Latest / The Layback Podcast / Dr. Brian Hunter, Physical Therapist / Founder of Hex PTP (Ep. 107)

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Dr. Brian Hunter, Physical Therapist / Founder of Hex PTP (Ep. 107) · The Layback Podcast

• 0:00
  Hey, everyone, welcome back to the Laid Back podcast.
• 0:03
  Joining us today is physical therapist Doctor Brian Hunter.
• 0:07
  Brian joins us from the wonderful state of Maryland
• 0:10
  where high school baseball just kicked off.
• 0:12
  And it wouldn't surprise me if it's like 50 mph winds today and
• 0:17
  snow on the ground. I know I was talking to some
• 0:19
  people in DC last week and they said winds were supposed to get
• 0:22
  up to 50 or 60. And yes, wonderful time of year
• 0:27
  to be playing baseball. And all those people in Maryland
• 0:30
  claim to be a southern state where the weather is nice.
• 0:32
  And Brian's not even shaking his head.
• 0:34
  And that that's surprising me right here.
• 0:36
  But hopefully we do get a little chuckle out of him.
• 0:39
  Beyond physical therapist, Brian is also a retired professional
• 0:44
  baseball player at this point, a fun fact.
• 0:46
  I do think he is still under club control through this year.
• 0:50
  So maybe, maybe we'll see a comeback with the Cincinnati
• 0:53
  Reds. Fingers crossed that we can get
• 0:56
  Brian back there. Not sure what he still has left
• 0:58
  in the tank, but maybe we'll kick it off, kicking it over to
• 1:02
  him and just say, how's that arm doing?
• 1:04
  Do we have a comeback this year while you're under club control?
• 1:08
  Dude, I'll tell you what, you give me two months and I think I
• 1:12
  could be back up to 95. Oh, OK.
• 1:15
  I stepped on the mountain intermittently, like the last
• 1:19
  like couple maybe like 8 months. I got on the mountain like
• 1:21
  randomly like twice and I've been up to 91 both times.
• 1:24
  So I think give me a proper ramp up, I can get back up there.
• 1:27
  Now the the caveat here is, is do I want to remain married or
• 1:32
  do I want to be a single dad that's playing professional
• 1:35
  baseball again? I think that's a pretty easy
• 1:36
  choice. So no comeback here.
• 1:38
  I can just, I can just reminisce in the glory days.
• 1:41
  We got to get you into men's league.
• 1:43
  I'll tell you what, maybe maybe down the line at some point, at
• 1:46
  this point, it's just it's such a lose, lose scenario.
• 1:48
  It's like, you know, you go in and like, oh, this guy pitch
• 1:51
  professionally. I go out and I mow him down.
• 1:53
  It's like, cool, I'm supposed to do that.
• 1:55
  Worst case is that I get shelled and it's just like, yeah, we,
• 1:57
  we, we knocked around this professional pitcher.
• 1:59
  We knocked around the park. It's like, yeah, I'm not doing
• 2:01
  that game. No, that's super fair and it's
• 2:04
  got to be even worse for you because that's even how I feel
• 2:08
  as an ex college baseball player.
• 2:10
  If I were to ever play baseball again, I would never want to
• 2:13
  play infield. I would either want to do it as
• 2:15
  a pitcher or like maybe play catcher.
• 2:17
  Just like do something completely different from what I
• 2:20
  did my entire career just to experience the game in a
• 2:23
  different way. How I'd probably want to hit
• 2:25
  right-handed instead of left-handed.
• 2:27
  And then of course, people find out you're the guy who did have
• 2:31
  like a significant plain background.
• 2:34
  And as you stated, it is a lose lose at the end of the day.
• 2:38
  So maybe we'll just save those bullets for you to throw live
• 2:42
  ABS to your clientele as they're working their way back onto the
• 2:45
  field. That's I prefer to do that cuz
• 2:47
  then I get to, I get to humble them a bit and remind them that
• 2:50
  I, I actually kind of know what I'm doing.
• 2:51
  Is there anything to the Arsenal these days or the couple times
• 2:55
  you step foot on the Mount is it literally just been let me see
• 2:58
  if I can get the fastball above 90?
• 3:00
  No, I think I, I tell you what, man, I kind of surprised myself.
• 3:04
  The field's still there. It took me a couple Breakers to
• 3:06
  figure it out. All reliable.
• 3:08
  The cutter was there. The only thing I can't, I can't
• 3:10
  fall back on. I never really had a comfortable
• 3:12
  change up anyway. So but the fastball, the cutter
• 3:16
  and the break are all all, you know, all serviceable right now.
• 3:19
  I can I can roll out and give you a competitive inning before
• 3:22
  I just like gas out, I think. Yeah, that's that's about all I
• 3:26
  got right now. Capacity wise and we are going
• 3:30
  down a very odd path to kick off the podcast.
• 3:34
  But I have a super specific question for you.
• 3:37
  You spent, you spent a season or two in Daytona, correct?
• 3:42
  OK, now here's where the specific comes in.
• 3:46
  By chance do you remember the mound height of the bullpen
• 3:49
  mounds in Daytona? Like relative like we're talking
• 3:52
  like. Relative as in like I don't need
• 3:55
  the inches, no no to any specifics.
• 3:58
  I don't remember them being anything like significantly
• 4:01
  outlandish, like they're probably a little higher than
• 4:03
  normal, but nothing to the point where I was like Oh my God.
• 4:06
  I feel like the mound in Fort Wayne was the only mound I can
• 4:10
  think of. I'll tell you what, the mount,
• 4:12
  the in game mount of Daytona was not super high, but it was
• 4:15
  pretty steep. Like the slope is kind of steep,
• 4:17
  but I can't remember anything super specific about the Bullfin
• 4:20
  Mouse. What makes you ask?
• 4:22
  Given my background in the college baseball coaching world,
• 4:25
  I did a fair share of showcases and then games around the state
• 4:29
  of Florida and a good bit of those were done at the Tortugas
• 4:34
  Stadium. And the first time that I
• 4:37
  stepped foot on the first base bullpen mound in Daytona, I
• 4:43
  don't think I have ever been at a higher point of elevation in
• 4:48
  the state. Of Florida.
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  I I'll tell you what, you might be right because we were the
• 4:52
  home. The home was third base on the
• 4:54
  third base side. So yeah, I've never been on the
• 4:55
  first base now. Yeah, I, I don't know, maybe
• 4:59
  that seems like a weird advantage to give.
• 5:03
  To be fair though, I do think both first and third, my gosh, I
• 5:07
  think you could see for miles and miles you could see.
• 5:10
  The ocean. From that bullpen mile and that
• 5:13
  is stuck with me. I think the last time I was
• 5:16
  there was 2022 and I'm pretty confident that is still the
• 5:21
  highest mound I've ever stepped on in my.
• 5:23
  Life that's hilarious. That's so funny.
• 5:24
  I don't remember that specifically, but I love that
• 5:26
  park man, that was that was a fun place to play.
• 5:28
  We're about the only we're the only club that got any fans like
• 5:32
  probably over 100 fans a game in that entire league.
• 5:35
  You go to like we'd go to Kissimmee and it'd be like you
• 5:37
  could hear a pin drop during a day game.
• 5:39
  There's like 13 fans in the game, but it was good.
• 5:42
  It was fun. We got like 1500 fans a night.
• 5:44
  It was solid. So now maybe that we've
• 5:47
  sprinkled in little bits of your background, let's let you
• 5:50
  actually give the high level bio at this point.
• 5:55
  Well, so yeah, my name is Brian Hunter.
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  I own HECS Physical therapy performance in in Columbia, MD
• 6:00
  right now. Yeah, like like Adam touched on
• 6:03
  my my playing background. I got I played at the University
• 6:06
  of Hartford from 2011 to 14, played a whole bunch of
• 6:10
  positions there, pitched there primarily towards the end of my
• 6:13
  career, got drafted in 14 in the ninth round as a senior by the
• 6:17
  Reds and pitched with them from 14 to 18.
• 6:20
  In that time I kind of went through my own Tommy John rehab
• 6:23
  and I got it August of 2015. Came back 2016, healthy career,
• 6:28
  wrapped up in 2018, decided to officially retire, leading in
• 6:32
  the spring training of 2019, and then started up PT school and in
• 6:36
  June of that year, so from June 2019 to June 2022, I was in PT
• 6:41
  school back at University of Hartford, wrapped up there and
• 6:44
  then, yeah, moved, moved my way down to Maryland and spent a
• 6:48
  year working for another practice down here.
• 6:50
  Spent about two years working for another practice down here
• 6:52
  and then opened up my spot in July of 2024.
• 6:55
  So now at Hex, I think I've leaned into the baseball niche a
• 6:59
  bit. Been my background and my my own
• 7:01
  rehab experience with my elbow and my pitching career.
• 7:05
  I felt it was a good, it was a good niche to kind of lean into
• 7:08
  and and kind of give me an edge over other local practices and
• 7:12
  clinicians around here. I mean, this area is
• 7:14
  particularly saturated with with sports PTI think and there's a
• 7:18
  bunch of really good ones. And I think there was just there
• 7:20
  was a really, I don't want to say big need, but there was an
• 7:23
  opening for for someone to kind of take the reins on the
• 7:25
  baseball side of things. And, you know, it's what I love
• 7:28
  to see anyway, so it's what I feel most comfortable treating.
• 7:30
  It's it's I can kind of speak the language, talk to talk.
• 7:33
  It's something I really love. So it's probably 70 to 75% of my
• 7:36
  case. So right now with a good mix of
• 7:38
  other, you know, general population, your your weekend
• 7:40
  warrior types and other sports, but weird little niche right now
• 7:43
  in the in a strongman, which is crazy complete complete opposite
• 7:48
  of baseball players. Like couldn't be anywhere
• 7:50
  opposite, which is awesome. Yeah, I was lucky enough to work
• 7:53
  with a guy, Nikolai Meyers, who's he's up in from
• 7:56
  Westminster, MD, who actually he won the World's Strongest Man in
• 7:59
  2021 in his weight class, helped him out.
• 8:02
  And he just referred a bunch of bunch of his friends and and
• 8:05
  fellow gym members my way. So I've kind of figured out
• 8:08
  that's for a bit. But it's been great, man.
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  I mean, I've loved the journey so far.
• 8:13
  Yeah, July will be two years and thinks you're doing great.
• 8:16
  Maybe it's a hard question, maybe it's an easy one, but why
• 8:19
  hex? What does it actually mean or
• 8:21
  stand for? So it's a hexagon you see right
• 8:25
  there. Yeah, right.
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  Beautiful. There you go.
• 8:29
  So purple's my favorite color. And I've had a thing with
• 8:33
  hexagons, like, since I was a kid, just like I was like to
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  draw as a kid. I always like to just like kind
• 8:38
  of draw abstract shapes and pictures and blah, blah.
• 8:41
  And I was sitting down when I was finally like kind of made a
• 8:43
  decision to to open up my own spot.
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  I was like, all right, sit down, like try to figure out a name.
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  And like literally the first thing that came to my head was
• 8:50
  hex. No other reason than that.
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  Just like just I can go in the whole, I can go in the whole
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  background of like of like why hexagons are infatuating.
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  Like there's they're the most efficient shape in nature.
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  So I'll just keep it really simple.
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  Like if you think about like a honeycomb, they're the most
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  efficient shape with the least amount of wasted space that you
• 9:10
  can possibly put together. And it's just like nature.
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  Nature kind of found that shape, which is, I thought it was
• 9:16
  freaking awesome. But yeah, I mean, just, I found
• 9:19
  it interesting. I like hexagons.
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  I like to call it purple. And I sat down and throw down
• 9:23
  XPTPI, created this logo in like a minute and a half.
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  And I was like, that's it. And I'm not going to waste any
• 9:29
  more time trying to figure out another name.
• 9:31
  And have you now tried to go back and think of like what are
• 9:35
  my 6 points of PT? And.
• 9:38
  Performance that, like every athlete, needs to check.
• 9:41
  No, I don't know, man. That's like so far, I don't
• 9:45
  know. It'd probably be better for me
• 9:47
  to have like a more brand recognition or something, but
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  it's so not how my brain works, man.
• 9:53
  No, I love that. You know what?
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  I'm gonna write that down and start creating like 6 pillars or
• 9:58
  something. Yeah, I feel like that's at
• 10:02
  least the like trendy thing to do of like, oh, everything we do
• 10:06
  is married in these six points, so we need to go by hex.
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  But I I really like the reasoning of I think hexagons
• 10:14
  are freaking rad. So I named my business after.
• 10:20
  That's great. So I guess before we really peel
• 10:23
  back the layers on the bio, you did mention that you had Tommy
• 10:27
  John yourself and that is now probably kind of a niche market
• 10:32
  that you're able to fill as a guy that went through it
• 10:36
  yourself as well as someone that can treat it.
• 10:39
  So over the now 11 years it's been since your Tommy John
• 10:44
  surgery, what all have you seen in changes, whether it's
• 10:48
  specifically on the surgery side or then on the treatment and
• 10:53
  management side on the back end? I'd say yeah, there's, I mean,
• 10:56
  there's some obvious, there's some obvious differences in
• 11:00
  procedure with the new implementation of the brace, the
• 11:02
  internal bracing and the repair versus the reconstruction.
• 11:06
  And now with the TJ three that Doctor Ahmad kind of started
• 11:10
  with the kind of combining both procedures is pretty
• 11:12
  interesting. It's it's cool.
• 11:13
  I actually just got my first individual case of it.
• 11:17
  Now I was working with a kid who had got it previously, but I did
• 11:20
  not handle his rehab. He was a kid.
• 11:22
  I was kind of just training. I just got my first TJ three
• 11:25
  patient a week and a half ago and I sent him up to to doctor
• 11:30
  Amad to go get that done. And he's, you know, he feels
• 11:32
  great so far. But as far as a surgical
• 11:34
  procedure standpoint, like that's the biggest difference
• 11:36
  I've seen. I think when I when I was
• 11:39
  playing kind of towards the back end of my careers where I first
• 11:41
  started hearing about that almost as like a career
• 11:44
  extending surgery for someone who just needed to squeak out,
• 11:47
  you know, their senior year of college or maybe the back end of
• 11:49
  the contract in the big leagues. I think like Rich Hill might
• 11:51
  have been the first person to get it done.
• 11:53
  I could be wrong on that, but I think that's right.
• 11:55
  And it he end up pitching for another freaking who knows how
• 11:58
  long. If he's still in professional
• 11:59
  baseball, he probably is. Yeah, he was.
• 12:02
  He was signed a minor league contract last year at one point.
• 12:04
  I don't know if he's with anybody right now, but I saw him
• 12:06
  kicking around in in AAA last year a little bit, which is
• 12:09
  freaking awesome. Yeah.
• 12:10
  But that from a from a procedural standpoint, that's
• 12:12
  the biggest difference I've seen.
• 12:13
  You know, it's expedites the recovery process.
• 12:16
  You need to have a, a certain location of terror and certain
• 12:19
  fit a certain profile to elect to get that surgery to qualify
• 12:22
  for it. But it can cut the time down in
• 12:24
  almost half from a traditional reconstruction.
• 12:27
  And then from a, from a rehab standpoint, I'll say like the,
• 12:30
  the contrast from when I rehab mine to currently is just like
• 12:34
  not being so nervous. Maybe maybe like the, the, the
• 12:37
  general feeling of, and it could be my little bubble that I'm in
• 12:41
  that, that, you know, all the stuff that, that I'm kind of
• 12:43
  digging into and researching the environment that I can put
• 12:46
  myself in. It's like kind of pushing the
• 12:49
  limits a bit in a, in a smart way.
• 12:50
  Obviously we're not trying to be stupid here and, and you know,
• 12:53
  get people doing stuff too early where they shouldn't be.
• 12:55
  But I think it's, it's stuff like introducing some higher
• 12:59
  level upper extremity plyometrics as a precursor to,
• 13:01
  to throwing besides just your traditional like Med ball
• 13:04
  rebound kind of stuff. Some more impact, some more
• 13:08
  impact with upper body contacts and a power production.
• 13:10
  And obviously, you know, stuff like the flexible grip is a is a
• 13:13
  phenomenal device too. I think from the, from an
• 13:16
  objective data standpoint is just like awesome to have that
• 13:19
  obviously didn't exist, you know, 1111 years ago, you know,
• 13:22
  with all the data now we have with between force plates,
• 13:25
  really good dynamometers, flexible grip like it, it just
• 13:28
  makes, makes the rehab process a lot cleaner and a lot easier to
• 13:31
  make educated decisions because the numbers right in front of
• 13:33
  you, you can't lie. So thinking of the shift, but
• 13:37
  aside from the comparison from playing to practicing as a PT in
• 13:43
  your early days of practice as a PT to now, do you feel that
• 13:47
  there's kind of less searching or guessing because you have all
• 13:51
  that data? It's almost like you can find
• 13:55
  the answer if you if you need an answer, you can go find it just
• 14:00
  because you have the force plates, you have the
• 14:02
  dynamometry, you have flexper, you have all these different
• 14:05
  things that are spinning out actual objective feedback where
• 14:09
  if a guy says he's weak or I feel discomfort in this
• 14:12
  position, generally you can find out why as opposed to maybe you
• 14:16
  just needed to go more like the conservative pain management
• 14:21
  route previously. Yeah, no, I think that's that's
• 14:23
  like, yeah, it's a great way to put it because, yeah, I think
• 14:26
  it's a it's a double edged sword, right?
• 14:28
  And I kind of use an example with with like imaging, for
• 14:31
  example, like if I if I have someone go get imaging for let's
• 14:34
  say suspected lumbar dyspathology or something like
• 14:37
  that, it could it could technically be a false, we could
• 14:40
  get a false positive, right? We could get something that, you
• 14:42
  know, someone could point a finger and say, oh, this is the
• 14:44
  this is the problem tissue. Like here's what you got going
• 14:46
  on. And it could be right, but it
• 14:47
  could be wrong. And I think I think the same
• 14:49
  goes for data in objective numbers, like obviously it's
• 14:53
  really important to have that and to to use that to guide your
• 14:55
  treatment. And I think it's just a good
• 14:58
  perspective to have to not just be married to it, right?
• 15:00
  Use your, use your clinical judgment, use your experience,
• 15:03
  use your anecdotal experience and understand how to apply that
• 15:07
  like it and create it more of like an art where it's like not
• 15:09
  exclusively a science, right? It's not always numbers, it's
• 15:11
  not always data, it's not always feel, it's not always anecdotal
• 15:15
  experience. It's the blend of both.
• 15:16
  But yeah, I think I think that's it's unbelievably helpful.
• 15:20
  You know, for a kid who I the kid who I sent up to Doctor
• 15:24
  Ahmad who got the TJ 3, like he was going through conservative
• 15:27
  rehab for a suspected UCL strain.
• 15:30
  Imaging kind of came back inconclusive, kind of normal
• 15:33
  wear and tear, but ran him through flexible grip and he
• 15:38
  like super weak owner deviation, painful, provocative third
• 15:43
  finger DIP flexion, all stuff that kind of just kind of raised
• 15:48
  flags when you're like, hey, that's like, it's interesting.
• 15:50
  Is it cause is it is it is it is it result?
• 15:53
  Who knows, but it's something it's something that we're going
• 15:54
  to target as a deficit. And from that standpoint, yeah,
• 15:57
  just it just directs your treatment really, really well,
• 16:00
  right. At the very least, you can't go
• 16:01
  wrong treating deficits even if you, even if you have, let's
• 16:05
  say, no clue what's going on, right?
• 16:07
  You you start there. I think that's an incredible
• 16:10
  point and this isn't necessarily even the conversation I intended
• 16:13
  to have today. We talk a lot about even in kind
• 16:18
  of the findings that we have so far with Flexpro Grip, for
• 16:21
  instance, the retrospective study where we look at fingertip
• 16:26
  strength, mid finger strength and then the ratio between the
• 16:29
  two. And that was performed with
• 16:31
  college and professional athletes, so high level
• 16:33
  throwers. And we see deficits in both
• 16:38
  strength as well as our mid finger to fingertip ratio occur
• 16:42
  in athletes who were previously injured in the elbow or forearm.
• 16:46
  Then we can step back and say, OK, well is that the chicken or
• 16:50
  the egg? Like which one actually came
• 16:52
  first? Was it this weakness that led to
• 16:54
  the injury or was it the injury and poor rehab that maybe
• 16:59
  resulted in what is currently being presented as a weakness?
• 17:04
  Does it really matter, though, if the athlete is weak?
• 17:08
  We should address that. And what's so odd is oftentimes
• 17:13
  we get stuck like pointing fingers of like, what was the
• 17:15
  'cause this is bad, this is good.
• 17:18
  But if there is something that needs attention, we should
• 17:22
  probably give it attention. If there's a bunch of houses on
• 17:26
  the street and one house is burning, there is open flames on
• 17:31
  the roof of a house. The firemen do not need to spray
• 17:34
  down every single house on the street.
• 17:37
  We should probably address the exact problem, however, then if
• 17:40
  there's maintenance that needs to be done there, if there's
• 17:42
  this potential safety hazard somewhere else, then we can
• 17:47
  address that as well. And it sounds like from your
• 17:49
  approach, that's very much what data has enabled you to do is
• 17:55
  It's not necessarily pinpointing the exact cause of every single
• 17:59
  problem, but it at least lets you know where the squeaky wheel
• 18:03
  is and maybe what you can do about it.
• 18:06
  Absolutely. Yeah, I think it's, I mean, you
• 18:08
  know, he's perfect, right? Like, yeah, you can't go wrong
• 18:12
  treating deficit. And for out of the 70% of my my
• 18:15
  caseload, that's baseball. I'd say more than half of those
• 18:17
  kids are from the age of 13 to 17 out of all those like their
• 18:23
  main problem is they're just not strong enough.
• 18:26
  Like it's, it's that easy. Like, I mean, if you want to, if
• 18:29
  you want to be a baseball PT, just like just strengthen the
• 18:31
  rotator cuff, like, then you're good.
• 18:33
  That's all you need to do. I'm just giving you the secret
• 18:35
  secret to my entire business. No, I'm kidding.
• 18:38
  No, but in in a sense though, really it's like, you know, I
• 18:41
  run someone through through dynamometry with like just cuff
• 18:44
  at, you know, supine at 9090 and you know, you just be like
• 18:49
  stunned at how at how weak some people are.
• 18:53
  And you're coming in for shoulder pain and and you're
• 18:55
  loosey goosey like I can rattle your shoulder on the joint like
• 18:57
  like no end and can create 38 lbs of internal rotation.
• 19:02
  You just get them stronger there, right?
• 19:04
  And then guess what, like 99 times out of 100, they start
• 19:06
  feeling better. We don't we don't even touch the
• 19:08
  way they're throwing. We don't touch anything else.
• 19:10
  You just get them stronger getting moving, getting them
• 19:12
  moving better. And by tackling deficits, you
• 19:14
  can go from there. And I don't want to make this
• 19:16
  sound too simple and too reductionist, but like it.
• 19:19
  You can sometimes make it that simple.
• 19:21
  You don't need to make it super complicated.
• 19:23
  I'm going to try to pull a relatively crappy Segway here
• 19:27
  and address the fact that, yes, you're making this sound a
• 19:32
  little bit simple. But that's also because of the
• 19:34
  significant amount of experience you have both in running, your
• 19:39
  practice, being a physical therapist, as well as your
• 19:42
  career as an actual baseball player in needing a certain
• 19:46
  level of strength to go out and perform.
• 19:48
  And you recognize that because you were doing it at an
• 19:51
  extremely high level, you were doing it throughout minor League
• 19:55
  Baseball. So now, as I said, crappy segue,
• 19:58
  I'd love for you to talk about the actual journey that you went
• 20:03
  on. Maybe not, maybe not from a
• 20:05
  baseball perspective right now, but I guess the academic journey
• 20:09
  in your pursuit. So what you were studying at
• 20:11
  Hartford, taking the break to go pursue?
• 20:15
  Baseball professionally, and then ultimately the decision to
• 20:19
  go back to school and become a physical therapist.
• 20:23
  Yeah, I appreciate it. By the way, I wanna emphasize
• 20:26
  that I don't wanna make this sound too easy, right?
• 20:28
  There's a lot of nuance to it and there's a lot of nuance to
• 20:31
  knowing how to strengthen, what to strengthen, how to progress
• 20:35
  regress. And it, it is, you can boil it
• 20:37
  down to simple, simple logic, but is it's, I don't want to
• 20:41
  sound reductionist here, but so I appreciate that.
• 20:43
  So yeah, for school, I mean, Hartford, it was a, one of the
• 20:45
  biggest draws to going there was that they had like a pre PT
• 20:49
  program. So it was a Health Science with
• 20:51
  a focus in physical therapy, which like, in a perfect world,
• 20:55
  I would have liked to have done like, a kinesiology undergrad or
• 20:57
  something like that. But that's what I did undergrad
• 21:00
  in. Yeah.
• 21:01
  And I kind of always knew that that was going to be my path if
• 21:03
  baseball didn't work. I just had like, this weird kind
• 21:06
  of like I was sick set from the age of, like, 12 or 13.
• 21:09
  That's kind of path I wanted to go.
• 21:10
  I had an experience training with our travel team when I was
• 21:14
  like 12 or 13 doing like offseason workouts at a place
• 21:17
  called Infinity Sports Performance in Long Island.
• 21:20
  And Ross Tavares was the owner there and he's APT and owned
• 21:24
  this Infinity Sports Performance business as well.
• 21:26
  And this dude, like he's one of those guys that has like 42
• 21:29
  hours in a day somehow. Like he owned, he owned both
• 21:32
  businesses. He was a volunteer fireman and
• 21:34
  did like, you know, just like did woodwork for fun or
• 21:37
  something. But the absolute man, like he's
• 21:40
  still, he's still crushing it. He's still doing a great job
• 21:42
  with both. And he was like that my kind of
• 21:45
  my, let's say like my inspiration kind of go that
• 21:48
  path. I kind of wanted to do something
• 21:49
  great, similar to what he did. He did an awesome job training
• 21:52
  us. He trained like big name guys
• 21:53
  like Stroman and Steve Matz and all the biggest name guys from
• 21:56
  Long Island, baseball guys from Long Island.
• 21:58
  He was he was kind of their guy. So he lit that fire for me and
• 22:02
  it wasn't really a choice to go back to school was just like
• 22:04
  kind of following what I knew was I was going to do.
• 22:06
  I'm kind of thankful I had that thought because if I would have
• 22:09
  thought about it too hard, I probably wouldn't have made the
• 22:11
  same decision just because I was really broke for like 7 straight
• 22:14
  years. But yeah, man, it was, it's you
• 22:19
  know, now that I'm here now obviously I'm happy I did it.
• 22:21
  But yeah, so Hartford was was was nice enough to kind of honor
• 22:25
  me to come back and re enter the PT program after my last year.
• 22:28
  I told him after my senior undergrad that like, hey,
• 22:30
  there's a strong chance I get drafted.
• 22:32
  I'll start up. Actually started like 4 days at
• 22:34
  PT school before I got drafted. So I withdrew and they said, OK,
• 22:38
  just let us know when you come back.
• 22:39
  Hopefully he'll come back. But if, if you do, let us know.
• 22:42
  So I started back up and it was great, man.
• 22:44
  It was, it was kind of a, it was a good transition because not
• 22:48
  that I needed to grow up, but it was nice to kind of have a
• 22:50
  different perspective coming back to school and understanding
• 22:52
  like schools really important, obviously, but like having a
• 22:55
  life experience to be like, OK, I'm like, I don't need to be
• 22:57
  stressing out this much about exams and all this extra stuff.
• 23:01
  Like I just got to put the work in and enjoy this.
• 23:03
  And I know that I'll I'll come through if I if, if I do what
• 23:06
  I'm supposed to do. We texted about it a little bit
• 23:09
  in preparation for this, so hopefully you've been able to
• 23:12
  give this a little bit of thought, but is there anything
• 23:15
  or any place you felt like you were lacking by taking time off
• 23:22
  and going to pursue professional baseball?
• 23:25
  I would say like nothing in particular, but besides the just
• 23:32
  missing the academic setting for three or four or whatever five
• 23:35
  years. Right, it's the routine of
• 23:37
  school. Yeah, yeah, 100% yeah.
• 23:40
  It's not that I ever really let myself get out of the loop of
• 23:43
  like academic, the actual stuff, the actual meat of what I needed
• 23:49
  to learn. Like I, I kind of like, not that
• 23:51
  I was sitting there like reading textbooks mid season or anything
• 23:53
  like that, but like I, it was something, it's always
• 23:55
  intriguing. I'm always in factory with how
• 23:57
  the body works and learning how to whether it's from a
• 23:59
  performance perspective or from a rehab standpoint, like I think
• 24:02
  they're the same spectrum. It's just like, how do you want
• 24:04
  to, where are you on that spectrum?
• 24:06
  Right? So I was constantly taking in
• 24:08
  information on that. And so I would say like the, the
• 24:11
  there wasn't much of A hurdle from that from a content
• 24:13
  standpoint, but just from a just from a switching gear standpoint
• 24:17
  was, was a little was a little different for sure.
• 24:19
  Fortunately for you, you kind of got to live in clinicals for
• 24:25
  four years or however long that was.
• 24:27
  Now of course the bad side of that or the negative side is
• 24:30
  because of your elbow surgery and shoulder pain that you spent
• 24:34
  all this time in the athletic training room and with PTS and
• 24:38
  with trainers. But what it meant is you got to
• 24:42
  learn very specific case management that most students
• 24:46
  probably didn't learn for two to three years into school.
• 24:51
  And you also did it on site. You weren't doing it from the
• 24:55
  this is what the textbook says. I'm sure to a certain extent you
• 25:00
  probably felt ahead when it came to the actual human side of
• 25:05
  physical therapy. Yeah, I would agree 100% with
• 25:09
  that. And not not to sound like, you
• 25:11
  know, arrogant by saying that, like that's not at all my
• 25:13
  intention, but like I do feel like that was the biggest
• 25:16
  advantage I had with having the experience was going back to
• 25:19
  school and understanding like the real life application of it.
• 25:23
  And like the textbook stuff is great.
• 25:25
  It's helpful. It's useful for sure, but it
• 25:27
  doesn't take you as far if you don't understand like the
• 25:30
  practical implications of things, right?
• 25:32
  That that's, that was by far my most important take away for my
• 25:35
  playing career into like my academic career.
• 25:37
  And my, my current career was, was knowing how things happen in
• 25:42
  the real world and kind of having that leg up and then
• 25:46
  almost learning backwards, right.
• 25:47
  Instead of learning material 1st and then learning that the
• 25:49
  application part of it, like learning the application part
• 25:52
  and then filtering the, the educational portion with that
• 25:56
  lens of having that experience. And that was super useful and,
• 26:00
  and helpful. And I look back on my, on my
• 26:02
  rehab experience and I'm, I'm super thankful I went through
• 26:05
  it. Obviously long year and it was
• 26:07
  definitely not the most ideal situation for my playing career,
• 26:10
  but for like life experience and, and helping me to get to
• 26:13
  where I'm at now. It's it's imperative, especially
• 26:15
  now being able to communicate that to somebody, get someone in
• 26:17
  the door for Tony John or UCL reconstruction or repair,
• 26:21
  something like that and say, hey, you know, does this feel
• 26:24
  like this? Oh, yeah, cool.
• 26:25
  It's going to feel like that for the next two weeks.
• 26:26
  Like I, I know exactly what it feels like.
• 26:28
  Or hey, we're getting back into throwing your elbows a little
• 26:30
  grouchy. You think you retore your elbow
• 26:32
  again after throwing 45 feet. You didn't and it's normal.
• 26:35
  And this happened. So just like, chill out.
• 26:37
  You're fine. But yeah, that was that was
• 26:38
  definitely, I would say the most important take away I had for my
• 26:42
  my playing career into my professional career.
• 26:44
  I'm guessing another piece that you never really experienced
• 26:47
  because you lived it was the unfortunate gap that often
• 26:53
  exists between physical therapy and the real world.
• 26:57
  It always seems like there's that 10 percent, 20% gap between
• 27:02
  how far physical therapy can normally get an individual to
• 27:06
  then the ultimate return to sport or return to competition,
• 27:09
  or just return to everyday life for that matter.
• 27:12
  But you saw the bridges that need needed to be made given the
• 27:16
  fact that return to regular life for you was how do I get up on
• 27:21
  the mound and go get the number one prospect for the Detroit
• 27:26
  Tigers out on Thursday and then on Saturday go get the number
• 27:30
  one prospect for the Cleveland Guardians out?
• 27:32
  The reason I bring that up is all the physical therapists that
• 27:36
  we've interviewed here on the Lay Back podcast tend to say the
• 27:40
  best piece of advice that they can give to any aspiring
• 27:43
  physical therapy student is to go get your CSCS or spend time
• 27:49
  in the SNC world because that seems to be that little final
• 27:54
  bridge. Maybe there's another piece here
• 27:57
  with the direct application of skill.
• 27:59
  Now, of course, not every physical therapist can go out
• 28:02
  and be in a baseball setting. They can't be on the team or go
• 28:08
  pitch in a game for that matter. But how valuable do you think
• 28:13
  now that actual specific in game experience was for you to
• 28:21
  understand that last little step, that last leap any
• 28:26
  rehabbing athlete or patient needs to make?
• 28:29
  Yeah, I think if you could probably boil down one specific
• 28:33
  thing that I have as an advantage over another sports PT
• 28:36
  locally, I think that would that would be it.
• 28:38
  It's not every P TS job to see someone through 100% of rehab,
• 28:44
  right? And 100% meaning back to full
• 28:46
  game, back to full health. You know, we'll use a pitcher
• 28:48
  for example, right? It's not every P TS job to look
• 28:52
  at someone's delivery and assess if they're doing something
• 28:55
  incorrectly because they're not quite comfortable yet or there's
• 28:57
  some inhibitory process going on.
• 29:00
  I don't want people to feel like they should like that.
• 29:02
  That's why having a really good network of, of local people in
• 29:05
  your area that you trust that you can send a kid to from a SNC
• 29:08
  standpoint or from a, from a skill specific standpoint,
• 29:10
  whether it's a pitching coach or something like that.
• 29:12
  That's why it's super important. But yeah, like that, that 10 to
• 29:16
  10/15/20 percent is like where the biggest hiccups happened.
• 29:20
  I think it, it's not anybody's fault besides the I'd say like
• 29:27
  maybe lack of collaboration or lack of resources for someone
• 29:31
  who maybe not who's not as prepared to tackle that
• 29:35
  remaining 10% of like, you know, what it's like to really see
• 29:38
  someone through an entire return throw process or to assess
• 29:42
  throwing mechanics or swing mechanics or something like
• 29:44
  that. There's such a specific aspect
• 29:47
  to be able to do that you need you need to have like the
• 29:50
  knowledge is great if someone could look at someone throwing
• 29:52
  motion that a lot of people can identify what looks right, what
• 29:54
  looks wrong. The, the, the gap in that is
• 29:56
  like knowing how to coach people into how to fix it.
• 29:59
  And your job as APT isn't necessary to be a coach.
• 30:02
  Like I've just, I've been lucky enough to have played, I've
• 30:05
  coached throughout my entire playing career, continue to
• 30:08
  coach now. And so it's something that kind
• 30:10
  of bleeds into my treatment and something that I can kind of
• 30:12
  tackle them both. It's a small percentage gap, but
• 30:15
  it's a massive gap from that. I feel pretty damn good to oh,
• 30:18
  OK, I'm back to normal or I'm better than I was.
• 30:21
  And yeah, I think you touched on it like it's a lot of it comes
• 30:24
  down to S and CA lot of it comes down to specific skill coaching.
• 30:27
  And if you can't do that yourself, that's fine.
• 30:29
  You don't, you don't have to, but just didn't have have the
• 30:31
  network at your at your disposal to to know when to send people
• 30:34
  out to help kind of finish that process.
• 30:37
  How would you encourage another physical therapist to build that
• 30:42
  network? I mean, it's just like anything
• 30:44
  else, it's just getting out there and meeting people and,
• 30:46
  and seeing what kind of value you can provide to them.
• 30:50
  So whether you got local, you know, travel teams in your, in
• 30:53
  your area or let's say sports performance gyms in your area
• 30:56
  and offering and extending your help to them and just staying
• 31:01
  fresh in their minds, right? You go to them and, you know,
• 31:04
  immediately ask for people say, hey, you know, I need people
• 31:07
  from you. I need people from you, like
• 31:08
  asking for stuff from them. It's not going to be as as
• 31:11
  rewarding. Obviously, if you can offer help
• 31:12
  and then, you know, hopefully reap the reward down the line.
• 31:15
  You know, I think just like anything that you provide value
• 31:17
  and, and people are going to keep you in mind and you're
• 31:21
  going to build your network once you to establish trust with
• 31:23
  those entities. But I would, I would start and
• 31:25
  it's like, I would, I would start with those travel teams.
• 31:28
  And then you're, you're going to meet, whether it's more players
• 31:31
  or more coaches or more pitching coaches.
• 31:33
  And this little kid goes to see this pitching coach and this
• 31:35
  little kid trains at this gym. And there you go.
• 31:38
  There's your network, right? You start doing a good job with
• 31:40
  those kids and all of a sudden you have the grounds and you
• 31:42
  have the reach to now get in touch with those different
• 31:44
  people. And on the other side, would you
• 31:47
  encourage coaches to also reach out to local physical
• 31:52
  therapists? Is there something that can be
• 31:54
  gained from that relationship? Man, yeah, I think it's it's,
• 31:58
  it's vice versa. I think it's, it's, it's
• 32:01
  imperative to find the, the right person that I think the
• 32:05
  biggest thing from a coaching standpoint when you're looking
• 32:08
  for APT is someone that you know, understands the sport
• 32:13
  process. And it not just baseball, like
• 32:15
  for, for any, any, anybody with an understanding of how
• 32:20
  athletics work. And let's use like a, let's use
• 32:22
  like a decently high level high school athlete, for example,
• 32:25
  right? Like I think a lot of coaches
• 32:26
  apprehensions are when it comes to getting in contact with
• 32:30
  therapists or athletic trainers, is that they're going to tell
• 32:34
  them to shut it down and then they're going to lose this
• 32:36
  player for two, 3-4 weeks. And that doesn't always have to
• 32:39
  be the case. And it's, I think that's, that's
• 32:41
  the biggest gap that I've I've personally like seen happen or
• 32:45
  like some reluctance that people have had for that exact reason.
• 32:48
  So find someone that you know that you can trust, that you can
• 32:51
  say, hey, listen, this kid's got this going on.
• 32:54
  I think he's good to go, but I think he needs a little help.
• 32:55
  We got this tournament in two weeks.
• 32:57
  I want to make sure he's good to go by that and being able to
• 32:59
  have someone that you can communicate clearly with is is
• 33:01
  really important. Not having the fear that they're
• 33:03
  just going to be like, oh, you know what?
• 33:04
  You can't throw for the rest of the lump, You're screwed.
• 33:06
  Because then I'm like, I don't want to send someone back to
• 33:08
  that guy because I just lost that kid because they told me we
• 33:10
  can pitch. So I get it from both ends for
• 33:12
  sure. And all of that came from the
• 33:16
  last little percentage points that that need to be covered in
• 33:21
  that rehab process. So I am going to re anchor back
• 33:24
  to this academic pursuit for you and we talked a little bit about
• 33:29
  maybe where you felt off academically in the sense like
• 33:33
  you, you were just out of routine.
• 33:35
  We we of course talked about where you feel you excelled and
• 33:39
  what it is that you were able to achieve just by being in the
• 33:43
  real world and living the experiences for so long.
• 33:46
  Now, did you ever feel behind in any point, maybe because there
• 33:52
  were students that knew that this is what they were going to
• 33:55
  do, took no time off, just studied textbook after textbook.
• 33:59
  So from a clinical or no clinical would be the wrong
• 34:03
  word. From an actual, I guess testing
• 34:07
  standpoint, maybe they were ahead of you.
• 34:10
  Did you feel kind of lost in the shuffle with that at all?
• 34:14
  I would say that. I mean, I definitely wasn't.
• 34:17
  I wasn't getting the best grades in my PT class.
• 34:19
  I did well. I did well enough.
• 34:21
  I liked, weirdly enough, like I liked kind of taking tests.
• 34:25
  It was to kind of gauge where I'm at and see if what I'm doing
• 34:27
  is working. I would say like I never really
• 34:31
  compared myself to anybody else. And I knew there were people
• 34:33
  that that spent days and weeks and hours studying for routine
• 34:37
  exams. And I was never going to get
• 34:39
  myself to that point. Like I wanted to make sure I
• 34:41
  knew the material. I wanted to know it well enough
• 34:43
  to apply it in real life, right? I didn't want to know it well
• 34:45
  enough to get 100 on an exam. Of course, getting 100 on exam
• 34:48
  is great, but it wasn't my goal to do well on exams.
• 34:51
  My goal was like learning material well enough to know how
• 34:53
  to apply it. So definitely, I think there
• 34:55
  were definitely people that that were ahead of me, like
• 34:57
  academically speaking, but I graduated and I did well on my
• 35:01
  boards. You know, I'm here now and even
• 35:02
  even to now, like I'm not, I am by no means going to sit here
• 35:05
  and tell you that I am the most well educated, most well
• 35:08
  researched clinician out there. By no means is that that I would
• 35:10
  be a complete lie. I know what I don't know.
• 35:12
  I definitely, I would say I'm well versed in both, but I
• 35:16
  really, really emphasize like the communication aspect, the
• 35:19
  trust aspect and like just being able to earn trust your patient
• 35:22
  and then being able to guide them to the rehab process with
• 35:26
  that trust. I think, I think you're going to
• 35:28
  get way better outcomes with that approach than you are with
• 35:32
  the quote UN quote perfect clinically researched practice
• 35:35
  rehab program with someone that is kind of like not completely
• 35:39
  bought in. So yeah, I mean, I would say
• 35:41
  definitely not, definitely not top of my class academically,
• 35:45
  but did did well enough. Here, here's a potential fun one
• 35:50
  for you. If we tasked you with
• 35:52
  redesigning physical therapy programs for students, how would
• 35:58
  you go about that? What would be maybe a thing or
• 36:01
  two that you 100% keep as is? And what would you just
• 36:06
  completely demolish and rebuild? So demolition and rebuild 100%
• 36:12
  without a doubt. Exercise, progressions and
• 36:15
  regressions. I would say that if I did not
• 36:17
  have my playing background and my athletic background, I would
• 36:21
  have felt grossly underprepared heading into my first job.
• 36:24
  It's, it's not a knock on any program or any, you know,
• 36:28
  academic personnel, but I think that is the one thing for me
• 36:31
  that I think needs to, and this is maybe just my exposure to my
• 36:35
  one program, like other programs could maybe do a better job with
• 36:37
  it. I don't know.
• 36:38
  But that was my experience was like, it was very, very, very
• 36:42
  simple and super cookie cutter. And sure, we touched on, you
• 36:46
  know, some of the textbook ways to progress exercises with or
• 36:51
  sets more volume, more intensity, so and so on and so
• 36:53
  forth. But the real life application
• 36:55
  from the, from the maybe biomechanical lens or from a
• 37:01
  specific power demand standpoint or rate of force development,
• 37:05
  even going more towards the regression side of things, like
• 37:07
  how do we still train some of those qualities with like with
• 37:11
  less demanding positions and, and more well tolerated
• 37:14
  positions? I think that's, you can really
• 37:17
  boil down to PT to like from a, from a treatment standpoint,
• 37:19
  from an exercise standpoint, like that's the number one thing
• 37:21
  you need to be really, really good at.
• 37:23
  And that's the, that was the main thing that I would say that
• 37:25
  I felt it was probably lacking the most in, in PT school.
• 37:30
  There are a lot of great things. I mean, my, my clinical
• 37:32
  experiences were great from an academic standpoint.
• 37:34
  They make sure you know, all your red flags, your
• 37:36
  contraindications, all that stuff.
• 37:38
  Super, super low. And it makes sense.
• 37:39
  Like I'll speak for myself. Like I'm in PT school thinking
• 37:42
  like, you know, how many times am I ever going to run into
• 37:44
  someone with a with a suspected plot post OP, You know, like for
• 37:48
  an ACL, yeah, I need to know what it looks like if they do,
• 37:51
  but I'm not probably not ever going to see this.
• 37:53
  So Fast forward three months, I'm at my first job and I, I
• 37:56
  referred two people to the hospital in three months and
• 37:58
  both of them had clots. So it's like it's, it's like
• 38:01
  thankful that you know that, right?
• 38:03
  Because it's like 1 kid had an arterial endothenous clot.
• 38:05
  He's like 4 weeks post op. But yeah, they ultrasounded his
• 38:08
  calf. They had two clots.
• 38:10
  And you know, it's bad news, man.
• 38:12
  One of those dislodges he, he could die.
• 38:13
  So I definitely was thankful from that end.
• 38:15
  Like I felt super comfortable from, from being from a safety
• 38:18
  standpoint, being able to apply a lot of that stuff coming out
• 38:21
  of school. We've now spent a ton of time on
• 38:24
  the academic pursuits. I do want to go back to baseball
• 38:28
  a little bit as we kind of set up our grand finale as we did as
• 38:32
  we discussed offline. Let's date this back now to
• 38:36
  2015. You are pursuing, I guess you
• 38:42
  second year in professional baseball pursuing would be the
• 38:46
  wrong word, but second year in professional baseball and you
• 38:49
  ultimately go down with the elbow injury.
• 38:51
  I think I saw on a post from you the other day, it was in game.
• 38:55
  It was just like last pitch of an inning or something like
• 38:59
  that. You felt it go.
• 39:00
  You knew what it was instantly. So I'd love if you could talk a
• 39:03
  little bit about your own injury.
• 39:05
  I know we're asking you to go back eleven years, but I feel
• 39:08
  like that is one of those things that you just never forget.
• 39:13
  Yeah, no, you're right. I can, I recall it like it was
• 39:16
  yesterday. And the only thing I don't, I
• 39:17
  don't remember who the batter was and I forget his name, but
• 39:21
  it was, I came in like it was. I hadn't pitched in like, I
• 39:24
  don't know. So rewind like a week and a half
• 39:26
  prior was where I first had my first little symptom, ironically
• 39:29
  enough, pitching the All Star game in the Midwest League.
• 39:32
  I was warming up and like the teeniest, tiniest little pinch
• 39:35
  in my elbow. I go out there, I'm all jacked
• 39:37
  up like I'm pitching late in the game in the All Star game and
• 39:40
  was letting it Rep fastballs at Max effort, like 12 pitches.
• 39:44
  Next morning, wake up like I was a little stiff.
• 39:46
  Didn't really think that much of it came back.
• 39:49
  I hadn't pitched since then. Probably four or five days.
• 39:51
  They brought me in in like an 11 two ball game.
• 39:54
  I'm closing it out. Second W pitch.
• 39:55
  I threw a fastball and like felt distinct little pop step off the
• 40:00
  mound and kind of like tunnel vision, like, oh boy, that
• 40:02
  didn't feel right. Kind of like, all right, screw
• 40:04
  it, get back on the mountain. I'm just going to throw like 1/2
• 40:07
  ass slider, hopefully get him to roll it over.
• 40:09
  And he did thankfully, like slider cool, roll over, came
• 40:11
  over. You know, I kind of like try to
• 40:13
  go a couple days like convincing myself, Oh, it's fine.
• 40:16
  It's you know, it feels better. It feels better today.
• 40:18
  Yeah, that's fine. It's like it's not, it's not,
• 40:21
  it's not torn. It's it's good.
• 40:22
  It's a sore. I'm playing cats at like 60%.
• 40:24
  It doesn't hurt. Like I'm just trying to mask it.
• 40:28
  So Fast forward my next outing and I'm warm up in a pen.
• 40:30
  I'm like, this is bad news. I go out in the game.
• 40:33
  I'm just trying to gut it out. I'm like 8587 flipping sliders
• 40:37
  in just like trying to get through the inning.
• 40:39
  And finally. You're down to 10 mph.
• 40:42
  So pitching coach comes out, he's like, what the Hell's going
• 40:44
  on? Tom Brown.
• 40:45
  And he's a man, rest in peace. Unfortunately, what the Hell's
• 40:48
  going on? And I'm like, yeah, elbows park.
• 40:51
  And then something's up. He's a guy at Colewood that took
• 40:53
  you out. So that was the last game I
• 40:54
  pitched in and I'm getting surgery 3 weeks later.
• 40:58
  Yeah, man, it was, it was crappy.
• 41:00
  Of course, you know, I've been pitching super well to that
• 41:02
  point. I think I had like a 2 ERA on
• 41:05
  the year. It was like it was like mid-july
• 41:07
  or early July and I just made the All Star game like I said,
• 41:10
  and and you know, things were looking good.
• 41:12
  So it came in a tough spot obviously and there's no good
• 41:14
  spot for it. But it was at the end of the
• 41:16
  year too. So I kind of missed most of the
• 41:17
  next year, came back August of the next year and spent like
• 41:20
  four or five weeks and in rookie ball just doing like a little
• 41:23
  rehab stint there. And definitely didn't feel right
• 41:27
  until about 16 months, I would say.
• 41:30
  So that that 1213 month mark, like I was in game, but I needed
• 41:33
  like I need if I was pitching an inning, I need to like a day at
• 41:35
  least in between outings. Like I was really sore, wasn't
• 41:38
  really comfortable throwing breaking balls in game yet by
• 41:42
  spring training that next year, I felt good.
• 41:43
  I felt normal. But yeah, and then kind of had a
• 41:45
  little posterior impingement like late in that spring
• 41:48
  training, like right after we're about to break right as we're
• 41:50
  about to break camp. And that was like a little set
• 41:53
  back there. So, yeah, just like little
• 41:54
  stuff, man. It was like the, the, the elbow
• 41:56
  knock on wood to this point. Like I never had an issue since.
• 41:59
  So it was a crappy process, but it was.
• 42:01
  It's what I'm thankful for, for sure.
• 42:03
  Now we're actually going to apply your academic pursuits.
• 42:06
  Do you think the posterior impingement of the shoulder was
• 42:09
  directly tied to something you were doing in your return from
• 42:13
  the elbow? Surgery.
• 42:14
  Knowing what I know now, I think it was just more lack of load
• 42:19
  for my cuff. I would say like I did quote UN
• 42:23
  quote cuff work. I did cuff strengthening but I
• 42:25
  never I never loaded my cuff up enough.
• 42:27
  You did three sets of 20 J Band. You're you're standing your
• 42:32
  standing protocol. IT wise on the.
• 42:34
  Exercise ball with one pack. What they call, they called
• 42:37
  them, they called it the six pack.
• 42:39
  You did 66 reps, 6 second holds in six different positions of
• 42:44
  like eyes, TS, YS, 1990s. Yeah, it was.
• 42:48
  It was not enough, I would say, yeah.
• 42:50
  Those A's because yeah, yeah, no, I, I went through it Labour.
• 42:54
  Know the deal exactly, Exactly. So yeah, that that would say, I
• 42:58
  would say that would be what I would have probably done
• 43:01
  differently. I don't know that it was
• 43:02
  anything directly tied to the to the elbow, but yeah, just
• 43:06
  probably wasn't strong enough. OK, so you ultimately are
• 43:10
  starting to feel a little bit better from the shoulder
• 43:12
  impingement and I don't want to steal your Thunder here tell a
• 43:15
  story improperly, but there there's a significant detail
• 43:20
  that we have are left out of this story to this point and
• 43:23
  that significant detail actually dates back to your actual elbow
• 43:29
  surgery. So now that we've set the stage
• 43:31
  and buried the lead for an hour, everything that we're talking
• 43:35
  about on this little chapter, whatever we want to call it, of
• 43:40
  the podcast is tied to an Instagram post that Brian made
• 43:44
  the other day about peptides and kind of his journey, her
• 43:50
  relationship with peptides, how it how it ultimately impacted
• 43:54
  him and his career. Now, yes, he had elbow surgery.
• 43:58
  We needed to talk about the elbow surgery.
• 44:00
  Anyways. This is the elbow surgery
• 44:01
  podcast. It's plain and simple.
• 44:03
  We had to talk about the elbow surgery, but Brian elected to
• 44:08
  purchase and inject himself with peptides.
• 44:12
  I don't remember the exact peptide.
• 44:14
  And this is where I'm going to shut up and just let Brian take
• 44:17
  the wheel and tell the story for a little bit.
• 44:19
  So please, Brian, we're going to strap in for story time.
• 44:22
  I'm going to get all cozy. And I'd love if you could just
• 44:25
  wax poetic about this tumultuous time in your career.
• 44:30
  Let's go. Yes, Yeah.
• 44:33
  What I the post I put up yesterday was was was kind of
• 44:38
  tied into all this, right? And I've had the reason I wanted
• 44:40
  to bring it up was because I've had so many people bring up
• 44:43
  peptides in the past. You know, I'd say like a couple
• 44:45
  months now it's just become so like commonplace.
• 44:49
  I have nothing against them, but my experience as APT working
• 44:52
  with a lot of high school baseball players, like when I
• 44:54
  get a 151617 year old kid talking to me about should they
• 44:58
  take this peptide this or that, it's like damn like at least I
• 45:01
  want to tell my story at least provide some sort of other
• 45:03
  perspective besides like all this stuff's great.
• 45:05
  It can fix everything. By no means am I like anti
• 45:07
  peptide. Obviously I did it and I I made
• 45:10
  that choice. But so rewind, I get the news
• 45:13
  that obviously I need surgery and I just like anybody like,
• 45:16
  oh, damn, like this sucks. This is gonna ruin my career.
• 45:18
  Like I was a senior sign I signed for five grand.
• 45:21
  Like, what do they have invested in me?
• 45:22
  Like they're just gonna freaking cut bait and all those darts,
• 45:25
  those doubts start flowing through your heads.
• 45:26
  It's like, how the hell am I gonna get back?
• 45:28
  How do I get back faster? How do I get back better?
• 45:29
  And so I start doing all this research and at the time like
• 45:32
  that feds weren't really like that well known.
• 45:34
  It was like back web stuff on like T nation, like freaking
• 45:38
  chat blogs and all this stuff. And I remember like an article
• 45:41
  from Ben Greenfield. I don't know if anybody
• 45:43
  remembers his name, but he's like the biggest biohacker guys
• 45:46
  now. But back then he was doing
• 45:47
  articles on like peptide. So he's got he's got this big
• 45:49
  article on BPC 157 and I'm doing all this research on it that
• 45:53
  seems like it's legit. It's there's like no anabolic
• 45:56
  qualities to it whatsoever. Some doing on the research on
• 45:58
  the other end of like the the drug testing list and it's not
• 46:01
  like officially listed, right. So it's like it's like blanketed
• 46:05
  like peptides and it lists like a couple of them like HIPAA,
• 46:09
  Morel and MK677, like a couple other peptides that were like
• 46:13
  more anabolic in nature, more of like a performance enhancing
• 46:17
  benefit. But in my mind, I'm like, I
• 46:18
  didn't see PPC on there. I'm like, I'm going to take it.
• 46:20
  I need to do this like I need to, I need to get back.
• 46:22
  I need to make sure I'm good to go.
• 46:23
  So I take it through my entire Tommy John rehab.
• 46:29
  Again, I don't have a control to go off of, but like I came back
• 46:32
  fine. My progress is pretty linear,
• 46:33
  like up and to the right pretty much the whole time.
• 46:35
  No setbacks. I never really knew if it helped
• 46:38
  or not. I never really knew if it was
• 46:39
  what I was taking. Like I got it off some sketchy
• 46:41
  freaking website. So yeah, I mean, I got that
• 46:45
  whole process, stopped taking it like probably 10 months into my
• 46:48
  rehab. And then that spring training I
• 46:50
  touched on, I got that, that poster impingement.
• 46:52
  And again, like, just like, holy crap, here we go again.
• 46:55
  Like I'm going to spend another two months in rehab.
• 46:57
  Like it was so painful. I felt like I tore my rotator
• 46:59
  cuff and I, I couldn't throw more than like 50% for like a
• 47:02
  good four or five days. Like, so that was it.
• 47:04
  Like I was like, dude, back on it, let's go, go get it.
• 47:07
  And this time I got it from a different website.
• 47:09
  And yeah, Fast forward to like, I think I got tested in June and
• 47:15
  didn't even like think anything of it because I got tested when
• 47:18
  I was rehabbing my elbow too. And I was good.
• 47:20
  I'm like, all right, good. I must not be illegal then.
• 47:22
  I'm good. So I get a call in July.
• 47:26
  Hey, we just got results from your test in June.
• 47:28
  You tested positive for a substance called epamural.
• 47:30
  And and I'm like, what the you know, like, no, no way.
• 47:34
  Like there's no way this is happening.
• 47:36
  My like I ordered BPC 157. I ordered like the thing that I
• 47:40
  knew like wasn't listed right. And again, like, I'm not saying
• 47:43
  like I'm not at fault here. Like it wasn't, it wasn't
• 47:45
  approved. It wasn't NSA certified.
• 47:46
  It was very Gray at best, but it wasn't what I was intending to
• 47:50
  take. So I'm sitting there like
• 47:51
  panicking, like, what the hell do I do?
• 47:53
  Like, what do I tell? Can I like, can I, what's the
• 47:57
  word? Can I get like, can I test the
• 47:59
  second sample? If I feel it and it just comes
• 48:02
  back positively again, I'm going to look even worse.
• 48:04
  I don't know. I think it just like, so going
• 48:06
  back and forth on what to do with talking with the team and
• 48:08
  then I like told him straight up what happened?
• 48:11
  You know, I initially I was like, I don't know.
• 48:13
  I don't know because I was trying to convince myself that
• 48:15
  it couldn't have been from the PPC.
• 48:17
  It must have been, and obviously it was.
• 48:19
  I never really found out whether it was mislabeled or or like
• 48:23
  just just like tainted. I don't know what the deal was,
• 48:28
  but yeah, I mean, I got banged. So 80 games right there.
• 48:31
  That was July of 17. And that was really like my
• 48:34
  first full, like first full go back at it after TJ.
• 48:38
  And again, was pitching so freaking well.
• 48:41
  I told my manager and hi, what happened like before they got
• 48:45
  news, I kind of went to the clubhouse.
• 48:46
  I told everybody in the clubhouse I wanted to like
• 48:49
  directly apologize to everybody before they heard about it from
• 48:52
  somewhere else because it was by no means my intention to try to
• 48:55
  gain some sort of edge over them.
• 48:57
  And I, I wanted them to all know that and hear it from me first.
• 49:00
  Spoke with them, spoke with my manager Eli Marrero.
• 49:04
  And he goes, he like, he goes, it's back, he goes, you know
• 49:10
  you're going to AA in like 2-2 days, right?
• 49:13
  Two days you're going to AA. I'm like sick dude.
• 49:17
  Thanks. I appreciate that.
• 49:19
  But he was, he was really cool. But he's like, hey, man, I
• 49:21
  don't, I don't care. I, I completely get it.
• 49:23
  You know, he was, he was very understanding, felt like
• 49:25
  everybody kind of understood, you know, my perspective on
• 49:27
  that. I personally felt the worst for
• 49:29
  like the other guys in the pan. Like I wanted them to know,
• 49:31
  like, listen, I, I don't want you guys thinking I'm sitting
• 49:33
  here just like trying to edge one out over you guys because
• 49:36
  that's, you know, those are your boys.
• 49:37
  And you know, I didn't want them thinking that of me, but they
• 49:40
  understood. So yeah, man, I, I served that
• 49:42
  suspension. They didn't, they didn't
• 49:44
  release. I thought for sure they were
• 49:45
  going to release me. They said, listen, you serve
• 49:47
  your suspension. They brought me back, kind of
• 49:50
  came back somewhat into the end of the chunk of the season in
• 49:52
  2018. And just like was mentally, I
• 49:55
  don't say checked out, but like just like influx, I kind of
• 49:59
  didn't know it was up. I kind of had me bouncing around
• 50:01
  and it kind of seemed like I had fallen out of favor at that
• 50:04
  point. I let that kind of get to me and
• 50:06
  it definitely affected my on field performance for a good
• 50:08
  couple weeks. I had a couple rough outings.
• 50:12
  I I kind of like was able to get myself out of the headspace and
• 50:14
  say, screw it. You know what, like this is your
• 50:16
  last season. You can't go out to kind of like
• 50:18
  wearing it. You go out like with a bang and
• 50:20
  then we can go from there. So pitch really, really well at
• 50:22
  the end of the year. I don't know that going to that
• 50:24
  offseason, I kind of, I don't know, I felt the writing was on
• 50:26
  the wall talking with the front office and all that and trying
• 50:29
  to get a picture of like what they were feeling.
• 50:31
  And if this was still something that was kind of looming, it
• 50:35
  just kind of it, it sucked, man. It was just like, I feel like I
• 50:38
  kind of shot myself in the foot here.
• 50:39
  And I get it. Like it was, it was completely
• 50:42
  my mistake. So I had three years of PT
• 50:44
  school left. So I'm like, I I had to kind of
• 50:46
  make that decision to move on. And so I retired, hence why I'm
• 50:50
  still under team control. My, my chance, my chances of
• 50:53
  coming back with the Reds are not likely.
• 50:55
  But hey, man, who knows? But yeah, dude, I wanted to tell
• 50:59
  that that that story again, not to like scare anybody, but just
• 51:03
  to know the risks that you take if you're a high school kid or,
• 51:05
  or a college kid looking to, to gain an edge or come back from
• 51:09
  an injury and you're you're digging into the web and where
• 51:11
  to get these things from. Like you hear it all the time.
• 51:14
  Like you don't know what's in this stuff.
• 51:15
  And I was in the same boat. Like I hear that.
• 51:18
  But it's like, yeah, I know. But there's no way.
• 51:20
  They just like, there's no way they just like mix and match
• 51:22
  this stuff. They definitely like it's
• 51:23
  definitely legit At worst case, it's just like it's nothing.
• 51:26
  At worst case, it's like salt water and it's not doesn't work.
• 51:29
  I wasn't thinking worst case, like I'm going to fail for a
• 51:32
  completely different substance. I didn't really think that was
• 51:34
  like, yeah, of course I knew sure, it's possible.
• 51:36
  But like I didn't really think it was possible.
• 51:39
  So I just wanted that to be known.
• 51:40
  Like I want people to hear that story because I, you know, I
• 51:43
  think I would have benefited from hearing it.
• 51:44
  It's and it's not, it's not the cast judgement.
• 51:47
  Make a decision you want to make.
• 51:48
  Just know, just know what risks you're taking on and know, know
• 51:51
  what that is. Like I said before, I'm not, I'm
• 51:54
  not anti peptide. I think there's a lot of the
• 51:56
  stuff that's really, really helpful.
• 51:57
  I think there's a lot of the stuff that could be really
• 51:59
  useful in the future, like especially once you get more
• 52:01
  research and more conclusive evidence on it.
• 52:03
  There's some really promising stuff coming out.
• 52:04
  I think I think any, any sort of advancement in medicine is, is
• 52:07
  outstanding. I think, especially if you can
• 52:09
  help athletes recover better and perform better.
• 52:13
  I'm not from a enhancement standpoint, but like 162 game
• 52:16
  season is a long freaking season.
• 52:17
  You know, 17 game NFL season is a long freaking season.
• 52:20
  Like if I can get these, if we can get these people healing and
• 52:23
  recovering in a Safeway, I think that's a good thing.
• 52:28
  Sticking in our neutral stance now, I'd love if you could
• 52:32
  outline the potential benefits of taking PPC.
• 52:38
  Like why? Why this was something that was
• 52:41
  appealing to you. Granted, this was back in 2015
• 52:44
  that it was appealing to you, but now that a little bit more
• 52:47
  has come out now that we're in 2026 and peptides are hot in the
• 52:52
  streets, like I told you offline.
• 52:54
  My wife asked me about peptides the other day.
• 52:56
  I'm listening to pop culture podcasts and they're talking
• 53:00
  about taking peptides so they can have better skin or look
• 53:05
  Tanner, lose weight, all all these different things.
• 53:08
  I know looking Tanner and losing weight weren't necessarily your
• 53:12
  motivations for taking BPC 157, but what are the reasons that an
• 53:19
  an individual might look into BPC 157?
• 53:24
  Well, I think what people are seeing now is that, you know,
• 53:26
  there's like a couple of companies that market it as like
• 53:29
  in, in conjunction with TB500 is another peptide and the, the
• 53:34
  blend of them together, they, they, they kind of coined it
• 53:36
  like The Wolverine stack, which is like, hell yeah, dude, I'm
• 53:41
  going to be back. Good marketing, it's.
• 53:43
  Right, for sure, man worked on me.
• 53:46
  No, but the benefit, the benefit to it, and I don't want this to
• 53:50
  sound like I'm, I'm selling it obviously, but the, the, the
• 53:52
  draw for me was that it was basically just it, it provided
• 53:58
  enhanced angiogenesis. So it increased the production
• 54:01
  of vessels in soft tissue. So, and it helped the receptor
• 54:07
  sites of the tissue that's damaged to basically heal more
• 54:11
  quickly to not get into like the two nitty gritty of it.
• 54:14
  Yeah, it's, it's a compound that's found in your gut.
• 54:17
  The original research on it was derived from looking at like
• 54:20
  stomach ulcers and your body produces it to repair the lining
• 54:24
  of your stomach primarily. But it's, it's a compound that
• 54:26
  your body makes. And so it has like other added
• 54:28
  benefits apparently with, with gut health and tissue and gut
• 54:32
  lining and stomach lining and stuff like that.
• 54:34
  But what I had read was that it was really helpful for soft
• 54:37
  tissue healing. And I felt morally like I could
• 54:41
  stomach it because it wasn't a quote, UN quote, performance
• 54:44
  enhancer in which I still kind of hold that stance.
• 54:48
  Like, obviously it if I could go back and like change my
• 54:52
  decision, I don't know that I would change it because my life
• 54:54
  would be obviously completely different right now.
• 54:56
  And I'm really happy with where I'm at.
• 54:57
  But morally, I don't wrestle with my decision to do that.
• 55:00
  I think it was. I don't think I was legitimately
• 55:04
  trying to gain an advantage. But obviously it was stupid.
• 55:07
  Yeah. I mean, that's, that's the draw
• 55:09
  to it in my opinion. And I think that's probably the
• 55:11
  same perspective that all a lot of other people, athletes
• 55:14
  specifically have when they're looking at the stuff is that
• 55:16
  it's it's not technically, it's not making me stronger, it's not
• 55:19
  making me a better player. It's just making me come back
• 55:22
  from this injury faster so I can play, which I understand.
• 55:26
  Now the application of the story to whether it's your client base
• 55:31
  or the world of baseball as a whole.
• 55:35
  What more do you want to see from a research perspective?
• 55:39
  Or what do you think the industry needs to see before
• 55:43
  peptides become a legitimate, more commonplace solution across
• 55:49
  the board? Not a dark web purchase for you
• 55:53
  to quietly inject it yourself. Hope you don't get caught.
• 55:57
  So the I would say #1 is like, if you're playing a sanctioned
• 56:03
  sport and it's illegal, don't take it.
• 56:06
  I mean, that's pretty simple, right?
• 56:10
  That's where I would start. Yeah.
• 56:11
  I mean, just blatantly Blake breaking the rules, like your
• 56:13
  boy here. No, I mean, dude, I think the
• 56:16
  other thing is, and I think the reason they've become so popular
• 56:19
  is because you're starting to get a lot of integrative
• 56:22
  medicine practices that are prescribing them, which is which
• 56:24
  would be the only path that I would go if I were like looking
• 56:27
  to take them. Like I work really closely with
• 56:29
  an integrative medicine practitioner locally here and I
• 56:32
  refer plenty of patients over his way, like more of my general
• 56:34
  population stuff. But like he does all that
• 56:36
  progressive stuff, a lot of like hormone replacement stuff, a lot
• 56:38
  of peptide therapies. Stem cell is 1 called EBU.
• 56:43
  It's like basically like a blood cleansing treatment that filters
• 56:46
  your blood. It's like all this crazy
• 56:47
  progressive stuff. It's really cool.
• 56:49
  But I would definitely not be going to allamericanpeptides.com
• 56:53
  and just retend or or like the ads you get on now you're you
• 56:56
  get on your Instagram now for freaking for peptides, at least
• 56:59
  that I've seen. I'm worried about what I'm gonna
• 57:02
  get now for targeted, Yeah. Here we go, rest recording.
• 57:04
  Here we go just papered with peptides.
• 57:07
  No, I mean, that's where I would steer clear, steer far away from
• 57:10
  that stuff. Again, like take my story's
• 57:12
  example. Like worst case is not just like
• 57:14
  it doesn't work. Worst case is like, I mean, I
• 57:16
  would even say like this sounds like maybe hyperbole, but it's I
• 57:19
  truly feel this way. Like I am kind of lucky that
• 57:21
  like the worst thing that happened was it was a
• 57:24
  performance enhancing substance that I was not intending to take
• 57:26
  that was in my batch. But like, who freaking knows if
• 57:29
  something, some sort of like contaminant is in there and you
• 57:31
  get some nasty infection or something like that because it's
• 57:34
  a non FDA approved site and just some random pharmacy,
• 57:38
  compounding pharmacy in Florida, just some dude just packing
• 57:41
  together a bunch of stuff. Like you never know, man.
• 57:44
  So that's truthfully like what I would say like steer clear of
• 57:47
  that stuff. If you get a script from a from
• 57:48
  a from a doc or APA or something like that and cool like I trust
• 57:52
  that, but I'm not, I'm not going on on random websites and
• 57:55
  ordering that stuff. And we will simplify before we
• 58:00
  leave this topic and ultimately come to a close before going the
• 58:05
  route of something like BPC 157. What are the avenues that you
• 58:11
  want someone to exhaust before they say, you know what, this is
• 58:15
  it for me and I'm willing to deal with all these
• 58:17
  consequences? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot.
• 58:22
  So I kind of I kind of concluded my post with something similar
• 58:26
  is like, if I get it, man, those those voices are especially for
• 58:30
  like a long term slash career threatening injury that that
• 58:35
  that's scary man. And I get it.
• 58:37
  Like it. I get the perceived
• 58:39
  repercussions of like not coming back and not being able to play
• 58:42
  and all that. I completely understand it.
• 58:45
  But I think the way I phrased it was like those are just the
• 58:48
  voices of like self doubt and that that's at least how I
• 58:51
  perceived those voices for me. Like I didn't think that, you
• 58:53
  know, I was doubting myself. The things I was saying to
• 58:55
  myself is, oh, you know, I was a senior sign.
• 58:57
  They have no money invested in me, but I could have also said
• 59:00
  the same thing like, yeah, I had a freaking 2 ERA and and you
• 59:03
  know, striking out 1 1/2 for inning and I was the closer and
• 59:06
  blah, blah, blah. I could like there's their
• 59:08
  incentive to keep me, but I chose to kind of look at it from
• 59:11
  a, from a, from an insecure standpoint and a self doubt
• 59:14
  standpoint. I think I would encourage you to
• 59:17
  understand that if you can get unbelievably good results, if
• 59:22
  you completely buy into your rehab process and work with a
• 59:27
  clinician that you trust 100% that will provide you with the,
• 59:30
  with the framework and the the guidance that you need, that
• 59:33
  that combo will do far more than any peptide will do for you.
• 59:38
  And I can say that with 100% confidence.
• 59:41
  Exhaust that first before you even consider anything else.
• 59:44
  And, and when I say exhaust that like truly exhausted, don't half
• 59:47
  acid. Don't don't you know, I gave it
• 59:49
  a shot. Now it's time.
• 59:50
  Because that's, yeah, it's an easy perceived shortcut.
• 59:52
  Don't do that to yourself, because you're taking on far
• 59:55
  more risk than you have to. What's the the expression right
• 59:57
  The the right choices? More times than not, the harder
• 59:59
  choice to make. And with this, we will round it
• 1:00:02
  out on a hopefully lighter note. But I do really appreciate you
• 1:00:07
  opening up on that topic, Brian. I'm thankful that you did it on
• 1:00:10
  Instagram the other day. And I'm glad that we were able
• 1:00:13
  to provide a little platform for you here to talk about it in
• 1:00:16
  even further detail. But rounding this out, like I
• 1:00:20
  said, on the lighter note, this is something that I like to do
• 1:00:23
  with all the professionals that come on the podcast, and it's
• 1:00:29
  become a little bit of a tradition at this point given
• 1:00:32
  the fact that you would have played at countless different
• 1:00:35
  ballparks over the course of your career.
• 1:00:38
  We are not here to find out what the prettiest or necessarily the
• 1:00:42
  best 1 was, but throughout Little League, through the
• 1:00:46
  highest level of pro ball you played, what is the most unique
• 1:00:51
  or memorable playing experience that you had tied to a stadium
• 1:00:55
  or a city? Is it bad?
• 1:00:57
  The first two things I thought of were bad experiences.
• 1:01:04
  I would say here, I'll say I'll have a good one.
• 1:01:07
  So Billings, Mt, my first year in pro ball, I came in against
• 1:01:11
  the Rockies. I think we were down like 5353
• 1:01:17
  and on 1st and 2nd with like one or two outs.
• 1:01:20
  It's like 6 or 7th inning. So it was like not a huge spot,
• 1:01:24
  but you know, got to come and try to keep this game close.
• 1:01:28
  And this kid, I forget his first name, last name Reyes, I threw
• 1:01:30
  him a sinker down in righty. He hits the ball like 11 feet
• 1:01:35
  off the ground the entire way. This absolute pissed missile
• 1:01:38
  right off the foul pole. And this kid pimped this.
• 1:01:42
  This is like 2014 before, like pimp and pimp jobs were like
• 1:01:46
  kind of like well accepted. And he starts walking backwards
• 1:01:51
  down the line for like halfway down the first baseline.
• 1:01:54
  The guy who was on first base, we saw this.
• 1:01:56
  I didn't see any. Had this happen live.
• 1:01:58
  I turned around and watched the ball go out and I was like
• 1:02:00
  asking for the ball back. So I kind of missed it.
• 1:02:02
  I turn around, both dugouts are barking at each other.
• 1:02:04
  My manager comes out the next pitch.
• 1:02:06
  Before the next pitch, he's like, he's in there.
• 1:02:10
  Dick Schofield, absolute just gem of a human being.
• 1:02:13
  He just comes out, he goes Brian loving man.
• 1:02:16
  Please don't hit this guy. It's like fully, fully intended
• 1:02:18
  to right after after I kind of what happened.
• 1:02:20
  I was going to just throw this next hand the ribs and see what
• 1:02:22
  happens. So out of respect for him, I did
• 1:02:24
  not. But we watched the tape later
• 1:02:26
  that night and the kid who's on first base is airplaning around
• 1:02:30
  second base like they won the World Series.
• 1:02:32
  Like it was like it was hilarious, right.
• 1:02:34
  So I'll never forget this. Michael Cadire was was on their
• 1:02:38
  short season roster on a rehab stint the year after he won the
• 1:02:40
  batting title. Their whole front office brass
• 1:02:43
  was in the stands. They they like that the kid who
• 1:02:46
  hit the home run comes into the dugout, Kadair like rips him by
• 1:02:49
  the jersey, sits him down on the dugout and starts like berating
• 1:02:51
  it. Like it was ridiculous right?
• 1:02:53
  The story was apparently that the brass was so pissed off by
• 1:02:58
  the antics that they suspended him for like 4 games.
• 1:03:01
  So that was like it was. And now it's like nowadays it's
• 1:03:03
  like that's like your casual like that literally.
• 1:03:06
  Happened last night in. Literally.
• 1:03:08
  Venezuela, Italy game. It happened.
• 1:03:11
  It happened yesterday in a high school game down the road, too.
• 1:03:15
  Oh, man. But it's so funny how that's
• 1:03:16
  changed. Yeah, that was, that was, that's
• 1:03:18
  one of, that's one of my most memorable ones.
• 1:03:21
  Not necessarily a +1, but most memorable.
• 1:03:24
  I mean, don't get me going. I was about to give you like 5
• 1:03:26
  more but we'll save. I I've said this routinely that
• 1:03:30
  I kind of want to do a round table episode at some point with
• 1:03:34
  just a bunch of different guys who played in different
• 1:03:37
  organizations during different eras and have them just tell war
• 1:03:42
  story against war story against war story of like, Oh yeah, that
• 1:03:46
  happened to you. Well, let me tell you about the
• 1:03:49
  time my dugout flooded and AA and they made us play and none
• 1:03:54
  of us had shoes like whatever, like that kind of stuff.
• 1:03:57
  Yeah, dude. No.
• 1:03:58
  So we'll, we'll keep you. We'll keep you on the short list
• 1:04:01
  if we do decide. I'm definitely gay, man.
• 1:04:04
  I got. I got plenty of.
• 1:04:05
  Them and then maybe one last one.
• 1:04:09
  Last little 1 here, and I apologize if it makes you feel
• 1:04:12
  so bad. How does it feel to once be AD
• 1:04:14
  One athlete, now be AD 3 athlete?
• 1:04:17
  I fought everything inside of me to, to not say formerly D1,
• 1:04:22
  University of Hartford. I, I've just, I just recently
• 1:04:26
  accepted that every time I say I played baseball at Hartford, I
• 1:04:28
  don't have to clarify that it was Division One when I was
• 1:04:31
  there. It's so sad.
• 1:04:32
  It's so sad. What's really bad is like
• 1:04:35
  there's an additional qualifier here.
• 1:04:37
  You probably don't have to clarify because you did pitch in
• 1:04:40
  the Reds organization. Now there are people, tons of
• 1:04:44
  people, probably tons of your teammates that the peak of their
• 1:04:48
  existence was wearing the Hartford jersey.
• 1:04:51
  And you better believe that they are still saying.
• 1:04:55
  And to be fair, I kind of understand it saying that I I
• 1:05:00
  pitched at D1 Hartford. And I'll say we're particularly
• 1:05:06
  my class in let's say the three years before or after us, the
• 1:05:11
  younger, the three years younger than us, I would say are
• 1:05:13
  probably like maybe four years younger than us because we, so
• 1:05:17
  I'll tell you this, my freshman year we went 643 and one, we
• 1:05:21
  were like the fourth worst team in Division One baseball.
• 1:05:23
  New coaching staff came in my sophomore year off from UConn
• 1:05:26
  and they were amazing. They were like I, I wouldn't
• 1:05:28
  change a single thing about that coaching staff.
• 1:05:30
  They were incredible. They turn the program around
• 1:05:33
  completely. So like by the time my senior
• 1:05:35
  year at we set the single season's win record, we won 34
• 1:05:38
  games. We made the conference
• 1:05:39
  tournament for the first time. So like being there for that
• 1:05:41
  turn around at the D1 level, like going from just absolute
• 1:05:45
  dorm out of the America East, like one of the worst baseball
• 1:05:47
  conferences in the country to them being like a freaking good
• 1:05:51
  program. Like they they made the
• 1:05:52
  tournament in 17. I think in 16 they had a really
• 1:05:56
  good year. They made the tournament in
• 1:05:57
  1880. It meant like we had some guys,
• 1:06:01
  we had some like we had like 2 big leaders, 2 big leaders out
• 1:06:03
  of Hartford. We had Sean Nuke in my draft
• 1:06:05
  year. He was 15th overall by the
• 1:06:08
  Angels at the time. He's up with the A's now.
• 1:06:10
  And then a David McKinnon was a freshman when I was a senior.
• 1:06:13
  He he got some time with the Angels and the big leagues.
• 1:06:16
  And like, dude, we have plenty of guys in pro ball.
• 1:06:19
  But yeah, like looking back at that, that like that core group
• 1:06:22
  that had kind of been there through the ship and then and
• 1:06:24
  then turn the program around and now look at it like a struggling
• 1:06:27
  D3 program. It's like, why?
• 1:06:28
  Like that's just like heart, heart breaking.
• 1:06:31
  But Amen. Can't do anything about it.
• 1:06:34
  We're just gonna we're gonna claim you as AD three guy cuz
• 1:06:38
  that's what the school is now. Hey, D3 to pro ball.
• 1:06:41
  That's fine. I'll take it.
• 1:06:42
  Yeah, I'll take it. Yeah, I don't know if AI right
• 1:06:47
  now is smart enough to know that you were D1 to pro ball.
• 1:06:50
  So if we did an AI search on you, it might say you were D3 to
• 1:06:53
  pro ball. Yeah, it's a good call, Good
• 1:06:55
  call. Other famed closer right now,
• 1:06:59
  Mason Miller D3 to pro ball so. Same guy, basically.
• 1:07:02
  Same guy? Yeah.
• 1:07:05
  You're basically Mason Miller. Yeah, yeah, he's he's just not a
• 1:07:09
  PT. So I got one, I got one.
• 1:07:11
  Hop on him. Good point.
• 1:07:12
  Yeah. Yeah, there we go.
• 1:07:14
  Yeah, I would definitely rather trade lives with you than Mason
• 1:07:16
  Miller. Hell yeah.
• 1:07:20
  But no, I I think this is where we can round it out, Brian.
• 1:07:23
  We've been going for well over an hour at this point.
• 1:07:26
  This has been awesome. I really appreciate you opening
• 1:07:29
  up, like I said, and then really just showcasing so much of what
• 1:07:33
  goes into your daily life as APT and the progressions that you
• 1:07:38
  undertook to get to this point. This has been an incredible
• 1:07:41
  conversation. I look forward to having more
• 1:07:43
  with you. Yeah, man, I appreciate you
• 1:07:45
  having me on. And yeah, my pleasure.
• 1:07:48
  Yeah, look forward to hopefully hop them back on.
• 1:07:50
  We can do that round table and just story tell for like 3
• 1:07:52
  hours. Probably need more.
• 1:07:54
  Actually we're. We're going to have to find some
• 1:07:57
  date and knowing that all of our familial lives, we'll we'll
• 1:08:02
  probably have to like schedule this like 6 months in advance
• 1:08:05
  and be like, by the way, on October 7th, I am for.
• 1:08:09
  Three days, yeah. But yeah, we'll, we'll get that
• 1:08:12
  on the book. So every all the listeners be
• 1:08:15
  sure to mark that down and hold us to it.
• 1:08:17
  But of course, it is time to sign it off.
• 1:08:20
  So to all the listeners, thanks for laying back with us.