strong mindset

Born To Baseball Podcast

Episode 016_MANNY ROMAN_PITCHING COACH MONROE MUSTANGS

The transcription below was provided for your convenience through an automated service. Please excuse any unintended errors made in the process.

Evan 0:00

This episode of born to 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? Then you have to check out the BTB triple T tracker at borntobaseball.com. Make sure your team is represented. Let's go.

Music 0:23

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

Evan 0:40

Hey guys, and welcome to the born to baseball podcast. I'm Evan and today we have Manny Roman joining us. Manny first started coaching at Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 2012, and served as the assistant coach and recruiting coordinator for Lackawanna college. He is currently the pitching coach for the Monroe Mustangs from New York who have won three regional championships in the last four years. Manny, thank you so much for joining me today.

Manny 1:05

Hey, thanks for having me, Evan.

Evan 1:07

Can you start us off by sharing a little background about your baseball journey as a player,

Manny 1:13

My baseball journey started, I'd say probably around three or four years old, in my native Puerto Rico, I was born and raised there, played through a lot of the leagues over there. After high school, I decided, you know, my dream was to play professional baseball. And I also wanted to play baseball in the States. So after high school, I decided to go to Scranton, Pennsylvania Keystone college, a small Division Three school, I got to play there for four years. And after my sophomore year, I kind of realized, Hey, you know, I might not be a professional athlete, you know, but I do really love baseball and, and that's where I kind of made the transition and said, you know what I want to coach after I'm done playing, and that's what I've been doing since

Evan 1:55

Would you say there's like, a difference between baseball in Puerto Rico and then here in the States?

Manny 2:02

Yes, yes. Not not so much different from New York City, I would say but a lot different from other states. And I think in Puerto Rico, it's a lot more passionate, like the kids and a little bit more, I would say exciting. When you're in the dugout, people are always chanting and singing and all that. Here it's kind of more laid back. But yeah, it is a little bit different.

Evan 2:26

And how did you get into coaching? Was it something like you always knew you sort of wanted to do?

Manny 2:33

So? Not really, you know, my plan originally was I was going to play four years of college. And if I could play professional baseball, I would do it. If not, I would go back to Puerto Rico. But like I said before, after my second year in college, I was like, You know what, I really like this, I thought there was a lot of information that wasn't brought back to Puerto Rico. So I said, Hey, I want to coach and I want to help kids, you know, get to places where I couldn't go and offer them a better opportunity. So it kind of started with me wanting to help guys from Puerto Rico. And then it turned out that helping kids from all over.

Evan 3:06

Yeah, that's great. That's a really great, like passion that you have for wanting to help kids where you come from, and I really like that. Would you say there's one or two coaches that really inspired you to coach?

Manny 3:22

So yes, you know, there's a lot of guy had a couple coaches in Puerto Rico that, you know, they did a lot for the sport. And while they had, you know, they had their families, they had their full time jobs, and they kind of put so much time into us that you know, at first you don't really appreciate it. But as you're getting older, you're kind of like, Hey, you know, that person did a lot for me, and they put me in the right track. And then once I got into Keystone, the same thing, I had a couple coaches where I was like, you know what they, they want the best for me, not just only in baseball, but in life in general. So that's when I was like, You know what, this, this is something I can see myself doing for a career.

Evan 4:03

That's really amazing. And many of our listeners, they're youth baseball players and coaches. So for those middle school and high school baseball players, can you share some advice on how much attention these players should be putting on ARM care.

Manny 4:18

That's where the majority of the attention should be. You know, I think arm care is something that sometimes we kind of, it kind of takes a backseat because we just want to play and play and win. But I think arm care is The most important thing that you should do as a youth athlete, because it's going to help you out. Once you make that transition into college. You know, it's very important to make sure that you probably stretching before games, making sure you're getting your bands done. And then when you're done playing the same thing, I think it's more important to take care of your arm after you're done playing for a day or throwing than it is prior to it.

Evan 4:58

That's really valuable. And I know a lot of guys, including myself, we use j bands from Jaeger sports, which are definitely a great tool for arm care and arm strength. So do you have some of your guys use bands? And what are some of the different exercises and movements that you do?

Manny 5:20

So we actually purchase Jaeger bands for all our pitchers. So that's something that you know we, Monroe does a really good job is providing those tools for the guys that, you know to take care of themselves. So we implement that from day one, they show up in the fall. And we follow the program that they have. And then as the year goes on, guys kind of come up with their own exercises and do what works for them. We also do a lot of plyo ball arm care stuff from driveline. So we try to kind of implement that. And, you know, we set like I said, a program for them. But you know, everybody's different. So everybody kind of adjusts ands tweaks it to how they're feeling on a day to day basis.

Evan 6:02

For those exercises that you give them. How many reps would you say on average would you give for each exercise.

Manny 6:12

So when they're warming up, we do anywhere from 15 to 25, just to kind of get the blood flowing to your shoulders and all the way through your arm and stuff. once they're done, post throwing, we'll do anywhere from eight to 10 nothing crazy, just you know, work on the arm a little bit, and make sure we're hitting those small muscles and getting the arm strength that we need.

Rene 6:37

And like once again, for a youth baseball player like Middle School, and then again, for a high school player. Would you recommend doing like, a certain amount of reps for them? Would it be what you do for Monroe? Like in the beginning? or after? How many reps Do you think for them?

Manny 6:57

I think you know, I'm not as much as what we would do at the college level, you know, cuz guys are a little bit more mature. But I think if you can do anywhere from eight to 12 reps, and maybe two or three sets, just depending how you're feeling on that day, that would be great. No, I think that's a good baseline, you know, before throwing and after throwing to follow.

Evan 7:19

Okay, that's really good to know. And with pitching, it's not just about using your arm and training your arm. It's also about using your entire body.

Manny 7:28

Correct.

Evan 7:29

When I talked with former Major Leaguer Nelson Figueroa in a previous episode, he said that he wished he trained more his legs and even at the major league level. So my question to you is, what are some workouts and movements that you do with your players to help them train some of the other body parts that help a pitcher become physically stronger and more explosive and more effective on the mound?

Manny 7:55

Yeah, so you know, I'm, in my years coaching, you know, and what I had before a lot of people say, Hey, don't lift heavy, like pitchers shouldn't be lifting heavy, because you know, it'll restrict you, I've come to the realization that you, you don't lift heavy, but you kind of have to lift the same as a position player would. So we do a lot of squats. We do like clean power cleans. So more like a, say like an Olympic style lifting program. You know, we do a lot of box jumps. You know, skaters, stuff like that, that is not only just weight, but it's also explosiveness. So it's kind of translates into pitching because, you know, pitching is kind of like a, you know, as a short burst, you do explode once the ball leaves the other hand, there you go. So we try to get exercises that relate right to what we're doing on the mound.

Evan 8:46

And other than your arm, like what would you say the most important body part to train for a pitcher is?

Manny 8:55

I say, it's your legs and your core. And the way I see it, it's kind of like, I always tell my guys is kind of like a car, right, your legs are your motor, your core is your transmission. And then your arm is what comes out of those two. So the force comes through the ground, through your abs through your arm. So those two are not strong, it's only a matter of time we arms gonna go. So you got to make sure your legs and your core are where they need to be. So then you can put all that force into your arm.

Evan 9:24

Yeah, that's really interesting.

And for the players who are set on like pitching at the college level someday, what are some of the drills that you think would really help those players develop?

Manny 9:39

So I'm big on on on towel drills because it helps you, you know, you're not putting a lot of stress on your arm. You're, you know, you're working on your mechanics. And then it also helps a little bit you know, with the resistance of the tower with with your strengthening your shoulder. So I think tile drills are very important. And throwing, you know, I feel like a lot of kids at a younger age don't throw enough. And so I think throwing towel drills, and just maybe do things at a short distance, I think helps a lot. You know, it's, we do that a lot with our guys, because, you know, I, my philosophy is, if you can make a ball break or locate at a short distance, you can do it at 60 feet.

Evan 10:25

When it comes to like, velocity or location, which one would you say is more important?

Manny 10:33

I would say to me my preference, I would say location. I feel especially at the younger age, you know, if you can locate, it's only a matter of time with you know, with proper training and taking care of yourself where velocity is going to come in to play. So I rather have a guy that can locate a pitch than a guy that can throw in 100 miles an hour and doesn't know where it's gonna go. Right. You know, so I but you know, at some point, they have to go hand in hand. So yeah, and in a perfect world, you want to have a guy that has both. But if I would have to pick one, I'm going to take the guy that throw strikes.

Evan 11:10

Okay, can you walk us through what you do with your college guys, like during the preseason, like, before they even pick up a baseball.

Manny 11:19

So when they get in day one, you know, I always tell my guys, you're probably gonna do more running in a week than you've ever done in your entire baseball career. So we do a lot of conditioning, that's the first thing we do. And it's not just to get them ready to pitch, but it's kind of challenge them mentally, right, and kind of break them down a little bit, to kind of see how tough they are. Um, so I say like, the first week, before we fully get on the mound and do you know, start doing actual pitching stuff, we're mainly conditioning, like doing a lot of running, doing a lot of different stations like speed and agility and stuff like that to kind of get them going. And then once you start throwing, I like to get them in a long toss program first, right, kind of build their arm strength up a little bit. And then once we were right where we need to be, then, you know, we get on the mound. And then after that, it's kind of like, you know, you'll throw a bullpen on a Monday, let's say and then Tuesday, you have a, you either get a day off or you long toss, and then you go for a run and Wednesday you do something else. So we kind of map it out where every day they're throwing, they're doing some type of throwing and some type of running. And then on top of that, they d,o you know, their arm care stuff. So that that's, that's big.

Evan 12:41

Okay, that's, that's really interesting. And, as you said, like running is super important. And I like how you said, like, with your college kids, how you not only do the running to condition, but you also do them to get them ready for the troubles that they might have on the field with the mental side. So like speaking on the mental side, what do you do to help your players like if they do break down during the game and start giving up a ton of hits, and you say like, for instance, a starter, you don't want to take them out in the first inning. So what would you do during like a mound visit?

Manny 13:17

I would go back and you know, talk to him, tell him to step back, um, you know, and just relax and just go back to the fundamentals of just like, hey, just trust your stuff. You know, sometimes, you know, when you start getting hit around, you kind of doubt your ability, and you're like, oh, maybe your stuffs not good enough. But I always tell them, and that's one thing that I always tell, like harp on and say it's like, you know, everybody is a great pitcher when everything's working, right, but the day that something's not working, that's the day you're gonna find out what kind of pitcher you are, you know, you might have given up four runs in the first inning. And I'll go out down, I'll tell you guess what you gave up four. But now give us a chance, get us out of the inning. Right, we'll find a way to claw ourselves back into the game and win the game. Now your job is not to worry about what happened is what's going to happen moving forward. So it's just more kind of like, instilling in them that confidence that hey, it's baseball, anything can happen. You had a bad ending. Now you just move forward and you try to help the team as much as you can.

Evan 14:17

Yeah, that's great coaching right there.

So you've helped them enroll Mustangs to three regional titles in the last four years, as well as back to back JUCO World Series appearances, which is super impressive. Can you talk about that Juco World Series experience and some of the things that contributed to that team success.

Manny 14:42

So that experience of going to the Juco world series it's it's like no other Yeah, I wish every kid that comes through our program gets a chance to experience that. I mean, you get to see some of the best players in the country. In that stage, you know, it comes down only to ten teams and you might see a future Major Leaguer that you don't know at the time, but he might end up being in the big leagues in a couple years. You know, for example, you know, Bryce Harper got to play there. So when we went there and you go to for the banquet, you get to see them display where they have his pictures and stuff like that. So it's kind of cool to see the history of all the players that have gone through through that tournament, that, you know, end up having very successful playing careers. And, you know, getting there wasn't easy, you know, it's kind of like a lot of, you know, bumps through the road as the both years where we were playing, we didn't have the best starts, but you know, it was a matter of time, you know, we knew we had the talent, we knew we had the, the right guys to get where we needed to be. It was just a matter of getting hot at the right time. You know, in that first year, that's what happened, we got hot at the right time. And then with the weather and certain things happened, it kind of played into our favor, where we ended up playing a college that is in our same region we got, we ended up playing them in the eastern district championship. So it's kind of like, you know, we knew, you know, what they had, we know what they were going to throw at us. And it kind of made it a little bit easier that first year. Now, the second year, it was again, we started 1 and 11. So nobody in the country gave us a shot. We, nobody thought we were going to claw ourselves back out of that.

Evan 16:31

Yeah That's crazy.

Manny 16:32

Yeah. And then guys, kinda, you know, we stayed with it, we, we kept telling Hey, you're never out of it. You just got to make sure you get to the regional tournament. And then after that, it's anybody's ballgame. And that's kind of what we did. And we we ran through the eastern district where it was something very impressive, where we I think we average like 10 runs a game.

Evan 16:51

Wow. That's, that's really impressive. Yeah, that that sounds like a great, like, super cool Juco experience. And I know you must have loved going there with the Mustangs and being a part of that.

Manny 17:04

Yes, definitely. Definitely. I mean, it was a great, great group of guys, both years that we went and, and I enjoyed both of them.

Evan 17:12

What would you say like really contributed to that success? Is it like Was it the hitters? Or was it the mindset that was going on there? What type of things really contributed to that?

Manny 17:22

I think it was a little bit of everything. I mean, the first year, I'm not gonna lie, we had three starters that, you know, between the three of them, they won over 30 games. Every time those three took them on, you knew you were going to win a game. Now one of them ended up going to No, got drafted that year in the 12th. Round.

Evan 17:41

Yeah that's Unbelievable.

Manny 17:42

Yeah, the other guy went eight in one and the other guy went like, he was like, 11, or something like that. And it was like, you know, you knew when you had a shot with those three guys, right. And then the next year, we had a deeper pitching staff, but we weren't performing. So our hitters had to pick up the slack for for the pitchers. And then, at the end of the year, like I said it was you know, we got hot, so pitchers started, you know, clicking on all cylinders, plus the hitting had come around, I would say probably like two weeks prior to that. And we put it together. So it's a combination of you know, the entire team.

Evan 18:23

And some pictures, they have tendencies that really good hitters can pick up.

Unknown Speaker 18:27

Yes,

Evan 18:29

like when you identify that one of your pitchers, is either tipping their pitches or giving a baserunner a bit of an edge? How do you help them eliminate those bad habits.

Manny 18:41

So it's, you know, it's kind of tough to try and make an in game adjustment. Just because, you know, it's JUCO you're dealing with 18, 19, 20 year olds. So, you know, they are very talented, but at the same time, they're not professional athletes where they can just on the fly, make it. So you, you know, you try to get it out of him in the game, or you just you just say hey, battle through it. And then w'll get back to the drawing board tomorrow, and then we'll work on getting that out of the way. But you know, there's certain guys that can do it. And there's, there's others guys where you kind of have to take, it's gonna take a span of seven days before their next start, you know, working on it every day, they get it out.

Evan 19:22

Yeah it makes a lot of sense. And that makes you a good coach, being able to really identify them in the first place. And then say, let's work on it and knowing your pitcher knowing your guy, knowing that he might not be able to make it in game. Let's go to the drawing board tomorrow and this week and really make sure we can perfect that.

Manny 19:41

And on top of that, you know we've had some really smart hitters the last couple years so when you know they face each other in the fall and then during winter ball when we're getting ready for the season. You know, they do a great job of communicating with myself and with the pitcher and letting him know hey, when you're throwing this picture doing this or where you're going You know, when you're going to go, you go fastball, then curveball right away, like, you know, so they do a good job talking to each other, and letting each other know what they're doing and what they're not doing. So, you know, it's, it's pretty good to see when they do that.

Rene 20:14

Yeah, that's, that's a big recipe for success really being able to communicate with your team and your teammates communicating by themselves without the coach having to tell them to

Manny 20:23

Yep.

Evan 20:24

And a great pitcher and catcher relationship are, they play a huge role in the pitchers and the team's success. So how do you help create an environment that really helps foster good pitcher and catcher relationships.

Manny 20:40

So, you know, one thing we try to do is like, each catcher has to catch every single guy, you know, in the fall, we make sure that they they're not just always throwing to the same guy. And, you know, when we're doing our flat grounds, sometimes when the the catches are not hitting, we'll bring them over and have them catch a flat ground. So in that way, they get used to, you know, every single guy, how each ball breaks and all that, you know, the other thing we do is, once we're starting getting ready to the season, we start having like classroom meetings, where it's caches and pitchers You know, and we talk about how we're going to attack hitters, how we're going to control the running game, and then I just kind of like, pick each other and they call pick a catcher and a pitcher, and then we'll pick a guy on our lineup and be like, how are you going to attack this guy, and give me every scenario, if you go first pitch strike, if you go, you know, first pitch ball, if it's a 1-1 count, and they kind of, you know, bounce ideas off of each other. And, and that's how they kind of, you know, kind of gel when especially in those classroom meetings, because they kind of see whether they're all on the same page or they're not, and then they work it all out.

Evan 21:47

OK that's a really interesting and really cool way to work it out between them. Like you said,

Manny 21:53

yeah.

Evan 21:54

And what did you take away from your experiences at the Juco World Series that have really helped you become a better pitching coach?

Manny 22:07

I think sometimes, yeah, you got to trust your players more, you know, sometimes you, you get so focused on what you're doing as a coach, like, for example, you know, I call the pitches at Monroe and there's times where I find myself in a pattern, right. And, you know, some of the competition that we face, it's, it's not the greatest. So you can get away with certain things. But once you get to the, to that kind of tournament, the hitters are a lot better. So they definitely pick up on a lot of things. So it's more like, hey, trust your guys trust what they're telling you, and sometimes just let them be them. You know, don't over coach them. Just let them go out there and play. Because at the end of the day, you know, we might call anything we can but we're in the dugout. They're the ones out there that have the front row seat to the situation.

Evan 22:58

For sure. Yeah, thanks for sharing that with us.

Manny 23:02

No problem

Evan 23:03

And are you involved in like the recruiting process for high school ballplayers?

Manny 23:08

Yes. So we all kind of split up the responsibility of recruiting. So we kind of split it up, you know, one guy that's like, the Manhattan area somebody else does, like the Bronx, um, I try to do New Jersey since I live in New Jersey, and then some of the Puerto Rico and stuff like that. But yes, we're all involved in it. And it's, it's a tough process that, you know, be in practice every day, and then try to go out there and watch some games, but it's fun.

Evan 23:42

What are some of the like, the measurements and characteristics that you look for when you're looking at a high school pitcher.

Manny 23:49

So, you know, obviously, we always look at the speed to kind of see where they're at. I think that's probably the first thing you see is like alright, he's, the velocity you can play at our level, then we see, you know, how he does. Throwing strikes, and then we'll see when, how he doesn't want me struggling? I think, you know, like I said before, when everything's on, it's easy to pitch. But I want to see when you're getting hit around, I want to see when somebody on your team boots a ball, I want to see what your reaction is going to be and how you're going to bounce back from that. And then you know, once athletically, he meets all the check marks, then we talked to the coach and I asked him Hey, what type of kid is he? How is he with his teammates? Like, how is he in the classroom ? And I I'm a strong believer that everything goes hand in hand. And you know if you're a good student, and that means you're gonna go to be a good baseball player because you're willing to learn. So

Evan 24:49

Yeah, that's important for high school baseball players listening, just to really say like, Okay, this is what I need to work on. This is what they look for, and different things like Like that. And so skill is incredibly important, obviously. Because, I mean, you need a certain amount of skill to play at a certain level. But a player's character also plays a huge role, like you said, in their success. So how do you guys and like the all the other coaching staff, help your players build a stronger character,

Manny 25:27

well we try to hold them accountable for everything they do, you know, it starts from going to class, right? You got to be able to show up to class every single day, you know, be on time for practice, you know, be willing to sit out and we we try to, like I said, hold them accountable as much as we can, with all the little things that they do. Because then it turns down to the bigger things, right, when you can get a guy paying attention to something as small, as you know, picking up a cup that was left in the dugout, you know, that's just being responsible, and you're like, Alright, he's getting it. So we try to, you know, if you miss class, you're going to pay the consequences for it. And if you're disrespectful to the teacher, you're going to pay the consequences to it. And sometimes, we may get a team thing, you know, just to kind of get everybody on board and be like, hey, you're not going to be able to get this, get away with this. And then what that does when you punish everybody, for something that one guy did, then everybody else starts holding each other accountable. Like, hey, don't do that, again, because we don't want to know we don't want to run, we don't want to do this. So something like that.

Evan 26:36

Yeah, that'sa great way of going about things is like, I know, my coach, like, we do things as a team, we make sure that everything is one as a team. So that's a really great way of doing things.

Manny 26:51

Because like, we say, you know, if you're gonna win, you're gonna win as a team, you're gonna lose, you're gonna lose as a team. So it's very important that, you know, everybody is holding each other accountable, you know, in a respectful way, and, and just looking out for each other. That's, that's what it comes down to, you know, you got to look out for your brother, and you got to know that guy to your right, that guy to your left, just put in the same amount of work that you did.

Evan 27:14

And so which one or two major league pitchers like past or present, would you encourage your players to watch and really learn a lot from?

Manny 27:25

Oh, that's tough. there's been a lot of great ones. But I would say, I think one of the most fundamentally sound pitchers was Mariano Rivera. I think he is he wasn't only just one of the greatest to do it. But he is very mechanically sound and in everything he did. And I think Greg Maddux, I think those two guys are the best examples to look at.

Yeah, there's two unbelievable pitchers who Yes, yeah, that amazing legacies left behind in baseball. Yeah. And what are some things like I know, you talked about like, Mariano Rivera is very, like, mechanically correct. And does everything mechanically really well? What do you think it is with like Greg Maddux? Is it that? Is it the same thing? Or is it something different about him,

I think is the same thing. You know, he's also, you know, very fundamentally sound, but his biggest thing as he learned how to manipulate the ball. And I think that that's something that kids struggle to do, because they just wait, they just want to throw as hard as they can. Which there's nothing wrong with that. But you can be able to throw hard and manipulate the baseball and make it go wherever you want. So I think sometimes it's more of a feel thing where guys need to learn how to play with the ball. And I mean, we saw how long he did it. And he wasn't throwing 95 miles an hour. So

Evan 28:56

yeah, like, once again, those are two unbelievable examples with legacies left behind in baseball. So and before we wrap it up, are there any projects that you're working on that you want to share with our board baseball community? And where can our listeners go to learn a little bit more about you?

Manny 29:17

Before everything got shut down, I was working with a travel organization from Puerto Rico that actually brings kids out here to get them exposed. So I was going to kind of help them out. You know, and help them get exposed and go to some tournaments and stuff like that. But you know, with everything being canceled, that kind of took a backseat. Um, but you know, you can go if you want to know more about myself, you can go to my Twitter. It's @coachManny45. I put some stuff sometimes up there. They're not really I'm afraid of what people are going to comment if I put some videos up and stuff or my Instagrams coach_Manny45. You know, if anybody wants, you know, to run something by me or whatever anybody can just, you know, send me a message and I'll gladly, you know, help you out if you want to send videos or anything like that. I can do that.

Evan 30:13

And I look forward to seeing the Mustangs play one day soon. They're a great team, by the way. There's a lot of success going on there. Well, Manny, thank you again. Thank you so much for hopping on and sharing insight with the born to baseball community.

Manny 30:31

Thank you for having man, this is awesome.

Evan 30:36

Thank you all for listening in. We really hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to hit the subscribe button and be the first to know when new episodes launch. Check us out at borntobaseball.com for free resources and new gear. And of course on social media at born to baseball where we can connect live now let's play ball

Born To Baseball Website

BTB Travel Team & Training Tracker

Episode #015: Trey Hunt- Independent League Baseball Player and Hitting Instructor

November 2020 By Evan

Ep. # 015: Trey Hunt- Independent League Baseball Player and Hitting Instructor

Join Evan and Trey Hunt as Trey shares his baseball journey, his experience playing Independent ball, and hitting tips for youth baseball players of all levels. He also shares some of his influences and tips for developing a strong mindset on and off the field.

What You’ll Learn:

01:07 Trey’s Journey

03:27 Benefits of being a multi-sport athlete

08:20 What contributed to his success transitioning from catcher to outfielder

09:45 Experience playing Indy Ball

12:40 Swinging up vs swinging down

15:13 Loading of the scapula

20:37 Feel versus Real

23:34 Mental cues and having a thought process at the plate

26:43 Hitting tips for youth baseball players

28:17 Tips for developing good footwork

29:39 Developing baseball IQ

32:09 Trey’s “So what” philosophy

33:35 Tips on quieting your mind

Thank you for being here with us! Evan and the Born To Baseball Team are looking forward to celebrating your success and sharing this journey together.

If you enjoyed this episode please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple or wherever you’re listening here. This will help other ball players find the Born To Baseball Podcast and give us more chances to shout out our listeners!

Now, let’s play ball!

Read show notes here.

Show Links:

Instagram @trigggatreyy15

Born To Baseball Links:

Instagram: @borntobaseball

Facebook

Twitter: @bornto_baseball

Born To Baseball Podcast

Episode 015_TREY HUNT_INDEPENDENT BASEBALL PLAYER_HITTING INSTRUCTOR

The transcription below was provided for your convenience through an automated service. Please excuse any unintended errors made in the process.

Evan 0:00

This episode of Born To 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? Then you have to check out the BTB triple t tracker at borntobaseball.com. Make sure your team is represented. Let's go.

Music 0:23

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

Evan 0:39

Hey guys, and welcome to the born baseball podcast. I'm Evan and joining us today is Trey hunt. Trey was born and raised in San Diego, California, where he attended Lincoln High School and became San Diego Athlete of the Year. After high school tre went to Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego and was named the all Conference Player not once, but twice as a centerfielder. He currently plays with the Black Sox organization out of Pennsylvania. Trey, thank you so much for joining me today.

Trey 1:06

No problem at all. Thank you for having me.

Evan 1:07

So you're from San Diego, can you share how you got started playing baseball?

Trey 1:12

Oh, my dad actually was a Sunday league All Star man, he played all growing up. So I was always in the dugout, I was always kind of just running around the field. So I just picked up a bat whenever I was ready, and it happened ever since then.

Evan 1:26

That's awesome. And can you talk about like your high school and maybe college experience a little?

Trey 1:32

Yeah, absolutely. I went to a very basketball and football High School. And so I was on the football team as well. So I went, basically back and forth between baseball, football, baseball, football over and over. And then eventually, my junior year, I started breaking out a little bit, I hit .535, which was the highest average in the state or close to the highest average in the state. And then my senior year, I kind of just took over all baseball and just did what I had to do.

Evan 1:59

That's awesome. Your last two years at Lincoln High School, like you said, you put up a .535 And then in your senior year, you put up a 565 average, which is ridiculous.

Trey 2:11

That season felt good. Everything felt good.

Evan 2:15

Like those numbers are just really incredible. And especially that 30 point jump over that only one year period of time. So what do you think sort of attributed to that jump?

Trey 2:26

honestly, I was just a very raw athlete. So I just tried to get as many swings as I could, I was just always born to to do more and do more and want more and just see what, what repetition could do for me. So I wasn't the most smooth swinging guy. But I wasn't going to strike out and I wasn't going to miss fastballs. And a lot of it was just the mentality of knowing that you can't beat me, I'm just going to do what I can.

Evan 2:50

Yeah, confidence is huge, it plays a huge role.

Trey 2:53

Absolutely, absolutely. And for me, it was any, any little hiccup in the day could have been my average go down. So I was really focused on just trying to keep everything consistent. If I could get up there and force a fastball early and not miss it then I was gonna hit a double and I was just gonna do what I had to do. I knew I couldn't get beat.

Evan 3:08

Yeah, that's a great approach to the game and you're at bats. And youth athletes were like you said, You played football and baseball. And a lot of us youth baseball players, and just athletes we're told to play multiple sports. So What benefits do you see in playing multiple sports?

Trey 3:27

Well, for me, I always just noticed it in situations where a lot of guys would like get out, you know, for instance, a pickle, there's times where you're just so, so used to going side to side on a football field or having to shake somebody or do something that you would never really do on a baseball field, that when the time comes and you could implement it on the baseball field, it showed up. And a lot of guys that didn't have that athleticism to move out of the way of a 300 pound guy or find a way to outrun a safety, you know, you'd never have to really do that on a baseball field, you can kind of play it safe and jog in and get the double. Or you'll notice a lot of guys that play other sports are comfortable taking that risk, where they could get that extra base because they're not really worried about failing, they just want to go for it and see what happens. And for me, I think that plays a lot, a lot into my game for, you know, always trying to take that extra base. when I'm at first and the guy shows his back on a fly ball to the left field, I'm going to take that second base if I can, because I know he's got to catch it turn around and make a perfect throw. And if I'm tagging up, I only got 90 feet to go. So I think I could beat him on that.

Evan 4:31

That's interesting. That's a great way of looking at it. And like Are there any like specific sports like would it be football or basketball that you would recommend youth baseball players to play

Trey 4:40

um, I mean, honestly, anything that's gonna have a lot of moving side to side. You know, for baseball, the quickest, quickest way to get the second is if I can get that first step and get going as fast as I can to steal second base where a lot of guys that's not a part of their game. They're either they're not very fast or they don't have that secondary twitch when you're going in and playing Those other sports, you automatically have to find a way to get that, you know, football even the linemen their first step is quick. You know, you're, you're playing safety, your first step is still quick, you know, you don't really have time to mess up in that situation. And if you do you end up on your back. So it's like automatic. Alright, we're gonna let you know you messed up.

Evan 5:19

Yeah definitely

Trey 5:20

Whether it's, you know, getting a shot blocked in basketball, there's always like that instant. Okay, you weren't fast enough. So the next time you might make that shot, because you gave it that extra fast twitch to get there? You know, it just all depends on, on how you can interpret it your own way.

Evan 5:36

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Like you said, lateral movement is, I guess, sports that have that is, I guess, you can implement in baseball,

Trey 5:43

you could, you could do, you could do tennis, you could do anything. Anything that has has to make a quick decision real quick, you know. And in baseball, you can easily look at it this way. When I'm hitting When I say go, I want everything to go. Yes, I don't, I don't want that little lag to where it's like go and now my swings coming. You know, and in football. If I'm lag on that first step. I'm on my back right now. There, there was no couldn't, could have just fouled one off and get extra pitches. You know, so there's ways to interpret it, where it's like, okay, that first step is really important when I'm hitting that, okay, I needed to go now is really important. So,

Evan 6:22

yeah.

Trey 6:23

That's how I see it

Evan 6:24

So you are San Diego Athlete of the Year in your senior year of high school, which is incredible. What kind of confidence did that give you going into college that knowing you'd like face even stronger competition?

Trey 6:37

I wouldn't say that, that gave me more confidence than actually getting like, the opportunity to go play. Because it's a lot of teams did pass up on me, you know, and a lot of colleges did pass up on me. So for me to go in, and, and get the opportunity to do things I go play scout ball that gave me the confidence because I see that I can play with those guys. You know, I go I go up and play scout ball on Sundays for the Mariners and then come back home and the competition would be way different. I'm like, Okay, well, I should be dominating this group. And then I got a fight when I get up to play with those bigger guys. You know, so my confidence going in was playing the scout ball and playing summer ball where I'm starting to see and hit 90 mile an hour fastball and, and see stuff like that. I've never seen it before. I'm not gonna have any confidence. So I think that gave me the most confidence.

Evan 7:23

I totally get that. I know you majored in graphic design in college. What was sort of the reason behind that?

Trey 7:31

Um, I started as a business major. And then I took economics class, and it just didn't go very well. I figured out that numbers were not for me. That's kind of not something I wanted to get into for the rest of my life. And I had always kind of doodled a lot. I was always trying to create things that I've never seen before. So for me graphic design, I was always a computer geek. And constantly on computers growing up, I was a big gamer growing up. So I figured I might as well try it out and see what I can do. And I ended up liking it a lot.

Evan 8:05

Yeah, that's really cool. So you were mainly a centerfielder In high school and college. What are some like unique skills and qualities that a player would need to have in order to play an outfield position?

Trey 8:17

Well, I actually was a catcher going into college.

Evan 8:19

Oh, interesting

Trey 8:20

yeah, I caught for a while. But as far as expanding on your question, for me, it was taking the flyballs during BP as serious as I could. The reason I got the job that I got in college was because I moved from catcher to outfield, and I would take fly balls. And one day, I just kind of took off on one and laid out because I knew I wasn't playing and I was just trying to kind of go do stuff and coach was like, Alright, we're gonna need you to get Outfielder glove for the rest of the year. And I was like, Alright, I'm cool with that. So I just kind of worked on it and was hitting better than some of the other guys. And that's how I found my spot. So I think taking those fly balls, as serious as you can makes the game so much easier. You don't really have to think as much, especially at your home field. If you're getting the same conditions over and over and over again. It should be like riding a bike. You shouldn't even have to think about jumps. You should just be able to kind of run and play around.

Evan 9:17

Yeah, taking practicing as hard as you can play.

Trey 9:20

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, don't get me wrong as you get older, you kind of slow it down a little bit. You know, you can't go as crazy as you would in BP because you're gonna be sore the next day, but I would say definitely trying to track down as much as you can if you don't think you can get there. Try to get there you might get there. You never know. You know, in the game. You'll take that. That extra jump to go get it if you tried to do it in practice.

Evan 9:45

Yeah, definitely. You currently play independent ball, which I learned is a first chance Second Chance league for baseball players. What has your experience been like playing there?

Trey 9:59

Um, I have I've been on the lower end of a majority of the independent leagues, a couple leagues that folded, played on the lower levels got to play in some of those bigger, bigger stadiums and bigger situations. So that was fun. But what I think I've learned the most and gotten the most out of it was, you really got to want to do it, you can't come out and think that you can train for two months. And then you get into a situation where it's a tryout and someone's been talking to you. And then you get there and you're not ready. Like you have to want to continue to play, you have to want to train year round, you have to want to do the traveling to get to where you're playing, you've got to grind it, you're not going to get paid much. That's just point blank period. So you got to really want to do it, you've got to be using it, try to get better and just loving the game.

Evan 10:50

Loving the game is why almost everyone plays. You gotta love it. You gotta love it,

Trey 10:55

you have to, you have to and if you don't, it's gonna eat you alive.

Evan 10:58

Would you say that independent ball was sort of what you expected going into it? Or has it been just a whole different experience.

Trey 11:05

Um, I've, I've had a lot of guys, a lot of mentors and stuff, tell me exactly what it was. So I kind of knew what it was going and I knew I wasn't gonna get paid much I knew I had a lot of work to do. And I was willing to make the changes, to just be able to play against some of these guys that had a big change in major league ball and then came down and played independent leagues, like I played against guys that have been in the major leagues. So it's like to be on the same field as them and to be able to compete and grind it and have an at bat against a guy who throws 95. And next thing, you know, you piece him up in centerfield. It's, it's that want to do it, you know. And for me, that experience is undeniably The best thing that's happened to me. So it's like, why not continue to go for it? You know?

Evan 11:51

Yeah, that's really awesome. So what would it really mean to you to sign with a major league organization?

Trey 11:57

For me, it would just be like, it's about time, though, that would be my first thought. But uh, you know, it would just kind of complete what. I wouldn't say complete, because obviously, you're going to still have goals after that. But it would complete the confirmation that I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. You know, if I'm taking care of my body, and I'm not missing games, and I'm doing everything I got to do, and I'm excelling at what I'm trying to do, then I can't be mad.

Evan 12:25

A lot of times for new youth baseball players and Baseball Players all over. Our goals are to play Major League Baseball, get drafted and sign

Trey 12:34

Absolutely. Even with where the games take me so far, like I'm having a great time. And that's what it's about. It's just having a great time. You do what you love, and you have a great time. Why not?

Evan 12:44

Definitely

Are you part of the swing down and get on top of the ball approach or the turning the barrel to like work slightly up through the zone, like elevate to celebrate?

Trey 12:57

I am, I would say a hybrid of both. I liked the turn to, for me, I did transform my swing into a more upward, but that was to create backspin and be able to hit balls harder, and get a little bit more lift out of it. But the swing down to me can be misconstrued into many different ways that make it kind of seem like it's hard to teach. You know, I can teach a kid to get on plane a lot easier if I'm teaching him to go up at the ball. Because if I'm gonna go Yeah, go down hill with your hands go down hill go down hill, then he's going to create a path that straight down. Now if he creates a path that's straight down and the balls coming straight down, he's going to completely miss or he's going to be really good in a really small portion of the zone.So for me, I want to try to turn

it gets a little serious when we talk about SCAP loading and doing all that stuff. But for me, I will teach a more upward barrel turn. But there's... when it comes to kids, you have to word it different sometimes.

Evan 14:14

Okay,

Trey 14:15

you know, everybody's not gonna know the exact same thing. So if I tell the kid to stay inside the ball, if I look at every single kid, they're going to give me a different answer. You know, and for me staying inside the ball it's more of just keeping my hands tight and turning and when I turn my hand should be inside the ball. The barrel is going to come after and we're gonna make damage. So I am kind of a hit it up in the air kind of guy. I train, I train high. I try to hit homeruns in BP. I do what I got to do, but at the end of the day, I'm still aiming for double because if I'm a little bit a little bit low, I'll hit base hit and if I'm a little bit high, it'll go out.

Evan 14:50

I love what you said about like the doubles and base hits are a home run if you miss it.

Trey 14:56

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Evan 14:59

me recently I've ever actually been learning about like the SCAP load and like hands inside and the turn and like some more advanced movements. So could you maybe elaborate on the SCAP load a little bit.

Trey 15:13

Um, for me you can kind of think of, think of the SCAP load is two different things. I mean, for me, I like to focus a little bit more on my barrel because I don't really, I'm not very risky when I swing. So like, when I say risky I mean a lot of guys will kind of wiggle the bat around a lot. I basically when I load, I do my load over and over and over again. And that's my rhythm. So like when other guys are kind of just twirling the bat around and doing whatever they're doing, I'm literally just doing my load over and over and over again. So I feel it. And then when it comes, then I just do it a little bit more exaggerated, and I kind of just pull my back elbow is far behind me as I can without changing how my body is directed. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. So if that makes sense, I mean, I try to keep my body in parallel with the plate. And then I'm trying to pull my back shoulder or my back elbow is far behind me as I can while tiipping the barrel towards my head.

Evan 16:05

Okay, yeah, that makes sense.

Trey 16:08

So I mean, there's a little bit of the body. But yeah, for me, I like to break it down. Super simple. And I want to know where everything's at, like, I clench my hands right before I swing, because I want to know exactly where everything's at, I got a big leg kick, so my leg kicks got to go up, and then my body's got to be in the same spot throughout the whole, like, if it moves a little bit forward, we're okay. But if it moves, big forward, we're in trouble. So for me, I just like to keep my head centered, and try to get that elbow as far back behind my head as I can.

Evan 16:37

Knowing your body is super important. And yeah, being able to sort of realize, like, if I do this I'm not gonna do well, if I do this, that's what's gonna help me.

Trey 16:47

Yeah, and for me, it's like you find a thought that'll help you out a lot. I mean, as you keep working, as you keep getting stronger, you're gonna start to be able to feel movements that you never really felt before. Like, a majority, if not, every baseball player can probably flex almost every single muscle in their body without moving anything dramatically. You know, you tell them to flex their forearm, they can probably flex their forearm, just by closing their hands, you know, or you say, squeeze your LAT, they can probably squeeze their lat and you'll be able to see their lat a little bit more. So as you get older, and as you kind of figure out your body and start to be able to see, okay, this movement does this, and this does this, you'll start to be able to kind of evolve in your swing a little bit. Because like you learn how to use your legs, you learn how to use your hips, you learn how to use the scapula, you learn how to get that rubber band, by letting your body go first, but not losing your posture. There's things like that that can very easily translate.

Evan 17:44

Okay, yeah, thank you for that. And like, have you had like, I know you talked about this, like that was, there was a certain point in your career, where you sort of tweaked your swing and learn more about the swing and your body and different things like that. So like, like, what really impacted that decision to learn more about your body and learn more about maybe the proper swing sequence, and what are some of the things that you've changed?

Trey 18:11

Um, well, I was a toe tap guy for a really long time, I'd get my foot down early, and then would kind of just heal click and go. And I would hit a lot of topspin ground balls, or top spin line drives in the five six hole. In one year, I counted, I probably hit, I probably had 80 hits, I think 36 of them were in the 5/6 hole where the ball was crushed, and I was on time. But if I just backspin it, instead of top spinning, it would have been a home run or a double or something where it's a lot more damage done. So for me, I just wanted to get out of that realm of just hitting singles when i crush a ball. When I crush a bal Now I want it to go out or I want it to to line drive somewhere. Whereas back then I was okay with the topspin line driving the five, six hole because I was getting on base you know, it wasn't a problem, whatever, no big deal. And then as power numbers started going up and my power numbers weren't going up. When I knew I had the capability to do so it was about time to change something. So I went in the lab and I started figuring out how to get on plane and I started the sequence to the body and trying to figure out how to use my hips and you know what I needed to implement for myself to get the result that I wanted. So I work in the top corners of the cage now backspin in the top corners of the cage both sides and if I can do that, if I got a pitch up and in, middle in, belly button in or down and I should be able to put it in the exact same spot. Yeah, the angle of attack is going to be different. But I should be able to put it exactly where I want to with the backspin that I want. So if I work that way in the game, my body will be used to going down and getting those pitches from a different angle or staying tall and getting to that pitch up. Even though they think 92 and it was running in, you know, so you want to be able to train yourself and those angles by keeping the same principles of your kinetics.

Evan 20:10

Okay, that's really cool what you said and being able to no matter where the pitches, if it's inside, you hit it to the same place, and no matter the height, so that's really cool.

Trey 20:21

I think that's what what kind of changed everything was, was being able to backspin it for a double no matter where, you know, if you were a little early, it might get down the line, but you want to backspin it into that double zone. And then you can't get beat by anything.

Evan 20:37

So feel verse real, what do you understand that to mean when it comes to hitting.

Trey 20:42

So there are things that you'll tell yourself, that don't make sense. But for some reason, your body gives you the result that you want. So if I tell myself to pin my elbow to my ribs, and let the barrel come through late, someone else could do the exact same thing, and it will jack up their completely different swing, like their swing would just be all messed up. But for me, it could probably give me the perfect path. And I crush a ball.

Evan 21:16

interesting

Trey 21:17

when you're trying to feel something, you can't always get stuck on the same thought. You have to be able to like change your thought and see if you can get the feel to be a little bit different.

Evan 21:28

Okay

Trey 21:29

Because if someone's teaching you something, it's probably because you're doing it incorrectly, right. And if you trust, if you trust this teacher, they should be able to get you to feel something that's awkward. And it'll eventually become not awkward. And that's when you've made a change. You know where you'll get the feel, but it'll feel right instead of feel wrong.

Evan 21:54

Interesting. Yeah. And I know you've mentioned to me, you mentioned a mental cue. And I guess for you would that be like the pin your elbow to the ribs, and let the barrel come through a little late? Or would that sort of be different?

Trey 22:09

Yeah, it kind of depends on what I'm going through at the time, honestly, um, one a big one for me is just locking my front hip out. you always need to have some kind of braking system to let the barrel come forward the energy to kind of transfer over. So as soon as my foot gets down, and I'm ready to go, and I locked my knee and my hip drops back, and now my hands have a lane to go. And if my hands have a lane to go, my barrel is gonna probably be in the right spot when the right time comes. So that's a big one for me, but I can only use that one in BP because in the game it's just not, it doesn't really work out. But, in the end that's the crazy thing about everybody's gonna be different. Like, I can't think of something that intricate when I'm hitting LIVE or in a game. I like to think of something more along the lines of just turn into it. Turn into it, things like that. Get the foot down on time. If my foot's down on time. I'll go foot down on time, but I'm thinking about that anyways, a majority of the time. Cuz I think for me, pitch selection shouldn't be something you think about

Evan 23:20

you can't think about too much when you're at the plate. For a lot of people. Yes, simple, easy thoughts that could remind you of what to do. small things that, you just take what you know and what's second nature and you react to

Trey 23:34

an easy way for me to explain it would be you should have a process of thoughts before the ball comes. I have a process Everyone has their they come to the plate, they kick the dirt, they do whatever they do, but they probably are thinking about the same thing every time they do that, you know, for me, I get in. I like to get my hands in my posture locked in. That's my first thing I'm focused on at the plate. the posture should be right hands in the right spot. Flush that thought now I'm already feeling it. You know this is quick because you know you got a guy on the mound. So now hands are already thought about everything. Now my rhythm is on I'm focusing on just getting my foot down on time. I already know I'm looking for a heater. We're not looking for anything but a heater because I'm not trying to miss the heater. We don't want to see all the other stuff. So I should be down on time for the heater I can think about that ON TIME ON TIME ON TIME. And once you're down for that, it should just be GO. Shouldn't have to really tell yourself anything else. It should just be go or No.

Evan 24:37

That makes a ton of sense. And so I met you when you coached me at a tournament down in Florida this past winter. And I immediately picked up some great infield and hitting tips from you. Do you work with some young athletes back home?

Trey 24:55

I do. I work with the gorillas back home in Chula Vista, it's a small, Small program we got from about, I'd say 6U to, I got some high school kids as well. I've always been coaching always loved giving back and doing stuff like that. So it's just, it's just part of it now, I like to teach the stuff that I'd never had the opportunity to get taught when I was younger. And I think that's what makes me want to do it. Because I can implement some stuff on some kids that may not have the opportunity to ever hear something of that level, you know?

Evan 25:26

Yeah, that's awesome. That really is, when you work with young athletes, do you work with them with just everything? Or are there specific areas that you specialize in?

Trey 25:38

Um, for me, I've always enjoyed projects. So a lot, a lot of the time, it's a kid that I'm trying to revamp, and just give them a whole new approach a majority of the time, it's more mental. I'm trying to get into the mental of my kids, I want you to be able to go to the play and be equipped for the test. I don't want the test to come up and it looks like you never read the book. I want you to know, as soon as you get up there, what you're looking for, you know, and if you're missing it, then we got something to work on. But if you're not, then we're just gonna kind of pick and choose the things we want to change.

Evan 26:16

It's really important mindset is huge with a baseball player.

Trey 26:20

Absolutely.

Evan 26:21

For the youth baseball players, I know, we've been talking about more advanced movements in the swing. But for baseball players who are like just like getting ready for those advanced movements, can you share like one or two tips on what types of movements to really start with? Or maybe the proper parts of the swing sequence to work on first?

Trey 26:43

Um, I would probably work on let's see, that's a tough question one or two. I would say the lower half is obviously extremely important. I would focus on trying to get kids which seems to be the one of the hardest things to do is to let them know it's okay that after the swing, and your front leg is locked out, to leave it that way. Leave it there as long as you can.

Evan 27:13

That's interesting.

Trey 27:14

Because a lot of times the first thing that kids do is they collapse that front knee. And that's going to take a lot of power away. Because your body's still going forward. You never had anything to stop around it to make the swing come through and actually snap out front, so that locking of the front knee is very important. I like to work from the ground up the hands, you can always figure it out later. But I would I would focus on the front knee and locking that out. And then after that just learn how to stay connected. And keeping hands tight. And being able to go all sides. you got to be able to go all sides. Because oppo is where the money's at.

Evan 27:54

Yes. You got to be able to hit both ways. Both sides of the plate.

Trey 28:00

the fastball always seems to come on the outer half. So why not?

Evan 28:03

Why not

Trey 28:04

Hit the one out there.

Evan 28:06

Yeah.

And like in order to be an infielder. I believe you're an infielder. Now, am I right,

Trey 28:12

yeah, I transfer back and forth. But I take a lot of ground balls on a daily basis. So that's always good.

Evan 28:17

Okay, yeah. So not only do you have to be have great hands to be an infielder, but you also have to have great footwork. So can you share some like drills and different techniques that you've used to help you develop great footwork,

Trey 28:34

um, first thing I would do is hip bands. Hip bands are extremely important, because if you can't get low, then you can't get underneath the ground ball, it's not going to work out too nice. A lot of problems I've seen with kids is they just don't bend their knees far enough down. And a lot of it is hip mobility, and not being able to get low enough. So I would do that. And then from there is just to try to be smooth, try to stay smooth. Don't let your feet move too fast. Let that first step get you there. And then after that, try to slow everything down, a lot of kids want to go a mile a minute, slow it down the guys on TV, they never look like they're stressed out. So you should never look like you're stressed out.

Evan 29:20

That's great advice. So on the field we not only have to have great skills, but also have to be really heads up. What are some of the things that you tell your players to develop or things that they should develop to develop good baseball iQ?

Trey 29:39

Um, I would say always look where the sun is because at some point that first baseman is not going to be able to see the ball. And that's one of those things that's kind of important to me. A lot of kids you'll see at tournaments and stuff, the sun will be right behind the first baseman and then they're not getting a big leap. Well, why not first baseman can't The first baseman can't see the pitcher. So they're not going to pick you off. And if they do, you're probably going to get to third. So I like to tell them pay attention to the surroundings. Wind, things like that, can the team throw the ball to first base? Watch them during in and outs. Can they throw the ball to first base, can they play catch from the outfield, who can throw the ball all the way to a base, you know, things like that, that you can take full advantage of extra bases, the team that gets the most extra bases is probably going to win the game. You know, so if you can get as many extra bases as possible, then find a way to do it, especially if it's easy. A lot of tag ups, a lot of tags ups. I'm big on tag ups, don't be afraid to tag up from anywhere. Especially if they can't play catch tag up.

Evan 30:52

Would you say there's like a mentor or someone that you've looked up to, to help you develop a strong mindset over the years.

Trey 31:00

Um, for me it was my dad, my dad was always really big on just always being smarter than everybody else. you might not be the best on the field, you might not be the most athletic, but if you're smarter than everybody else, you can find a way. if you know the fastball is coming, you can't miss it. You know, things like that, where it's like, you can take advantage of a game just by knowing what's going on. You know, if I've seen this guy throw me three curveballs in a row, he's probably not gonna throw me four curveballs. You know, paying attention to counts and attention to things like that. Trying to get myself into really good counts. You know, not swinging at that borderline pitch early to see if the umpire calls it a ball and then getting that 2-0 fastball. You know, things like that. I feel like we're very beat into me earlier. My dad was like, you can control the game more than you think. It was definitely my dad for sure.

Evan 31:57

Yeah, that's awesome. Parents play big roles in mentorships. And, just helping us coaching us and everything really?

Trey 32:07

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Evan 32:09

So yeah, when you coached me this past winter, you often used the saying. "So what", when something didn't go our way? When did you start using this saying? And is this sort of part of your mindset when you started playing?

Trey 32:23

Yeah, it kind of kind of came out when I was playing. My first year of pro ball, I was playing out in a small town, super small league in the empire league out in New York. And stuff would just happen. I would just be like so what. So what it doesn't even matter. Doesn't matter. Like I wasn't playing for the first three months of the year I got benched for the first three or four games just straight off spring training, I was really expecting much. didn't play. In the first game, I come up, I get two hits. And then I go for a snide for like three or four days, I just could not figure it out. And then I was just like, you know, I just gotta get in the cage, I gotta swing it out. So what it is what it is, figure it out and everything started to roll in the right direction. Now it's every time something bad happens. So what.... You got to move on pitch to pitch, if I can make my adjustments pitch to pitch, instead of at bat to at bat, or day by day, we're going to be better if I swing over a slider in the dirt. I can't think about that slider in the dirt for the next four pitches, I got to be like, Alright, you know what, he might throw the slider again, because I swung at it in the dirt. So we got to be mindful of that. So what, we'll figure it out.

Evan 33:31

Yeah, I love that. I love that.

Trey 33:34

I appreciate it.

Evan 33:35

Um, and like when you hit it's important to clear and quiet your mind. So you're not thinking too much. What techniques would you recommend for youth baseball players in order to clear and quiet their minds?

Trey 33:50

Learn to breathe. Breathing is super underrated. Breathing is what slows down your heart rate, the better you can slow down your heart rate. I know everyone's had that one at that, where they can't stop their leg from shaking. Or, you know, everyone has it. It happens to everybody when the guys throwing super hard. You don't really, never really seen it before. You can't figure out how to slow your heart rate down. You have to breathe, you have to breathe. For me. It's a big deep breath then I get in the box. Take one more deep breath before he starts his wind up and then we're going. you know, you got to learn what works for you get your nice little deep breath in there. It'll slow your heart rate down. It's like snipers. What do they do? They hold their breath and do what they got to do. You know? That's how, that's how it happens. You know you got to slow all that stuff down.

breating is huge, it slows your heart rate down, slows almost everything around you. It's like stopping or slowing down time.

It's like the matrix man.

Evan 34:50

And I know that you were once asked if you could choose a famous baseball player to have dinner with it would be Willie Mays.

Trey 34:57

Yeah.

Evan 34:59

Why? Willie Mays, and what question would you ask him?

Unknown Speaker 35:04

I would ask him if he was cheating when, when he went to that ball, because I feel like you have to know that that was coming to be able to run stuff down like that. But no, I mean, he was just so influential, you know, growing up, seeing all the old school videos of that stuff, and just hitting bombs and doing all that. And the way he passed the game down to people that he mentored, like barry bonds, like guys like that, like you can tell they played a big role. And for me, those are all my favorite hitters growing up. So if he was the one that started it, then why wouldn't I want to watch him? And why wouldn't I want to talk to him and figure out what he knows? Because he obviously knows something that I don't so

Evan 35:48

yeah, learn from the best of them?

Trey 35:50

Yeah, absolutely. Why not? He started it all. So let's do it.

Evan 35:54

He was super influential in baseball, and the guys that he mentored and just

Trey 36:00

yeah, just playing the way that he played and it's a different different way of playing and you can't, it's hard to even play like that now with all the rule changes and stuff and being as crazy as he was. So it's cool to watch.

Evan 36:13

Yeah, definitely. So Trey, would you like to share anything else that you're working on, or where people can go to reach you.

Trey 36:24

Um, you can follow me on Instagram at trigger tray 15 trigggatreyy15 if you would, like we're about to start playing. So I'll be posting a lot more baseball stuff and, and probably at bat by a bat type things. But other than that, it's time for me to go. So I just been working out and I'm ready to ready to do some damage.

Evan 36:47

Yeah, ready to do some damage.

Trey 36:50

That's it. Other than that, everybody just needs to go out and have fun while they can be safe out there while everything's going on? I know. We're going to be taking measures. So I'm hoping you guys are taking measures as well. Yeah, definitely. So

Evan 37:03

well, Trey, I wanted to thank you again for coming on and sharing Amazing, amazing information.

Trey 37:09

Absolutely. No problem, man. Thank you for having me. I appreciate you guys are doing great things over here.

Evan 37:14

Thank you. I appreciate it.

Trey 37:15

Absolutely.

Evan 37:18

Born To Baseball Website

BTB Travel Team & Training Tracker

Episode #012: Justin Sherman- Founder of JustinTime Baseball

June 2020 By Evan

Ep. # 012: Justin Sherman- Founder of JustinTime Baseball

Join Evan and Justin Sherman, Founder of JustinTime Baseball, as Justin shares how he fell in love with baseball, gives examples of perseverance paying off, provides insight into his entrepreneurial journey beginning at age 13, and his commitment to teaching the fundamentals and instilling confidence in the young players he trains.

What You’ll Learn:

07:08 Advice on detaching from the outcome and focusing on the process

08:09 Becoming an All Conference Player

12:55 His entrepreneurial journey beginning at age 13

15:07 Role of mentors and what he learned from one of his mentors, Brandon Steiner of Steiner Sports

18:25 The origin of his “What else” motto and how it translates to his life and work with youth players

20:02 JustinTime Baseball organization mission

23:42 Encouraging his players to be “brilliant at the basics”

31:15 How measurable “mini victories” help players build self confidence

32:32 Advice to parents on how best to support their players

Now, let’s play ball!

Read show notes here.

Show Links:

Website: www.justintimebaseball.com

YouTube- “Coach JustinTime”

Instagram @justintimebaseball

Email: justinsherman13@gmail.com

Phone: 914.420.8418

Born To Baseball Links:

Instagram: @borntobaseball

Facebook

Twitter: @bornto_baseball

Born To Baseball Podcast

Episode 012_JUSTIN SHERMAN_FOUNDER OF JUSTINTIME BASEBALL

The transcription below was provided for your convenience through an automated service. Please excuse any unintended errors made in the process.

Evan 0:00

This episode of born to 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.

Music 0:24

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.

Evan 0:40

Hey guys, welcome to the Born To Baseball Podcast. I'm Evan and today we have Justin Sherman on he attended Westchester Community College and he graduated from SUNY Purchase College with a degree in communications. He is a coach mentor and the founder of Justin Time baseball. Justin, thank you so much for being here.

Justin 0:59

Evan, I've done some podcasts in the last couple of weeks and months. This one I'm excited about.

Evan 1:07

Thank you. So when did you start playing baseball and what really inspired you to stick with it?

Justin 1:14

So, to play baseball, I really just I was very fortunate I had a beautiful gorgeous baseball field right up the street from my house. And the high school baseball team would always practice there. So in the morning, on the weekends, I would hear the Bing, bing, bing, the metal, you know, the metal sound of the bat. And I would always walk up and the coaches were so nice to me. This is when I was about seven, eight years old, I'd walk out my dad and and just even just take a bike ride up there myself and I fell in love with the game, the sound, the smell, and the coaches were extremely positive and supportive to the young kids in New Rochelle. And I'll tell you that's really what got me into baseball, as well as some great coaches along the way, which I'm sure we'll touch on.

Evan 2:11

Yeah, that's an amazing upbringing of the game of baseball.

Justin 2:15

Definitely.

Evan 2:16

Do you remember some of the teams that you played on when you were younger? And some of the coaches you had?

Justin 2:21

Definitely. So I'm sure you can attest to this Evan, but having great coaches could really mold what kind of baseball player you are, and what kind of person you are and help influence it And clearly, you've had some terrific coaches because what a what a polished, kid you are very polished and mature bond beyond your years.

Evan 2:43

Thank you.

Justin 2:45

so yeah, I mean, I've had some tremendous coaches. I've also had some coaches like, I'm sure you know, you're very nice kid, you can attest to it, that maybe weren't the best. As far as communication as far as yelling or whatever. I mean, you remember the good and the bad. So all of those experiences kind of molded what kind of coach I want to be I picked and choose, you know, and chose what I kind of liked what I didn't like, and kind of make my own little formula to how I mentor and teach kids. So, yeah, hundred percent i remember some great coaches and positive we'll never forget. So, uh, you know, I heard a great quote where, and, um, maybe this will register with you even if a kid forgets who you are as a coach. It's not their fault. It's your fault as a coach. So you always want to be remembered for how you impact that a player and how much you gave. And I'll tell you, I've had some tremendous coaches, and so have you, I'm sure, clearly so yeah, hundred percent.

Evan 3:45

Yeah, coaches have a huge impact on a youth baseball players life. So you really grew as a player in high school. Can you share a little bit more about your high school baseball experience?

Justin 3:56

Yes. So one of the many reasons why I love You and your podcasts is you're really geared to not just youth parents, but the players in your age bracket. And I hope this story inspire. Basically I got cut Evan from my junior varsity baseball team in high school, I was 14 years old. And I got cut. And I had to make a decision whether to even keep playing baseball, because sometimes in high school, the majority of the times if you stop playing, it kind of could be over just by statistics. But I basically just went up to the junior varsity baseball coach and said, Look, I want to continue to play baseball, what can I do to get better? So I ended up making the varsity baseball team by by the skin of my teeth, and I genuinely just needed to work harder, and made it and then ended up playing college ball and the rest is kind of history and I'm at where I'm at now as far as coaching but for your listeners, the story isn't necessarily Oh, to be a professional a baseball player because most people may not be I mean, I hope so I hope everyone listening could go for that goal, but the bottom line is just because something happens, you got to persevere. And you never know it's bigger than baseball it's a life lesson about perseverance. And I hope and that's kind of what I try to teach my players is perseverance, hard work, and dedication.

Evan 5:23

That's a really, really great success story. and perseverance is definitely huge not just in baseball, and just in life, as you said. Because of this pandemic, seniors aren't able to play their last year of high school baseball. So can you talk a little bit about your favorite memories playing high school baseball?

Justin 5:45

So it's another great question. So at that age, you're thinking like, oh, what's my batting average? Who am I gonna get recruited by because at senior year, I started to think like maybe have a chance to play in college baseball and I was like in the moment And I was like, oh, and what's my batting average and what's summer team and blah, blah. But the reality is looking back at it now, it's crazy to say 2010 years ago, unbelievable. I just have my 10 year high school reunion, which is incredible. The memories I have is not even like the actual baseball, it's the relationships, you know, I still have relationships with kids, I play Little League like you and older, the relationships that I built those memories, the joking around the, the team vibe. You know, going after practice going out to dinner, locally, like things like that is what you really remember most about high school baseball, and that's what I that's what I remember.

Evan 6:45

Yeah, those are some really, really great memories. And I definitely relate to that too just after a game after just team bonding is huge.

Justin 6:55

Right

Evan 6:56

It ultimately makes us better as a team.

Justin 6:59

Totally It's a win win, right? It's a win win.

Evan 7:01

Yeah. What advice would you give to players on overcoming challenges?

Justin 7:07

I was saying this to another coach the other day I was on the phone with him, you gotta detach from the outcome, Evan, meaning, you know, focus on the process. If you strike out, or if you pop up, or if you make the last out, you got to have the same mindset as opposed to getting the game winning home run, or a game winning hit whatever. Focus on the process, don't get too high. Don't get too low. And I'm sure you can also relate to this, Evan much easier said than done. But I think detaching from the outcome, Evan is really a great thing that helps us overcome adversity because baseball is a lot of failure. And we're going to drive ourselves crazy if we're constantly focused on the outcome as opposed to the process.

Evan 7:57

That's very true. And that's really good advice.

Justin 8:00

Thanks, bud.

Evan 8:01

So you became an all Conference Player when you were at Westchester Community College. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Justin 8:09

Yeah, so all conference at Purchase as far as lead the league and RBI's. I mean, we're talking seven, eight years ago, I didn't even make my junior varsity baseball team and now leaving the conference in RBI's. Again, I don't say that story to brag. I really just say it to show players that with hard work and perseverance. Anything is possible. Anything is possible. You may not be a professional, maybe you are. I mean, I know kids that are you know, have one kid that's that I've taught since one of my first students. He's going to be playing, you know, professional baseball in the Pecos league if it happens.

Evan 8:49

That's awesome.

Justin 8:50

So the moral of the story is hard work, perseverance, all the general words, but it's so true. It's hokey, but it's true. It was a cool thing, but again, going back to the high school days, like it's the same thing for college. I really remember the relationships and that's something if anything I could say to any kid listening, youth player listening. It's really and even times like these, savor the relationships, the statistics will come if you put in the work and get around great coaches, obviously, in Westchester and all over there's great coaches, but savor the relationships and the little things and being a great teammate and forming great relationships.

Evan 9:32

And after Westchester, you actually went to SUNY Purchase College. And there like you said, you led the conference in RBI's and you were appointed team captain. What are some of the factors and qualities that you have to have to be a team captain?

Justin 9:48

So that's a very good question. And you're very, very, very good at what you do.

Evan 9:52

Thank you.

Justin 9:54

So I would say I have some interesting takes on a captain I think You need to be not necessarily the best player. I don't think the best captains I've ever seen and watch or not even the best players Evan it's the players that lead by example, are good in the community and light up a room as far as positivity and are willing to show the way. You know, you look at a guy like Jeter, right? I mean, yeah. Was he a Hall of Fame baseball player, should have been unanimous. But what leader traits made him a leader- he lit up the room. He showed the way. He was magnetic, you know he had a presence. I think those are leadership qualities that a player could could take to the field right now. Being a good person in the community. Shaking hands. Well, maybe shaking hands might be frowned upon now but maybe A tip of the cap to your coach or whatever, just being a good leader in the community, be magnetic and doing things the proper way to me is even bigger than just being a great baseball player makes you a captain.

Evan 11:15

Yeah, that's, that's a really great way to look at it. And just captains they lead by example, they almost show the way and pave a path instead of following one.

Justin 11:27

Definitely.

Evan 11:28

And were you always a natural leader? just growing up?

Justin 11:33

Well, I'll tell you when I when I was, how old are you Evan?

Evan 11:37

I'm 12 years old.

Justin 11:38

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. So polished.

Evan 11:43

Thank you.

Justin 11:43

So when I was your age, maybe a little younger. I sound like I'm like a grandpa or something. But when I was your age, I would always have stickball games going I would always have football games going and I didn't really say I am the leader. I just kind of formulated groups of kids and just wanted to get things going and organize things I really never thought of myself as like a title "the leader" but maybe that was the beginning of leadership qualities and coaching qualities I always found myself playing with, like, kids older than me and kids younger than me. You know, like I would play with a kid who was maybe 16, and then a kid who was eight. And I always tried to include all of them. So that might have been like the formulation, the beginning of a leadership maybe coaching path. But yeah, I mean, I don't think it needs to even be a title. You know, it just kind of organically happens if that answers your question.

Evan 12:42

Yeah, that's really great.

So I know that you started your own DJ business at 13 years old, which is super cool. What inspired you to become an entrepreneur at such a young age?

Justin 12:55

So when I think of you I think of me and how I started this DJ business and I give you so much credit for starting and you have a great following. I was looking at your background before we talked and like, dude, you got some great guests. You got some major leaguers on here. It's awesome. It really, you should be very proud of what you've built. Yeah, again, I'm assuming and I'd love to hear your story at some point. But really, it was just a matter of we would go to bar mitzvahs in Westchester County and again, like I always loved like leading the kids and being the Pied Piper. And my buddy and I were just like, Look, let's just like start a DJ business. We had a boombox. We did one gig at a pool party for a five year old or something I think was like a five year old. And we did the gig. It was like a two and a half hour party. I was the DJ/MC with a boombox we made I think, like $25 each, which is money. Don't get me wrong, but You know, just at 12 years old your age, I just we just started doing gigs and our parents got behind us and it just took off. And actually, the baseball business has really tied into the DJ business where I would before the pandemic, I was DJ-ing bar mitzvahs for my baseball players. So-

Evan 14:21

That's really cool!

Justin 14:22

Yeah, it's been a cool thing. So I mean, I'm assuming it's a similar story to you. I mean, is that, did you just kind of think like, hey, I want to start a podcast, I'd love to know.

Evan 14:30

Well, really it started like, I've always loved baseball. And my dream is playing in the MLB. So I actually one day just started writing about it. And now it's evolved into interviews and now a podcast. So it's been a really great experience.

Justin 14:46

So cool. That's so awesome. It really is.

Evan 14:50

Thank you

Justin 14:50

I love it. I absolutely love it.

Evan 14:52

So I read that Brandon Steiner was your mentor from Steiner sports. He's an awesome example of a guy who's really worked super hard to achieve their dream. What are some of the things that you have learned from him?

Justin 15:07

So yeah, he's one of the many mentors. I mean, I could also say my parents, and you have a wonderful mother.

Evan 15:14

Thank you.

Justin 15:15

And I'm assuming not assuming I know she's one of your mentors is giving you that

Evan 15:19

Definitely.

Justin 15:22

my parents, Steiner, I mean, he has a quote that says, What else? And the term what else is like what other value can you provide? Not just as a coach, but as an entrepreneur also, like, during these times during this pandemic, I was thinking, kids are not getting physical education. So let me just create a phys ed class, you know, and it's always, just the point of what I'm trying to say is, everything in life is you can be an, everyone is an entrepreneur, meaning everyone has to think like an entrepreneur, even as a baseball coach, like how else can I get to my students, how else can I teach my students in a more effective manner? How can I be a better leader? You know, so you always want to think entrepreneurially like you're an entrepreneur right now, by starting this podcast, you're an entrepreneur. So I guess, to answer the question is being an effective leader, communicating and thinking what else can I do to better serve my players and be more effective and be a better mentor and also being a student, right? Like, I'm, you're 12 years old, I'm 28. I'm learning from you right now. Just like you're learning for me. You know, so, always be an open book. That's something Steiner says, and my parents say, and a lot of other mentors and always be thinking, How can I improve? How can I improve? How can I get better? What else can I do? How can I better serve my players? How can I, you know, give a better message and I always think after every practice, like, could I have done some different or I liked what I said here, I could do more of that, etc. So, yeah,

Evan 17:02

yeah, that's an amazing and really important way to look at things. And I love how you said like, everyone is an entrepreneur, whether it's baseball or actually a business. I really love that.

Justin 17:15

Yep.

Evan 17:16

And in your opinion, how important would you say mentors are for someone to have?

Justin 17:23

So I don't know who said this quote, but like the day you stop learning is the day that you're done. Basically, I don't want to say die that's very dramatic, but like, the point of the quote is like, you have to always be learning and be an open book and a sponge and absorb as much knowledge as possible. So if you can get around a lot of great mentors, a lot of these top notch big coaches, entrepreneurs, business owners, not just business but even obviously, the baseball world. The great ones are Usually willing to give their handout and like help you if you're willing to learn. So it's extremely important to have a mentor forever. I mean, the the every great coach I've spoken to had a great mentor. And that great mentor had a great mentor. It's just, it's the it's the foundation of life to have some kind of influence on you always revert back to somebody.

Evan 18:25

That's very true. So when you talk about your motto, I read that your motto is what else and you said like Brandon Steiner. He talked a lot about that. How did that sort of become your motto? Was it Brandon Steiner, or was it something else?

Justin 18:43

Well, so Brandon Steiner is a friend of mine, and I actually played baseball against his son and that's how kind of we got friendly. I played against his son in high school. So we always became friendly with each other through Little League. But I think the whole idea of What else is a bigger picture? Like I was saying before, like, you know, always trying to think, again, be a servant. How can I serve my players better? How can I provide as much value as possible because the giving as you know as what you're doing right now currently, Evan giving is the highest form of service you can do in life. So if you could serve your message, you know different ways and enhance it constantly and and cut and paste and improve and ship and cut something here, add something here. You're reaching your own potential. And that's what life's all about, right? life's just about trying to fulfill your potential. So I don't know if that answers your question Evan but that's, that's a long answer.

Evan 19:50

It definitely does.

So you're the founder of Justintime baseball. Can you share what Justin time baseball is and its mission.

Justin 20:02

I love it. So just in time baseball, if you're looking to go get recruited to play college baseball, I'll help you with that. But that's it's not really the core, the core of my business is to educate the foundation of the principles and foundations of baseball and softball. All doing that in a fun, positive environment through life lessons. Because baseball is like life. And there's so many parallels, and it's the most beautiful game. I think you'd agree with me, Ivan. It's the most beautiful game in the world. And there's so many parallels between life and baseball. There's so many downs, "downs" in baseball, which is really, if you think of it's really not a down like three out of 10 times you're a stud, getting three hits out of 10 times. You are a stud. That's like life, a lot of things are not going to go your way. You know, you may reach out to a guest. He may not get back to you so quickly. And it's not because you're not a great kid or you don't have a great podcast. That's just life. And maybe that'll happen on the next one. And maybe that one guest one guest that didn't come on, an even bigger ones gonna come on. So the point is, it's life lesson Justin Time baseball is positive. Obviously teaching the skills, like I'm all about, obviously, the skills and teaching we teach, but it's also through a positive self confidence, self esteem, and youth development all combined into one mishmash.

Evan 21:44

That's really amazing. And us players we weren't able to practice or play during this pandemic, what are you telling your players that you coach and you train, about digging deep and really finding ways to grow as a Player during this time.

Justin 22:01

So I think it's important to detach from the outcome, Evan, because I think we're all like, well, when are we going to play? Well, are we going to play in a week? Oh, well, maybe we'll play July 1, and maybe we'll but if we just detach from the outcome and just reach our potential every day, do the best you can every single day. I don't care what the scenario is. Do the best you can every single day with the hand the cards you're dealt. And just try to fill that gap. I always try to tell my kids try to fill your gap. Right. So if your gap is, look, I just want to do 20 push ups a day, I want to take 50 swings a day. Just do what you can to your potential to just be the best ballplayer you can be every day because the only one that knows when we're going to play is God. I do know that I could get better every day God willing and healthy, you know, with health and all that. But I could get better every day that's in my control. Like just control what you could control Don't worry so much about when you're going to play because guess what? There will be baseball. We don't know when. But when there is baseball be ready to play because the game is not going to wait for you. You know, the game's gonna be like, Oh, uh, you know, Johnny's not ready. So let's wait another month. No, they're gonna say look, this day it's comin' be ready. So just stay ready, detach from the outcome reach your potential every single day.

Evan 23:24

That's really amazing advice that you give your players and for the younger players like ages 6 to 10 years old. What are some of the basic fundamental things that they should really be focused on to get ready for the next level?

Justin 23:42

So you may laugh at this, but I think just straight up, catching. This might be the most hokey answer you're gonna get on the entire podcast from everyone you interview. Catch the ball, throw the ball, hit the ball. I think we overcomplicate the game. And I see a lot of kids that are even 15 Evan that don't properly warm up, don't properly throw and catch. Like there's a way to have a catch, right? Like you should be moving your feet when you're having a catch. You should receive the ball like if you're an infielder received the ball like you're an infielder, not just lollygaggin. So, I think perfecting the basics, if you look I go back to Jeter, he wasn't the most fancy player, but he did the basics exceptionally well. I think it was Vince Lombardi that said, be brilliant at the basics. What I teach is really not like I know there's the Rap Soto and and the Hit Trax and they're great tools. But the basics of catching, throwing, uh batting stance even like hitting as far as like where to put your hands. What part of the ball Do you hit? Do you need a big step Do you need a small step Very basic principles be basic, be brilliant at the basics of baseball I think, is very important. instead of rushing to the Rap Soto and the hit Trax and the ball flight, the bottom line is be brilliant at the basics, pick two or three things and get really, really good at it.

Evan 25:18

That's really great advice. And even for the younger kids and for kids my age and a little older, like we can't overcomplicate the game, because, there's a lot that goes on. But realistically, it's just catching the ball, fielding the ball hitting and just running the bases,

Justin 25:37

right and then you get into details, but ultimately the start. I really preach and this is something I love to coach is just the basics, get on a field. Work on the absolute basics if you go to spring training, and I'm sure you've seen spring training at some point. But watching it live, you can go to those back fields. They're working on the same stuff that a lot of 12 and 13 year olds are work now. And they just repeat it, repeat it, repeat it, repeat it being brilliant at the basics, I think is overlooked.

Evan 26:12

And what are some drills that you do to like help your, kids that you coach just develop like good hands and catching or the right batting stance and right bat path and stuff like that.

Justin 26:27

So there's so many drills and there's so many great coaches I mean, like I know we follow each other on Instagram like there's so many you know, I try to good artists copy great artists steal like, everyone steals from each other and they should like that's the beauty of just being on Instagram and talking to great coaches. I again, I revert back to the basics, like how about just hitting a ball up the middle on the tee? I know that sounds simple and like it's not a brilliant might not sound like a crazy answer. But I see so many kids even older that can't hit a ball up the middle. Now I'm not putting them down. I'm just saying they're looking to do other things like fancy drills. But when a balls not moving right down the middle, you should be able to hit five in a row dead center. Right? I'm talking even 11, 12 years old. You know, that's something that I try to tell kids right away is get center. The more balanced the more center and letting the ball get to you, the better you are. So there's so many drills but again, easy answer tee work. There's so many variations to work, catching and throwing. I think even at the younger age, I think sometimes a glove can be a distraction.

Evan 27:46

Interesting.

Justin 27:47

I think taking a glove off is good and just focus on your hands and not necessarily the glove and focus on the mechanics of catching the ball out in front of your body and being in an athletic position. I think that's paramount when you're first starting out as a as a fielder, I think that's more important than any fancy drill you could throw him.

Evan 28:09

who currently in the MLB would you say you want your players to really watch in study?

Justin 28:17

I mean, the easy one I know I've said his name like 100 times already but the easy one is Jeter but I know he's retired which is unbelievable to even say. I mean, a great guy is trout. I mean, how can you not watch trout I mean, he just handles his business. There's a video on on the internet a couple weeks ago, I love it was Mike trout at Yankee Stadium. And basically, he hit a ground ball to shortstop and you know, routine ground ball that like most major leaguers would probably just jog it out. But he beat it out to first base. He's the best player in baseball, he's getting paid $400 million.

Evan 28:57

Yeah, it's crazy.

Justin 28:58

And he was hustling out of the box. So, I mean easy answers Trout. I mean, it's gotta be trout and he's the goat. I mean, he's he's the best player in baseball hands down. So definitely trout.

Evan 29:10

He's a great player to watch and study. And like myself, I watch him a lot. And just the way he plays the game, the heart and the hustle that he plays with, and just, he's just a great player. What some advice and tactics that you give to your youth baseball players about really staying really focused

Justin 29:34

During these times or just in general?

Evan 29:37

just in general, really.

Justin 29:39

So again, I think it's like I said earlier, like it's detaching from the outcome, because I think we're so worried about like the next step that and the and the next play and that, how about like being in the moment that is a skill, like being mental, mental sharpness is staying within the moment. And being where your feet are. I don't know who said it. Someone said it but being where your feet are is very important. Like not trying to be a What did I do my last about? Or what am I gonna? What am I going to do in the box when I'm up? No. How about like each pitches a new pitch? Actually, I have one better I heard one coach he goes each at bat is a new season. What's the point here? The point here is being in the moment and focusing on what you need to do if you focus on your task at hand. That makes you a better ballplayer. That is a skill, it's not easy to do. It's easy for me to say it now that I'm not playing and just coaching but teach that find ways to teach that. And that's something that I try to tell my players is focus on the controllables that's something that helps I think keep kids sharp. Students sharp.

Evan 30:51

Yeah, definitely. That's a huge key to success. Just staying in the moment being able to, like you said, like focus where your feet are be where your feet are. So players at every level can struggle with self confidence. What are some of the things that you do to help your players build their self confidence?

Justin 31:12

Great question. So I know I'm going back to the same couple of things, but they all really revolve around each other. But, um, so yeah, bottom line is detached from the outcome. I mean, is a victory getting a hit? Maybe. But I think a victory in my eyes is crushing a ball on a great pitch, even if it's a bullet at the shortstop. You know, so detaching from the outcome in the process, and controlling what you can control. I know I'm repeating myself, but it really just all comes back to it. Having those mini victories like, Hey, I read that ball well on that pitch, hey, I hit that ball hard on that pitch. Maybe it got caught. Maybe it went over the fence, but mini victories And that's like life, right? I mean, like, you're not going to hit a homerun on every pitch, but you're going to have mini victories and that adds up as hokey as it sounds to, you know, the end goal of being the best you could be.

Evan 32:15

Yeah, that's it's really important. Parents, as you know, play a huge role in a youth baseball players journey and their life. So what advice would you give to parents on how to best support their players?

Justin 32:32

Ah, that's that might be one of the best questions I've ever been asked. I think you gotta just say I love you. And just and just be there for them because it even though it's your life and my life and we love it, and we breathe and you have this great podcast and I do this for a living for business and stuff like that. Meaning like this. This is my life, my my baseball business. It's a game You know, it's a game and like, just love your kid and accept it and be there for them. You know, I think that's something that's so important and distinguish the difference between you being a parent and you maybe being their coach. You know, like one hat is different than another hat. And I think by you trying to be both at once, it's kind of like it gets jumbled. Be there for your kid love your kid, because it's really a game and it should be fun and, and if they have their parent, that's like adding extra pressure. It's not a good recipe for success. So love your kid, be there for your kid and as simple as that. I think that's important.

Evan 33:46

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What would you want your players to take away from their experience with working with you?

Justin 33:56

I want my students to obviously get better. I'd be I'd be lying if I said, I want you to come to a lesson to not get better. Right? Because I mean, my my, I believe I provide some skill to teach your player and my program the teacher players, but I want your student to enjoy coming to us, my coaches may whoever and whoever's in whoever you work with, whether it's me or one other coach with me, I want them to enjoy it. And if they learn something, and felt good leaving meaning like they felt like a boost of confidence, and they got one or two nuggets out of that lesson or that program or that clinic or whatever it is, that's a victory for me. You know, and I think that's something where there's a lot of coaches that kind of just go through the motions and like, if you show that passion, and if you give them that confidence booster, that one little nugget Feel like you did your job as a coach.

Evan 35:03

Yeah, you're making you're making a difference in a lot of people's lives right now.

Justin 35:08

That's it. That's that's that's my whole goal. That's my whole mission.

Evan 35:11

Yeah, that's a really great mission. That's a really really great mission. So Justin, where can our listeners go to learn a little bit more about you and reach you

Justin 35:22

so you can go to my website at just in time you know, www.justintimebaseball.com Instagram as you and I communicated through justintimebaseball is my Instagram. You can go to YouTube type in Justin Sherman baseball, Twitter, Coach Justin time baseball, all that and just old school you can email me Justinsherman13@gmail.com or call me (914)-420-8418. If you need anything, practice, kids swing question about what to do whatever. I just want to help us Many kids as possible, I mean, the one beautiful thing about this whole experience if there's any positive out of this whole thing is I've reached kids throughout the country where I never really would have found them because of zoom. You know, we all know zoom now. So if I can help as many kids as possible, that's all want to do just be a positive force. help kids get kids better work. You know, if you're working hard, you work hard. You want to learn, you know, you're going me.

Evan 36:27

Yeah, that's, that's truly amazing. So, Justin, thank you. Again, thank you so much for joining me today.

Justin 36:35

You have an extremely bright future, you should be very proud of yourself, thanks for having me.

Evan 36:57

Thank you all for listening in. We really hope you enjoy On this episode, be sure to hit the subscribe button and be the first to know when new episodes launch. Check us out at borntobaseball.com for free resources and new gear, and of course on social media @borntobaseball where we can connect live now let's play ball

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Born To Baseball Website

BTB Travel Team & Training Tracker

Episode #011: Frank Rodriguez- Former MLB Player/ SUNY Maritime College Coach / Founder and Coach 33Rodz Baseball

June 2020 By Evan

Ep. # 011: Frank Rodriguez- Former MLB Player/ SUNY Maritime College Coach / Founder 33Rodz Baseball

Join Evan and Frank Rodriguez as Frank shares his baseball journey, his experience playing at Youth Service League with future pro players like Manny Ramirez, how he found motivation through adversity and how youth players can do the same and how developing a strong mindset helped him as an MLB Pitcher. Frank also shares the mission of his organization, 33Rodz Baseball, his coaching philosophies and his experience coaching at SUNY Maritime College.

What You’ll Learn:

01:20 Frank’s baseball journey

06:42 A lesson he learned from Manny Ramirez

09:00 Finding motivation through an unlikely scenario

13:15 Managing pressure through good preparation

15:12 Slowing things down

20:57 Striking out Derek Jeter

21:47 Using the numbers to learn from failure

29:22 Coaching philosophies

35:51 Balancing game time with training/ development

Now, let’s play ball!

Read show notes here.

Show Links:

Instagram: @33rodzbaseball

Websites/ Programs: https://www.33rodzbaseball.com

Born To Baseball Links:

Instagram: @borntobaseball

Facebook

Twitter: @bornto_baseball

Born To Baseball Podcast

Episode 011_FRANK RODRIGUEZ_FORMER MLB PLAYER_SUNY MARITIME COACH_FOUNDER AND COACH 33RODZ BASEBALL

The transcription below was provided for your convenience through an automated service. Please excuse any unintended errors made in the process.

Evan 0:00

This episode of born to 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? Then you have to check out the BTB triple t tracker at borntobaseball.com Make sure your team is represented. Let's go.

Music 0:23

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.

Evan 0:38

Hey guys, welcome to the Born To Baseball podcast. I'm Evan and today we have Frank Rodriguez on. Frank was a relief pitcher for six years in the big leagues with the Red Sox, twins, Seattle Mariners and Cincinnati Reds. Frank won the Dick Howser trophy in college and is one of two JUCO players in history to win that award. Frank is the assistant coach for SUNY maritime college privateers baseball in New York and the founder and president of 33 rodz baseball. Frank, thank you so much for being here.

Frank 1:06

Hey, brother, thanks for having me, man, this is a great thing to do and staying in touch with baseball and keeping everybody in touch with it.

Evan 1:12

Thank you. So, when did you first realize that being a professional baseball player was what you wanted to do?

Frank 1:20

Oh, man, I'm like a firm believer of you shouldn't be we live in a different era. Now. Now we post about all the good things we did. You know, now you know, it's different when I played we didn't have so social media and stuff like that. So I was just a firm believer of let other people talk about how good you are. And you know, you know, one time I was just I just happen to be somewhere and and I heard somebody dad talking about just talking about me, he didn't even know who I was. He just just I was just standing there talking, you know, just hearing him talk and I was just I started understanding some of the things he was saying. I was just like, wow, you know, maybe I know from different people's eyes, maybe I do have a chance at this because that guy was a well respected person that knew a lot of people that played professional baseball, and he compared me to some big names. So it sort of sank in in there. And then, with all the hard work I put in, I knew I was gonna go as far as I could with baseball, you know, just given the chance. That's all I needed. And I got my chance and I took it and I ran.

Evan 2:20

Thinking back, how intense was your like baseball practice baseball routine, when you were 10 years old, through like 13 years old? And then how did it change through high school and college?

Frank 2:32

Well, intense, I would say it was as as intense as I wanted it to be because I found myself even after practice, I would go to a handball court. If you grew up in New York, there's handball courts. It's a big wall and I worked on pitching I put a strike box up, I worked on actually hitting a ball off the wall, dropping the bat picking my glove up, catching the ball, worked on different things that I needed to work on. So there were some days I worked on specific stuff and you know, I didn't leave or I didn't go home until I figured, alright, I have a better idea of what I did. And then when I got older in high school, you know, in summer ball, I was able to pay for an organization called Youth Service league. A lot of guys, a lot of pro guys have come out of that league, the latest big name was Dellin Betances and the structure in that league, and in that organization was before you become a great baseball player, you're gonna learn responsibility and accountability. And that, you know, took me to a new level where I started to understand the hard work that you put it in, you know, it also affects other people, if you do or you don't, because if you're not putting in that work, and you're going out there and you're making errors, now that pitcher that worked really hard on something, now he has to throw more pitches because you made an error because you weren't working on things. So I started to look at it like that. I started to worry about more of I need to get myself better do that I'm better for my teammates. And then it just, it just all clicked within. And it just became a habit. It was just nothing that was just like, ugh, I gotta go work on this. No, never, it was like, I gotta go work on this so I don't let my teammates down.

Evan 4:13

That's a great way of looking at things and just being able to know like, let me help my team. It's not for me, it's for my team. So ultimately, you can all get to a better place and exceed in baseball. So you also mentioned that you played with the youth service League, and you won a national championship when you were playing with them. So what impact did organizations like these have on you as you were growing up?

Frank 4:41

In my era, which is a long time ago. You're so young man. You're awesome for doing this because you make me feel younger, too. But you know, when I grew up in my era, there were so many good baseball players. You know, there were so many good baseball players that never even made it to professional baseball. Like if they were in this era of they would be all stars, they would be like, drafted and go instantly to triple A. That's how the pool of players were in the era that I grew up in. And I, every game that I went to in high school or played in, there was always somebody that was on that field, or maybe even three or four guys that were as good as me or maybe even better. So I saw I saw that as an opportunity for all the hard work that I put in off the field, for it, that opportunity to be, you know, I'm helping my teammates out but yeah, here I have a chance to compare myself with that. And now with the youth Youth Service League, we got a chance to travel, not really travel. It was like you had a win a tournament in Brooklyn and then you go out of state to travel. That's the way it was before. And when we got that opportunity, now you start comparing yourself to Okay, maybe I'm good in New York, now we're going to Massachusetts, let's compare yourself against the best of Massachusetts and then New Mexico. How good are you now because now you have hundreds of teams. coming in from all states. So being in that tournament really helped me a lot because it put in perspective of, You're good in New York, but there's guys working as hard as you if not harder in all the other states too. So that's how it impacted my life. I was able to early in my life see that, you know, New York is not the only place and you're not you're not the best player in the country. You might be in New York, but you know, there's a lot of great talent out there in the country.

Evan 6:29

Are there any other players on the team you played with in the youth service league that eventually made it to the Major Leagues?

Frank 6:37

Yeah, one in particular, I played with Manny Ramirez. I played with him for about three years of summer ball. And, you know, a small story about Manny is like, there was one time that he came in from, because we practice right after school and some of us traveled and lived like 45 minutes to an hour on the train to get to where we practice that and he just happened to just lose his Sox somewhere along the line, he was like, I don't care that's not gonna stop me from practicing. And he practiced in his cleats with no socks. At the end of the practice took his shoes off and was bleeding. He didn't care. He was like "I felt good today I put in the work that I needed to put in". So Manny was a great player like that and he never, he just never let anything get in his way and I saw that and I was just like, "man, your talent aside Manny, I love the way you go about the game". And that's something I took a little piece of that and I added it to all the hard work that I put in and I was just like, I'm not gonna let any little circumstances deter me. It's raining outside so what I'll just get a sponge ball, I won't mess up a leather baseball and then boom, and boom, and I'll work on it. I'll put on a rain coat. So yeah, Manny Ramirez I played. It's weird because the last year that I played with youth service, there were like about six or seven kids drafted from that team. No, it was it was

Evan 7:51

That's amazing!

Frank 7:52

Yeah, it was good competition to have, not only to have next to you to compare, but you might even play against these guys at some capacity in minor league ball and it was great. And I played against Manny. I played against Manny for three years in minor league ball too. So it was it was fun catching up with him. But that was really one of the big name guys I played with in summer ball.

Evan 8:15

What was the thing that motivated you the most to play in the big leagues and really excel at something you love.

Frank 8:22

Alright, so the exceling part comes from within, you shouldn't need any motivation to want to excel at anything and that's if you want to be a doctor or lawyer, anything that has to come from your heart, you got to want to do that, at the time where it may seem the most difficult. That's where you got to decide whether you're going to continue to do that or not. So that's motivation aside, that has to come from your heart. The biggest factor the biggest motivation, I definitely say was the night before I went to my junior college in Howard Big Springs, Texas. Um, I got a call from the Red Sox. So long story short When I got drafted, in the era that I got drafted, you were the team's property until the following draft. Now it's either you sign when they draft you, and then that's it, you're not their property anymore. So I had a full year to sign. And the night, the night before I left the college, which happened to be the last time they could actually make an offer to sign me and then they couldn't talk to me until my college season was over. You know, they really low balled me on the offer. And the words that really stood in here and never left that other ear was "Come on, take this offer you're a kid from the projects, and nobody in your family is ever going to make this amount of money. And it was just like, I still say the story night and then I get my hair standing and I get angry sometimes. But that was definitely a motivating factor for me, to say that nobody in my family would ever make that amount of money, because I grew up in the projects and to take this offer and this is what we're going to give you. I understand it was from the business side. So fast forward, I signed with the Red Sox. In spring training that year, I happened to meet the guy that was on the phone with me and said that and he was like, Hey, listen, Frank, I just want to say sorry, it was just the business side. I don't know how you took that. You know, Rumor has it you weren't happy about that. I was like, No, thank you, because you motivated me to, like really get after it every day. Just hearing those words saying nobody in your family will ever make this amount of money, that was a motivating factor for me to really bust my butt every day.

Evan 10:31

Sometimes you might get angry or upset or frustrated. using that to motivate you can be a big factor in success. I feel and even just from your experience, it makes it all the more true. So you went to Howard junior college and you won the dick Howser trophy. Your team later went on to win the Juco World Series. So that must have been an amazing, amazing experience. How did those accomplishments help build up your confidence going into, um, was it the draft that you, you went back into the draft or you signed with the Redsox

Frank 11:10

So I ended up signing like maybe six hours before the deadline. So it was funny, like after we won the junior college world series. So the junior college world series was in Grand Junction, Colorado. So we had to take a bus for about 20 hours back to Texas. So every five hours, and I'm going to tell you, this is going to show you how old I am, there weren't any cell phones. So we had a stop every every five hours at a gas station, not only for gas, so that I can I can call my agent and say Hi, how's the number going and stuff like that? Is it good? Is it where we want to be? So I signed you know, I signed eventually before we even got to Texas, but um, yeah, like I gotta say, it prepared me for professional baseball because a lot of people will say this, you know, oh, trophies don't mean anything. And I'm a big advocate of that. Because one of my one of my slogans is development over trophies, but when you win a trophy, at the highest level of where you are not just summer ball, not just high school, or when you're at that college level, I feel if your next step is professional baseball, and you've won something like that, a college world series, whether it'd be junior college or the NCAA Division 1 World Series, it's an accomplishment and it prepares you for pro ball because now you know how to win. And then you remember everything it took for you to win, and all the hard work that you and your teammates put in, and that's what you go and you expect going into pro ball. Because pro ball is a little different. There's there's different ways people think but if they know that you were a winner of something so high like that, not only do they respect you, they start wondering How does he do things. Look, he's a winner. Look at what he's doing to get prepared for games and you know, it helps your teammates out a lot and it might even help the opposing player as well. So having having won in junior college meant a lot to me, but it also prepared me for pro ball.

Evan 13:12

And how important was preparing to you throughout your career

Frank 13:16

well preparing is... I was, I have this one thing about me that my uncle always, because my uncle was always at my baseball games. He was the one guy, he always said to me, You never look nervous. And I feel like, you know, I understood. I never looked nervous because I felt like me being prepared off the field in practices I felt I worked so hard on my practices, that the game was just easy. All I'm just doing is just repeating what I did in practice. So I was never nervous because I was so prepared for my my game situations. So any any professional baseball player will tell you, when you get to Pro Ball, there's a lot expected of you and there's a lot expected of yourself. Now, you want to make your family happy that you can, every year you can try to get to the next level and then eventually make it to the Big leagues. So there's a little bit of pressure. But that pressure just falls off your shoulders by how you prepare for games, how you're taking the information that happens during your games, and you prepare for the next outing with all that information because being prepared is so important. Obviously, anybody will tell you. But being able to trust how you prepare is always going to help you during games.

Evan 14:35

That's, that's really great advice. So you were drafted as a shortstop but ultimately became a pitcher. What were some of the drills and workouts that you did to prepare yourself to succeed as a pitcher?

Frank 14:48

Well, I always pitched I always pitched even in high school and in summer balI I pitched. Once in a while We played that really good team and all the other starters were already just used and it was just my turn. I pitched so it wasn't like I didn't pitch and then now all of a sudden I learned how to pitch because I pitched in college as well. But as far as drills for me, I didn't really break down too much. But sometimes I just slowed things down. Like in my bullpen sessions inbetween my starts, I just slowed things down. I saw a video of Matt Scherzer in the outfield before a game, no ball, no glove, just going through his motion really slow and and finding his release point. So I sort of did that but with my glove and my ball, and even throwing so I just slowed everything down. So as far as mechanics and what specific drills that I did, for me, the only drill that I really did was just slowing everything down and feeling everything, you got it? To be able to feel something that's instant feedback for you. When you throw a pitch and it felt this way and it was a good result. Well, heck, you better feel that same way again and try to feel that same way again, same thing hitting, same thing fielding. It's all about how you feel. So for me, I felt slowing things down was good for me.

Evan 16:13

That's really interesting. That's really, really great. So is there like a favorite drill that you had? Was it slowing things down? Or was it something else that really helped you?

Frank 16:25

Well, I wouldn't say I wouldn't say a drill I would say more of a routine. So after I got to the point where I started slowing things down before I got on to the mound, to start my whole bullpen stuff, my routine was a certain number of pitches here on this side, a certain number of pitches on this side of the corner, a certain number of pitches down the middle with my off speed, a certain number of pitches in slide step certain number of pitches, I actually took my time and I looked back like there was a runner at second. I worked on all those things so that when it came in the game, it was nothing new. Because a lot of announcers whether their former players, they throw out this thing, well, he hasn't pitched from the stretch yet all game. But I always did inbetween innings in the bullpen before, inbetween innings even though if I had like three straight innings, where I didn't have any base runners on inbetween innings I was working on if I did have a base runner on. So my routine was always something that was gonna happen in the game. I prepared and I put it as part of my routine. So when it came up, it was just, I already did it. It wasn't a surprise.

Evan 17:32

And like, do you stress routine to your youth baseball players and just players that you work with now,

Frank 17:39

you know what I do stress? As far as routines, as far as drills, I say find something that works for you. Find something you enjoy doing. Find something you don't enjoy doing, and then compare and whatever is going to help you get better. That's what's gonna make you get better. Because there's certain trainers that train this way, there are trainers that train this way. And there are coaches that teach this. And there are coaches that have philosophies of teaching this way. You gotta be able to take a little bit from everybody. And in the end, if a coach tells you, this is the way I want you to do it, and you feel uncomfortable doing it, you got to start finding something that works for you along those lines of what he's trying to teach you. It doesn't have to be exact. But you got to find something that works for you because you got to be happy doing it. If you're doing something because you were told this is the way you have to do it. You become robotic, you lose that feeling of Wow, this batter came up, and I felt like he was looking back, maybe I should call my catcher out here. Or maybe I should throw a curveball at him and get them to duck out the way and then break back in the zone. All the stuff that is going to be fun for you. That's what you have to find, something that's going to be fun for you, because the minute this game is not fun, is the minute you don't want to put in that hard work. And when you don't put in that hard work, somebody else in New York or out of state is and now they just jump over you.

Evan 19:12

That's really important. That's really, really great. So, as a pitcher, sometimes you feel that the outcome of the game falls in your hands. So, I read about a game where you struck out four batters in one inning. Could you walk us through that experience? So

Frank 19:33

So, I have the video posted on my Instagram And again, if you talk to my guys, my 12 year old team,they'll tell you I never talk about anything about MLB, Oh when I played, no never. So they were like "Frank put up a video I saw this my dad showed me a video of you" he was like put it up. Okay, I'll put it up. So if you see the video on my Instagram it's weird, because after I struck out the second that I was just like, I banged my glove. Everybody that knew me they were like, after I posted it they texted me like, why were you angry? I said because that second batter I threw like 13 pitches to. I was already exhausted. So I struck out the third batter on on a wild pitch that I felt the catcher should have blocked because he knows how I throw my sliders and you as a pitcher know that you have to have trust in your catchers and the catchers have to know how all your pitches are breaking and expect it. And then you know. That's like we spoke about earlier having a little bit of anger and helping you and motivate you I was like you know what, I'm gonna try to strike this guy out just so I can just say I did it. So it was like a little personal goal for me and it worked out I struck out that fourth guy and it was it was actually fun. So yeah,

Evan 20:44

it sounds really really fun. Small little bragging rights right there. I actually know that you struck out Jeter on the last strikeout. So how was that?

Frank 20:57

Um, that was another game in Seattle that I played against him. I struck them all like three times in that game. And at the end of that game, one of my good friends a high school teammate of mine, he was like, you know why he did him dirty like that? I was like, Hey, man, I did. I was thinking about you. I no that's your favorite player. And then I was gonna call you after the game, but you called me first. And I was gonna say, I got your boy. But listen, it's the Major Leagues man. You know, it's giving up a home run is exciting. You don't show it as a pitcher, striking somebody out as exciting walking onto the field exciting. Being able to say you play even though if you played less than a year or played a week is exciting. So every experience is exciting. But you know, when you get an opportunity to strike out a Hall of Famer, it's something you could, you could write and put in your books and tell your kids when they get older. So it's fun.

Evan 21:47

Yeah, sounds like a lot of fun. So what advice would you give to your youth baseball players on how to bounce back when something doesn't go your way?

Frank 21:57

Well, anybody, anybody Please baseballs and knows that, hey, let me throw out a number there's 10, right? There's a 10. at bats, the best major league players are going to get three hits, maybe sometimes, very rarely four. So there's seven times that you're going to be out. Now you break these seven times down out of the seven times, how many times that I hit the ball hard. If it's four out of those seven, you got to understand you did everything right seven out of those 10 times. So the numbers are equal percentage that way, that way, that's where data is very, you know, putting out the information is important. 10 starts if you're a pitcher and you have 10 starts, I'll tell you right now, you're only going to have your best stuff, probably three times out of those 10 times. So now in those seven times, how are you going to figure out how to get by without your best stuff. If you got by three or four out of those out of those seven times. Now you've had three great times you've had your great stuff. And four times you didn't have your great stuff, but you pitched well. Now that seven out of 10. So numbers at the end of the day numbers don't lie. If you can write some information down and refer back to it, it always helps you. Because at the end of the day, results or numbers don't lie or results matter. But if you're putting yourself in a position where you're doing everything, right, and then baseball just takes over line drive right at somebody, you can't do anything. And you got to be not so much you have to be happy about it, you have to understand like, okay, I did everything right. On to the next at bat. Short term memories is very important in all sports. So especially in baseball, because you fail so much. But you have to learn something from every little failure that you might have, because it's important,

Evan 23:47

unfortunately, but at the same time, it's almost fortunately it's, it's a game of failure. But it's baseball can even like it can even help in life. Just knowing when I fail there's still another opportunity There's still another way to succeed.

Frank 24:03

Yeah.

Evan 24:03

In youth baseball, you have maybe two, three coaches in the dugout at a time. But when you move up to college and really in the major leagues, you have five, six or even seven coaches in the dugout at a time. What value does each coach bring to the players in the dugout, and during the game? And how do players manage all the advice that they're getting from each coach?

Frank 24:30

Well, the value is different for everybody because you have you infield coaches, you have your outfield coaches, you have your hitting coaches, you have your pitching coaches, and then usually your infield coach is kind of like your base running coach as well. So everybody looks to their their guy, if you're an alpha, you're going to go to your outfield coach, if you a hitter or your everyday player, you're gonna go to you if you're struggling, hitting go to the hitting guy. Same thing on the pitching guy. So there's there's coaches that are, you know, there for a reason they're doing specifically help you with a position or something in the area the field of you may be working on. So the value is important. The value is important because they are there specifically for you and to make you better, and how you how you process the information that they give you and how you apply it to your next pregame workout or your pregame routine and then in the game is really all up to you. So the value is there for you how valuable you want to make that information is up to you how you apply it on the field, because that's important. Everybody could fill you with information, I can give you 10 different things you did wrong. But if you take one or two of those things, and you make it work for you, you're going to be better on the field. You can't think about 10 things on the field. So having a coach that in your specific area is important. So that's why I see so many coaches on the field at the major league level because they're getting paid a lot of money to help these players that are getting paid a lot of money. So They, they want their you know, as an organization, you want to be successful. And that's how you do it. You have a lot of coaches helping out.

Evan 26:08

It makes a lot of sense. Moving up to the majors, how much more time and effort did you have to put into your training? And as well as your mindset.

Frank 26:20

mindset is important. Because the firt your first time out on the big league field, your mind is going to be all over the place. This is my dream come true. How many people are coming to watch me do I have my friends in the stands? I don't want to let my family down. I don't want to let my teammates down. Once you get past that. You've worked so hard to make it to the Major Leagues that all you have to do is just go and do everything you've done. Then make adjustments because the best players the most elite players at any level travel ball from 10 to 12. travel from 30-18 College Pro, the most elite players make adjustments from pitch to pitch from inning to inning from at bat to a bat. And that's the most important thing being able to adjust. And you quickly learn how to trust your hard work. The training becomes a little bit more specific when you get to the big leagues. Because in the minor leagues, you have some coaches there you have some strength and conditioning guys, but then when you get to the big leagues, now it's amplified. Now they want you to succeed so, so so much, and help their team win so much. Now they're going to give you every tool to get better. So the training becomes a little bit more specific, but nothing like that's going to blow your mind. But it makes you focus a little bit more when the training becomes specific and it's not a trainer, just training the whole team. You have a trainer training just the pitchers you have a trainer training just the infield is trainers for outfielders, catchers, it becomes very specific. So as far as the training you might need and how different the training might be in the big leagues, it's just more specific, more fine tuned. And, you know, it lets you lets you get past the fact of, am I physically prepared, then you deal with the mindset, the mindset is just all that work that you put in with that trainer allows you to be so comfortable in your talent. And then all you have to do is be is just execute everything you've practiced on on the field, whether it's travel, college, or professional baseball, or the major leagues, execute everything you've ever done well, and then even then you're not something might happen. You might throw a great fastball on the inside. And it might be a blooper, RBI game over. No, but at the end of the day, you can only do what you can do so baseball strange like that.

Evan 28:57

And yeah, youth baseball players. If you're listening Be sure to take note on that, that that's definitely going to help me and you guys in your game to help get better and really just excel at the game of baseball. Obviously, you work a lot of a lot with the youth. Can you talk to us about what 33RODZ is, and its mission?

Frank 29:21

So 33RODZ, so 33 is my uniform number rods is an abbreviation of my last name, Rodriguez. So when I retired, I decided to give back all the knowledge that I have appear and physically to all the kids that I was coaching at the time. So I had a coach with a couple of organizations and, you know, I like some things I didn't like some things. Same thing will be here. And I decided I'm like, why don't I just do this in my area, instead of traveling so far to coach let me just do this in my area. And then my mission statement with 33RODZ is just the focus is yes, we want to win trophies But that trophies is going to the trophies are going to be a result of everything we did. And our practices are very specific. Our practice of practices are written down notes that we're going to work on everything we did wrong the last tournament or the last game of the tournament. So this specific stuff that we work on in practice, gets them ready for everything they're going to do in their life. prepares them for that test they might take prepares them to get them ready for the right High School for them, prepares them to get them to the right college and having the parents understand that the mission of 33RODZ is not nationally ranking recognition. It is the joy that I'm going to get as the organization leader in getting your kid where he needs to be high school or college. That is the end game. I do not even have a shelf all the trophies we've won. I don't even keep them. What I do is I take the little plaque part of it, I put it in a book and a habit to keep them and I show the kids, hey, this is what we want. What do you want to do? Let's keep adding to this book. What are you going to do to prepare that to that book? So it's just teaching them. Like I said, in the beginning of this interview, when I when I learned accountability and responsibility, it helped me It helped me a lot. And that's during practice. If one guy doesn't understand something, I point at another guy, and I'm like, what, how can you explain this better for him? So I have everybody just understanding. We all have to come together. Because if one guy is not understanding that one guy might not do well on the field, and then now we're all going to feel bad. So the mission statement, in summary, is just getting everybody prepared properly for the field, off the field, the right schooling, and we've even taken a bunch of trips to some boarding schools that was an opportunity that some parents never even thought they had. But it opened their their mind up and the kids loved it. Because you know, to go off topic a little bit going to those boarding school trips, you know, being away from school being I'm sorry, being away from your parents in a school where you have to take care of everything on your own. Now that prepares you for college, because when you go to college, you're by yourself. Nobody is waking you up in the morning. So that's something that the parents never even thought about. So that's all the things that we work on a 30RODZ and just, I'm not gonna sit here and say we're the best organization, but I try to separate myself from different organizations are the things that we do for the kids to be prepared for school.

Evan 32:41

That's a really, really great mission. And I really love what you're doing with your organization. You brought up two of the foundational pillars. I know there's five. it's sacrifice, commitment, selflessness, and then the two you mentioned accountability and resiliency. How do you pull these through with your team?

Frank 33:10

explaining, explaining I don't care if I have to stop practicing explain something for 10 minutes. I explained how this is gonna help you win a game. I explained how if we have a pickoff play up the middle on a daylight play if my center fielder and guys and my outfielders are not paying attention that walk or go to the gap, and if they do it wrong, we'll sit there we'll do it again. Just so they could understand. If you study something for a test, if you're studying the night before, and you have a fear of you didn't study enough, hey, study a little bit more. Study just a little bit more because that's going to help you. So the resiliency part, and all of the parts of the SCARS acronym for me is just about letting them understand what all of it means and I like to compare a lot of things that happen in life to baseball, because a guy makes an error, even in practice, I'm just hitting ground balls and the kid makes an error. I'm like make an adjustment. He makes the same error again, I'm like, hey, make an adjustment. He makes the same error again, I say, Okay, let's compare this, you have a job right now and you made an error. Your boss, your boss brings you in, and you talk about it and you understand. Okay, now I know what I need to do. I'm sorry boss, I'll get it right. Next time you make an error. The next meeting you're going to have is your pink slip, you're going to get fired, you're gonna get fired from your job if you're not paying attention and making adjustments. So that's how I make them understand by just breaking it down very, very easy and comparing things to baseball and life at the same time and, and they get it. And it's funny, because once I say everybody bring it in, they're gonna go Oh, god, what is this story about? When am I getting fired? And I'm like, Yeah, exactly. You're gonna you're fired.

Evan 34:58

Yeah, It sounds amazing how you like make it fun and at the same time have everyone learn and really just just prepare them for life and as well as baseball. So you're a coach at SUNY Maritime College in New York, can you tell us a little bit about your coaching experience at that college?

Frank 35:19

So it's a it's an engineering school. It's a you know, there's marine biology, there's international trade and transport. It's it's a school that has a lot to do with the business industry on the water. And to me, it's been a wonderful experience. Not only is it my first college coaching job, I feel like the kids at that school, their mentality, because of their very specific degree that they're gonna get. It requires them to have a level of concentration hitting the books studying and on the field. Because, yes, their relief on the field is from their schoolwork but they know that the instant concentration that it takes, because of all their work, they have to apply that on the field. So so it's a little bit easier for them. So the type of players we get and maritime are guys that are dedicated, are guys that understand how to listen, apply, adjust very quickly. And overall, just great kids, great kids there at the school and part of you know, our alumni, they always come back and they miss it so much that it missed the you know, the team. And it's just been a wonderful experience so far for me there and I just don't see myself going anywhere else.

Evan 36:41

It sounds like a really great environment there. What are some things that youth baseball players should be doing today to increase their chances of success at the college level?

Frank 36:53

Well, any good coach is going to tell you, you can leapfrog somebody As far as academic money and money that might be given to you on the baseball side by having a great grade point average, having a great SAT or ACT score. So my biggest advice to you is really get comfortable being in those books because baseball is great, you could do a thousand drills, that's great, and you could get better and you could be the best player in the country. But you're not going to go to the school that you actually want to if your grades are not where they need to be. So grades are very important. And the earlier you start, the easier it becomes at every level because at every level, meaning when you're 10 when you go to high school, and then when you finally get into college, you've already had that, that whole routine of being able to study hard and my grades are important up here and understanding that that all you gotta do is just make adjustments I need to study an hour and 15 instead of 45. That's all it is. You Put that work in now, not only on the field, but in the school and in your books, things will be so much easier for you. I promise you that's that's the biggest advice I can give you. Hit those books.

Evan 38:13

That's that's really great advice.

Frank 38:15

Your mom would like that you know that?

Evan 38:20

Definitely. So in your opinion, in youth travel baseball, what do you think is the right balance between time spent playing games and time spent developing and training? The youth baseball players? That's a good question.

Frank 38:36

Um, I feel like I have. I'm very fortunate and I'm not just saying that because it's just I want to make my organization look good. But out of the 13 players that I have, I have 13 parents, 13 sets of parents that understand the goal is I'm not just giving you money to play tournaments. We are all in this because the goal is to get into the right High School, into the right college. We're practicing two or three times a week in the summer. And then we don't have tournaments every weekend. So then now, we might even practice on a Saturday and Sunday. So that's five days out of seven, that not many organizations will do. But we're just going over practice things that we need to get better at. So that next tournament, we're prepared, we'll go over a bunch of times, not only just ground balls and flyballs, we'll go over everything that needs to be done to be prepared. So I feel the development side comes from definitely playing games, but practices are so important. And I think that you know, another important aspect of the game is to write down some information, write down have some stuff that you can not only have on the kid, and what he needs to do to get better, but that information you can apply to your practice because who's gonna like, you call a practice and you're just gonna work on just what a pickoff play, how about we work on... All right, (Johnny, you're over here. You didn't throw many strikes. In your bullpen I need you to throw 10 pitches, I need seven of them to be strikes). So you know, something specific like that is only going to make them better because now, not only to the parents, now the kid understands, okay, I didn't do this well, and I'm working on it. Now. I'm not just going to go through a practice and just forget about what I did last tournament. You can't do that. You gotta have a short term memory but you also have to understand what you didn't do well, and how to get better, because that's important. So tournament after tournament every weekend. I'm just not a big fan of it. Practice is so much more important, specific practices, because anybody could just put together a two hour practice. But how specific and attention to details you pay into practices will always pay out in tournaments.

Evan 40:44

Hey, well, I appreciate your opinion there. So now I want to move into the rapid fire questions. So you ready? What's the toughest hitter you've ever seen

Frank 40:57

All of them. It's the major leagues, they're all tough.

Frank Thomas.

Evan 41:02

So you're from New York City? What's your favorite pizza place?

Frank 41:06

Oh my god! A-1 pizza, Lower East Side, Manhattan

Evan 41:10

And what was your favorite pitching appearance?

Frank 41:14

Probably my first one in the Red Sox. I didn't do well. But it was just great. Everybody's just cheering my name actually, because I was the prospect coming up and it was my first outing. It's fun to hear people share my name.

Evan 41:25

So what kind of things are you working on that you would like to share?

Frank 41:29

Personally, I'm just working on right now getting some people to invest in me in a facility so that I can have something year round and I just want to keep just feeding kids with information and getting them better so they're prepared to go to college and just do well. And you know, a facility is something good to have because no matter what weather you have you always have somewhere to go.

Evan 41:51

Where can people reach out to you and learn more about you?

Frank 41:54

Well, the 33 rods on www.33rodzbaseball.com, that's our Organization website. I'm also on Instagram @33rodzbaseball. And I would say honestly, if you're an upcoming player, you should pay attention to my Instagram because I post a lot of stuff for youth baseball, college baseball and some pro stuff. So, a little sarcasm here and there, but that's needed.

Evan 42:21

Well, Frank, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. And I just really appreciate it.

Frank 42:28

No problem brother, I can't wait to face you again because I'm not pitting against you because you're always kill us so we're walking you. And w're gonna try to pick you off.

Anytime brother

Evan 42:41

Thank you all for listening in. We really hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to hit the subscribe button and be the first to know when new episodes launch. Check us out at borntobaseball.com for free resources and new gear. And of course on social media @borntobaseball where we can connect live. Now, Let's Play ball.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

COMPETE! Training Program

Episode #010: Dr. Tom Hanson- Sports Psychologist/ Founder of the “Play Big Academy” / Author of “Play Big” / Co-Author “Heads Up Baseball / Executive Coach

June 2020 By Evan

Ep. # 010: Dr. Tom Hanson- Sports Psychologist/ Founder of the “Play Big Academy” / Author of “Play Big” / Co-Author “Heads Up Baseball / Executive Coach

Join Evan and Dr. Tom Hanson as they discuss some of the key concepts in “Heads Up Baseball 2.0” co-authored with Dr. Ken Ravizza. Dr. Hanson shares insight into his personal baseball journey, what he’s learned from interviewing some of the “Greats” like Hank Aaron and Pete Rose and his experience working with professional athletes. The skills and tools Dr. Hanson teach truly prepare a baseball player to be their very best in baseball and in life.

What You’ll Learn:

02:29 How Dr. Tom Hanson got started in Sports Psychology

05:48 When he began working with MLB Teams

10:15 Being your own real life “MLB The Show” character

15:23 Players he had the most fun training

19:40 Uncovering what made Derek Jeter good under pressure

23:40 How players can use an internal “Green, Yellow, Red Light System” as a guide

26:01 Using “Breath” to slow the game down

31:25 Being self aware; Know yourself

35:51 Explaining the RAMP-C Process in “Heads Up Baseball 2.0”

41:31 What it means to “Know It, Do It, Own It”

45:16 Advice to Parents: Strategies for “debriefing” with your ball player after a game

52:33 Power of Visualization

55:41 How being a Heads Up Baseball Player also makes you a better Teammate

Now, let’s play ball!

Read show notes here.

Show Links:

Dr. Hanson Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/headsupbaseball/

Twitter: @HeadsUpBasebal2 @DrTomHanson

Dr. Hanson Websites/ Programs:

Play Big Book: Mental Toughness Secrets That Take Baseball Players To The Next Level

Heads-Up Baseball 2.0

Dr. Tom Hanson

Born To Baseball Links:

Born To Baseball Website

BTB Travel Team & Training Tracker

Instagram: @borntobaseball

Facebook

Twitter: @bornto_baseball

Born To Baseball Podcast

Episode 010_DR TOM HANSON SPORTS PSYCHOLOGIST_FOUNDER OF THE PLAY BIG ACADEMY_AUTHOR OF PLAY BIG_COAUTHOR OF HEADS UP BASEBALL_EXECUTIVE COACH

The transcription below was provided for your convenience through an automated service. Please excuse any unintended errors made in the process.

Evan 0:00

This episode of born to 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? Then you have to check out the BTB Triple T Tracker at borntobaseball.com Make sure your team is represented. Let's go.

Music 0:24

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.

Evan 0:39

Hey guys, welcome to the Born To Baseball Podcast. Today I'm here with Dr. Tom Hanson, who's coached baseball players ranging from Little leaguers to world champions for over 35 years. Dr. Hanson earned a degree in sports psychology from the University of Virginia. He was a professor and head baseball coach at Skidmore College in New York. He's worked with many professional sports and business organizations as a performance enhancement coach and consultant, including New York Yankees, Texas Rangers and Minnesota Twins as well as Microsoft and Verizon. In addition to co authoring heads up baseball with Dr. Ken Ravisa, Dr. Hansen authored Play Big "Mental Toughness Secrets That Take Baseball Players to the Next Level". Thank you for being here.

Dr. Tom Hanson 1:24

Your welcome. Thank you for the introduction. Sounds like an interesting guy.

Evan 1:31

For sure,

Dr. Tom Hanson 1:32

I'm looking forward to see what he has to say.

Evan 1:35

So I actually first learned about you when my parents bought me a copy of heads up baseball 2.0 with Dr. Ken Ravizza, and that was that was a great book. Like once I was finished. I had I told my parents I have to go back and read that again.

Dr. Tom Hanson 1:48

Oh, yeah. You read the whole thing.

Evan 1:50

Yeah. It was really great.

Dr. Tom Hanson 1:52

That's, that's great. That's great. There's a because it's not a small book we decided to include err on the side of inclusion rather than making it you know, minimal. And so I respect that you that you read that whole thing because it's also designed where you don't have to read it all you could really just pick it up and read a quote and put it down. But it really is designed to go start to finish.

Evan 2:19

So I'd like you to share a bit about your journey. So what inspired you to become a sports psychologist and how did you begin working with different athletes?

Dr. Tom Hanson 2:29

I would say I got into it because I was really good at baseball when I was young. And then not good enough to go beyond college. I ended up playing division three ball I had some great experiences along the way. One of the biggest things for me was I was always really good because I was big and tall. So I say that not boastfully but just because I because I didn't work for it. I just was just came out and and could hit and play the game without having to work at it, and then what I ran into a ceiling my junior year of high school I really thought I should have been playing and I wasn't. And so that next winter in Minnesota or I grew up in Moorhead, Minnesota, I worked at it I bought a couple books, the "Science of Hitting" by Ted Williams and the "Art of Hitting 300" by Charlie Lau and I went down my basement and I swung a bat swing this big brats bat, you know, this big, there's a way to read that I swung that took a big chunk out of the pool table we had in the basement. And on one of my own it's an outside pitch. Took a chunk out of the pool table. And I came out that year and then just crushed I just mashed the ball set hitting records and home runs and and it was really great. But I still wasn't really good enough. No one was around me was going to division one school and I kind of said okay, I'm going to Division Three school. I went to Luther College in Iowa and my next big event, there was a well, two things one. Well, that happened in this order. In my Chist- during Christmas break during my sophomore year of college, I had to declare a major and I didn't know what I wanted to major in and I literally sat down at my desk at my home and said, Okay, what do what do I like? And I said, Oh, sports. So I write, okay, sports, and then my, my editing head was like, Okay, well, what's something real? I said, Well, I had this psychology class, basic requirement, and I really, I liked it. I liked the teacher. And I liked that they just were really telling me stuff that I already knew just putting names to it. So it was, it was pretty easy for me. And then two weeks later, so I said, Okay, I'm majoring in psychology. Two weeks later, I was in a bookstore. And I see this book called sports psyche, which I can see on my shelf right over the top of my computer here to this day, sports psyche. It's like oh my gosh, there's a field called sports psychology. And so I then wrote some letters because nobody at Luther and then 1982 really knew about sports psychology and so I wrote to where there were graduate programs and came back if you really wanted to work with people who were having trouble and you want to help them be normal go into psychology and if you really want to help people be great. Go into physical education, what became kinesiology? So I took that went to University of Illinois, fantastic time there really learning about how to help people play great. Then I went to-I wanted to be with the best so then University of Virginia for my PhD because there was a guy named Bob Rotella and I thought he was the best and it was fantastic experience to learn from the best. Backing up though, back to this other experience at Luther, that was so pivotal to me, was that which is in decor, Iowa, we finished last place my freshman year of high school, I started every game, but we got last place.

Evan 5:47

Yeah.

Dr. Tom Hanson 5:48

And then, but what we had was great leaders. We had these three guys from my sophomore year, that we're really strong leaders and they're like, come on, man. We can do this. We can do this. We'd have get togethers. And, and we talk over things. It's like you know who's better than Joe Knight at second base in this conference? Nobody! And who's better at third base and Layton Whistie? Nobody! And we got Jake Comin, we got Scooby. And it's like, let's go. And darn if we didn't win the conference, we went from worst to first and went to the regional. We had a goal to have our coach be the conference Coach of the Year and he was regional Coach of the Year.

Evan 6:27

That is amazing.

Dr. Tom Hanson 6:28

It is because I mean, we had talent, so it's not I heard you say skills and mindset. And so it's it wasn't just that we had meetings and talked about it. We had some good players. But we did go from worst to first and won it those next three years while I was there, and then it was another 20 until they did it again. And so just seeing that, oh my gosh, that power of leadership. It wasn't the coach changed. It was the power of leadership. And and of teamwork that was pulled together with everyone focus in the same direction, staying focused on a on a together on one target is just a has massive power to it. So that's one of my principles is stay on target, pick a clear target and stay on it. And that's what we did. And so that's sort of how I got into it here. So I can go more into, you know, further on with my history, if you want. Pick it up from there, but let me see if if you have any questions on, on what

Evan 6:28

yeah, I mean, if you could share a little bit about your work with some major league teams and then just professional athletes and teams.

Dr. Tom Hanson 7:40

Yeah, gladly. So just to round that out. After Virginia. I went to head baseball coach and a college professor at Skidmore College in upstate New York, was there for seven years and then decided to leave cuz I really wanted to work more with athletes and executives and I moved to DC and then I worked with the Texas Rangers and I worked with With the twins, and then the Yankees called up, and that's how I moved down here to Tampa 2001. And that just lasted that one year. And I've been here ever since. So those that was my working with, you know, this is just the general history of from where I'm coming from. And in there I wrote Heads Up Baseball, as you mentioned, in 90s, and then Heads Up Baseball 2, and Play Big. So I would say working with professional players, a good story. I mean, it's really about freedom. And it's really about freedom. But I kind of liken myself to in my highest version of myself, sort of sports, Abraham Lincoln, about emancipation and freedom because athletes, like myself and everyone else, really we tend to limit ourselves with the beliefs that we have. I can think of a player, I can't really think I can really name him. But back early one of the early ones when I was with the Rangers, who had been in the minor leagues for seven or eight years, and was really struggling and always would get hurt and get into this in that, and as we talked about mindset, and how he saw himself something as a victim, like, oh, things are always going wrong for me, and why did this happen to me and this guy did this. And this guy did this, always looking outside of himself at what was going on. And through our conversations, he shifted that and able to be like, you know what, I'm responsible for this. I've kind of been in what I would refer to now as a trance, like you go into a trance, and people think of trance of like a hypnosis and Oh, you're going to go dancing with a broom or something. But we go into trances all the time, pretty much all day, every day. It just doesn't seem that way. You don't you know, think of it because your experience and so it gets It's a mindset of like a call of being a victim, which he was being to being a player, which means he's creating from the inside and said, You know what, here's how I'm going to be as a player. And it's as if you take on a character. I liken it now very much to like when you play MLB the show?

Evan 10:19

Yes, I have it.

Dr. Tom Hanson 10:20

Yeah. And so at the beginning, you kind of pick the strengths, and then therefore weaknesses of the guy and you create this character, or the computer spits out a default one, right? You just jump in, and there's your guy, or you can go in and give them a beard. Oh, and long hair, and this bat strength and this foot speed and so forth. And so that's, there's the default, and then there's the one that you create. And with this guy, it's like, you know, what I'm going to create myself is this guy. And I'll even go with having people create character names for who they are, when when you're being a victim? What's the name for that? And I don't we can't even say on a podcast. And and then when you're really who you want to be your highest version of yourself that you selected and that you developed and trained, who is that and give a name to that person. And then it's really he this guy shows like, I'm going to be that and just a light bulb went off. And off, he went to end up being in the big leagues and being on a World Series winning team. He just really went to from living in sort of a nightmare. riding the bus. It's in the minor leagues to live in the dream, winning the World Series, and having that's really, really strong, major league career.

Evan 11:48

Yeah, that's really awesome. That's a really great success story.

Dr. Tom Hanson 11:52

Yeah, thanks. Anotherone that comes to mind. Is is really fun where this guy recently mildly guy was was really struggling and and every time he went 0-4, he would go for extra work in a batting cage and try to fix whatever was wrong. And what we talked about was like maybe there is nothing wrong other than you're just playing baseball. Baseball is hard at any level, much less professional level. And so why don't you find a way to go back and evaluate your at bats and see really if there's something for your hand path needs to get fixed. Something with your hips or your waste or your this or that, because that really can lead you down a rabbit hole and then it's just one thing after another. Again, it's a fundamental mindset of something's wrong. And I got to, I got to fix it. If you're coming from something's wrong, there's nothing that will fix it. Because you think something's wrong. It's a it's a mindset. It's like being in a pool, you go into the pool, let's go and pull down here, Florida, not one in New York at the moment. You're wet. And you can't really make a dry move. Because you're wet. If someone throws you a towel, that's how you dry off, right? Well, you're in the pool. So everything's gonna be wet. And so you get that that's a mindset of like, hey, something's wrong with me. Then you're, you'll just move from thing to thing and never get it. And so this guy cracked that. And it's like, oh, let me elevate which is one of my main principles also is to understand how we're designed as humans, that we have thoughts and feelings, but we are not our thoughts and feelings. There's somebody inside there that's watching the thoughts and feelings. And so he got really good at elevating and looking to Oh, look, where my mind goes right now is I want to fix something. I'm over for him frustrated, so there must be something to do and that I need to fix. And he could watch that and say ah, Look at that. Look at my mind go that way. And do I really think there's something to fix? No, I don't think so. So let's go watch Netflix or something to get myself at peace. So I can have clarity and calmness which is much more important than trying to fix his hand path not that not that. Mechanics aren't important physics applies to the world. It's just that really you want to have access to your talent. So that's how I would summarize is what I do with this whole like blinking thing is it's helped people have access to their talent, you can't play better than you can play. I couldn't help you play for the Yankees this afternoon. Right? Come on, Evan believe. Believe you can hit 95 on the black and no. However you having access to your talent means I can play this well. And I do play that well. But most players that can play x, well, and they perform it x minus n, where n in some, some measure, they play below that. And that's more of the mental game thing is access to your ability, then doing something impossible.

Evan 15:23

Wow, that that's really great. So, is there one athlete or team that you had a lot of like the most fun training lists and why did you have like so much fun with them?

Dr. Tom Hanson 15:37

Well, I love that question, because that's what I most want to do. When I was with your beloved Yankees, it wasn't that fun. It was a dream come true. That wasn't that fun because they kind of weren't ready for it. It was a little bit more than they were ready for because some I didn't play by their standards. I didn't play me. I didn't play professionally. I played through college. I was. I was I was an all Iowa conference player. And so it was sort of like what's Dr. shrinky doing here and it got it can easily fall into Hey, if something's wrong with you mentally go talk to Hanson. Second, you're gonna imagine how long the line at my door was for that. And so that wasn't that much fun. Even though there were great, great highlights. You know? What, why would I? Because it because what I really want to have is, is fun. And so what's funnest is when someone's really into it, I've got a player. I got a player that comes to mind. It's a softball player, high school softball player, that it's like, well, I'm number 25 in the country. And I want to be number one. What do I need to do? And it was fun. It's like, she there was nothing she never didn't feel like there was something wrong with her. It wasn't my Like, oh, I'm ready to quit baseball I have the yips if you see my site yipsbegone.com, I work with a ton of players and still do major leaguers to 10 year olds who have trouble making a simple throw. I get more of that than what this where this one was coming from, which is like, I want to be the best. And that's what's fun when I when I have those, that that's the funnest. It's deeply satisfying to help someone out of a slump. But like this person, I made a video for her a visualization exercise where she would then see these better and better and better versions of herself in front and then go more of her and then morph into and go into imagine what that's like. See what you'll see here, what you'll hear, feel what you feel when it's even bigger and better version of you. And then I get these texts ah You know, how's it going? Great. And then I talked to her even, you know, there was apparently not even a month, Well, I've done it every day. And sometimes twice. And it's like, that's fun. Because then you've got someone that's, that's really into it and you can, you can really blast blast off. I was talking with a golfer yesterday in England do a lot of stuff on zoom like this. And he just has really taken the stuff and run with it clear out a lot of negative emotions. I do some interesting stuff with tapping and other kind of what's called psycho sensory modalities, not just talking, and not even just visualizing. Certainly using the breath and routines and the stuff that someone would normally think of it's sports psychology, which would be in heads up baseball. A lot of stuff that I do most of isn't in the book. Because here's the here's the thing. Most of the stuff you hear about in sports Psychology, the routines and the breaths and so forth is about tools that will help you deal with stress that comes up, or anxiety or fear, or maybe even frustration. What I'm most interested in is having that not come up. That makes sense. How do you know Derek Jeter? I love Derek Jeter got to talk with him a lot. And I liked it because you know, quick Derek Jeter story. Yeah, Mike. Besides when I robbed him of a home run during batting practice, reached up over the fence was funny. But since you're a Yankee fan, right, they're ready for their Jeter story.

Evan 19:45

Yep.

Dr. Tom Hanson 19:46

So I'm sitting on my couch in 2000 ish. And watching him up to bat some playoff game. They're down by a run, and he's up to bat. And I'm sitting there on the couch and I'm watching him and it just comes to me. It's like You know what he looks like a little leaguer. And like, with all due respect, as in, hey, looks like that 12 year old kid that can just rake that's like, Oh no, Jeter's up backup. And he steps up and he's all wiggly and like, Whoa, this dude is confident and this dude is gonna, he's gonna hit the ball. Every thing about him, said he's gonna hit it. It might not be pretty when it wasn't, you know, the most beautiful swing, often, but all he's gonna frickin hit it. I'm just gonna get it done. And sure enough, he did. And they said they scored a run and you know, they win. And so a year later, I end up getting a call and I I'm working for the Yankees. And I'm helping people transition from triple A to the big leagues. So what do I do? I talked to people who've done it and say, How did you do that? That's mostly how I've done my career. My research for my PhD was interviewing Hank Aaron and Rod Carew, Stan Musial, Carl Yastrzemski, Pete Rose, Tony Oliva the best the great hitters head and said, How did you do that? And then I help other people do it. It isn't, you know, I was in Division Three, athlete myself. But I'm sitting there talking to Derek Jeter and I said, How do you do that? How do you be really good under pressure? And he was pressure. I said, I go, Yeah, like 50,000 people in the playoffs and they're all screaming and everyone's going. He goes, ah, because that's fun. Really is it? Yeah, he goes more I go with 50,000 people, because yeah, more people's more fun. Really? So he said, Yeah, you know, to me, it's just like little league. And I, oh, my gosh, I can't but my jaw just hit the floor. I can't believe you just said that. Because I told him my couch. Part of the story. He's like, yeah, so you see, the point there is that he saw the situation as fun so He wasn't in need of all the routines and everything you read when you read Heads Up Baseball 2.0 that those are great to have and I'm all for him obviously I teach them what I want you to people understand is that much bigger than that it's like iceberg that's what's on the surface much bigger is the belief system underneath. And the key distinction underneath belief system is is this a fun challenge? Or is it a dangerous threat? If you're up to bat and you feels like a dangerous threat? Well then you better have bunch of stuff to go to be breathing and routines and focal points and all all that stuff. And if it's like this is fun, oh my gosh, like like a wiffle ball Hey, you know Evans up back up, you know, Evans like here and it's like, oh, did you do your pre pitch routine? Well, me, well, you maybe did but not something You're conscious stuff. You're just up there waiting.

Evan 22:55

Yeah,

Dr. Tom Hanson 22:55

ready to just mash. So there I don't know. I mean, I don't know. Well, that is true. I also don't know. I can talk very authoritatively, about this. And then every person is different. And every situation is different. So what I just said about somebody might be the opposite for someone else.

Evan 23:19

I know you also bring up the philosophy of the internal, like lights like, green, yellow, red, and knowing which one you're at. So how can you youth baseball player determine what they're feeling in? Like real game time?

Dr. Tom Hanson 23:40

Okay, cool. That's a super cool question. Well, one is to hang on to being 12. I'll answer your question in a moment. But the bigger thing again, is, why do you play baseball? For fun, right, and it's more and more kids like your age might never even play a pickup game. sad is that can be might never play in the street or someone's backyard, or that everything to the left of second base is foul, because you only have three guys. Something like that. That's, that's beautiful. And I, and I wish that for everyone. And that's the fun, the spirit of fun. And it can be such a dangerous time right now for your sport because it's so parent focused and structured that you can lose that to number one thing is that thing fail in a fun, like, you know, I'm gonna mash this ball. Think of that as a green light. When you're watching your parents drive. They go up to an intersection. If the light is green, they just go. And so each pitch in a game is like an intersection or crossroads. And so you can check the traffic light that's inside you. And if you're feeling good, like Yeah, let's go ahead and bring it. I'm going to mash this or pitch. It's like this ball is going right there. You're about to sit down brother That's a green light. You're feeling good. yellow lights. Whoa, I feel not sure it's all speeding up. It's like it's going faster. I feel nervous or everyone's yelling and no, that's done swing at that high one. Devin that was over your head. Come on. Oh, like I didn't know that. So that's a Yeah, that's what I call a yellow light. And then a red light is even just worse. You're freaking out. It's all speeding up. You're having trouble breathing. So if you think of having this traffic light inside of you, it's like, how am I feeling? Your thought goes in? Am I really feeling I'm feeling good? Really good. And if you're feeling good, roll on, off you go. But if you have any kind of yellow light, you feel a little unsettled. That's when you can go to the different tools. Because now we're in the moment you're not going to be able to sit and say, Oh, just have fun. You can say that. But it's a lot easier said than done. And you can't just tell someone Hey, Derek Jeter just had fun you go have fun. It's a much deeper process in that to do what I call inner lens crafting, which is the work to get someone to see things differently. That's back on that fun challenge versus a dangerous threat. But you can use a breath and that would be the number one thing I would say for someone to do when they're on the field is to take a breath. So when you're in the hole, take a few deep breaths in, out. Slow it all down like that to three or four breaths and if you're really nervous, do it in the dugout, before you're in the hole. And then well you probably in the hole and leak. I mean, you're probably in the dugout the whole time. So then really breathing. If you feel boom, your heart's beating, it's like oh, Evan, you're on deck. Oh, you feel that in your body. Go to your breath. Inhale. Ideally through in and out through the nose but you may have too much adrenaline going to him excited to keep it in and out through your nose. So that in and out Your mouth is fine, but to see if you can bring it down to your belly but you might not be able to do that go into your chest The best thing to do is to practice it like right now you're listening in and then out and really finish it. You read hits a baseball you know, Mike trout said, Oh, like main things you got working with Ken Ravisa the finish his breath, be outside the batter's box, finish his breath, finish the exhale and then step in. Because it sounds good. I'll take a breath in as he's breathing out, he steps in, good, let's go. And that's it's all speeding up the breath can really slow it down, use the breath to slow the game down. And really then lock in on on what you need to do. So I would say use a breath And I would say be really clear about something simple that you're up to do. What when I said I interviewed Hank Aaron, Rod Carew, Stan Musial, Pete Rose most of what they said I go, is, Hank Aaron, what were you doing? No. First of all, what do you mean he was doing? He's hitting know, what were you in that batter's box to do? And he said, I wanted to put the fat part of the bat on the ball. Stan Musial. He's the number two all time total basis leader, you know, total base. homerun? , four, four, right. Double. Oh, so that's six. And so the all time leader is Hank Aaron. And he's, he is like 12 miles ahead of Stan Musial so it's just insane. here and how did you do that? And then he told me, and Stan Mutual's number two guy, I talked to him. What were you doing in the back batter's box. And he said, Well, I always knew where the fat part of the bat was. And I want to put it on the ball. And I would, and I was like, Yeah, but come on what else Mr. PhD wants it to be more complicated, but that's really what he was doing. So if you so helping a 12 year old, or a 32 year old Major Leaguer, I would say, really go to that breath. Really go to the breath. And then be super clear on something really specific, fat part of the bat on the ball. When I'm pitching, this ball is going right there. Take your breath, visualize the ball going there. And then just trust just let it go with the visualizing like say for a pitcher here is sort of like when you go out to eat, you'll sit here's a menu and say, Okay, I'll have the ham and cheese sandwich. And then they go and they make it and you just trust them to make it and bring it to you. So you can think of the visualizing is saying, okay, body. I'll have a fastball there please with You know the dressing on the side? And then just let your body throw it.

Evan 30:06

Yeah, that's, that's really, really great.

Dr. Tom Hanson 30:09

Thank you.

Evan 30:10

We know that our bodies and our results will match what we're thinking about. So how can we implement that and what does really being self aware mean?

Dr. Tom Hanson 30:25

Well, that's a way above average question Evan. Being aware is mean being conscious of in the book would give an example of like, think of your the big toe say on your right foot right now. And then wiggle it. Now it's in your consciousness awareness means in your consciousness. It doesn't mean you're thinking about it. It just means it's in. It's occurring to you. So what I would technically say since you're going to ask a big league question can get big league big words, it's going to, like it's occurring to me. It's in my field of consciousness. Where as now, it it. It wasn't. But now it is. But while I'm talking like this, maybe even lost your big toe, now bring it back. And now think about what you had for dinner last night. What do you have for dinner last night?

Evan 31:24

Had some soup.

Dr. Tom Hanson 31:25

All right, cool. And then you just lost your big toe, right? Because you went, your mind had to go back. But now your big toes back. So that's awareness is having it be in your consciousness, having it be sort of in play. And so being self aware, means having a lot of consciousness of how you actually roll. in baseball. I'll liken it to go back to MLB the show since a lot of guys listening would have played that. It'd be like okay, you're on base and knowing You're a speed guy, or knowing that you're a big slugger, and you're not gonna steal this base. So just click ahead and get around to your next at bat. Whereas, like my son loves to steal bases. And so he always gives himself a fast guy and steals bases. So it's really knowing what you're good at and what you're not good at. It's my own challenge, and I work with it with executives at the same just to broaden it out. Like what are you really good at? I like this term. This guy Dan Sullivan has your unique ability. What are you uniquely? good at and then really do that? You know, I had a chance, for example to and this is again, how good your question is. I have my son hit with a couple of big leaguers. I know these guys are in town here so we were able to take my 16 year old son to go hit with Kyle schwarber the Cubs and Oscar Mercado. The Indians, and I pulled him aside both those guys individually and I said, hey, my son 16, what do you got for advice? And they both said the exact same thing. Know yourself, you just got to go and be yourself. And so it's a question like, Well, what does that even mean? It's like, well, if you fast yet, well, then don't try and hit home runs. Have you ever hit a home run, no but I really want to, okay, well, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to do that. Maybe it comes on like Mercado is a great example because he's hitting homeruns now and he's in his mid mid late 20s, I think. And he didn't, I mean, he's a fast guy. So he needs to be square the ball up and and then get on base and steal the base and take an extra base on something and then score on a ground ball know yourself and, and really focus on being That, that which you are, I mean, it's, it's endless. I could talk all day about what it can mean to be aware, but people mostly aren't very good at it is what else? So I'll say one thing Joe Maddon, now of the angels told me that he's astonished how often, Major League players don't know what pitch they hit best. They'll ask, Hey, where do you Where do you hit the ball? The best? I don't know, is the fastball no So I mean, like we're in the strike zone. Where did you swing? Ah, I don't know. Or even sometimes, okay, hit the home run. What did you hit? I don't know. And, and so it's, it's really knowing yourself, and it just could really go on and on. So I'll just I'll liken it back to this though. Just to kind of wrap it together, is when you're at your best, with a name for that character. Like the beast or The man or what other ones if I had just like, you know, unstoppable or Mr. fun you know, you could put Mr something on it and just make it up like it's a character like a Marvel character. And then when you're at your worst, I'm cry baby or Mr. Weiner, or Mr. Why me or my god and then okay well that's now you become self aware you can the same you it can be this or this and then the power comes into what choose not get good at choosing you know, Mr. Wonderful get good at choosing and being that guy and deliberately going out and doing that. So.

So there that's my answer.

Evan 35:51

Going back to the book has a baseball 2.0 you outlined a process called RAMPC where the C stands for compete could Tell us a little more about like what RAMPC stands for.

Dr. Tom Hanson 36:03

Yeah, it came. Because I like models and I like to have a conceptual structure for things it's like so it wouldn't just be random things. I've mostly I've kind of thrown out somewhat random things here so far. And I didn't want to do that. I want to have it be a book that has a where it all holds together. So we talked to Ken and I talked who passed away now two, almost two years ago, year and a half ago. It's still hard to believe it. And it'd be like, okay, responsibility and awareness are these to be responsible. Choose your own thinking, instead of just being on default. Choose I'm going to be Mr. Wonderful. I'm not going to be Mr. whiner. And so that's choosing I'm going to constantly choose. So that's at the heart of the whole thing. And then awareness. Ken was just So huge on this knowing it's it's two parts of awareness. One is knowing yourself and how you generally are. I spoke to that someone, and another is knowing what's going on in this moment. And so what you want to be able to do is be good at that. So that's R and A responsibility and awareness. What's another fundamental. Mission. Just a sense of clarity. This is what I'm going up there to do. Like I said, Aaron fat part of the bat on the ball, that's a mission he's on a mission to put the fat part of the bat in the ball. ARod said that was his mantra just repeated I I hit the ball solid. So what he said I hit the ball solid. What do you do for them I hit the ball solid. And so that was his mission for hitting in a bigger can have a bigger mission in terms of being a major leaguer something it can take different points but having a clear target. So we said that was big, and then a preparation is huge mentally prepare. Getting yourself ready is to compete is a huge part of it. Because sometimes guys get in I used to throw a lot of batting practice. I could tell a guy got in, was he really ready to hit? Or was he hitting to get ready or was he ready to hit? And so, mental preparation Are you ready? To Get ready. So that's ramp. And that was we actually picked these and then I realized that it formed a word. It wasn't that we wanted to ramp up to compete, it was just luck, really. And then C, ramp C, by the C, you can see we didn't go out of our way to make it RAMPY or make it one word, because then the whole thing really becomes about competing, see is compete. And that's what we found people were most missing when we talk to college coaches and ask them what they pro coaches. What is what do you mean what's missing in today's athletes? They don't compete. It's a showcase mentality. It's a you know, what can I do? But they don't get out there and compete. So we really oriented the book toward helping people compete because it's not the mental game is not about thinking my early days at Skidmore as a head coach coming out with a new fresh PhD. It the guys under, I it's like, Hey, you guys did a good job with your breaths. And you did you routines. And yeah, we lost 13 to two. But you, you worked your process, it's like, well, no, that's not it, that you got to do it with this will to win. People say, Oh, he's about the process. And I would also say no, it's not. It's about playing to win. And I'm going to focus on my process, but with it in my mind that I'm here to win. That's the goal of the game. Now the purpose of baseball is something whatever you want it to be, but the goal is to win. So to be in integrity with the game, you play to win within the rules. So That's that's how that was RAMPC and kind of how it came to be.

Evan 40:05

Could you like sort of define competing? Is it like just giving 100%? Or is it that willingness to win?

Dr. Tom Hanson 40:15

When I asked Ken what it all boiled down to, for him after probably 40 years of doing it, I know had to be. Yeah, maybe more. So what is it all boiled down to because we'd have these conversations on the phone and record them. And that's how we wrote the book. And he said, getting 100% of what you got right now to win the next pitch. So what do you have right now? I feel tired. I feel like Okay, can you get all of that? energy and focus commitment to executing your mission on this pitch? That's competing.

Evan 40:48

I know you guys. You talked about if you have 60%, that day giving 100% of that 60% to win that next pitch

Dr. Tom Hanson 40:57

Exactly, exactly. Because it's so to focus on how tired you are, how can I don't, I can't feel my swing today, I just, I don't feel right. I don't feel good. This guy struck me out the last two times. And then if the all the energy you have on that is taken away from putting the fat part of the bat in the ball, if that's your mission, and so whatever you do have to say I'm clear on this mission, I'm going to execute it. Even though it's almost laughable to think that I'm going to touch the ball, I'm still going to be locked in on executing that mission.

Evan 41:31

So we know that quality, preparation and practice are really important because it helps us reinforce what we're learning build confidence and be consistent. know it, do it and own it. Are the three steps a system that you teach. So can you tell us more about the steps and how they're different from each other?

Dr. Tom Hanson 41:49

To Know and know something intellectually? Hey, I, I should have a routine and and breathe or I I'm gonna have fun We could go back to jeter. Oh, yeah. See? I should have fun. That's right. Like if I if someone said, Hey, Dr. Hanson, what should I tell my son about to have a good mental game? I'd say, well go and have fun. And it's correct. It's just that that's a concept. And it's like knowing how to do push ups. I know how to do push ups. But it doesn't help doesn't change my body. Unless I do push ups. I got to do the push ups. And then that's doing it. We got know it and then do it and then own it. Own it would be in pushups would be that I know what I need to do. For my push ups. I'm not listening to someone else about how to do a push up or how many I should do. I know for myself, this is what has me be at my best. If I'm an pushup competition, that's one thing if I'm just coach, push ups now No, I want to feel strong and and have good energy. And so here's what I need to do for push up just knowing what I need to do. So know it, do it own it for say having fun would be Oh yeah, I know I should do it. And then you can actually go out and practice having fun. And then you and then you figure out that last step, you figure out how you do it. And what's fun for you. And are you a talker? Like Pete Rose, Derek Jeter would talk a lot. He'd be talking to people when he's on deck. And some people Oh, he's not focused. Just think if he focused? Well, that is part. That's what he did to focus as he talked and communicated. Some people are like that, that that the talking the whole time you go up and talk to the catcher, talk to the umpire talking and that's you being ready, whereas some people that would be Yeah, I don't care because I'm just talking. And because that isn't you. So you take the same thing of having fun, it can show up different for different people. It's a good idea. concept because it's liberating when people are really having fun, they're more free, which is gives you more access to your talent. That's the objective. And then Okay, let me figure out how to do it. Let me practice doing it. And then I find my way to do it. Then it might be totally different, or exactly the same as someone else.

Evan 44:21

Yeah, I know a lot of different ballplayers. They have to find their own way, because one way that someone else can teach them may work but not fully and in at the end, everyone has a different body. Everyone has a different way of doing things. It's important to really make things their own.

Dr. Tom Hanson 44:39

Yeah, right on.

Evan 44:41

So in the game of baseball, a lot of times, things don't go our way. So we have to learn how to turn that failure into a learning opportunity and compete one pitch at a time as you say, could you give youth baseball players like us some tips on how to stay in student mode? During those times rather than getting away and maybe becoming reacting like red light.

Dr. Tom Hanson 45:08

So when you make students student mode, what do you mean?

Evan 45:11

Being able to like learn from those failures and be able to move on.

Dr. Tom Hanson 45:16

Right? So I would say the most helpful thing for that, because I'm assuming that be a parents listening as well as your 12 year old might not be still listening after this long. But I would say have a clearly defined process for how you're going to debrief or talk about a game to maximize learning. I have a worksheet for you know, an example of called the experience, for example, called the experience Maximizer series of questions you go through to get the most out of an experience. Now for 12. It's like, hey, what, what worked, what didn't work What would I do differently next time? And that's a question that parents can ask. Hey, Johnny, what, What would you say work today? What Really? What did you do? Well, what was helpful? What? bla bla bla bla bla, and oh, what would you say didn't work very well? Oh, okay, what? Why would you apply these and, you know, are you basically saying do more of the stuff that worked, do less than stuff that didn't. And then put it aside. Meaning if you really want to get into it, as a parent, I don't recommend just having an open loop so that your kid might come to breakfast and say, oh, and another thing Johnny, when it was first in third this you did. And then a kid just has to be on guard all the time because their parent might attack him with with with instruction or reprimand. So you could have a set time And we're gonna answer these three questions and then let it go. And for big thing for me with my son growing up, he is right now where I, which was my, where my goal is for him was just to be doing something that he loved. And of course, happy that it's baseball since it's such a big part of my life. He's a junior now, and he just loves to play last week he came home from a game. I said, I can't wait till Thursday, so we can play again, is loving playing. And I could have crushed that by overcoaching him when he was growing up, because I know baseball fairly well. And I can see things constantly that he could do better. And what for me I chose the relationship to be more important prioritize that relationship to me and the relationship to baseball over The specific content of doing something right or wrong, and doesn't mean that that goes out the window. It just means that let me think before I asked him how many times I've told him not to make the first or third out at third base. And he did it. Should I? How do I handle that? I think he knows. But I could hammer it with them, but and it would feel good. It would feel good in the moment as a parent to say for crying out loud CJ, how many times have I told you and it's really tricky because you get caught up in your emotions as an adult and you love your kid and you want the best from you see could be so much better. How much do you hammer stuff and how much do you just let it go? I can't tell you. It's because it's you and it's your kid. I just the main thing I would say is for parents To be mindful of that. And again, my coaching was to have these three questions. Hey, what worked? What didn't work? What would you do differently next time? And maybe they have a limited time and then just zip it up and, and to put the relationship with yourself with you and the relationship the baseball and keep the love of it rather than Oh, dad, we're gonna go hit some more balls, Johnny. Oh, Dad, I just want to play MLB The Show. You know, like that.

Evan 49:33

Yeah. One thing. You talked about the mission earlier. And one quote from the book is keep your mission greater than your feelings. I love baseball and my long term goal is obviously to have a long career and play in the MLB. So when I have a clear goal set, it helps me stay focused. How can the strategy of winning really help someone's They focused on each pitch and be ready for the next thing that comes at them.

Dr. Tom Hanson 50:05

It goes right back to what I talked about, say you're going up to bat and you don't feel confident mission we've been using in this conversation is that part of the bat and the ball? Oh, but this is a little voice, I want to get a hit. I'm 0-3 three. And now I'm really 0-10 10 last few games and I gotta get a hit. So that you got that competing voice and the feelings that come with that. And again, you have to rise above that and say, I hear you. Thank you for sharing. And my mission is to put the fat part of the bat on the ball. So keeping your mission greater than your feelings. It's like, well, I don't you know, I don't want to do my I don't feel like doing my homework. Well, I want to you know, play in a good college. I got to have good enough grades to do that. So Even though I don't feel like doing my homework, I put my mission bigger and I'm going to override my feelings and do what I know is right anyway because because you aren't your thoughts and your feelings you are consciousness. That's, that's inside. It's like you can say out loud and you know, say loudly but in your head, only in your head, say your name. And so, you aren't the word in that case, Evan. You're the person that heard that. And so that that's a huge distinction that then gives you a chance to rise above your feelings and stay on what you're committed. Your feelings are important. I'm not pooh poohing feelings. It's a big problem if you just suppress them. They're like gages on a dashboard of a car. They're giving you information, like well It's not saying I have to stop the gas. No, it's like, but boy, you don't have too much longer. And so it's like, I'm gonna keep my mission greater than my feelings. I'm going to get to my girlfriend's house. Okay, well, if you run out of gas, you know, you're not going to get there. But maybe you can get there. And so you get the gas later. It's, I can't say you can't, you know, I'm saying the feelings are information, but you don't have to let them rule your behavior.

Evan 52:33

That's powerful. That's really powerful. So, I, you talked about how you interviewed a bunch of greats and like Hank Aaron, and Carl Yastrzemski and Pete Rose, and others. So with Hank Aaron, he said that visualizing was a big part, and like you talked about earlier. So what does visualizing do to a players success rate. And can you give us some tips on how we should visualize?

Dr. Tom Hanson 53:07

I certainly can't guarantee that doing anything is going to improve your stats. It tends to, and I can't say, Oh, this has to be visualized. Every day for 20 minutes, your average will go up 40 points. You know, I can't say that. What I can say is the top performers in any field, pre play the tournament. I like to watch ESPN or MLB network, you watch it replays. Key for performance? Well replaying is helpful like we just discussed with your other question. However, pre play, where you play it in advance in your mind, and really in your whole self gives your body clear clarity on what you want. And it helps reduce interference because if you're excited about what you think is about to happen, then you have much more access to your talent. If you're fearful or unclear, then doubt and fear can come in, which causes a contraction because we're first and foremost designed for safety. So, if we're uncertain, we'll contract and freeze until we see okay, is it safe for me to go there, you know, into the woods or run out of the woods? from our ancestors standpoint, or maybe in New York or something, or downtown Tampa, but it's like, Okay, well, first and foremost designed for safety. So if we're not clear on something our our hundreds of thousands of years of wiring is to hesitate is to hold back, but when when we know we're safe, and we know this This is what I want to have happen. This is what's going to happen, because I've just seen it. Oh, I'll have the ham and cheese sandwich. And I know that's what I want. Boom, I say it, and then it comes magically. And if he's saying that to your body, I want this ball to go right there. Ah, and then it's easier to free it up and trust it and let it go. Because you have that clarity that you just got, because you've already seen it. Sort of like, I love this part in whatever frozen tube or whatever movie I saw recently. My daughter will say, second time, it's different because you've seen it already. Oh, like that.

Evan 55:41

Yeah. One of the best parts of playing on team I feel and I'm sure a lot of other ballplayers feel is the teamwork that you use to win together. In the book you say, the more you focus on being a great team player, the greater you'll be as an individual. How does being a heads up baseball player help make us better teammates.

Dr. Tom Hanson 56:08

Because goal of the game is to win. And so if you are playing at or near your best as in, you have access to your talent that's going to help the team win the most, making you the most valuable you can be to that team doesn't guarantee success. But I want to be my individual best. So doing all the things that we've talked about help you do that. So that's been a great teammate, because the goal of the game is to win now the purpose of the game you can say well, oh, good to have fun. Okay, well, that's different, because that's the purpose. That's why you'd play but given that you're playing the goal, the game is designed around winning scoring, more runs and the other team. So the thing about why I would say Which I haven't said yet is that the key to the number one tip I would give is be a great teammate, is because it gets the focus off of yourself and gets it out where it needs to be, say out on the ball out on the mit balls going there. As opposed to what's my average, if, if I get a hit this time, you're not locked in on the task. And so if it's about you, then you're not being a good teammate. You're not helping your team win the most you can. Apple the other night, a player being nameless, saw the mad because he had to throw to a catcher that couldn't catch his curveball. And the catcher was sort of, you know, didn't want to go to the bullpen and work on it. And there they are out in the game. And then so this pitcher's, was unhappy with this catcher. So he's mad and then he has to throw a fastball and the guy hits, when he wanted to throw a curve. The guy hits a bleeder over second base, both the second baseman and the shortstop go back out for the ball. And it drops in and the runner runs on first. What do you think he did when he went to second base? Because it wasn't covered who in my opinion should have been covering second base?

but why wasn't he

Evan 58:29

cuz he was too focused on the last result

Dr. Tom Hanson 58:31

he was mad. Right? And then he was focusing on himself of saying god darnet give up a hit and when he should have been if you're in the moment, you're like, watching the ball and you're watching your second baseman shortstop both go for the ball. What do you do it run cover second base. And so that's where it becomes more about you. You just hurt his team but Now there's one second. And then if you don't get yourself under control, you don't hold him on, and he steals third. Now you're mad at really mad at everyone else when there's reason to be pointing at yourself.

Evan 59:16

Thats great

Dr. Tom Hanson 59:17

that it actually is Evan Imma agree with you on that one.

Evan 59:22

So you teach the principles of heads up baseball to leaders in business as well. So what advice would you give youth baseball players on using these lessons in all parts of their lives, like for school and family and friends,

Dr. Tom Hanson 59:37

there really isn't anything different of what I've said that wouldn't apply? instantly. So I would say go back and listen to it all again. And just think of it as not baseball. In terms of taking responsibility, being aware, knowing yourself, you hear my story about, you know, what do I like? I like sports. And I like psychology. It's like, Oh, it's like a recent Peanut Butter Cup. Chocolate, I like peanut butter. Oh, put them together. It's great. And so, but I wouldn't say, Hey, everyone listening should go into sports psychology. Because that's not them to tune into yourself. What do I love? Well, the baseball Okay, go for it. So it's people like myself making a living in baseball. Or you know, I like art. I like this. I like this pay attention to what you become passionate about and what really catches you and then run with it. And hopefully your parents let you do them and encourage you to do that. I watched a documentary The other day. I'm now curious about this Billy Eilish, I I lish Irish Billy, the singer

Evan 1:00:44

Billy Eilish, I think

Dr. Tom Hanson 1:00:47

when she's homeschool, and they're and her brother, write these songs, but it was really just their parents. The way it came across to me create an environment. It's like Hey, what do you love? What would you love to do? They play exposing different things horses, art and music. It's like a stick, you know, like the music, okay, run with it, and they run with it and then Off you go doesn't guarantee that anyone is going to do that. But it's the same principle is what I'm talking about. be tuned into something that I love this and, and run with it and and go for it and then pick targets. And then work out a process of here's what I'm going to do to make that come true to be the same. You want to be a major league baseball player, okay? And they'll make up a process for what you need to do and what are milestones along the way. And it's the same for building a business or getting a prom date. Or, you know, go to your breath, your routine and breathe, picture going well, and then go. So it's all human performance. So it's already the same

Evan 1:02:00

Do you have any projects you're working on right now that you would like to share and also where's the best place that are born to baseball listeners can reach you and learn more about you.

Dr. Tom Hanson 1:02:10

I have going to playbigbaseball.com where this book "Play Big" is we're really if that's the age group with my top recommendation is the book "Play Big" and there I've got a video, which is actually at playbigbass ball.teachable.com so we'll have to give them that link. But playbigbaseball.teachable teach-abel.com that may change before too long where I'm doing some upgrades to some things but between those two sites, we'll find it because I teach. I haven't even talked about my ABCs in this in this interview but- Act Big, Breath Big, Commit Big The process that I really teach in it, there's a video of me teaching it to a bunch of 12 year old and so just super simple it's and teaches all these things and really in like six minute videos with a little workbook so fun ways is for kids to you know for for your age, what would be the top thing there's not a lot of guys your age that have read all of heads of baseball. So that's a tough one what I'm a project I'm working on Oh, and headupbaseball2.com heads up baseball one word, two, the number two.com to get that book and there's a program called compete there a video program where each chapter have had to baseball to I have about a 12 to 14 minute video that teaches it and again, it's the same deal you can download a worksheet and fill in As I go through with a practice for each week, so those are just super practical, here's how to apply it. Because it can all sound good. But what do I actually do since the parent or coach, those are two for that. And a project I'm really excited about working on right now comes off of an assessment that I have takes 30-45 minutes for guy to fill this assessment out online and a measuring, it's all about awareness about helping someone know himself better or herself. And so they take this and here's your behavioral style, so that the big talker or big listener or or dominate I'm gonna go and dominate or I'm going to be very meticulous. What should I do? Well, you should be yourself. What's that? Well, this will help you find that. What motivates you, knowing what motivates you makes it easier to do things that motivate you, and for parents or for coach to know. And then you're thinking stuff so there's, it's, there's which measure stuff you don't even think you could measure So it's super cool. And what I've used it for, for many years, probably eight, nine years, individually with athletes, they fill it out. Like if we were working together, I would have you take this and then we'd sit and go through it. And we'd identify you your path. Your path is your process parts of you your identity, your values, and behaviors, you know, style. And then here's what you don't do. Well, here's the blind spots for you to look out. So you read heads up baseball, you read play big, it's great, obviously, but which page applies the most to me right now? I don't know. But I can tell you that. After you take this I can, we can really target here's what you need to do the way you would with the swing. A guy puts a swing on videos like look, Evan, here's what you're doing with your hands. It's giving you trouble. Oh yeah, I see that. But this is that for the mental game. And then where I'm going with it now is that someone can take it. And normally, all these years you have to go through it with me. So you can still do that, and it's the best thing to do. However, now I have it where a whole team or groups of people can take it. And then go through videos, where I am instructing them and they create something called the self scouting report that where you really get to know yourself, and then you tweak that a little bit to be able to have a one on one meeting with your coach to go through, that's a little form called How to coach me and to build that relationship. And so that's just a process that you go through, to build what I think really becomes at the heart of it all, which is relationship First of all, for relationship with yourself, knowing yourself. And secondly, relation well secondly, relationship with your coach, when a coach knows you really well then you communicate and there's less interference less noise. You can stay on target more you're not worried about what the coaches and the coaches helping instead of getting in the way Also if you're doing at the team level, when a team all understands and knows themselves better the way my Luthor team did, we got to know each other. It's a guy. Yeah. That's that guy. And that's that guy. And he's different and, and this speeds up that process. So now I have it as a process, that whole team can go through a whole travel organization could go through and really speed up. What really becomes the key when I started with the Yankees, and I'll finish with this was actually before how I got the Yankees, I talked to these five minor league managers. And I talked to them individually first, then we had a group meeting. And I said, well, what's the number one key to the whole thing? And they said, the relationship. It's the relationship, the respect, not like, you're going out to the movies or dinner, you can, but it's really about the connection and the relationship and the respect when that's there. can take off when it's not there. I don't like that guy. I don't like that guy. Don't get that guy. What's wrong with that guy? Then the information can't flow back and forth. So you talk to a high end coach. And they'll say it's a relationship. Joe Maddon said, I'm in the relationship business I'm, when I get when he went to the Cubs, he said, first three weeks was all only for him. relationship building. It's that huge. So it's what my project is a relationship building system.

Evan 1:08:26

That those sound like great resources. Yeah, that's really awesome. So, thank you so much for being here and sharing great knowledge with the born baseball community, and help taking our game to the next level.

Dr. Tom Hanson 1:08:41

You're welcome. That's my goal. So I appreciate the opportunity to do that. And you did a great job, get some really big league questions.

Evan 1:08:49

Thank you. Thank you all for listening in. We really hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to hit the subscribe button and be the first to know when new apps So it's lunch. Check us out at borntobaseball.com for free resources and new gear. Download the Born Baseball App to have real time conversations, share your game and video highlights and be celebrated by our BTB team. And of course on social media @borntobaseball where we can connect live. Now, Let's play ball.

Music 1:09:23

Check it out.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Born To Baseball Website

BTB Travel Team & Training Tracker

Episode #009: Jason Michaels – 10 year MLB veteran / Owner “The Big League Approach”

May 2020 By Evan

Ep. #009: Jason Michaels- 10 Year MLB Veteran/ Owner of “The Big League Approach”

Join Evan and Jason Michaels as Jason shares his baseball journey, his decision to stay in college versus going pro, hitting tips and the value of staying within yourself. Jason also talks mental toughness and “The Big League Approach” Philosophy.

What You’ll Learn:

01:30- Jason’s baseball journey

05:00- Choosing JUCO after being selected in the Draft

06:45- Playing in the College World Series

10:20- How college helped him mature as a player

13:08- Drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies

14:18- Getting called up to the Big Leagues

23:12- Advice on overcoming challenges

24:43- Mental approach in the game

26:12- Mentor Roving Coach experience

27:52- “The Big League Approach” Philosophy

Read show notes here.

Show Links:

Instagram: @thebigleagueapproach

Website: https://thebigleagueapproach.com/

Born To Baseball Links:

Instagram: @borntobaseball

Facebook

Twitter: @bornto_baseball

Born To Baseball Podcast

Episode 009_JASON MICHAELS 10 YEAR MLB VETERAN AND OWNER THE BIG LEAGUE APPROACH

The transcription below was provided for your convenience through an automated service. Please excuse any unintended errors made in the process.

Evan 0:00

This episode of born to 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.

Music 0:24

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.

Evan 0:39

What's up guys, welcome to the Born To Baseball Podcast. Today we have Jason Michaels. Jason is based in Tampa, Florida. Some quick highlights Jason hit over .420 in Juco was a fourth round draft pick in 1998 and played 10 years in the majors with the Phillies, Indians Astros and pirates. He's the founder and CEO of the big league approach a training facility in Tampa, Florida, with a heavy focus on both skill and mindset development. I recently had a chance to train with Jason and I took away so much from the lessons. Jason, thank you so much for coming on.

Jason 1:19

Well, thanks for having me. Evan.

Evan 1:21

I'd love to start with you sharing some of your baseball journey. So you grew up in Tampa, Florida. Did you play on travel teams or just a local Little League teams?

Jason 1:33

Yeah, so I grew up in Tampa, Florida, where you could play baseball year round. Unlike New York, and, but no, I grew up in Tampa played soccer and baseball. And when I got to high school, I focused more on baseball. Because I was wasn't big enough in football and I was getting my butt kicked. So other than that, I focused on baseball and got a chance chance to play at the next level. Actually I was drafted out of high school in the 49th round which they don't have that anymore. I think it goes up to 40 rounds. But out high school I got a chance to play college ball I end up going to junior college which I wasn't really good enough to play D1, I mean to go to a school but I really made I think that decision of me going to junior college, really getting a chance to play and not sit the bench if like if I would have went to a four year school or a big D1 school. I know I wanted to go to Florida, University of Florida out of High School and they told me I wasn't good enough. So I kind of use that little chip on my shoulder as motivation. Got got a chance to go to junior college, played two years there and really came down between it was going to be LSU or Miami, where I was going to go and ended up ended up choosing Miami and want to stay in state and wanted to see my wonder Have my parents be able to come watch me play? You know, being in Tampa to Miami. It's not too long plus my dad had his private pilot's license. So they were able to get a plane and get out there quicker than driving. So yeah, that's and then going to Miami into continue to excel in my career and was fortunate enough to get drafted by the Phillies and play my career start my career in the minor leagues with the Phillies.

Evan 3:28

Yeah. So that that's an amazing first like first part of your baseball journey and being able to go to Juco and excel there and knowing that I want to be able to play instead of saying I went to a big school but didn't get as much playing time.

Jason 3:46

Right.

Evan 3:47

You attended Jesuit High School and hit over 400 each year, which is pretty impressive. What are some of the things that contributed to your success there? Did you have strong mentors along the way?

Jason 3:58

I tell you, I'd be honest with you. You know, there wasn't anybody around like me as far as in that, you know, my the focus of the big league approach. What I own is a lot to do with the focus is on the mental side, not only in the physical side, but the mental side. And, you know, I had a lot of good coaches along the way. In high school. Honestly, I stayed simple see ball hit ball, I didn't try to overthink the situation. And I just saw ball hit ball and I end up getting lucky and the ball ends up falling in a little bit more times, you know, then you had some other people so i don't think i don't think i was the best player on the team. And but I was you know, I was I was a good player. You know, I was I was consistent had like consistent defense and had consistent at bats, like I said, just you know, see ball

Evan 5:00

So after high school, like you said, you were drafted by the Padres and chose to go to Juco instead. So what was behind that decision?

Jason 5:08

Well, we had drafted. Yeah, being drafted that Lee 49th round again, they don't have that those rounds. Again, remember, we have 30 teams at the time picking, you know, so if you do the math, 49 rounds times 30 teams, that's, that's around, you know, 1400 player chosen in the country, which is an exciting and it was incredible just to get the call to find out I was that I was drafted that a professional organization wanted me. Um, you know, I was getting a bigger scholarship than what they were offering me money to sign and I didn't feel like I was mentally ready enough to go in to start my professional career. I, you know, I end up it wasn't it was kind of a no brainer for me. I was gonna go to college. wanted to go to college? A my parents wanted me to go to college. And I needed more time to grow and and mentally and physically. Before I felt I was ready to go to the next step to the professional level.

Evan 6:14

That's a really mature smart decision. You averaged for 20 while at Juco. You were drafted in the 44th. Round by Tampa, your hometown team, and still chose not to sign and instead went to the University of Miami like you said. You competed in two consecutive College World Series. And what was it like to play with the hurricanes in the College World Series not once, but twice.

Jason 6:45

That's a it was what a great experience. I wish every college baseball player would get to experience something like that, you know, maybe down at Miami, I think we probably averaged three or 4000 fans a game, which was really good, you know, especially on a weekend. And next thing you know, getting a chance to get through the regionals and then go to the College World Series where you're one of eight teams, the top eight teams in the country that season. And play, you know, I was playing on ABC, ESPN, you know, national, national TV. And it was like 25,000 people there it was, it was just an incredible experience.

Evan 7:25

Amazing.

Jason 7:26

We had we had a great team, great. Our team was was really good. We were very competitive. And it was just a great experience that I wish everybody else could experience as well.

Evan 7:36

That really does sound amazing. Wow. 25,000 people.

Jason 7:43

Yeah. It's literally well, right. I mean, nothing prepares you for that. But yeah, man, you stay focused in the game. You don't even hear.

Evan 7:53

Now, after two years with the hurricanes, you have a 396 average, you hit 34 dingers. 154 RBI's and you set multiple single season records. Now you're selected by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 15th round of the draft. Why did you again choose to decline and go to your last year eligibility?

Jason 8:19

Again, I that was my junior year that was probably my best years to statistically playing. Physically, I was ready to go to the next level, but still mentally I didn't feel like I was I was fully there. Again, another great organization drafted me or want me to play for the organization. And again, I was getting a bigger scholarship at Miami than I was what they were offering me to go away from from school. So, you know, the way I looked at it is hey, I have another I get another year closer to graduation here for education. Before I go, play professional Ball. I mean, and you know, you probably know just as much as everybody else they the odds are the percentages of making it to the big leagues are right around 1%, if not less. It's a tremendous third, these are just tremendous numbers out there. With that, showing that so knowing that I needed to get I need to get closer to getting my degree, and I needed another year mentally to get ready.

Evan 9:30

And was there any fear that since you turned it down, it might have been your last chance to get drafted?

Jason 9:37

no I knew that I could. There was one more year I was a little disheartened because I really felt I that I would, that I should have got drafted higher or in a lower round. But you know, it is what it is. It's I think there's always a plan. You know, in life, maybe you you follow the plan and sometimes you always don't Like it, but I got a chance to, again to get another year of school, which was a great institution, University of Miami private institution, great school. And I can still get drafted again.

Evan 10:13

What were some of the biggest lessons you learned playing college baseball? And is there anything you would have done differently?

Jason 10:21

Well, you know, I think with college baseball, it's almost like a pyramid. I don't think I explained this to you. But you know, as you started out in youth baseball, you know, there's, it's a big pool of people. And then as you get, you know, to high school, some of those people weed out and yet the bet a little bit better ones get the chance to go on. Same thing you go to college. Now there's even more players that are weeded out a little bit. And then if you're lucky enough to go to professional and continues to keep going, and then we get up to the big leagues. That's, that's the pinnacle of the of your profession. And, you know, that's been my my dream. You know, since I was probably a little bit younger than you and get a fort Fortunately, I was able to play my dream. But you know, playing going from high school to college, the intensity level stepped up, you know, I felt I thought I saw more guys becoming more focused, being longer focused on working, you know, on baseball, trying to get better at what they're doing really starting to try to perfect their craft. And as I got a chance to go to D1, it was even better talent. You know, I'm facing guys, you know, pitchers that a little bit better arms. Guys are getting bigger and stronger. And I need to make those adjustments as as I went on.

Evan 11:51

The competition level was way different. In JUCO, and D1.

Jason 11:57

You know, it wasn't that bad. I didn't know much about Juco baseball coming out of high school and when I got a chance to go and look into playing with these guys on my team before we even started to play I was like man we got some some really talented guys here. I know they one of the scouts talked about our pitching staff as being comparable to LSU's.

Evan 12:21

Wow.

Jason 12:22

But yeah, I think we had we had or three top pitchers where guys were low to mid 90s. One of our pitchers was actually about to go in the first round and he went second pick in the second round. When you're so yeah, he was mean, so I got a chance to really face some good pitching. I did which helped me out to go the next level.

Evan 12:45

You finish your final year at Miami and you're drafted in the fourth round by the Philadelphia Phillies finally sign your first professional contract. This is a moment that youth baseball players all over The world dream about, and that's a place that they all want to get to. So how did you celebrate that big moment in your career?

Jason 13:09

I mean, it was. Me, I celebrated with my family. It was it was an honor. I mean, one to be drafted four out of the possible five times that I could get drafted, which is I mean, you don't really hear about that anymore. It was a tremendous honor that of that team, again, wanted me to play for their organization and get a chance to start my professional career and it was it was very exciting. Nervous as well, not knowing what the next step brought. I didn't know what kind of competition I was going to be seeing, but it was definitely very exciting. That

Evan 13:53

that has to be feel amazing. Being able to relief, like I finally got here, but I still have more work to do.

Jason 14:00

Absolutely, absolutely each you know, each organization has what six levels? you know that you need to go through that as with anything I think in the business world, you got to work your way up.

Evan 14:11

Yep. Do you remember how it felt playing your first big league game in 2001?

Jason 14:18

Yes, I was. I was on my way to my I was in AAA in Scranton, Pennsylvania at that time. Scranton was triple A, which is right underneath the big leagues. And they were the Phillies, a triple A affiliate. Then I got called up before a Sunday game. So we had a Sunday game in Scranton at one o'clock. And I got called in I think about eight or nine o'clock that morning. I usually get there early anyways to the field. And my coach sat me down and say we're, calling up to the Big League playing field a big you're getting called up. So all this wave emotions, took over a jumped in my car, whatever I can gather and I ended up speeding Down to Philly ended up getting a ticket, a speeding ticket on my way. It was about about a two hour drive, I think and ended up getting to in about the sixth inning. And when I walked in the locker room, we were playing the Cubs when I walked in the locker room, it was such a surreal moment because I saw my locker I saw my jersey hanging with with my number, my name and my number, you know, on the back and it just it was just a wave of emotion. So I hustled up, got dressed real quick, went down to the dugout. You know, met my coaches and whoever was there, you know, we I think we were on defense at that time and ended up hit I ended up pitch hitting the next I think it was the next inning. So I got there in the six either in the pinch hitting in the seventh or the eighth. I think it might have been in the seventh and the bottom of the seventh and face Todd Van popple With the Cubs, and the end up, striking me out. And I don't really remember a lot because everything was such a blur thing happens really fast. My anxiety level was really high. But to get that first at bat out of the way was I mean it was I didn't mean I cared that I struck out, but it was again such a surreal moment.

Evan 16:23

That sounds amazing. Just finally getting to your dream and knowing that it worked. The work you did when you were younger, it pays off. And now you're in the show. So one highlight I saw was your walk off Homer and 2008 against the Cardinals while you're with the pirates. So it was the bottom of the 10th inning, you hit that home run. final score 12-11 bucks win what was your approach going up to that at bat and big moments like that?

Jason 16:59

No, it was I ended up looking messing around and looking up that it was like a top 10 and pirates history or at a by by one reporter which I thought was Wow. I mean such a huge history or a long history for the Pittsburgh Pirates. My dad grew up watching the pirates and the reds. And so at that particular game, we know I ended up I didn't start that game I ended up coming in about the eighth inning, we were down 10 to four and the eighth and the bottom of the eighth you know, and just tell them my teammates, I said, Guys, you know, we can't nobody can hit a six run home run. We need to get guys on base. Okay, that's very important. When you're to have a good at bat not to swing at a pitch that's way out of the zone, you got to be very disciplined. I end up walking that at bat and end up scoring that inning and then we end up tying it up in the 10th. And then St. Louis went ahead by one in the room sorry, we ended up tying in ninth st Lewis went up one in the 10th 11 to 10. And guy good guy end up getting on and ended up facing their closer Chris Perez, who matter of fact, went to University of Miami. And he lives here ended up facing him. I didn't know him before. I knew that he threw hard. threw a first pitch ball, which helped me even more to zone in on that fastball and getting a fastball in the zone. I don't really remember swinging and I just remember rounding third base that's that's that's about it. It was all kind of a blur, but whatever an exciting moment that was.

Evan 18:41

That sounds great. That must be really great memory. when you were on deck Did you were you almost like praying that you were gonna get up with a man on base. So you had a chance or was it more of just like I want to get on base

Jason 18:55

be honest with you. I was trying to control my anxiety level. You know? I think that we did a great job coming back, you know to tie up this game 10 to 10. And here we are down by one you know, hey, we just need to get guys on base try to get a guy in scoring position you know, there was just a guy on first and you know the coach, let me swing away you know, instead of instead of butting them over which you know, I mean here where you were at home you want to play for the win, you don't want to play for the tie. So it just you know, when I was on deck just trying to stay within myself not to not to overthink the situation. Keep it simple. Get a good pitch to hit. And don't over swing.

Evan 19:39

Yeah, so eight runs in three innings. It's, it's crazy.

Jason 19:46

I might have went in in the 7th.

Evan 19:49

That's good. That's crazy. So..

Jason 19:53

that was a great team win.

Evan 19:55

For the youth baseball listening. Can you share some tips on things they could do to generate more power in their swings.

Jason 20:02

So, power power is going to come now, That's funny. So my high school career, okay, even I was drafted. I had one home run my high school career. One.

Evan 20:13

Wow.

Jason 20:13

And what I tell some of my high school players that I haven't really told the youth players as I say, guys, you're not strong enough yet. And anytime a boy gets on the field, it doesn't matter if it's if he's six years old, or if he's my age 43 we see a fence we want to go over it. It's one of the questions I asked you when we got together.

Evan 20:35

Yep.

Jason 20:35

And to me I bite by doing that. I think it creates lift. I don't want to create lift in my swing. We already do that already. To me is hit line drives. That's what that's what the major league Hall of Famers talk about these talk about hitting line drives, line drives will go but when you try to hit a home run, it doesn't really work. It just nobody's really Good to sit there say I'm gonna go up and hit a home run and then go up and hit a home run that just doesn't happen

Evan 21:06

either one or two things that you learned from hitting coaches or other great players that you played with in the major leagues that really helped you succeed

Jason 21:17

you know as as a baseball player and you know your age and even younger as you guys are going to be around a lot of coaches some good some bad and it's a tough thing I was right I was into what do you not listen to always be coachable? No matter what always be coachable? Whether it's the information is good or not. Most of the time, you don't know if it's good or not always be coachable. You know, they're learning from I take tips from all kinds of coaches. I really do a lot of them. I was learning from my teammates as well too. I would, I would, you know, talk to my teammates after somebody got a good hit. You know, such as you know, Let's say somebody just had a good hit one of your teammates had a good hit, you know, in a crucial situation in the game, you know, maybe after the game or during the game, I go up and ask him say, hey, what was your thought process there? What are you thinking about? So, you know, one thing is always keep learning, always keep learning and nobody's gonna hit 1000 this game and no pitcher is going to strike everybody out or get everybody out. So there's always something there learned in this game. You know, swing hard swing it strikes, take the balls, you know, it's something that we talked about as well. keep it simple swing hard to, you know, swing it strikes, take the balls. That's probably one of the best pieces of advice. And, you know, the fact that, you know, I told you this, too, is that there's negative results happen all the time on that baseball. Okay, you got it, you get it, you get you get the negative result and you throw it in the trash, you have to move on and focus on that next pitch, that next play whatever it is,

Evan 23:00

Speaking of throwing in the trash, one of the things that stuck with me when I trained with you, was when you said if something doesn't go your way, learn from it, then throw it away. What other pieces of advice would you share with us baseball players on overcoming challenges and keeping our heads in the game?

Jason 23:21

And then that's the thing. I think it's tougher when you're younger, as far as trying to figure out how to focus how to stay calm, how to concentrate during the game, there's there's a lot of moments in the game where there's nothing really going on in the big leagues, and sometimes I would find myself drifting as well in the outfield, especially if our pitcher was doing really well. There's not really much going on. But I'd like to say guys, when you get into that, that chain link fence or you start pulling that field, keep your middle keep your your your thoughts there. wouldn't really messes it up is that we try to overthink the situation or we distract ourselves. So when you get in that fence when you get in those that chain link fence and get on that field focus on that focus in their focus take that as as as your reminder getting away from the day, whether it's schoolwork or you're in trouble at home, with your parents or whatever, or your maybe some friends or wherever it is, stay focused on when you're there because when you're in school, you need to stay focused on school, you're on baseball field, you stay focused there.

Evan 24:27

How did you mentally prepare for a game? I know you talk a lot about the mental side when you train people. And just in really, in general, when you played so how did you mentally prepare for a game and did you have any mental cues that you'd use?

Jason 24:41

I wanted to stay within myself. I didn't want to try to do something that I'm that's not me. You know, I had a I did have a hitting coach in the big leagues or actually a manager. Tell me like you know, stay in your lane. And you know, me it was kind of referring to you know, like a like a running track and You got to stay in your lane. Don't try to get out, hey, if you're a home if you're if you're a double hitter, it doubles if you're a home run hitter, hit home runs, you know if you're, if you're if you're a double hitter, don't try to hit home runs, it's not my lane. You know, stay in your lane do what you could control. I'd say I just stay focused, try to you know, not distract myself, it's so easy for you to start for, for us to start distracting ourselves. Want to keep it simple. I want to stay motivated. You know, knowing that hey, a negative result is possible to happen today. I need to throw that in the trash as soon as as soon as I can. So I don't waste my a bad or take that bad bad out to the field. And you possibly make an error or hurt my team. But say stay simple, stay simple, stay motivated and stay hungry.

Evan 25:55

Yeah, that's, that's really valuable. So after you retired in 2012 he became a mentor roving coach in the national minor league system. That is the first time I've ever heard that term used and sounds pretty cool. So can you share what the job of a mentor and coach was? And

Jason 26:18

so I was with the nationals and AAA in 2013. And it was it was I was on I was, I was on my way out, I was starting to lose it in my heart a little bit as far as I'm playing. But I still enjoyed talking with my teammates and tell them about different situations in the game. And you know why they would handle it this way I thought about this way. So it was it was a way that the coaching staff ended up seeing me and like, you know, they end up relaying it to the to the front office with the with the nationals and say, hey, look, I think we need to have this guy around. And so they end up offering me a coaching position and then my minor leagues, and I was really mostly with the rookie ball guys. Now these are guys that are right out of high school, or guys that come over from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, wherever. And it's really the young guys to get their feet wet and to get going in into their professional career. So a lot of what I did was was my was helping them with their approach and how they approach the game, whether it was hitting, whether it was defense, or whether it was bass running. That's that's what they wanted me to do. And I ended up going around to all six of the minor league teams and talking with a lot of the players. And they were asking me questions as well as far as it may. What would you do here? What would you think of this and I really enjoyed I really enjoyed what I did.

Evan 27:52

Now you bring all your experience to training players at the big league approach. Can you share more about the mission Philosophy there.

Jason 28:01

Absolutely. And that's, you know, probably the main goal, or the main focus is the the mental side. You know, and like I was telling you, I'm not here to revamp your swing, your swing is your swing now we can tweak it here a little bit here and there and it's a lot of it has to do with up here. What's in between your ears. And what helped me be able to do that is become a student. Just like I was a student in school, I had to be a student at baseball. There's so much to learn. It's I mean, it's it looks like and it it really is an easy game, throw the ball, hit the ball, catch the ball, but there's so many factors that go into it. And that's what I help with I help with helping players develop their mental approach to hitting to defense as well. At there and to enhance their their their swing to make their swing path. More online in the in the hitting zone or stay longer in the hitting zone. And just to focus on hitting line drives and really mentor mentor the younger guys, these players Not me, not me again, my I've been teaching kids from four years old all the way up to 55. And it's it's really enjoyable. I'm getting some great feedback. I'm I'm also learning from my clients too.

Evan 29:28

Now I want to move into the rapid fire questions. You're ready. Okay. Know, what did you major in in college and why?

Jason 29:36

So sports management, that's. And it was business management. I decided to do sports management. Why? Don't know.

Evan 29:49

What was your favorite Major League stadium to play in?

Jason 29:53

Well, Baltimore, Camden Yards, or Oriole park? I don't know what they're calling it now.

Evan 29:58

Yeah, Camden Yards. What was your favorite memory of playing in the big leagues?

Jason 30:05

Probably the walk off home Well, between the walk off home run and then 2007. I was with the Indians, we went to we, we end up going in the playoffs, we end up going to play the Yankees and beat the Yankees in Yankee Stadium, which we were one of three teams to do. end up having a couple at bats and having a double. And that just that season was very memorable. 2007 we were one game away from going to World Series. That's the year Boston beat Colorado. we'll serious but that in my walk off.

Evan 30:41

Wow. That sounds like a really cool memory. Being able to stay in the playoffs and be one of the better teams in baseball.

Jason 30:51

Yeah, absolutely.

Evan 30:52

In inches. Tell us what's the longest length that your hair has ever been?

Jason 30:59

Oh man. It's got It'd be 12 inches maybe I got a couple of photos that I saw. Wow, my hair was that long. Yeah, just some Phase I was going through, like I was just, I didn't want to get cut, just being lazy.

Evan 31:13

Would you like to share any projects that you're working on and the best place for people to reach out to you and learn more about you

Jason 31:21

just, you know, continue to teach. And, you know, help and mentor, mentor younger players, not just baseball players, but softball players as well. And just trying to get the best out of each client. It's, I mean, I'm really fortunate. I've been fortunate enough to have some really good clients and great parents as well. And which really, which really helps. So the name of my company, again, is the Big League Approach. You can find me at www.thebigleagueapproach.com my cell numbers on there, and there's a way to sign up for lessons. As well as in the Tampa area. That's probably the best way.

Evan 32:06

Okay, thank you so much for coming on, and sharing some great information with the Born To Baseball community.

Jason 32:13

You got it. Thanks for having me on, Evan.

Evan 32:15

Thank you.

Thank you all for listening in. We really hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to hit the subscribe button and be the first to know when new episodes launch. Check us out at borntobaseball.com for free resources and new gear. Download the born to baseball app to have real time conversations, share your game and video highlights and be celebrated by our BTB team and of course on social media @borntobaseball where we can connect live. Now, let's play ball.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai