not strike out. Honestly, like I think nothing makes a pitcher more upset than not being able to strike out the opposing pitcher. You know, even if I just put it in play, I win, like, I'm gonna get out but you didn't strike me out. You know what I'm saying? So and especially against the big pitchers like if I face Curt Schilling and, you know, face Randy Johnson, you face any of those big guys, Pedro Martinez, you face those guys and you're like, Yeah, but at least I didn't strike out against them. You know, no matter all I could walk back in the dugout, hold my head up high and the hitters who've been striking out all day against something yet he couldn't strike me out. So I think that's really what you look for. And usually, if you're able to handle the bat like that, and you're able to put the ball in play, good things happen. You know, the ball finds a hole. I remember my first I had a three hit game. The triple was nice, but my favorite game hitting wise I had a three hit game in Philadelphia, my rookie season, and the third hit happened in like the seventh inning, I hit a ground ball in the hole between short and third. And I'm running as hard as I can beat it out. Because all I'm thinking in my head is I'm going to be 3-3 how many pitchers can say they were 3-3 as I as asked, so I beat it out at first base. I'm all excited, get done with the game. And after the game, ESPN had interviewed me and they said, What do you attribute the three hit game? And I said dumb luck. Honestly, I blooped a single, you know, to right field, I had a base hit to right center. And then the last one, you know, I pulled I think a breaking ball into the hole. And I just ran as hard as I could, because I wanted that third hit. I said, I don't think that's going to happen very often and doesn't usually. So the three hit game was it was phenomenal. And then I think there was one other game where the triple was fun because it was almost a shot at an inside the parker and I should have kept going, but Jon Niese had pulled his hamstring, so they don't want to lose two of us in one game. But there was also you know, just the ability to hit the ball hard at any time. Right. Yeah, it makes it fun because as a kid you train I didn't just dream about being a pitcher. There's no P.O. you know when you're coming up when I when I was growing up and so I always dremt I could handle the bat and I could I could hit off this guy and I could hit off that guy, so I got a chance to do it. And to be a spoiler I have a hit. Here's a nice little bit of trivia that you won't find anywhere. I have a hit off of Greg Maddux, john Smoltz and Tom Glavine. There's not many players on the planet that I'm one of very few pitchers who have a hit off each one of those guys. I won't tell you what the hits were because I think they were dribblers in the infield, and I just beat them out. But hey, nobody needs to know that all they know in the book is that I gotta hit off three Hall of Fame. pitchers for the one of the greatest rotations of all time.

Evan 20:48

Yeah. Can you name one or two players that had an impressive 2019 season. I sort of have a hint on one of them. You're gonna give that you Baseball players and guys all the way up through college and the minor leagues could really study and learn a lot from

Nelson 21:04

a young man named Pete Alonzo. And the way that he plays the game, the passion that he plays the game with, and the fact that all they talked about was his defense and how terrible of a defender he was. And for me, the home runs were great. We knew he could hit for power. He worked really hard at being a really good defender. I'm not saying he was Gold Glove caliber by any means. But I watched him over the course of the season. And I think one of the biggest stats that's not kept by many is scooping the baseball on those errant throws from the infielders, you know, like those shortstops who can't reach. So he led the major league in a stat that only one group keeps it, the status called scoops and it's not the everyday mundane, nice and easy scoop And you know, you just make that play because that was a ton of them as well. But it's the wow I can't believe he scooped that that was an amazing scoop. He did it more than Rizzo. He did it more than Freeman, because those infielders kind of had better arms and more better defenders. So they have more opportunities to do it. But Pete made the most of those opportunities by being better at just scooping the ball. It's working at your game, and your weaknesses, where it's like Michael Jordan, right. They said he couldn't hit threes. He goes out and he winds up hitting threes and winning the three point percentage for that season. He couldn't win rings, many rings that he went, every time you get a challenge put before you, even if you're at the major league level, it's like, Okay, what can I do to be better, and he continues to do that. He's one of the guys that I watched this year, and I was very, very impressed with him both on and off the field because he's a born leader. You can just tell that about him. So I'm really excited for his future.

Evan 22:58

Maybe now a pitcher

Nelson 23:00

Maybe now a pitcher. Well, I I feel like I'm staying in the same place. Hmm. Well, little guy by the name of Jacob degrom. Who? Well, it's just you watched him over the last two years and you've seen the most consistent pitcher in baseball. Just his ability to command dominate the strike zone with four pitches, pitching up in the zone, being able to take his slider out of the zone, not being rattled, when his team doesn't score him a lot of runs, which they often do not score him a lot, if any runs for a guy who is able to really focus on the task at hand and I just need to worry about what I can do. And he can hit a little bit too, right. A couple home runs this year. He's impressive with the bat handling the bat fielding his position. He does all the things well, so for a national league pitcher, he's the total package It right he does everything well. Those two guys are phenomenal. I think I have to also give a shout out for sure to Cody Bellinger. Cody Bellinger. As a kid, I lived in Chandler, Arizona where he grew up. He went to Chandler High School. And so I watched him through there. I was in the big leagues at the time and when he got drafted in 2013. And so I trained with him before that and saw his progress and seen his progression and seen him go to, you know, his first two years, I think he hit six home runs and his first two years of pro ball, and then something clicked and he hit 33 the next year. Since then, his his swing is just so beautifully violent, as the only way to put it, that and his ability to with two strikes cut down on that swing and put the ball in play and when they're doing the big shift, he's able to hit the ball the other way and take advantage That the way he plays multiple positions, gold Glover in the outfield, plays a great first base as well. It's a kid who can kind of do it all and plays with that still exuberant. exuberance like a little leaguer. I love that about the his kids and he still does it in a respectful way. He's not a big batflip guy. He's more of a go see how far that ball kind of guy. So I'm very I'm a very big fan of Cody Bellenger.

Evan 25:34

What's your if I knew then what I know now I would have

Nelson 25:40

if I knew then what I know now I would have really, really worked out my lower body a lot more. Um, taking care of my lower body a lot more. I was you know, I'm a pitcher, right? Everything is upper body. Everything is my right arm. Everything is trying to I worry about those muscles more than anything. And I think I didn't learn until after I had my surgery when I was 30 years old, and I couldn't run and I put on weight. And so I had to really work my lower body and I started lifting heavy with my lower body and building a better foundation and learning how to use my legs a little bit. So I was a guy who as I got older, my velocity went up. And that doesn't normally happen the other way around, right? You get older and you lose velocity. Every year, I was kind of adding velocity and being able to sustain that velocity because my lower half was a lot stronger. And it wasn't like major power lifting or anything crazy. It was just really getting out on a good route, a routine in the weight room and I was always I hated the weights because I was a skinny kid and weights were just boring and I didn't want to get too big and not that I could but I didn't want to get too big and just get stiff, I want it to be flexible. So nowadays we know how to train better. And I implore all kids to take advantage of training their bodies properly. Learning What, What techniques work, what exercises work, what things that YouTube is a tremendous resource. I would look for the ones that have the largest subscriptions on them, because they usually have a really good information. And also read the comments and see, you know, when there's all kinds of different sites that put out what workouts or what moves are now adding power to your fastball. But you know that, be careful because there's a lot of things that you can type in there and YouTube and they'll say, well, guaranteed 90 mile an hour fastball, and well, every kid was going to want to look at that, right? And that's what they're wanting, they want the clicks and so that you look at it and they make their money off that But I really think if you're able to train and figure out how your lower half works in conjunction with your upper half and you get those things working on the same page, you're going to be able to increase velocity very quickly as well.

Evan 28:15

Would you like to share any projects or that you're working on now or that you have coming up?

Nelson 28:21

I have a several things coming up. Of course, it's the offseason. So what does that usually mean? For me, I'm training some wonderful pitchers like yourself and getting to see the light bulb go off. And even though when I sit there and tell you how awesome a changeup is, and how valuable it'll be, and you don't realize it until you actually start using it in a game and you're like, Oh my gosh, this really works. That everything for me, I love doing that in the in the offseason when I'm not being an analyst, I get a chance to have that time with the kids and teach them as much as I can without overloading them. I can do that as well. I've learned that just too much and make you guys think too much. So I'm learning that happy medium of giving you things to try and learn from. And then we kind of experience those things together. I've got, besides that going on working on an app, where I can sit at home, they send me their videos, and I can analyze their mechanics, over video, give you drills to work on, send me back another video in a couple weeks. And we can see if you can kind of start that development changing in the right direction, and I can help in your development from if you're in California, and I'm here in New York, I don't have to necessarily be there. I'm working with a company now. And we're putting that all together to try and help some travel groups. We want to have them have more time practicing and development rather than just tournament after tournament after tournament after tournament because when it comes to tournament it's really kind of you know, do or die hit or miss, you know, you're either gonna have success or not have success, you don't have time to really focus on training and getting better and working on skills because you're playing games and it's win or lose go home kind of thing. So it's very difficult to do both. So we're trying to get some of the travel teams to take away, you know, one tournament a month and have that weekend where we get to help and help develop skills or fix flaws, and get kids kind of going in the right direction. So that's been exciting project that I've been working with. And last but not least, you know, I'm just looking forward to the upcoming season and seeing what opportunities lie ahead, whether it's in baseball in a coaching capacity in front office capacity, trying to do some more stuff with the Mets here in hometown. I know you love the Mets just trying to do some more stuff because I do think the team had some good success last year and they have Nice, young core and excited to see what 2020 brings.

Evan 31:04

Yeah. Is there anywhere people can follow you or learn a little bit more about you?

Nelson 31:10

Absolutely. Twitter is where mostly figgie that's Figgyny, so Figgy New York, thats on Twitter and I often correspond with the fans and love to get into heated debates about baseball and especially Yankee fans. Oh, they hate me. And it just I love the game of baseball. I love interacting, I love you know, I don't feel like I know everything. I'm always open to learning new things, but I always am receptive and ready to exchange ideas with people readily. And I have a question for you. My question, of course, is doing this podcasts. Is there anything that you've learned so far about doing podcasts that you weren't prepared for earlier?

Evan 32:08

Well, just listening, really being able to listen to other people and taking information to really let it sink in for me and learn and also just the connections it brings and how it can get me better.

Nelson 32:25

Yeah, cuz I tell you what, watching you even asking the questions, you don't look down at a piece of paper for very long. Your preparation, like in baseball, and this is why I always talk about how you play the game is how you also live. So you're all about preparation and being prepared for an interview and the way that you're able to interview confidently is very amazing for someone at your age. I think what the listeners also need to knows when I asked you to do a, you know, a journal pitching journal Got back a pitching vlog. So Evan sends me a video of talking about some of his outings in the beginning of the season and talking about some of the things that we discussed and some tips of how to throw a changeup and long tossing with his changeup to get a better feel for it. And he sat there in front of the camera and just as calmly as can be just spoke and covered, every single thing that I always, you know, talk about the good, the bad, the ugly and how I was feeling. And that is such a huge thing and such a mature thing to be able to do at this age. And it really shows because your teammates have even noticed it. So when I talk to teammates of yours, they notice how prepared you are and they notice how unflappable you are and the big moments in the game. They hope the ball is hit to you, because they know that you'll be able to handle it. And so that's the biggest compliment that a teammate could ever give is that I hope the ball gets hit to him. If I'm a pitcher, and I give him a ground ball, I hope it's to Evan because I know he's gonna be able to A- field it knows where to go with the ball and be able to finish off the play. So, I think kudos to you and your development thus far. And I'm very impressed with what you have going on here. I want to do a podcast.

Evan 34:21

Thank you.

Nelson 34:22

You got it.

Evan 34:23

Thank you again for being here, Nelson.

Nelson 34:25

My pleasure.

Evan 34:26

And are you ready for some ice cream?

Nelson 34:28

All day, brother. Thank you.

Evan 34:32

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Transcribed by https://otter.ai