Quest for Success
Steve Cox | A journey to the Major Leagues: A Candid Dive into the Life and Baseball Career of Steve Cox
What would you do if you had the chance to sit down with a former professional baseball player and dive deep into their journey? You don't have to imagine, because that's exactly what we're serving up in our latest episode with Steve Cox. From his early days at Monache High School to playing at the highest levels of professional baseball, Steve gives us an insider's look into his impressive journey. He reveals the intense pressure of decision-making during his high school senior year, his experience being drafted in the fifth round, and the challenges of minor league baseball.
But it's not all about the game. Steve brings his personal life into the discussion, highlighting the crucial role of mentors throughout his career, the power of hard work, and the importance of managing both professional and personal failures. Ever wondered what it's like to play baseball in Japan? Steve's got you covered, sharing his insights into the cultural shift and expressing his deep appreciation for the country and its people.
The episode takes a fascinating look into Steve's approach to parenting in the world of sports, emphasizing the importance of fostering passion in children. Reflecting on his time in the minor and major leagues, he shares valuable insights on the changes he has seen in the game and the importance of teaching young players about character. Why not join us and Steve Cox for an episode that takes you from the baseball field to life lessons that extend far beyond the game? It's more than just baseball - it's about life, failure, success, and how to navigate it all.
Quest for Success Links | https://linktr.ee/questforsuccess
What would you do if you had the chance to sit down with a former professional baseball player and dive deep into their journey? You don't have to imagine, because that's exactly what we're serving up in our latest episode with Steve Cox. From his early days at Monache High School to playing at the highest levels of professional baseball, Steve gives us an insider's look into his impressive journey. He reveals the intense pressure of decision-making during his high school senior year, his experience being drafted in the fifth round, and the challenges of minor league baseball.
But it's not all about the game. Steve brings his personal life into the discussion, highlighting the crucial role of mentors throughout his career, the power of hard work, and the importance of managing both professional and personal failures. Ever wondered what it's like to play baseball in Japan? Steve's got you covered, sharing his insights into the cultural shift and expressing his deep appreciation for the country and its people.
The episode takes a fascinating look into Steve's approach to parenting in the world of sports, emphasizing the importance of fostering passion in children. Reflecting on his time in the minor and major leagues, he shares valuable insights on the changes he has seen in the game and the importance of teaching young players about character. Why not join us and Steve Cox for an episode that takes you from the baseball field to life lessons that extend far beyond the game? It's more than just baseball - it's about life, failure, success, and how to navigate it all.
Quest for Success Links | https://linktr.ee/questforsuccess
Alright, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. We're on season two, episode two. We have another banger of a podcast on today. This guy you know played at the highest levels and played a couple years in the majors also. You know, kind of came up through the farm system and, you know, even went over and played in Japan as well. And you know it's incredible to kind of see this talent come out of out of Portoville. And you know he's coached at different levels high school level, college level as well and we're excited to bring him on today. Please welcome, mr Steve Cox. Thanks for having me. Guys, good to be here.
Speaker 2:Thanks for joining us, steve. So before every single episode, we'd like to get the juices flowing with the mental minute questions. So, to start us off, I wanted to ask you as, growing up, you know, from young to middle, to even now, who are some of your idols, so on the baseball world growing up as a first baseman Don Maddenly.
Speaker 3:When I was a kid we had one of those big satellites and we got the Yankees channel back when I was, like you know, sixth grade or so. So I got to watch a lot of Yankees games as a kid growing up, and Don Maddenly was my guy, dwight Gooden was also my guy and then as I got into into high school, fred McGriff was one of my guys, so fortunately I got to actually play with two out of three of those guys. I never got to meet Maddenly, but I got to play with Fred for close to three years, who was just inducted in the Hall of Fame last weekend, which was awesome.
Speaker 3:And Dwight Gooden I got to play with Dwight Gooden for about a month or so. He got came as a free agent in 2000, 2001 to Tampa from Houston, so it was kind of cool playing with those guys. Were you a Yankees fan growing?
Speaker 2:up.
Speaker 3:No, I was a Dodger fan growing up. I just like baseball and we had the Yankees channel right and so we got to watch a lot of the Yankees games.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what'd you get, what'd you got?
Speaker 1:Exactly Back. Then you only got select channels right, exactly. Yeah, Obviously you spent a lot of time in clubhouses and things like that. What's your most memorable moment? Either traveling on the road or like in a clubhouse, with a clubhouse, with a guys and your teammates.
Speaker 3:You know, for me the clubhouse was more of like the road, was more fun than the clubhouse. The clubhouse is like the preparation before the game right, you're only in a clubhouse to get ready for the game. So you know, you have that kind of the not stress, but kind of like the excitement, the anxiety of a game. So the clubhouse for me was more a place to get ready, not more of a place to just go and have a bunch of good times. The plane rides were fun. I mean the best part and you could talk to any ex-player. The best part, the part they miss the most, they're not going to say the plane, they're not going to say you know, competing is good, but I mean the plane rides, the bus rides, man, that's where, that's where the fun is. Playing cards after a game on, there's some big pots on those planes too.
Speaker 1:That's pretty fun, but that's cool.
Speaker 3:One specific memory. There's probably something I can't really speak on here but you know there was a. It was a good time, for sure. Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 2:You know. So, like like Blaine mentioned in the beginning, you played at the highest level, right, you know. But what was your approach in the batter's box? And I'm sure it changed quite often, right, but more or less what was your approach in the batter's box?
Speaker 3:So if I start from a high school years, I probably didn't have an approach. You know, you just you're better than the, than the talent there, and you're you perform right. And once you get into professional baseball you better come up with an approach, because you're facing really good players every single day. And once you get to the major league level that's when people try to say the hardest jump in the in pro balls from like a ball to double. It's not even close. Getting getting to the big leagues, the adjustment you make in the big leagues is the toughest. And you have to simplify your approach. And you hear a lot of people we talk.
Speaker 3:Some guys are guest hitters, some guys do this Most people. They sit fastball right down the middle a hundred percent of the time and they allow to adjust off of that fastball. If you think about it, guys are throwing 95 to a hundred miles an hour. Now If I'm looking for anything else other than a fastball, I'm not going to hit the fastball right. I'm not going to be able to react to it. So look fastball, look down the middle. 17 inch plate. I only have to adjust a little weight either side if I'm looking for a fastball down the middle, and then you learn to adjust up the off of breaking pitch you know, make sense.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I've got to keep it simple, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have to kind of having like doing those the little things right, having a base point for sure Fastball and then building off that and every now and then you get a little.
Speaker 3:you get a little wonky as a hitter, like this guy's throwing me a lot of sliders or he's throwing me a lot, of, a lot of, a lot of curve balls. I'm going to sit and then next thing you know, he throws a fastball down the middle and you're late on it right.
Speaker 3:And so it's like that's my bread and butter. So why am I going to sit on something that's not my bread and butter? I need to look fastball, I need to adjust off of that. And you know, you have a mental bank right. I'll see a guy throw a fastball. He'll follow up with a slider and you can kind of see how it comes out of his hand and I'm like, okay, I can if he throws me that with two strikes. Now I'm going to be able to adjust to that a little easier but I'm sitting.
Speaker 3:I'm sitting dead red pretty much early in the count.
Speaker 1:Right, steve. You know with with baseball it's, it's a long process going through the farm systems like that and there's a lot of you know I don't necessarily call it failure, but like those low points, things like that. So how, how like were you able to respond and adapt and learn from those like failures, those those low points, and be able to kind of adapt and overcome those things to eventually reach the highest level?
Speaker 3:So baseball is all about managing your failures. It's, it's, the game is designed for you to fail, right, that's what it's designed. Especially position player, a hitter, it's designed for you to not do. Well. You'll have 5, 600 plate appearances during the course of the year. You might get a couple hundred 150 hits. Every time you get out. You're upset. It's not like you get used to it, right? But it's a man. It's a matter of just being able to move on, maybe taking a little piece from each at bat, you know, and sometimes you just got to wash it, flush it down the toilet and let's go on to the next one. But it's, it's.
Speaker 3:I spent a lot of time in the minor leagues. I spent eight seasons in the minor leagues. I was drafted when I was 17 years old. I didn't make it to the big leagues till I was 24, right, and I had some really good minor league years and I had some pretty bad minor league years. That consistency for me at a young age was pretty hard. I went from hitting two, two 31 year with 11 home runs to two 98 with 30 home runs the next year Right, that's a huge jump.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, the next year I kind of slid off, the next year I went back. So I mean it's, you can't get too up, you can't get too down. It's a freaking grind, man.
Speaker 3:In the minor leagues, 140 games in 144 days. Think about that. You get four days off. We would. We would have bus rides in double A 12 hour bus rides. We leave at 11 o'clock at night, get in 11 o'clock in the morning and play that evening. Right, it's, it's, it's. They've changed kind of the system now which they probably should have. They, I think they get every Monday off now. We had four days off the whole year.
Speaker 2:You know it's a grind Like you said it's crazy.
Speaker 1:It's crazy, yeah, I mean that that's that grind and you know you're not, you're playing for, you're not playing for really money too too much at that point. I think I know it's changed a little bit today. It just changed last year.
Speaker 3:I mean 800 bucks a month my first year for five months and you can't collect unemployment in the off season. 800 bucks a month is what you made. Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 2:My next year.
Speaker 3:My next year was a thousand dollars a month. So in the minor leagues back then in the nineties, early two thousand. You weren't making any money at all?
Speaker 2:Were you hustling on the side with anything, or was it just baseball?
Speaker 3:Fortunately I had a signing bonus that was able to kind of get me through, and my parents, my parents would still help me out. You know, my dad gave me a credit card and like hey, if you ever you know, use this when you need to type of thing right. But not everyone had that that luxury, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:How are most of the guys making just kind of same way I did? Yeah, parents, some of them parents, some of them just scraping by, a lot of them scraping Small.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was. It was. It was tough. There were some guys that did some things that they probably shouldn't to get by. I mean, there's some eating and running. I heard stories. You know there was some. There was some crazy stuff, man, I bet the minor league life is a tough one.
Speaker 2:It's almost inevitable, though right For sure, I mean, it's, it's like right yeah, to bounce off. You know this type of question right here. You know about. You know baseball being designed, you're going to fail more than you succeed. You know, obviously. I'm sure you've had slumps. You have any funny stories of how you got out of slump.
Speaker 3:That's a good question. You know what I never had like five day slumps where I didn't get a hit in five days. I've never, had that For summer, I would go I would get a hit, not a hit for two days. Get two hits, not a hit for two days. I'd do that. But I never went like a 14 day period without it. I don't think my whole career. I ever did Long stretch.
Speaker 2:I never had long stretches.
Speaker 3:Now I was, I would do some things when I had a hitting straight going. It's a different story man. I wore the same pair of underwear for 23 days straight.
Speaker 2:Oh there, it is 23 days straight. That's a good hitting straight, yeah.
Speaker 3:And then I then I went over four and I had an 18 game hitting straight right after that.
Speaker 2:So that was a good run. Hey, it is what it is. You know, baby, what are you going to do about it?
Speaker 1:So let's kind of bring it back a little bit. When you know, where did you first find your love for baseball?
Speaker 3:I would have been as a kid. My dad played junior college baseball. My brother played baseball. Growing up in our house we always played baseball, right. I think I played organized baseball since I was like three or four years old, so it's always been something we did. We'd go to Dodger games as kids. But you know, when you're young, you know I didn't think about being a major league player when I was 10, 12 years old not even close. I just wouldn't have out with my friends and you know, and and as I got a little bit older, I got a little bit better and then I'm like maybe there is something here, but we can go into that. So I was never like that's going to be me right there no never, never until never.
Speaker 3:I mean, I was 13 years old. I didn't want to go to the games.
Speaker 3:I want to skateboard with my friends you know and my dad's like no dude, you signed up for this, You're going to, you're going to continue. Now, once I got into high school, like my, between my junior and senior year, I got a lot better and that's when I realized, man, I might be able to do this, and that's where, then that's where kind of the obsession came from me. But it wasn't from a young age at all, Not at all. I was never pushed. I was never. It was like go have fun. You know, that was kind of how I was brought up.
Speaker 2:So you know, when did you say sophomore junior? When did you say when you started to like okay, this is serious business for me now in between my junior and senior year. Is it because did you hit a growth spurt, or what was it that just made it that so?
Speaker 3:what happened was so. I was fortunate to come up in Menachie when we had some really good baseball players. Like my junior in high school, there were six guys that either played division one baseball or played pro ball. You won't see that again.
Speaker 3:Right and I don't think we'd seen that before that time. I was on an all star team, like a central Valley all star team, and we were playing in San Luis Obispo during the summers before my senior year and I had a really good game and there's a guy named Lee Erwin there. He was a scout for a major league scouting bureau what?
Speaker 3:the scouting bureau did. They'd write a report on somebody they like and they'd send it to all the major league teams. So he worked for major league baseball, but he wasn't affiliated with a particular team. Right, I had a good game. He comes and talks to me after the game and, dude, within a month Scouts were starting to come, boom, boom just like that it was the craziest thing.
Speaker 3:I went for my junior year. I didn't play every day. My junior year in high school. Yeah, like John farmer would pitch. When he pitched, I play first base. When he didn't pitch, he'd play first base and sometimes I DH. So I wasn't playing every day. My junior, I went from an all honorable mention Player in the EYL my junior year in high school right to a second team, all-american, my senior year.
Speaker 1:That's kind of a huge job.
Speaker 3:That was the trajectory that I was going through. It was crazy man.
Speaker 2:It was nuts. Yeah, I mean Goes to say, though, being at the right time at the right place with the right people, right cuz for sure, boom for sure, and it was like that yeah and then Colleges started calling and then it just, it just started snowballing from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember being at Buchanan and I was with AJ and Josh. Josh was there on the side with us coming to check out some kid, you know, is that Buchanan high school? And he says, yeah, I made the drive over here to go look at so-and-so and I'm like, okay, so I'm, he walks. All right, guys, catch you later. That was it really, that's it. He just alright, he's walking to his position. I've seen enough. All right, I gotta go. The next one, you know, josh Lambert. You know, wait, he walked to his position. Yeah, he walked to his position. Oh, yeah, that he was coming to check out and that's a wrap, man, that's it, we're going, guys.
Speaker 3:I'll catch you later.
Speaker 2:See you at the next one.
Speaker 3:That's a wrap, boom, you know. So Laby and I we he does a scout team, a Red Sox scout team that my son played on for the last couple years and I've actually I would be on the field and I kind of help and I got to know, know these players pretty well and and for those who don't know Josh Lambert, he is a professional baseball scout.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's why I brought him up, yeah, scout for the Red Sox. He played in major leagues with the Expos and now he's a good friend of mine and he's a scout for the Red Sox. But I had a conversation with these kids about no man, and these are the kids from the valley that are really good right.
Speaker 3:Like the majority of these kids are all going to vision one. Some might get drafted. They're really good players. And I talked to him about that. Like what you said, josh saw a kid walk to his position. That's a wrap. And I told these kids. I said man, you're in this social media, look at me era right now. Right, I said, but you gotta understand people my age and Josh's age, those are the ones you got to impress, right, and we're not gonna change our standards for what your standards are. And so you got to think of things Through that mindset. As these kids, right, they're trying to impress their buddies with their bat flips and this and that that doesn't impress. The guys in the stands with the Radar guns, it doesn't impress. They don't like that, you know. They don't like it at all. Their buddies might like it, but, and their parents might condone it now, but the people, the, the, the people, the lifers, the baseball guys, they don't like that stuff right, yeah, yeah, and, and you know, it's like you haven't earned it yet.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, that's a great point, so you haven't earned it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I mean, as you progress into your like a senior year, what's kind of the threat, the thought process, like did you have college offers at all? Was it, was that an option you're looking at or the pro route was so I think it was my Halloween, my senior year.
Speaker 3:I turned 17. I got my first call from a college team. It was Cal State Fullerton, and now it's back when Cal State Fullerton was going the World Series every year, and Dude is like, oh my goodness. During that time, though, there was a scout for the Oakland A's that saw me play in fall ball. I played on a scout team. It was the Toronto Blue Jays.
Speaker 3:It was a scout team from back then, and there was a gentleman by the name of Craig Wallenbrock. He was an a scout, and Craig Wallenbrock is now, like he's, well known throughout baseball, he's being a really good hitting coach. Okay, he's, he's getting older now, he's in his late 70s, and Craig would come to my house and we'd hit. He'd come from LA and he, we would hit and hit, and hit, and so he, I didn't know anything about mechanics of a swing back then not not at all, you know, and Craig taught me all of this stuff, and then, as my senior year started, I was able to implement these changes and, dude, the ball would just jump off my bat.
Speaker 3:It was. It was crazy, like what Craig said for me. He goes. The thing that really impressed me is is you were coachable, not the fact that you were listening and wanted to learn. It was that you were able to apply these things that I'm trying to help you with, and you're quickly able to apply him. So when you hear a kid's not coachable, it doesn't mean the kid doesn't necessarily want to get better or he doesn't want to work. He just physically he's not athletic enough to kind of do what you want him to do. You know right.
Speaker 2:So that makes sense, yeah, yeah. Well, to kind of bring it back now, you know, to talk about your career and things like it may be. Yeah, about your career and stuff like that, what was one of your most favorable moments throughout it? You know and it could be a few things too you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Dude, getting called the big leagues might be one of the coolest things in the world. There we go, you know, when you spend eight years in the minor leagues and you have some really good years, some really good down years. I Was put on the 40 man roster after my third year, if you guys kind of understand what that is. So if you're a high school player, I think it's after your third year. The team has to decide if they're gonna protect you on the 40 man roster, which means another team can't pick you up. If they pick you up on the triple a or if they protect you on the triple a roster, you go through what they call rule five draft. Another team can pick you up and put you on. After my third year I hit 30 home runs in the big league or in the minor leagues. They put me on the 40 man roster and I lost my train of thought. What was the question?
Speaker 2:most favorable moment being called up into the big yeah so you spend so much.
Speaker 3:So I would have some good years, like I said, in bad years in the minor leagues. And so finally, in 1998 I was. I got picked up in the expansion draft by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. It was the first year that them and the Diamondbacks Were becoming a team, and what the expansion draft was is for them to start with players. They would go out and they can pick certain players off certain teams to start a team. Right, right, I went to triple a that year. I got hurt the first game of the season. I pulled my hamstring. It was a wet day, wet night. I stretched for a ball at first base and I popped my hamstring so I missed the first six. I hit like 250 that year with 13 home runs. They take me off the major league roster the 40 man roster after that, right.
Speaker 3:So now it's like I'm 23 years old, I've already played seven, seven professional seasons. I'm like how, what's gonna happen? And I, I had to fire up my ass like I've never had in my life. Man, I I used to always say before game, put up or shut up, and I went out. That year I hit 340 at 25 home runs in 127.
Speaker 1:RV I.
Speaker 3:And I never got sent down after that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's exactly how you handle adversity.
Speaker 3:For sure, you know what I mean it's like what else do I do? You know, what else do I do?
Speaker 2:It could have been a career-ending injury.
Speaker 3:No, it could. That's not even the injury. So my poor performance wasn't because of my injury. It it. I had a really good spring that year in 98, and then I got hurt right. So then I'm off for six weeks. Right and so I just never got like a domino effect. I just never got back on track, man, I just couldn't figure it out and they end up taking me off. The roster is pretty. There's a pretty humbling experience.
Speaker 2:But then you get. You get the draft call right. You're building up to that, I'm getting, I'm getting the big league call yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no. So after the 99 season they call me up a September call-up, and so then I'm in the big league.
Speaker 2:Where were you at? Like what?
Speaker 3:Go through that. So this is kind of cool. You guys see the movie the rookie.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Jim Morris story. Yeah, so Jim Morris was on our team in Durham that year in triple a. He and I get called up together, okay, and so we're in Charlotte, north Carolina. They call us into the office, both of us, and they said you guys are going the big leagues. We're like, oh yeah. So we get on a plane the next morning, we fly to Texas and In the movie the first day there, jim Morris strikes out Royce Clankton, right, right, I was there, I got to see it. You know, it's cool, the doctor. After he comes off the field, he goes tomorrow is your turn and, sure enough, we're playing Texas. We're getting our butts kicked. It's like I can't a lot to a little. And I pinch hit for Fred McGriff in the ninth inning. Yeah, guy named Jeff Vissaro, and, and he gets two strikes on me, he hung a slider and hit a double over the right fielder's head for my first major league at bat.
Speaker 3:Nice you know it was really cool is Tom Grieve is the color commentator for the Texas Rangers and I'm really good friends with his son, ben, who played in the big leagues for a long time. Okay, and watching the video later, tom was really excited for me. It was pretty cool. I'm pretty cool experience, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had heard there's some Something about the movie you're kind of involved in well, in the movie I'm played by a guy named Brooks. Okay in the movie. That's me, yeah, okay, yeah, that's me, so what? Someone had a mention to ask you about it if it was you that was actually in it.
Speaker 3:No, well, there's a. There's live footage in that movie of a real game and I'm playing first in that movie.
Speaker 2:You'd have to. You'd have to look for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'm not what you're looking for.
Speaker 3:I'm not actually in the movie now.
Speaker 1:So, steve, I want to. So, as your high school senior year begins to, I guess, come to an end, mm-hmm, what's that kind of decision and, I guess, choice like to are you gonna go to college and accept a scholarship offer? Are you gonna you know you're getting drafted or you're gonna just go right to the majors and start that process through the farm system?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I forgot. You asked that earlier and I started going off on a tangent, so I ended up signing a my letter of intent with Fresno State, my senior year. Okay, once it got closer to the end of my senior year, there was there were a lot of scouts at all my game. It was pretty cool. It's like there was 15 scouts at every game, Okay yeah it was, it was.
Speaker 3:It was really neat. And I knew by that time there was rumors, I there was rumors. I would go as high as the last pick of the first round to the Colorado Rockies, to the fifth round, that's. There was that's kind of what publications said and blah, blah, blah. And I knew if I was in those I was gonna sign, I was gonna go play Pro Bowl, okay right.
Speaker 3:At the time I knew players who had gone and played college ball. I didn't know anyone who'd ever played professional baseball. Being from Porterville, I didn't know anybody right and so I'm like I'm gonna go play Pro Bowl. You know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it.
Speaker 3:I know there have been people like I didn't know right back then, right, but yeah, that was kind of my thing. And so my senior year, my last day of senior year, my dad stayed home from work, and this is before the draft was on TV. He stayed home from work to answer phones and as I pulled up After it was a minimum day, that day my dad was on the phone. I looked in the window he gives him a thumbs up and it was Craig Wallenbrock, with the guy who I had hit with my whole senior year. It was him calling, said I was drafting the fifth round. So nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, talking about All this stuff that's going on for you, that's going on right now, it's like what? Was it stressful? You know what I mean? Was it were you like anxious or any of that type of stuff? I was excited.
Speaker 3:You're excited there was no, and I don't remember ever being nervous. I don't remember ever being scared. I enjoyed all the scouts. I thought it was kind of cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I had no experience with it, but I, for some reason, I embraced it and I I loved it. Man, I never felt any Anxiety towards it.
Speaker 2:Oh, nothing, I really didn't wake up. Go to school, practice let's let's work out.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna start hitting. We had a batting cage. I hit every day and it was fun. You know, it was a fun thing yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, as a fan of baseball you I Personally you might be able to Confirm that that baseball is the toughest to make it to the highest level because you have to prove yourself at every single level. So could you kind of explain that process after getting drafted, the different levels you had to go through, and you're constantly having to prove yourself and you know advance and and make a name for yourself every night, kind of so how was that process for you?
Speaker 3:So I was drafted first of June, signed like three days later, flew out the next day to Arizona. Now I'm in rookie ball and it is kind of side note, but it was kind of interesting. This is the one time where I was like where in the heck, where am I? You get to Arizona? And it's like everyone who had been drafted is there plus a lot of Latin players, right, a lot of Latin. There was no drafting in the Latin countries and they're a bunch of free agents and there's probably 50 Latin players and 50 guys that had just been drafted. Or you know, 40 guys had just been drafted.
Speaker 3:And I remember guy named Ben ha, ben Hines or Bruce Hines, rather. He was the rookie ball manager and he looks at everyone. He goes. Maybe two of you make it to the big leagues and I'm looking around and I have. So Jason Giambi was drafted in my class when he's here. A guy who just Was a led the country and home runs from Oklahoma, was right here. It's first baseman out of a Cal named Troy pennies like six, five, two hundred fifty there's some dudes here.
Speaker 3:Yeah and I'm looking around, said what the hell am I doing If there's only two of us? I'm not, I'm not one of the two, you know. And, and it's funny, I've thought about this and I've talked to kid like what was the difference? Why? I mean, there was three guys on that field that made it me Jason Giambi and a kid named Tony Batista who had a really good major league year. There's three of us, out of all of those players right to the big leagues.
Speaker 2:Yeah, humbling some straight studs in there.
Speaker 3:It was unbelievable man. It was um. So I went out my rookie ball year. It was funny. I like the first two weeks I think I was hitting like 400. I'm like I got this, smoking it two weeks later. Yeah, hitting 150.
Speaker 2:Like this plan every day.
Speaker 3:I was only 17 at the time right. I remember I call in home crying, saying I should have gone to college.
Speaker 2:I should have gone to college.
Speaker 3:It was tough man. Fortunately the Oakland A's had this guy. His name is Harvey Dorfman. Harvey Dorfman wrote a book called the mental game of baseball. It's a really great popular book within the baseball community. But he was employed by the Oakland A's and so he would come and he'd see me and I don't. I wish I remember our conversations. But he just kind of cleared my mind. You know, like I Was putting pressure on myself then like okay, what if I don't make it? What if I don't make it? I can't go back to college and play blah, blah, blah. So then you start putting pressure on yourself, right?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:That's not a good feeling, yeah, but I ended up, dude. I went every step of the way I didn't repeat one. I went rookie ball short a low, a high, a, double, a triple a, and I didn't repeat a step until I got to triple a right yeah, so I Like asking this question for the young athletes that listen to this, you know, because we're talking about adversity.
Speaker 2:We're talking about. You know this, we're doing great and then bang set back, boom doing great, boom set back talking about crying. You know, should have went back to college, like you mentioned reading. What was that like your thing? Or did you have people in your circle that you could go back and talk to, like, just to help you reevaluate the situation, to get back on the track? You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:You know exactly was so long ago that I mean, I would call home daily and they wasn't always. What was me conversations, you know? And I talked to my brother a lot, I talked to my friends, but I don't ever remember getting so derailed right. I needed to get harm, you know kind of back in.
Speaker 2:I never got too bad.
Speaker 3:I mean, I got to the point where it was frustrating and I was. I was a 17 year old kid playing with 22 year olds. You know that was tough. I was very naive as a 17 year old. You know, coming from portaville and I'm playing with these college kids, it was that part was kind of I was kind of left out a little bit because I was the kid who couldn't go out to the bar. You know, I was just, I was just a kid, you know I was young, so that part was a little frustrating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it is what it is, but you always, you always stayed in it, though I mean you always worked hard, right, I mean that's how you did it, you know you know, fortunately Brent Brown was a big part of my my life then.
Speaker 3:So Brent Brown was drafted the same year as me. He was a third rounder with the Cubs. I was a fifth rounder and so after the 93 season Brent and I lived together and In Fresno and we worked out at Fresno State together. So I was 18 years old and I was living with Brent in the offseason and, dude, that guy knows how to work. I didn't know how to work, right. I thought I knew how to work. That guy's crazy right and a good one.
Speaker 3:He's enough when it comes to his work ethic and it was nice to be, I was impressionable enough that I can kind of take I never got to his way he worked though it was, he was obsessive about a lot, right, right, I was only obsessive about a little, you know, and he was, he was, he was a good one to have in my corner though, yeah, I remember today with what he does.
Speaker 1:He's obsessive and they talk about it. You talk about the broadcast all the time when they go to him.
Speaker 3:So last year he was working with my son, aj, remotely on hitting and I listened to him talk. I'm like I thought I knew something about hitting. I don't know anything about this game anymore, like he's so good at what he does. Yeah, it's unbelievable, yeah.
Speaker 2:He's just evolving.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I remember him catching him a few times that in shape working out. Yeah, this is like 11 years ago, uh-huh, I couldn't take my eyes off of him. You know, because the guy was just he. He just was different.
Speaker 3:He you know, what.
Speaker 2:I mean just completely different, and I'm like 19 at that time. I'm like so lean and straight in and stuff and run.
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness, fast. Yeah, he was a. He was a special athlete. That guy played football. He had been in the NFL, you know.
Speaker 2:You could have figured something out. Yeah, definitely nice to have a guy like that for sure yeah.
Speaker 1:So you kind of talk about rookie ball, having 50 guys surrounded, you know, by you High-level athletes, uh-huh, you advance into all the different levels, the single a, you know, double a, all that, what? What was the difference between the guys that were able to advance consistently up the farm through the farm system and the guys that Kind of disappeared? Because you see a lot of that. You guys leave it all the time right.
Speaker 3:I'll get back remind me to get back to that question. But I got a story about a guy and just give you an example how this works. In 1995 I was 20 years old, I was an A ball and I hit. That was year I hit 298 with 30 home runs and 110. There's another guy on our team. It was a first baseman, also from Wichita State, but he was 25 years old. He hit three I hit for. He hit 27 home home runs, hit 300 and like a hundred RBI. He was on it.
Speaker 2:He was good man.
Speaker 3:He was really good. He was a great dude too. He goes to spring training. Next year he, he retires. He just had a 27 home run year hundred RBI's hit 300. He retired the next year. He was married. He goes. It's time for me to go and he's very successful. Last I heard he's doing really well in life. But it just Some people, they, they want to do other things right.
Speaker 3:Some people want to do other things, but I think a lot of people who are, who are gamers, who want to be in the big leagues and Want to do, I think the managing of the failures is kind of really hard on them, and also managing your Personal life versus your versus your professional life right.
Speaker 3:I was never one to go out and party I was never. But there was guys who did it every single night like I had roommates that would go out every single night and dude alcohol and baseball when you're playing that it just breaks you down. Right, it breaks you down. Fortunately, from what I understand now, it's not as big in the game as it was when I played. You know, it was a big thing when I played, but now guys have gotten smarter.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I mean, you kind of hear those stories, the stories back in the 70s, 80s, even 90s guys going to the clubhouse smoking cigarettes after the game, drinking in the clubhouse when I was in japan, people still smoked in the clubhouse.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I'm like wow, there was. There was ashtrays in the dugout and on the benches in japan.
Speaker 2:Can't be to join them.
Speaker 3:But, but, that was like they're transitioning out of it. I like, I don't ever remember seeing somebody smoke in the dugout, but they'd go in the clubhouse and smoke all the time.
Speaker 2:Okay. Yeah, it's nuts. Yeah, there's. There's a few stories that rant share with me at our other facility about some big names. I'll let him share the stories for sure he says man, You'd be surprised how many guys go that battered box Drunk. You know what I mean, and they function high level too.
Speaker 3:Though you know what I mean he might be talking about a guy that I know really well and they I think they actually played together. They know each other well. He used to say when he played in the 70s and 80s, he'd say I can hit today, but just don't hit me, a pop fly.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna hit the one in the middle Exactly he goes. I could still hit.
Speaker 3:Don't don't make my head go up, because I might fall down.
Speaker 2:That's a great way to put it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember watching that documentary. You probably know the name. I forget his name right now, but he threw the no hitter with, I think, pittsburgh.
Speaker 3:Doc Ellis, yeah, yeah on.
Speaker 1:LSD or something through the no hitter. Yeah, couldn't see that, he's all. Every time I threw the ball I was like I was throwing a beach ball. Yeah, how to off my hand?
Speaker 3:you know, and rants came up in a time where it was different, they were doing different things. Basically, when I was playing, it was they were just drinking, drinking beer, you know what I mean. But he would came up in a different time where those guys were crazy. They're wild I heard some stories, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you. So your. Your best season was 2001.
Speaker 3:Well, just my 2002. I hit 17 home runs, 172 RBI's when were you at in 2002?.
Speaker 2:Oh still in Tampa. You're still in Tampa. What, what? Okay, so you, you go from the major leagues and now you're playing across these. What made you come to that decision? To just say, all right, I'm done here, let's see what I could do over there?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's more of a selfish reason. Um, I was up for arbitration for you guys to know what arbitration is after you have three full years. So I had parts. I had three full years, parts of four years, right. Once you hit three full years in the big leagues, in that three-year period the team has control of how much money you make. You have to make at least the league minimum, okay, and then, like every year, if you, they give you bumps, but it was like a 30, 40, 000 bump, right. So, um, and so I was up for arbitration, tampa being a small market team, right?
Speaker 3:Uh, the rumor was they were going to offer me x amount of dollars, right, in arbitration. You don't want to go to arbitration either, because you basically You're with your representative, they're on the other side of the table and you want x amount of money. They want to give you x amount of money and then they basically tell you how bad they are. Derek Jeter famously said I didn't realize how bad of a player I was until I came out of arbitration. Wow, that's Derek Jeter, right? No kidding, so I get a call that off season. Uh, we had just had my, my oldest daughter, gabby. Um, so this is 2002 and I get a call from my agent. He says uh, what do you think about going to japan? I said, dude, I'm way too young to go to japan right now. I said that'd be something I would consider later on and they started throwing out some dollar figures. I'm like, okay.
Speaker 2:I might be going to japan, yeah.
Speaker 3:I might. And so long story short, uh, the the scout, the japanese scout that scouts american players, he came, uh, he came down to la. I went visit him with my dad, we met and that's it. You know, we met us. We're driving back. I get a call from agent on the 65 and their offer was like double from what they initially thought I thought it was gonna be. And I said let's do it.
Speaker 2:I, we gotta go.
Speaker 3:I mean, it was more than I thought I'd ever make in my life right. So it's like I I have to do it and I hate, I hate kind of telling the story, because if you're so monetarily motivated it kind of looks bad. But when you're 28 years old, you just started a family, right You're, you had a decent year, but you didn't have a great year. Yeah, there was a lot of uh, free agent first baseman that year. Big poppy was a.
Speaker 3:There was a lot of them that year and but dude, big poppy didn't have a place to play after his last year in minnesota, that was after the 2002. Fortunately he signs with a small deal to go to boston, and then he becomes big poppy Right and then he becomes.
Speaker 2:It takes off him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, and so that's what happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what happened. So you go over to japan and you didn't play, I got hurt. I got hurt at the six day of spring training doing sliding drills, yeah, doing sliding drills.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I can't really get into all that, but yeah, it was uh, it was uh, it was a bad deal. I get hurt. I go to the minor leagues and rehab. I tried to play a couple games. I kept having problems. I flew in to see a doctor. I got to be careful how I say this. I flew and see a doctor in LA, um, and he said you're probably done for the year. And I get a call saying I'm released and fortunately it was a guaranteed contract right.
Speaker 3:So I mean yeah, the money was guaranteed, so right, but it kind of sucked. You know, I I liked it there.
Speaker 2:You want to play? I really liked it there. I loved it there, okay.
Speaker 3:And so, yeah, that's kind of what happened. We were doing sliding drills in spring training.
Speaker 1:So did you. When you did you ever get to spend? How much time did you spend in japan?
Speaker 3:I was there for almost a full season. Yeah, but I was rehabbing the whole, the whole time, the whole time man, I, I would. I lived in yocahama, a place called motomachi, and the stadium was only like three blocks, four blocks from my apartment. But I had to rehab at. The minor league facility was in yukosuka, which, right by this big naval base. It's about a 30 minute train ride, so I'd take the train every morning 6 30 in the morning and go rehab. And and take the train back.
Speaker 1:So how was that experience? It's freaking awesome man it was freaking, it was awesome.
Speaker 3:I absolutely love that place. I've been fortunate enough to go back a couple times with the job I have now, and I mean I could have been there for 10 years. I really did. I love the, the culture, the people.
Speaker 2:Most people say that, though dude yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Most people like you get these americans that go there and baseball that like think everything's dumb because it's different.
Speaker 2:It's more disciplined, it's sure it is a little.
Speaker 3:It is different. It takes them getting used to. They do it's change. They do some stuff that's eye wash, like I remember in spring training. After dinner We'd have. We stayed in okinawa spring training. We're in a hotel and behind the hotel was our facility right? We would have to, after dinner, go and soft toss. It was, it was a crate. There had to been 400 balls in this thing and you have to soft toss like all of them, like before you can go home. Wow, that's a lot.
Speaker 2:I mean.
Speaker 3:In the big leagues or in professional baseball. Once you feel good, you're done. Yeah, it's like once you feel good, you do it for another hour.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, it was a different thing. Yeah, I mean, it's a very disciplined, for sure, clean uh country, I mean, and that dates back to the history of japan the samurai and is still In, you know, in place today. You know.
Speaker 2:I mean, look at the players we got coming over here now. You know that are just tearing up our game.
Speaker 1:You know so hey, oh honey, they're so disciplined.
Speaker 3:And it's. It's such a cool play. They have this thing. It's called simpai kohai, so I'm older than you. I'm your simpai, right, you're younger than me.
Speaker 3:You're my kohai, so you could be like the president of A company, but you still have to respect me more than anything because I'm older than you, right? So? So it was so funny we I'd walk to the, to the train station in the morning right to uh, to go to my rehab on like a Saturday morning. You would walk down the street and there'd be these young businessmen in suits laying on the ground passed out like beer cans next to them, because their SimPy said you got to go out with us tonight and you just got hammered and throw them on the side of the road Every.
Speaker 2:Saturday, you'd see one or two, it was the craziest thing I had to ask.
Speaker 3:I'm like what's going?
Speaker 2:on here.
Speaker 3:These guys are in suits laying on the side of the road, yeah, it was nuts.
Speaker 1:It was nuts. That is different. Well, that sounds like eye-opening worldly experience.
Speaker 3:It really is. And my daughter was six months old and right above our apartment there was an international school. I wanted her to go to school there so badly. Okay, yeah it would have been really cool, but it just it didn't work out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it didn't work out. You know, knowing what you know today, is there anything you would have done a little bit different?
Speaker 3:I don't know, man Maybe tweaked.
Speaker 2:It made an adjustment.
Speaker 3:The only thing I could think of is what was my goal? Was it to stay in the big leagues as long as I can and try to win a World Series? Or is it to make some money? I think by going to Japan I shortened my career in the major leagues for sure. Right, out of sight, out of mind type of thing. Right, I don't know, but would it have worked out the same? So I don't really. I don't really think of that stuff, zach too often.
Speaker 2:Was there a team that you wanted to kind of play for more or less?
Speaker 3:You know, not really man, no, you just wanted to play baseball Once you're in the big leagues. I know there's some guys who grew up like big Yankees fans and they want to play for the Yankees, like Derek Cheeter did. I didn't really have that.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to play ball.
Speaker 3:I just wanted to play, man. I enjoyed my teammates a lot. I wish I would have made it to the big leagues with the A's, because that's who I was drafted by and I had a lot of good friends there, man. That would have been pretty cool. That would have been cool to play for them. I love Billy. Billy Bean was awesome as a general manager. He was a good dude still there today.
Speaker 1:It was a really first class organization for being a small market team, right how was he to play for Billy Bean, because everyone knows him from the movie I was never in the big leagues with them, but I knew him decently well for being in the Mayan leagues and he was just always very nice and very, very cordial.
Speaker 3:I wasn't buddies with the guy I was around him but he was a smart, dude man. He took over for Sandy Alderson like my third year there and he did something special with that organization.
Speaker 1:He did you know? Baseball has definitely changed at, oh boy, all levels, right, the minors. There's been some improvements there, little league, little league, high school. But now, even like with the majors and stuff like that, the time trying to shorten the game up for different reasons, right, money, marketing, viewership, all this stuff when do you think the direction of baseball is going? Is it going the right direction? The wrong direction? Why? Why not?
Speaker 3:I wish I was in the culture of the major leagues right now. I have a better answer for you. I can only do somebody who played 20 years ago and kind of look in and get my opinion the shortening of the game right. A lot of people complain about it all the bat flips and all of this stuff. I think, if I'm correct, viewership is like in an all-time high right, yeah. Is major league baseball ever going to do anything to try to curtail all of this?
Speaker 2:look at me when their viewership is that unwritten rule book and stuff?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know if major league baseball will ever do anything about it, as their viewership is going up. The problem is you get these kids doing it, man, and you get these parents that condone it right. It's like you know back when I was a kid, parents had a lot of influence on their children. I think now children have a lot of influence on their parents.
Speaker 2:And social media is what it is, yeah.
Speaker 3:And so these parents are condoning this crazy behavior, this bat flipping and these dances at second base, you know, and I feel like an old get-off-my-long guy, right, but it's a little bit of an issue for guys like me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there is some time. I mean, like I mentioned before, there's a time and a place.
Speaker 1:You know what I?
Speaker 2:mean.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The second inning double might not be the time and the place. You know what I mean. Down four runs, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3:It's like it's not the time for it. We had a guy on my son's team were winning like 14 runs. It's a double and does a dance. I said, listen, man, I can't see that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're at 14 runs. You don't do that. No, there's a way to conduct yourself 100%, but that translates into being a person too right Off the field, absolutely, it carries over, and that's where I think the issue lies right.
Speaker 3:For sure. And you see, as a teacher I bet you see it, you know, and it's like I don't know. I don't think things ever go backwards, though. Well.
Speaker 1:I mean, you see it, not just baseball, but you go to wrestling tournaments.
Speaker 3:Oh really.
Speaker 1:And you go to you know basketball games, and it's not all the time, but you do see that and the thing is there's, these kids are seeing it on social media, they're seeing it on TV, they're watching Pro Ball, whatever's happening there, yeah, but the problem is is, like you said, parents and other people are condoning it and letting it happen yeah.
Speaker 3:And the parents are like that's my boy. It's like ah man.
Speaker 1:Because it's one thing to do it at the professional level, but you know 99.9 people are not going to play professional ball and when you're doing those things at, you know a literally game on a Saturday or even in high school. Those are character things and those become character flaws.
Speaker 2:I believe Absolutely Well said.
Speaker 1:Because, well said, most of them aren't going to play pro ball, no, or even college ball.
Speaker 3:None of them, or even you know none of them Exactly.
Speaker 1:It's like let's try to have fun but do things the right way and let's teach these kids about character, because I think that's why most of these kids are going to play sport. And that's the biggest benefit they're going to have out of it, Since most of them won't go play at the higher level. It's building character.
Speaker 3:Absolutely Becoming better people Exactly. And you know what's funny is there's really good kids that do that kind of stuff, you know what I mean it doesn't necessarily define you, but it's like it's just one of those things that my wife hates it worse than me, which is crazy. It's awesome. We watched the world the college world series and she would just like. She's like I can't watch this anymore, but did you see that home run that Wyatt Langford, florida, hit? It was like a game tying home run.
Speaker 3:And he just had pure excitement, and joy. Right, that's a cool. That's a good fist pump and spin, that's fine. Walk off home run yeah exactly. Yeah, I get it, man, show your excitement, just don't be dumb.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like you said, it's a time and a place and it's one thing to show that raw emotion. Exactly, that's awesome it is you watch like LSU winning even in the college women's college basketball and stuff, when they're showing the emotion. That's a raw emotion after you just won a national title. That's one thing.
Speaker 3:And I. But I always wondered, like when this started, because when I was playing, if I hit a home run and did all of that stuff, the guy behind me in a certain situation is going to get hit, or if they're not going to hit him, I'm going to get hit the next three times up right. When did that stop? I don't know when all of that stopped. Yeah, I'm curious. Yeah, it's hard to say.
Speaker 2:But it's one of those. I mean it's like again. I go back to social media. I mean it could be a blessing in a curse, you know. And it goes back to viewership and all this money.
Speaker 3:I think it is a blessing in a curse.
Speaker 2:I think there's a lot you know you get a kid out at the middle school, you know, and he's, he's, he's in high school and he just messing around and he kicks a field goal from 50 boom scholarship, yeah.
Speaker 3:Just off of a social media, he just goes viral with it.
Speaker 2:All right, you got a scholarship come play with.
Speaker 1:Alabama.
Speaker 2:But it's a blessing in a curse. You know what I mean. But you know you did all three of your kids play sports, right?
Speaker 3:So so AJ's twin sister, lainey, she was a really good swimmer, but she she doesn't want to swim in college, okay yeah.
Speaker 2:And Gabby, she, she was a volleyball player right. So you know, being a parent of kids that aren't playing at high levels and did play at high levels, you know. What advice would you give to parents about raising young athletes? What would you say to them, man?
Speaker 3:you are never going to force obsession and joy and passion and a sport on your kid. I think you can mostly just take it away. I think I think you can introduce it to them, you can support it, you can, you can, you know, but but they have to inherently have that feeling in them. You know. Now I could say with my son when he was little, I asked him at, I think, 12 years old. I said, aj, do you want me to be the dad that sits on the sideline and just cheers for you, right? Or do you want me to be the dad that lets you know what you need to do? If the and he goes, let me know. So I've taken that and I've. I have not let him slide backwards one bit. I'm like, dude, if you say you're going to do it, let's. Here's where we go.
Speaker 2:And and there's a way, though, you know, after you receive that message back from AJ, you know it's you're not a dictator, now You're you're. You have to find that voice to where now he can hear you the best, exactly Right, and I struggle with that at times with him I really do, because I'm passionate about this.
Speaker 3:I got to tell him. I said, dude, this game is. Everything I own is because of this game. So I have a lot of passion and a lot of a lot of opinions on, on the way you progress, Right. And so if I see anything, I'm not afraid to say it, but AJ and I are really really close where I can give him that.
Speaker 2:You have a good relationship.
Speaker 3:I have a really good relationship with my son and sometimes it's like dad, I know, I know. But sometimes it's like he gets it, you know, and he's like no, you're right, like so. And these are almost daily conversations with him.
Speaker 2:I'd be honest with you, they really are. No, that that's a great way of putting it. You know what I mean. And the thing, like it, goes back to what you just said in the very beginning when you first started, that, like you can't force it, you can't, man, it has to happen organically. I was never pushed, never pushed, never pushed. I was about to ask you that I was.
Speaker 3:If you're going to do something, you do something. Let me tell you a cool story. When I was 15 years old, I was playing a Babe Ruth game. I took strike one and I shook my head at the umpire. I ended up striking out Okay. After the game my dad was like silent treatment.
Speaker 1:I said what's wrong? Again.
Speaker 3:He goes I don't ever want to see you do that again. I said what are you talking about? I didn't even know what I did. Yeah, he said I knew from the second. You threw that little temper tantrum out there, you were done. I was 15 years old and fortunately I listened to my dad. You know what I mean. I didn't say, oh, you're dumb, it's, I did a little something. He didn't like I. He said I knew you were done because you were just like doing this kind of little temper tantrum stuff.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm sure he was mad at that moment, but he knew you were done, Like you checked, like what, what, any was it.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean Like that was it he wasn't coming back, and that's probably what he was most frustrated.
Speaker 3:He was, he was and it's, and so I learned from there. You always conduct yourself in a certain way when you're on a baseball field. You always conduct yourself in a certain way. Now, as you get older, you're going to show anger, you're going to be pissed off, you're going to, you're going to yell, you're going to be mad right? Those are raw emotions like we talked about. I think that kind of stuff's good.
Speaker 3:I can't just keep everything in. But I'm not going to pout and I'm not going to whine and I'm not going to blame somebody.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 3:I wasn't allowed to do that kind of stuff, so that those are the kind of things my parents gave me, not the pushing to go work. They didn't do that. Right Go, they didn't do that. I was able to do that kind of on my own Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so as someone who's played at all levels of the game and you know you have kids that have played sport, your son, aj is, you know, playing on a high level in high school and you know sign with Cal State Bakersfield right.
Speaker 1:To play next year and you weren't pushed, she said, by your parents. But what does it, I guess, take to? You know, today everyone approaches sport and how they, I guess, push their and raise their kids in a different way. And you see, some, that it's Playing, travel this, this, this, this, this, and that's what it takes to go to that level. But what does it take to Allow your, your kid, your athlete, to Find that passion and consistently be passionate about the game and not get burned out and Not lose focus, not lose interest, things of that sort.
Speaker 3:I think every kid has to be different, right, I think? I think there's probably some kids you can push a little more, but but they have, you have. I think as a parent you have to have that relationship with your kid and they have to trust you. I think your kid has to trust that you have their best interest at heart. I'm not gonna go tell my daughter Gabby and volleyball, all the drills she has to do, because I don't know what she has to do now my wife can take care of that part right with Lainey and swimming.
Speaker 3:I Don't know what it takes to be a good swimmer. I have no idea. So what I would do is a parent, because 99% of the parents out there they don't know what it takes right, they have no clue, they've never experienced it. So with Lainey it's like do you think you should be doing some today? Do you want to do this today? You know, you talk to him and you kind of get get their feeling on it. You know, I don't think there's a there's a cookie cutter way of doing any of this stuff. Man, it's you guys. Don't have you have you have a boy, do you have? I don't know, dude, I have three kids. Two of them are twins.
Speaker 3:They're free, I, they're totally different yeah you can't raise there, I raise them all three totally differently. I can get an AJ's butt like I can't get an all-there-butt though. You know I can. I can really get an AJ's and he takes it.
Speaker 2:well, you know, it's just different.
Speaker 3:Yeah, everybody's different, you know yeah, but but To be successful in a sport, though, that you have to form an obsession. I think there has to be an obsession, and that's not taught, and I don't know. I think some people have it and some people, but it can. I think it can be developed as well. It's not something you're just born with, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, like I said on the last podcast, you know what I mean. And obsession requires sacrifice, and that's usually where people steer, they go. All right, maybe I don't want this anymore. You know what I mean?
Speaker 3:Well, and another thing is too, as you get older and I don't, I wouldn't expect a 13 year old to do this but as you get older, into high school, your later parts of high school or into college, like when you set a plan, like a workout plan, right, you don't just say I'm gonna do it when I feel like it today. Right, like you have a time man, you, you, you make an appointment, I'm gonna work out at 9 today. Yeah, now sometimes you might have to adjust your plan, but you don't just say I'm gonna do it when I feel like it. Yeah, like that doesn't work. And, and Any athlete will tell you, the routines are so important and when you develop a routine, you freaking, stay on that routine, no matter how your success level. Sometimes you have to adjust a little bit. But I would get to the ballpark. I do the same thing every day. I go hit, I, and sometimes I would do soft toss and sometimes I take 10 swings.
Speaker 3:Sometimes I need 20, 30, 40 swings, right, it's just a pile, I felt, but it was a routine and I did the same thing every single day and All good players do the same thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're stacking your days is basically what you're doing.
Speaker 3:I mean the.
Speaker 2:Every single day you show up you get a stack it, boom, stack. And every single time you stack it, that Period may gets a little bit higher. Exactly, it's right to the tip, you top, where it's where you're trying to go. You know things like that.
Speaker 3:I bet golfers are the same way too, because it's such a mental game. Hitting is such a mental game, golfing is such a mental game. If, all of a sudden, you don't think you've done everything to prepare yourself for that day, your brain doesn't feel right, man right, remember no more. Garcia's to do all that stuff.
Speaker 2:There's a reason behind that stuff.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean. There's a reason that that's him resetting his brain, that's him doing the same thing, so he doesn't feel weird right. And so that kind of stuff's important is as annoying as some people thought it was. I freaking loved it because I understood the intent behind it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I know, like Tiger Woods, his approach is exact same for every hole he approaches, sets the tea down, puts a tea down in the box. Exact same way every single time Approaches it. Everything's dialed in, do you think?
Speaker 3:do you think Tiger Woods, for breakfast on a Sunday, doesn't know what he's gonna eat in the morning, yeah. Or do you think he has 30 things to choose from? Guarantee he doesn't. He probably has a couple things and this is what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 3:This is how I know it makes my body feel. Guys, just to make fun of me. Well, I was playing in the big leagues because I would. When we're at home, I'd only eat at three different places. I wouldn't go anywhere else. Mm-hmm, randy, when you say, hey, why don't you pick me up for lunch, I said nope.
Speaker 2:I got by myself, I got a drive by myself. He would do it. Don't take a personal drive by myself.
Speaker 3:I listen to the same music and I go to one of three places. Yeah right, because I didn't want to. Seven o'clock all of a sudden my stomach felt weird or right and it's those little attention to detail. I think that is missed and those aren't things that are taught and I don't know if they should be taught. They maybe explain that If, if you get to a certain point, this might happen to you because there are some freaking freaks, man, that they don't need that stuff.
Speaker 2:The yeah, they just figure it out. You know there's some freaks.
Speaker 3:Harvey Dorfman said. He said if you look on any major league field, five percent of the people, no matter what they did, we're gonna be major leaguers. Five percent the other 95 Just worked way harder than everybody else.
Speaker 2:That's a good point.
Speaker 3:That's a good point, yeah because you get guys that lazy freaking out partying all time and they go two for three the next day Like like nothing, right, but those are the outliers. You know, you can't stay away from those.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I wanted to go back, you know to, About the parent thing. You know talking about that, you know talking about you. You can't help. Your daughter was swimming.
Speaker 1:You weren't a swimmer, mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:You're right, you know what I mean. So it's like, I think, a big thing about Getting your kid to the next level, or just with growth and involving them in whatever particular sport. Maybe there's just multi-athlete. Mm-hmm is getting them into the right places for sure, because I think a big thing that parents sometimes Misunderstand is that you know somebody might know how to do it better than you. A hundred percent you know, and once I my son has trainers. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, he's only eight, Mm-hmm. But at the same time I don't want to have that type of relationship, or it's just always like oh man you know what I mean, mm-hmm. So I think a big thing for parents to go back to what you said is like okay, gabby, she does struggling and volleyball your mom. Mm-hmm. Go to your mom. Yeah, you know. And if it's not your mom, then let's go talk to your aunt. It's not the end, let's go hire train.
Speaker 3:Sometimes they need a different voice, Exactly, and I think that's a big step for parents to take for their athletes to evolve into something Great dude, I was talking to a friend of mine and a lot of people are kind of old school Were there against all this travel ball stuff and I was so opposed to it. You're like when I was young, when my kids were young when my kids were young.
Speaker 3:I'm like after good, and I used to joke I said so if Albert pohols played travel ball, he'd be better than he is now. That was kind of my thing, right? Yeah, what I've seen, though, is Kids are so good it at 14, 15 years old now.
Speaker 2:It's crazy.
Speaker 3:They're so good, right, unbelievable. It's like these kids at 13, 14, 15 were better than me as a fifth rounder when I was 17. They're getting offers of freshman eighth graders.
Speaker 2:You know it's crazy.
Speaker 3:These kids are so good now and that doesn't happen by Hitting once a week. Right, that doesn't happen. I mean it can. I guess they're like I said, there's outliers that are just freaks, but the majority of these kids are playing a lot and and there's something to it, you know as much as it pained me to think that because it's a lot of, it's a lot of work, man, as a parent.
Speaker 1:It's a lot, and I think that's where you have to be passionate, obsessed with it, because in today's world, whether it's basketball or baseball, it takes that if you're not playing travel ball, if you're not playing for clubs, if you're not doing this Like I mean, you might not even make your high school team for sure.
Speaker 3:I'm saying so like well in, you know, in port of those different man, we're a little more of a depressed area than some of these other places. Right what I saw in my son when he was playing on this Red Sox scout team, which is the best players from Bakersfield up to like Modesto okay. And they would meet every Wednesday. And just he's when you're surrounded around really good players.
Speaker 2:Oh, dude, there's contagious, it's so awesome, yeah.
Speaker 3:And then, unfortunately, in Portugal, there's a couple of those kids, right, you know what I mean. So you're not surrounded. So for him it's like listen to, do not Maintain your standards. Maintain your standards. You know yeah you know Louie, you know Louie Torres right so. Louie and AJ work out every day together now.
Speaker 1:It's freakin awesome.
Speaker 3:I love that kid and and it's so nice that AJ has somebody that's pitching that's gonna be a higher level pitcher as well that you need that right, right, because you can't be doing it by yourself, especially as a kid, you never want to be the best player in the room.
Speaker 2:Hell, no, you know, I never was. Yeah, louie's great, I he's. He's now coming in here and and one of the most well-respected kids. I've ever you know, but you know what's the definition of insanity insanity repeating something, that Repetition repetition, repetition, repetition.
Speaker 2:You know because I go back and forth with the whole year-round sports. I got a question from from parent hey, is it gonna be okay if my, if my kid just plays baseball all year around? I Wouldn't advise it as a freshman. You know. If he's a multi sport player already, let him play his multi sports. You know what I mean. But just make sure you're so when that time does come and he is just a baseball player that he's still kind of Getting exposed to those things that he was before for sure, basketball just quick, sudden reflect Like and that's the best, the best place for him to be as a gym, yeah you know and things like that, because you know, speaking from a person that that's gone through a few injuries and stuff like that, it's the moment you get an injury is the body changes, the mind changes things start changing you.
Speaker 2:Just like you said, you don't want to leave any doors open. Now I've had.
Speaker 3:I've had way too many injuries and that the and they were long injuries too, and they set you back so far, so far.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and this is injuries for taller people, aren't, aren't?
Speaker 3:like broken bones. I like shattered all these bones in my face. I like I broke a bunch of things getting hit by balls.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that you broke shattered a bunch of bones in your face.
Speaker 3:Reconstruct the surgery on the right side of my face. Yeah, it was a, it wasn't even during the game, it was during early batting practice. I was thrown down the right field line and I just didn't pay attention. Guy hit a line drive and got me right here and shattered my zygomatic, my orbital and my lower I socket. Yeah, and it was a, it was bad deal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was me. I didn't know that. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:I got a Teflon pad holding my eye in my my right eyeball.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like wow, I don't have a.
Speaker 3:I suck lower, I socket. Okay, yeah, it was a good one.
Speaker 1:So you obviously have faced a lot of great athlete pitchers. You've been surrounded by great. You know players on both with on your own teams, but also on opposing teams. Who's like the one guy that you either played against or played with. That really stands out to, whether it's work ethic or just like the way they carry themselves. There's there's a few man who was some of the guys that kind of stand dog man Fred McGriff was the ultimate professional, that guy, he just got inducted.
Speaker 3:Yeah he was the ultimate professional on and off the field.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm not the field dude, we'd go out to dinner. He was such a good guy. This is how cool Fred was. So he was the first baseman, right, I get called the big leagues. I never played the outfield ever until I got to the big leagues. My first game playing the outfield Yankee Stadium, but my rookie year well, it's a way to start, and Fred was always supportive, right and like. I'm the young guy and I wasn't even trying to take. I wasn't trying. I know I'm not taking Fred McGriff's job.
Speaker 2:That's.
Speaker 3:Fred McGriff, but I want to fit in here, right, right. So my second. In 2001, we he. There was rumors that he was gonna get traded and we're in I think we're in Anaheim, and after the game he comes up to me he goes it's all yours now. Yeah, I was the first like he told me. He just Just traded the torch.
Speaker 2:He just got traded the Cubs.
Speaker 3:It just. He was just a sweet man, just a good, good dude. Yeah, no pride.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, nothing that's cool.
Speaker 3:But you know what, watching the Yankees play back in the day was something really special, like the way that they went about their business was was like Jeter. I mean Bernie Williams might be the most underrated player ever you know he was so good. Tino Martinez yeah, Jorge Pesada, those guys were really fun to watch.
Speaker 1:They're all the professionals and just unbelievable.
Speaker 3:Unbelievable. It's awesome. It was a fun. That place was something special. We were the first team to play there after 9-11, right. Oh and it was a. Really that was probably one of the highlights of my. My career is is is playing there after 9-11. It was what was that experience? Like it was, it was so. You know, we took like nine days off after, after the right trade centers went down right and I think our first game back was in Boston and what was really crazy.
Speaker 3:You guys probably don't know this, but Multiple times during a game in Boston, the fans chant Yankee suck. Everyone, 30,000 people, yankee suck, right, yeah, they didn't do it that day. And then at the end of the game they played New York, new York, in Fenway right, yeah, they played in New York, new York.
Speaker 3:It gave me chills just thinking about it. So we fly into to To New York and normally we stay downtown Manhattan by Grand Central Station. Well, the the trade centers were still smoking and we ended up. We had to fly into New York and we stayed in New Jersey, but you can see the smoke coming from. So we get to the ballpark and there's bomb sniffing dogs. We've never experienced that kind of stuff. Right, yeah, it was like, oh man, so what they ended up doing that day? So this was probably 10 to 14 days after the bombings happened. That when we're playing them somewhere around there my math might be a little off, but we all line up down the first base line with first responders. And I still remember my guy was a fire, was a firefighter, gravelly voice, he's a lot of smoke inhalation and Michael Bolton sung the national anthem right, he was big back then.
Speaker 3:Yeah it was really cool. But the coolest part of the whole thing, man, is I'm playing first base and it was probably like the second inning or third inning and all of a sudden places packed right. I just there's this hush and everyone starts chanting Rudy, rudy Giuliani was the mayor at the time right which he Not what your politics are back then? People like coming to New York. Sure he comes and he sits right down by the first base, dugout Dude, and the place just goes wild and we beat Roger Clements that night.
Speaker 3:I was a really neat experience. That's cool. Thanks for sharing yeah that's awesome.
Speaker 1:So, steve, you kind of talked earlier about you know, we talked about Japan. He kind of talked about going back there for work. So now what? What are you doing today for people that are gonna listen to us, that haven't kind of kept up with you?
Speaker 3:I'm in the citrus business now so I kind of Make decisions on fruit that's being picked up, certain markets. So I've gone to Japan and the Asian countries a few times just to meet with customers and stuff like that, yeah so.
Speaker 1:So how's that? How's that whole world kind of treating you and how's that been, you know going from a professional baseball player now kind of transitioning into, you know, managing citrus. It was humbling at first.
Speaker 3:man, I'll be honest with you. I, yeah, my plan was I Was gonna get in, I wanted to be a professional coach, and so after 2005 my last season my wife was pregnant with the twins and my plan was just take like a year off and then I was gonna get back into coaching. Well, man, when you have three kids, it's kind of hard just to get up and leave for eight months. Yeah, right.
Speaker 3:So I just stayed home, and then what happened was I bought an orange grove with a buddy of mine, and one thing led to another, and I've been doing it for like 15 years now. So, it's a cool. It's a cool career.
Speaker 1:How many acres do you gotta manage? Oh, I couldn't even thousands, yeah.
Speaker 3:All the way from Maricopa to Medea or a Medera, so yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, gives you plenty of time to go watch AJ and your kids play right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I listen a lot of podcasts too, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean driving that truck. From one field to another man, you're on the road a lot a lot of steps in for sure.
Speaker 1:What are your go-to podcasts?
Speaker 3:I listen to Rogan a lot I listened to. I listened a lot of comedian podcasts. Freakinomics is one of my go-tos at times. Yeah, yeah and it is a good one. What else is there? My wife throws me a true crime one every now and then.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah yeah, there's some good ones. I started listening a couple of modern wisdom with Chris a willing. It's really good. Okay and the Hebrew men live with.
Speaker 3:Andrew, it is good, yeah, like long jab Exactly. I feel guilty listening to it a lot, though, so I'll turn it off, yeah.
Speaker 1:So much.
Speaker 3:That's, it's good stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, that's I mean, as this comes, you know, to a closing, you know, and things like that. I just this like you know, I Always like asking questions that involve the parent athlete because that's what I deal with right. I deal with the parent and the athlete and things like that. You know you, I trained AJ right when AJ was coming.
Speaker 2:You know, to me he was on the scrawny, you're in you know, and he was being introduced to the weights and things like that. You know, did you ever work out like heavy and hard and things like that throughout your career, or anything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we had a strength coach every offseason living Fresno with. Steve Sabonia was the president state strength and conditioning coach. We worked out with him five days a week yeah high school. I didn't really start lifting weights until my senior year. We did some stuff at home.
Speaker 2:Sure yeah, but nothing was organized right.
Speaker 3:Until I went and saw Sabo up in Fresno. That's when things got organized.
Speaker 2:I understood more of the kind of yeah, so no, there's always, you've always been a person who's been really well intact with their body. You know, sleeping hydration, maybe nutrition, or nutrition has always been good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I've always eaten pretty well. I got vices, but I eat pretty well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but tell me, though, like, how has that played a good role for you throughout your career? Because I mean, obviously we're fighting kids that eat Snicker bars and that's all they eat, you know, throughout the day, and stuff like that, if you don't have.
Speaker 3:if you're a child and you see your parents eating that way, you're going to eat that way, yeah they're not going to discipline their kids on that right.
Speaker 3:And the one thing you got to talk to them listen, if this is what you want, if you want to be an athlete, you can't do that right. You can do it every now and then, but you can, and you don't have to be so strict and disciplined that you're just going to derail, but you have to freaking eat right. You got to feel your body properly. You got to feel good. You know, if you're gaining weight during the season, you're probably doing something wrong right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you feel good, you look good, you play good, exactly. Yeah, for sure, that's a good way to put it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's sad, but I mean, it all starts with the parents, you know. Yeah, it all starts with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, I mean AJ was pretty, you know things that you would tell him protein, all this type of stuff.
Speaker 3:So yeah, he gets a little wonky sometimes, but sure he's got six foot five and he can get away with a little bit but he's also still growing right, and so he, that kid, can put it down. Yeah he can put it. I can't wait. He's on a meal plan, ebeko. We'll see how that it's gonna save mom and I a lot of money.
Speaker 2:I think that's good, though man Structure. That's all it is.
Speaker 3:You just got to create yourself some structure like you're talking about at the beginning. Yeah, and living with Brant was good because that guy was disciplined. But what's funny, go back real quick Back in. We started working out like in the 93, right, and so we saw the dietitian. You know what the pyramid they gave us was 70% carbs, 20% protein, 10% fat. So we're eating, drinking grape juice right. Yeah, oh man look at all the carbs in this stuff.
Speaker 2:Brant, all that stuff, top ramen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, there's some fat in that. But we talked, we joke. Years later I said man could you imagine how freaking shredded we would have been if we actually ate properly?
Speaker 2:Right, you know, it's just. It's amazing how things have changed. You don't know what you don't know you don't know what you don't know. Yeah, if you would have known, though, that would have been.
Speaker 3:Oh, we were working out four hours a day, man. It was crazy.
Speaker 2:That's, that's.
Speaker 1:But I mean, everything's come so far though it's crazy. So far With like rehab, extracurricular science, everything you know what?
Speaker 3:I learned a lot. So Aji and I went to this. It's called the Texas Baseball Ranch. I don't know anything about pitching. He's knew it pitching right. So he's just learning and this is like there's so much science behind pitching on like how to take care of yourself. It's amazing, Like like they would show, if you have certain mechanics off, you're going to hurt this part of your arm. If your mechanics are here, you're going to hurt this part of your arm.
Speaker 2:It's, it's fascinating. Yeah, they got you all patched up with these wire. It's crazy, dude, it's really insane, you know science is evolving.
Speaker 3:And you don't see a lot of rotator cuff injuries anymore. You see a lot of elbows. They say, elbows is going to happen, but you're back. In a year, year and a half, it's just like knees.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know exactly yeah.
Speaker 3:But shoulders are, I mean they. They do such good exercises. Now, keep your shoulder strong. You don't see a lot of rotator cuff issues.
Speaker 2:It's going to go. Yeah, I mean it's going to. I mean, how can you throw max effort season after? And guess how you do it though, like look at Jason Verlander.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:He's a smaller dude but he can hum a ball, but he's had longevity.
Speaker 1:He's like six, six, right.
Speaker 3:Well, but you know, he's lean, he's lean, he's lean, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:But he has so much, he's had so much longevity because he works his ass off and he worked at this place where AJ and I went.
Speaker 3:He worked with the guy, yeah, and so he'd help him like rehab and it's cool man it was. It was pretty, it was very enlightening. I was talking to Brian Brown about it a while back. He said the science in pitching has evolved so much where the science of hitting hasn't involved nearly as much. But if you think about it, how does it? Yeah?
Speaker 2:You know what I mean how does it.
Speaker 3:They quantify spin right now and this and that it's. It's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, just the data that they're able to collect and utilize nowadays. Well, we used to call did you play baseball? Not, really, not through high school.
Speaker 3:So you remember playing where guys would like they would throw 87, but it seemed like 94,. Right, it's like we called it a sneaky fastball, Right, they? They understand why.
Speaker 2:now it's the spin rate and the efficiency of how the ball spins.
Speaker 3:So, you can actually work on it.
Speaker 1:Right, it's pretty it's pretty fascinating. Yeah, and it's like the live data they're getting. Right then and there, right then, and there Like you're coming out of the, you know and so dug out, we have everything right there, yeah.
Speaker 3:All those track man and stuff. They can tell you the axis in which your ball spinning and hitting. All they know is launch angle and cares about that Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's great, Whether it's you know, baseball or football, whatever. Like they're coming off the sidelines, they already they're watching it live.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's pretty interesting. Crazy the games evolved man. Yeah, see where it goes from there.
Speaker 1:So you know, we we've talked a lot about failure and what it takes and what are two to three, I guess, traits you believe it takes, whether they're an athlete, no matter what sport they're in right and in life in general. But what are two to three traits you believe someone has to possess in order to achieve a certain level of success, like non-negotiable? It's like you need to have these, and everyone's different, for sure, but what are some things you think you need to have? This?
Speaker 3:I mean, I think it'd be just too cliche to say work hard, right? I think we all, I think that's, that's granted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you're not going to work, you're going to have talent?
Speaker 3:I don't know, man, I think. I think somebody needs to figure out what's more important for them. Is it the, the the need to succeed or the fear to fail? And I think people are different. Right, I think people are different, but you have to have one or two of those and they have to burn pretty deep, would you agree? I'd agree, yeah, and I think a lot of people say no. You need to want to win A lot of people. When I say fear to fail, it's not fear to try new things and not be successful at them, it's once you're doing something, I better freaking bust my ass or I might fail at this. Right, right, it scares you. It scares you. You want to be scared when you started this whole thing. Right, how you had to have been afraid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I lost sleep. I lost sleep.
Speaker 3:And that drove you probably more than man. I'm going to be successful, right, right, and I think that has to be there, with, with, with, whether it's athletes, whether it's people in the professional world. I think you have to have something like that I like that.
Speaker 2:Say that again. What you just said right now, before you said all that, what was?
Speaker 3:You rewind this thing, I don't know. Replay. I mean the fear does the fear to succeed? What's more important, the fear to succeed or the, the, the the need to succeed or the fear to failure? But I think you need one of those. Yeah, I think you need one of those and both of them.
Speaker 2:They have to run, you have to be passionate about that, they have to put a fire on your belly?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I like that. I was always better than I thought I was, until I got to a certain age.
Speaker 3:Yeah, every, almost everybody thinks that you know, but dude not there's a lot of kids that think they're so good and they're really not Right. I have a good friend, one of my best friends. He's the most confident person you'll ever meet and he's been successful. There's nothing he doesn't think he can do, but there's not too many people like him. Yeah Right, most people are a little hmm, but they have to have. They have to have one of those.
Speaker 3:Right, you know you can't just be in the middle. Yeah, if you're in the middle, you're just going to suck it.
Speaker 1:No, gray area, you're not going to do anything. If you look at highly successful people, they're never satisfied. No, it's never good enough.
Speaker 3:No, it's you. You never look at like, ah, look what I did yesterday, it's never that and you can't have that, right? I mean, there's times to celebrate things. And I think as a parent that's something that I'm not very good at as a parent is like celebrating the small wins. I know in the corporate world I used to, where they talked about celebrating the small wins. I'm like screw that, let's go on to the next. What's next? Right? There's probably a balance there and I don't really have that balance.
Speaker 2:I mean you really don't. I mean there's no such thing as balance when you're trying to be great For sure, it's either zero to a hundred or you're going to leave that door open like we talked about.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean. Yeah, so if I did something pretty good today, I'm not going to go celebrate it, yeah it. Just that's not my personality. I'm going to say, okay, what can I do next? Right, you know it could get a little.
Speaker 2:It could get a little tricky though For sure. You know what I mean, because I fell into that. You know what I mean, where you just all right what's next?
Speaker 3:I agree.
Speaker 2:You know you lose life.
Speaker 3:You know you lose a little bit, then you're an overthinker on everything. And when you start overthinking everything then it creates some issues. It gets a little harmful.
Speaker 2:It does. You know it really does. That's like the last podcast with Bear. I told him you know I have this kind of the saying you can't be two great things at once. You know you just hope to be around supportive people while you're trying to be great. Exactly, you know, because if not it gets a little dark.
Speaker 3:Exactly, it gets a little.
Speaker 2:I shouldn't even say a little, it gets a lot of bit of lonely yeah.
Speaker 3:You know what? The other thing I was thinking about this the other day is like, as a parent, you want your kids to have a plan A and a plan B. But if you're that person, you can't have a plan B, no, Right. But as a parent, I'm like all right, dude, I put all your eggs in this basket. But what if this doesn't work out? And that's my job as a parent to think that and maybe not tell him hey, you need to plan, or any of my kids you need to plan B, Right, but as a parent, you want one.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But as a when you're, I didn't have a plan B, right, I would have told me to have a plan B. I'd tell him to.
Speaker 1:Buzz off. Yeah, get out of here.
Speaker 2:I'm not, I don't have a plan B.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, I'll figure it out when it comes.
Speaker 1:That right there, that's a great way to look at it.
Speaker 2:Those are the type of people that are truly successful. I'll figure it out. Mm-hmm, the people that say that For sure. Oh my God, those are my kind of people. To be honest with you, you know, it gave me a little bit of chills, because those are. Those are how my mentors are. Mm-hmm, we'll figure it out, zach. Yeah, we'll figure it out. Yeah, you know, we're not careless, we're not going in there blind. We'll get it, yeah.
Speaker 1:But it's a mentality of like being confident enough, Like when things are just crazy chaotic and you're looking or far ahead. It's like there's a lot that needs to get done to accomplish that, but at the end of the day, you're confident enough, Like I'm going to figure it out. I know I'm going to make that happen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you can't look at the big picture when you're going through, or I shouldn't say you can't look at the whole list.
Speaker 1:You'll get overwhelmed.
Speaker 3:It's too much. It's too much. One step at a time. One step at a time. Let's maybe step it a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the best is a man For sure.
Speaker 2:That is one of the blessings of a trade I was going to touch on one thing real quick.
Speaker 1:When you talked about kind of like celebrating those little wins, I think that's important, but I was also kind of thinking about those people that have the high level of success and they're trying to achieve stuff up here, whether it's in the corporate world, you know, like Elon Musk whether it's trying to play professional baseball, it's like some of those things like you expect to achieve that. So I'm not going to celebrate something I expect to achieve.
Speaker 3:That's kind of what I was. Does that make sense? That's exactly how I feel.
Speaker 2:You've already seen it. You've already seen it, it's expected, it's your visionary In your head.
Speaker 1:You're not telling people that, but in your head, your mind, like I expect that. So I'm not going to go celebrate that because that's an expectation for me. There's more to accomplish. You know what's funny.
Speaker 3:Gosh, I wish I remembered the exact story, but this was only like a few weeks ago, aj and I. I was thinking about I just saw something about celebrate small wins again. Right, it comes up every now and then, right, and I don't, like I said, and I tried to do something like that with AJ. You need to look to me and he's like it's expected dad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the mentality Perfect.
Speaker 2:No, it's true. You know, when I train the athletes in here and they tell me you know that they got the EYL, whatever it is you know, this, this achievement, I'm like, I'm not surprised. I know the effort you're putting in. I know the work that you've already gone, gone through, is like all right, let's go Exactly, you know what I mean. But that goes back to you know preparation and the work. You know what I mean and things like that's where, if you put enough preparation is something, you get rewarded for it.
Speaker 3:I saw it already coming and I think going back to kind of what we talked about with as a parent how to how to direct your children right, and you say, if they're prepared, then they're going to be successful, right? The problem is is a lot of these kids don't understand what preparation actually is. Now they think they're prepared but they don't really know what preparation is.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:They think they work hard, but they really don't know what it means to work hard. You got to get around some grinders to know what it works out the browns of my life, right? Oh, okay, maybe I'm not working hard Because if you're surrounding yourself with a bunch of guys who you get an elite thinker and he looks down at these people, they're just a bunch of mush mouth, mediocre people, but they think they're working hard because that's all they're surrounding themselves.
Speaker 2:That's all they know. That's all they know, and you can't have that.
Speaker 3:And so, as a parent, you got to kind of recognize that I think Right, no, you have to, Unless you're one of those.
Speaker 1:And then you'll never be able to recognize complacency as well. Exactly it happens and people don't even know it For sure. I think we all go through it. We all do yeah.
Speaker 2:I have, like I mentioned to mentors that I talked to you about business. I don't know shit about business.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like nothing, but I'm getting it little by little and things like that, but I bet you know more right now than you knew two years ago, exactly Like by tenfold Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the thing is it's like I kind of try to save my moments, that I see them, because when I see them it's a humbling experience. They make me feel stupid, but they also praise me at the same time, to where it's like, okay, I'm going to beat you up a little bit, but I'll bring it back. Just hear me out for a second. Exactly, you know what I mean. And it goes back to being around those type of people that can set you straight after they already beat you up, exactly.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:You got to be around those type of people. You just got to come with it with an open mind. Yeah, and you can't get offended.
Speaker 3:You can't get offended.
Speaker 2:You can't get your feelings hurt.
Speaker 3:It might suck you got kicked in the mouth today, but you know what yeah.
Speaker 2:How can you be offended by somebody who's done it and better than you still currently For?
Speaker 3:sure.
Speaker 2:And it goes back to mindsets and a little bit of being immature and things like that.
Speaker 3:You guys need to get a psychologist in here, and then we'll all come back together and kind of figure this thing out. It's fascinating to me. It is. It really is.
Speaker 1:You know that's awesome. I have just one last question. You talked a lot about a lot of different people on here parents and you know Bram Brown and different coaches that you played for. Who do you think is like the one or two people that had the greatest impact on you?
Speaker 3:Craig Wallenbrock Baseball. Let's just talk baseball, just baseball. Yeah, craig Wallenbrock probably had the biggest impact on me. He was the guy that I said drafted me. He's Google him. He's very, very popular in the baseball world. He's got about probably five of his guys that he worked with that are now Major League hitting coaches and I hit with him from 16 years old to us 30, right Every season Wow, that's half my life?
Speaker 3:No, exactly. So he was super important in my life and my dad in the sense. Dude, if you knew my dad, it just like just just chill, right, and I don't quite have his chill. I get excited about things, but it's good to have that kind of just hey, it's going to be okay.
Speaker 1:Concold collected.
Speaker 3:We've never been rich, right, never been rich. He did okay as he got, sure, but it was like you freak out about him. He goes, son, it's only money and now it's easy. That can be offensive to some people, I get that Right, but his thought because he grew up dirt poor dirt poor and his like listen, don't.
Speaker 1:basically don't sweat the spot when he grew up at.
Speaker 3:Right, so he lived in. Born in Nebraska, grew up in like early mart area, lived in Ducor a little bit, and then yeah, so yeah, then he became a CEO of a company and like a great co-op Worked his way up.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, for sure, yeah, so that was a good deal. Yeah, I mean you had this and that, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:But I had a lot of men like baseball mentors. That guy named Carl Keele who wrote the book with Harvey Dorkman he's since passed away too. He and I hit a lot together. One off season and I was in Dominican Republic and he had missing finger and threw me like a left-handed cutter all the time.
Speaker 2:And it really dialed me in Seriously. Yeah, you got that one finger, that missing finger.
Speaker 3:It was hard to hit, but it helped me a lot.
Speaker 1:That's really cool. Now there was a lot.
Speaker 3:There was a lot so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you have anything that? No man, I mean, I can go forever, I can just wrap. I enjoy this.
Speaker 2:No, I mean that's a lot of useful information right there. Yeah, no thanks to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks for taking the time out of your day.
Speaker 3:Anytime, guys, I know you're busy and talking with us. It's fun. Yeah, always good time. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, thank you.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, this is everybody, steve Cox. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me, and thank you for making the time to come down and chit chat with us and things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a pleasure to have you over here. No-transcript.