Latest / Dugout Dish Baseball Recruiting Podcast powered by EMD Baseball / Episode 134: What it Takes

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Episode 134: What it Takes · Dugout Dish Baseball Recruiting Podcast powered by EMD Baseball

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Hey, parents and coaches, are your kids using the right glove? The most important skill for youth athletes to learn is how to play proper catch. The problem is most youth gloves are made with bad leather and are too big for small hands. They actually make it harder to play catch. That's why former Major League Baseball shortstop Kevin Smith created Cali Gloves. Cali gloves are crafted from 100% Japanese kip leather and are the perfect size for kids. All Cali Gloves come with palm slits, finger loops and elastic wrist lacing that encourage proper hand placement. The right closing patterns and give kids more confidence to go make plays. Cali Gloves even allow parents to break in the glove without stretching out the fit. It's the glove Kevin wishes he had growing up and the glove all his teammates want for their kids. Visit cali gloves.com to learn more and help your kids play better catch. That's Cali Gloves. K a l I gloves.com.
• 1:11
  Speaker B: Welcome to this week's edition of the Dugout Dish podcast. I am Andy Kittis, rocking my 49ers hat, and I'm joined by my wonderful co host Keith Glasser. How we doing?
• 1:21
  Speaker A: Great. How are you? Somerset Patriots hat Shout out.
• 1:24
  Speaker B: Pete Larson, Double A pitching coach, New York Yankees. We had him on the podcast. Don't be scared to go back and listen to that one. Lots of good stuff in there. I don't know what episode it was off the top of my head. Maybe we can fill in that gap later.
• 1:37
  Speaker A: It was early was early today's topic.
• 1:46
  Speaker B: I don't know if we've come up with a with a publishing title for this one yet, but I think what we really want to try to unpack is what it takes to be successful in this process and kind of frame up what guys need to do the work that needs to be put in. The difficulty of this, not as a scare tactic, but as a reality check that there's a lot of people who love the idea of playing college baseball but don't fully understand what's required of them from a physical, a mental and a planning perspective in order to be successful in this process. Right. We're in late September. Most of the 20, 26 stuff is, you know, sorted itself out or will be sorting itself out here shortly. So I think a lot of what we're going to drive at here is, is particularly applicable to the 27 and the 28 class, the 27s who are slowly getting into their recruiting timeline. Right. It's been about seven weeks since you've been able to have any contact with coaches Getting close to the off season, which is going to be vital. And then you got the 28s who are preparing for the front end of their cycle about 10 months from now. So want to take some time to talk about this, right? This is. This is what we do. We did it as coaches. We do it helping families out now. And I think a lot of times this process gets oversimplified and don't dive into a lot of the things that need to be done from a player perspective, from a preparation perspective, from a planning perspective, from an execution perspective in order to find success in this. And success is going to be different for everybody. Success for some guys is going to be, you know, a full scholarship and nil money. Success for other guys is finding a place that's willing to give them a chance to play college baseball. So I'll kick it over to you, Coach Glass, to kind of give some opening remarks here, and we'll see what. We'll see where this conversation takes us.
• 4:01
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think the first and foremost thing is that it's not easy, right? And that's probably the easiest and most general statement I could make. But if it was easy, everyone would do it. The old cliche, you know, but the reality is that, you know, 7 to 8% of people are going to go play college baseball at the Division 1, 2 or 3 level. You know, obviously have juco and there, but, you know, you have to be in. You have to have the requisite skill set to be recruited to begin with. The second is you have to have a desire that far exceeds what normal people enjoy about baseball in order to be able to do it at the next level. Because it's the sheer amount of time and the sheer amount of. Of effort that is required of you just to be on the team is something that is incredibly difficult to ask of a lot of people. And for most who really love it and really want to do it, it's. It's not that hard to get up and do every day, you know, but if. If you don't truly love not just the game, right? Like, it's easy to say that you love the game of baseball. A lot of people love the game of baseball. But if you're. If you're not willing to be a student of the game, if you're not willing to learn everything it is that there is that you can learn about baseball, if you're not willing to put in the work, because the vast majority of us, when you go play college baseball, like, there's going to be a Handful of dudes that can just wake and rake. And the vast majority of people actually have to go and put an absolute shit ton of time in, in the cages, dry work, in bullpens, on the field, defensively, all those types of things in order to be able to get yourself on the field consistently to be able to play. And, you know, there's a big difference, I think, with when you make it to that level about whether or not how bad you want it. And that goes down to, you know, are you just happy being a part of the team and, you know, being a member of something, or do you want to be a guy who's going to contribute and be in the lineup and, or in the rotation to help guys win? And how competitive are you? And I think that that is a big piece of this when you're going through your recruiting process of, and your decision making process of, if this is for you, is how competitive are you? You know, we've talked about it before, but this isn't a hyper competitive environment that you're stepping into with a bunch of uber competitive people. And you know, you need to be able to bring it every day. And that seems easy when you say it, but it's. In practice, it's not the easiest thing to do. Like, your body's gonna be banged up, you're gonna have schoolwork, you have other things going on in your life. It's hard to get yourself up every day to do it, but it's also one of the best things you can do. You know, I, I used to always tell my guys and I always thought, like, it's an escape. For me, it was an escape from the real world. Not to say that it's, you know, I, I don't mean that as like I was dealing with, you know, the worst things in the world, but like, it's a time in which I could just go cut it loose and do whatever I wanted to do without any care in the world for two and a half, three hours, for playing a double header like nine with a Tarpaul and Dragon rake the field. But, you know, I just think that there's, there's so much more, like, it's, there's so much more that goes into it, but also just the basic level of how bad do you want it and what are you willing to do in order to achieve that goal of where you want to be? Because it's a, there's a lot of sacrifice in there, right? Like, there's a lot of sacrifice, there's a lot of Things that you're going to have to give up in order to get to where you want to be. And it doesn't matter the level, right? Like, it doesn't matter if it's division, you know, the SEC. It doesn't matter if it's the Mac. It doesn't matter if it'S, you know, the PSAC, the Liberty League, the NESCAC. Like, there are a lot of sacrifices that you're going to have to make and your family is going to have to make. You know, I, I'm 39 years old. I've eight years. I think the first legitimate vacation I went on after probably 13 or 14 years old was when I was like 31, 32 years old. And that, like, that doesn't, you know, I'm not saying that like it's, you know, some people aren't blessed enough to do it, but like, my vacations were baseball. That's what it was. There was no, I didn't go on spring break and everyone. I've never gone on spring break in my life. Not that I would now at 39. Right. That would be weird. But the, My point is that like, you know, growing up and in college and even shortly thereafter, like, I never. Spring break was for baseball. I never, you know, like, and those are things that, like, you know, those are sacrifices that you're going to have to make if this is something that you want to do. You know, late nights and hanging out with your friends might not be what you can do a bunch of times. I'm not saying you can't do it all the time, but, or ever at all. But there's going to be times where you're going to have to be like, yeah, no, I can't hang out. I got to get up tomorrow at 6:30 because I have whatever going on, you know, so there's a lot of sacrifice in this if you want to get to where you want to go and it carries into college, right? Like, there's going to be nights where you're going to have to do things that you don't want to do because you got to get up the next day. You know, how many times were we playing poker on a Friday night in college in April, not doing what college kids are doing on Friday nights in April, because we had, you know, we had, we were playing the next day. And you know, that, that's just, that's just what it is. Like you, you get to experience a lot more as a college student athlete. You get to travel all the country. You get A lot of cool stuff. You get to go see cool places, but there's a, there's a give and take to it. Like, you don't just get to be a regular college student. You're going to be held to a higher standard. Like you're, you know, your eyes are on you and that, like you, you have to be okay with that and understand that, right? Like, you know, I don't envy the kids that are in college right now. Like, we didn't have social media when we were in college. We didn't have those things. You know, it crept in towards the end of our careers. But, you know, I wouldn't want to go to college in this era by any stretch of the imagination because eyes are on you. And you know, but like, my point to it is, like, there's a lot of sacrifice that goes into it once you get there too. And, you know, those are questions that you have to ask yourself when you are going through this process is like, what am I willing to do and what, like what does it take to get to where I want to be and am I willing to do that?
• 11:42
  Speaker B: I think that, that it's one of those things that, to kind of frame it up from a competition perspective. I was talking with a young man this evening who was interested in being an engineer. And kind of how I framed it up is like, listen, you're not competing against your local high school group, right? In the city that you live in or the town that you live in. You're competing against every kid who wants to play college baseball, who wants to also be an engineer. Like that's how you need to think about it. And then that frames up like, oh, wow, I gotta outwork a lot of people. And that gets into the sacrifice thing that you're talking about, Keith, and it's, are you gonna take care of your academics? Right? You don't want to let those slip doors close if you don't do well in school. There's certain schools that are not going to be accessible to you because of the academics. That's just one piece of it. And then you need to have a honest conversation about how much time and effort do you want to put into refining your craft, taking care of your body? I think that that's the biggest thing for most high school kids is are you willing to do the hard stuff? Are you willing to go and lift four or five times a week? You know, maybe you got to get up at 5:45 in the morning so that you can get your lift in before school? So you can get everything done. I know there's strength coaches out there who post this stuff on Twitter that, like, you should never lift that early in the morning, but you got to make sacrifices, and if that's when you can do it, you need to get your work in. Are you going to do that extra work? And I think the question that I would, maybe not the question, but I think what people need to think about is you got to come to terms with how much effort that you're going to put into this, and you got to look yourself in the face and go, is that going to be enough? Because you don't want to look back. Those 2027s that are going through it right now that are kind of at the start of their recruiting process. You've got six months in front of you that are vital for you to become a recruitable player. And you not only need to improve yourself, but you got to find a way to separate yourself from the competition. So you might have to be, to your point, sacrifices, like, you might have to make some sacrifices that other people aren't willing to make in order to gain an edge. And the last thing you want is to get to this time next year and look back and go, I didn't do as much as I should have. And that's a tough thing to deal with, is to look back and say, oh, I didn't. I didn't do enough to get to where I want to go. And guys have to come to terms with that. And that's where I think this is a privilege to play college baseball. It's not a right. And you have to be in love with the process of pursuing college baseball first and foremost, and not in love with the idea of playing college baseball because it sounds cool and it is cool. It's awesome. College baseball is amazing. But you have to go beyond the idea of it, and you have to dive into the execution of your development plan. Your academics, getting feedback from. From coaches, understanding where you fit in the process, developing a legitimate plan to help yourself get recruited, whether it's email outreach or social media, or attending the right camps, working with the right people to help improve your skills, making sure that you're in the weight room. Like, there's so many pieces of this puzzle. And you don't need to get an A in all areas of this, but you need to be aware of the time and effort, the planning, the execution that goes into it in order to put yourself in a position just to have a chance. You can do everything right in this process, you can bust your ass, you can get stronger, you can get faster, you can have a plan, you can execute that plan, and you still might come up short because of how competitive the environment is right now. So it's kind of a mandatory thing. If you really want to pursue college baseball, all of the things that I just talked about, they all have to be a part of your plan. They all have to be a part of, of what you're doing over the next 6, 9, 12, 18 months, depending on what your grad year is, in order to put yourself in a situation where you are recruitable, it's easier said than done. And a lot of people, when you talk to them about it, they'll nod your head and acknowledge that, like, yeah, that, that's right. That's what I got to do. But you need to actually go and do it. And one of the mindsets that I think is a valuable way to, to kind of frame this up. And, you know, we've interviewed a lot of college coaches on this podcast, and they've all had little tidbits into how they evaluate and how they think and things that are of value to them. What it's like to be a college player. Like, if you want to play college baseball, you need to start thinking and acting like a college baseball player. And there's some things that a lot of kids do now that are below the bare minimum of what is going to be expected of you when you get to a college campus. From the lifting, from the time you spend on baseball, this time you spend on academics. All of this stuff plays a role in being able to put yourself in a. In a position when it's time for you to get recruited, to actually be a recruitable player. It's a lot. Gave me the googly eyes.
• 17:25
  Speaker A: I was fighting for my life to get to the mute button.
• 17:28
  Speaker B: Deep breath.
• 17:29
  Speaker A: You picked me up with the. It's a lot. No, sorry. But I think the reality of it is, like, if you're not around it or you don't know what it takes, you probably think that what you're doing is enough. And I want to be clear in what I'm about to say. I'm. I'm not saying that what you have to do at the high school level is at or needs to exceed what you are going to potentially like what you need to do in college. Right? Because I don't think that it's. I don't think it's realistic at the high school level. And I'm going to tell you why Do I think that what you do matters? Yes. I think that you're going to need the intent behind what you're doing and the frequency in which you're doing might be less maybe than what you're going to be asked of in college. But if you can get into the routine of doing it, I don't think it'll be a huge leap when you get to college. Now the reason I say that I don't, you know, it's going to be less and I think it's just going to be the less for the vast majority of people. You don't have the sheer time in the day as a high school student to be able to do the things it is that you're going to be asked of in college. Right. You're going to be at school, you know, generally we'll call it like 8:30 to 2:30, 3:00 clock in the afternoon and then you're going to have a two hour, you know, you're going to have a practice of whatever sport it is you're playing. You know, let's say it starts at four, that gets you to six, you know, you're probably going to bed, you should be going to bed around 10, 11 o'. Clock, I would suppose to try to get as much sleep as you can. So like there, there's, there's a limited amount of time in the day for what it is that you're doing. Now if you flip that to a college student athlete, you know, like on a Tuesday and I'm, this is just basic memory. Like I maybe had two classes at 8 and 9:30 and I am done with school for the rest of the day. So yeah, I can go lift for an hour and a half at 10 o' clock or you know, 11 o' clock to 1:30. I still have practice at 2, that's going to run me till 5. I can still hit after. Like I have a plethora of time in my day in order to be able to do more things that I need to do in order to be a good baseball player. My point in this is that I.
• 20:06
  Speaker B: Don'T, I don't want to be, I.
• 20:08
  Speaker A: Don'T want to hammer people and say like you're not doing enough, you know, you know, it's not, you know, you're doing less than what, the bare minimum. And I understand what you're saying. I think what I want to be clear and what we're saying is that there needs to be some semblance of intent behind what you're doing. And you need to be able to be better at managing your time with what you're doing. Right? Like, if you're playing football right now and you want to play baseball, awesome. Like, instead of trying to hit seven days a week, like, try to hit three or four, but, like, make the intent behind what you're doing over those three or four days. Be very, very hyper focused in what you're doing over the course of those three or four days. Like, don't go in there and just piss swings away in 40 minutes just because you want to say that you hit for 40 minutes because you probably only hit for 10. Like, if you're going to go hit for 40, hit for 40, get really good swings off or work on what it is that you're doing for those 30 or 40 minutes. And that, like, that stuff starts to build up. Because then, yeah, you manage school, you manage football practice, you manage hitting, you start to be able to manage those things. Like maybe you play hoops in the winter and, you know, same thing, like, you go to school, you go to basketball practice, then you go hit and throw for an hour after that. I think it's, it's more the intent behind what you're doing and being able to manage the time and what you're doing it when you get to college and it just becomes the super. The lone focus is baseball. All of those things that you've done over the course of your, you know, high school career can now bleed into what you're going to be able to do in college. Of like, okay, like, I don't have class on Tuesday, so, you know, I can sleep in. We lift at 10:30. I can go to lift after that. I'll grab something to eat. And then me and Andy are going down to the field and we're going to hit in the cages for like an hour and a half before practice. Like, we're going to get our early work in before practice. Maybe we text our hitting coach and see if he can come out and hit with us for like 25, 30 minutes, work on some of the things we're looking to work on and then go into practice and do those things. Like, those are the things that start to bleed over to get you to the point where you are going to find success when you get to college. It's not doing. Not having the intent behind it, not being, not taking what you're doing seriously that then leads you to not find success fast enough when you get on a college campus. Because now when you, you know, go into the cages you're not really focused on anything or working on anything. Then you know, you literally just wasted 30 minutes of your time doing nothing and not getting better. And then, you know, or you just don't do it and then you're going to sit there and be like, why am I not playing? Well, you don't do any extra work. You know, you're not on the field early, you don't do any of this stuff. You know, it's no wonder you're not playing. And you know, it's, it's. Setting that work ethic, I think is probably the better frame of, of mind here is setting that work ethic intent when you're younger to get you to bleed over into the college game when you get there. Does that make sense?
• 23:11
  Speaker B: No, it does, I think, and it makes perfect sense. And like when you're in college, make no mistake about it, like your facilities and stuff are a lot more accessible. Like, you don't have to drive 20 minutes to go to the gym. You don't have to drive 30 minutes to go to your hit and coach or whatever. And that all is, that's a limiting factor. But like you nailed may not be the, the type of volume, but it's, it's the intent that a college player would have that. I'm not going to go a week without doing something baseball wise. I'm not going to miss multiple days in the row in the weight room because I was a little bit tired or, you know, whatever excuses you want to build into it. It's, it's one of those things that you have to find a way. The volume might be a little bit less, but if it's a priority for you, you will, you'll figure out a way to get your swings in, you'll figure out a way to get your sprint work in. You'll figure out a way to get in the weight room four or five times a week. You'll find a way to get in the weight room during the season. Right. And I think that that is, you know, another piece of this puzzle that often gets overlooked, which is what are you doing during the season? Like, the off season's the easy time because you're not playing games, but the maintenance of your body, the weight room is all a really important part of what you do in season. And that kind of drives back towards what it's like being a college player. Like, if you're a college baseball player, you're going to lift typically three days a week, at least two days a week during the season. Just to maintain. And it's going to be mandatory because it's a part of staying strong, it's a part of staying healthy and making sure that you can get through the rigors of a 56 game Division 1 college season or a 40 game Division 3 season that is condensed down into an insane amount of time. Right. Playing, playing four or five games a week is a different ball of wax than, you know, playing, you know, two or three travel games on a weekend or, you know, whatever, whatever that looks like these days. But you got to start to take some of that college mentality into your day to day. But I, you, you bring up a good point that it's a lot more accessible as a college player. And in some ways it gets easier to do it. Like it, I wouldn't even say in some ways, like it's much easier to do it when you're in college because it's all right there.
• 25:41
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think that it's. I, I didn't even, I don't even want to say I didn't think of that, but I think you succinctly put into words what I was driving at. You know, especially like, you know, when we went to Marist, you know, you, when you get to campus, it's a, you know, 15 minute walk, end to end. So if I'm on the opposite side of campus in Fontaine and I'm going to lift, like I just have a 15 minute walk across campus to get to the gym, get to our locker room, get to our cages, you know, I'm already there, you know, and if I'm, if I have to get to campus, it's a five minute drive, if that. Right. You know, so I think that it's, it certainly makes it easier because everything that you need is right there where you're going to be five, six, seven days a week for what you have to do. You don't have to drive 25 minutes in traffic to your facility. You don't have to drive 10, 15 minutes to your gym after that. Like that's, there's a lot of time. You don't have, you know, six hours of school. Are there days that you might have that because you have a heavy class load on one day? Yeah, there are. But that means you have lighter days the rest of the week. Right. Like you might only have one class on a Wednesday. So, you know, hey, we're lifting at 8am and then after that I have class at 10 and then I'm free the rest of the day until practice. If we're even practicing or, you know, I have indies, or I'm just going to go hit with Andy at 2 o', clock, you know, whatever it might be. So, but, and I do think the other side of it too is that you, when you get into college, you have other guys that are willing to do that stuff with you, which makes it A, a little bit of peer pressure, but B, it's also a hell of a lot easier to find guys to go hit with at certain points in the day, right? Like, you know, if you and I are free and we can hit it 10 o' clock in the morning, we can go bang our stuff out at 10 o' clock in the morning, go to the caf, eat lunch and then, you know, do whatever we need to do for the rest of the day. If you have a heavy class load, like maybe Joey, you know, you and Joey have a heavy class. So like, yo, I'm gonna go hit with Joey at 6:00 clock after our, you know, after our 4:00 clock class, we're gonna grab something to eat and then we're gonna go hit whatever it might be. But it certainly makes it easier because I think that you have more people around that are willing to do it with you at the times in which. And like, look, maybe you have no one and you just go do it yourself. That's fine too, you know, But I, I just think that like, it's more the work ethic and understanding that, that if you can get to the point where you, you can sack, you start to understand the sacrifice it's going to take to get to where you want to go and you have intent behind what you do at a, at a younger age, you're ultimately going to find yourself in a better spot. And when you become recruitable and end up on a college campus, because that work ethic part is really what is going to get you to the point where guys really start to respect you in the locker room. I make no mistake, that's a huge deal in college, right? Like you're going into a, again a hyper competitive environment. Like everybody has eyes on the younger guys to see what they're like, what are you bringing to the table in this program? How are you going to help us win? And if you're not a dude who really wants to work hard, it's going to take you a very long time to gain the respect of guys on the field. And that's just the truth of the matter, right? Like, I still can think of guys that it took a very long time for them to make that jump. But the quicker you make that jump, the more, you know, the easier it becomes for you to understand the sacrifice you have to make to. To. To really get on the field. You know, if you're just going to sit there and be like, well, I don't know why they, you know, I don't play. I'm better than everyone here. Like, the likelihood is you're not. The, the second probably truth is that you don't put in enough time, energy, and effort to get to where you need to be. And that's. Those two things are generally true way more times than they're not. And that's. That's the reality. Like, you know, if. But if you're gonna go in there, think that you're better than everyone, you're going to make a lot of enemies very quickly because no one cares what you did in high school. There's not a single dude that's going to be in that locker room that's gonna be like, oh, yeah, that's awesome. Really cool. Love it. Haven't done anything here. So we're not in high school anymore. You know, it's like the, the wizard of Oz. Like, we in Kansas anymore, Toto. Like, I don't care what you did. I really don't. Like, we're. We're not playing high school baseball here. We're playing college baseball. We're trying to win championships and do stuff like, what are you going to do to help us do that here? And if it's just, you know, be a dude who sits at the end of the bench and complains and thinks he's better than everyone, it puts in zero energy, zero effort. And you're a. You're a. You're an energy vampire. Or as Chris Farish like to say, you're. You're a drain, not a fountain. Then your time in college baseball is probably not going to be that long. And you'll probably have a laundry list of reasons as to why the coach didn't like you and the guys didn't like you and why you transferred. You never got a shot. But the reality is you likely put in zero effort towards what it was that you thought that you deserved instead of earned. Yeah.
• 31:16
  Speaker B: And I think that that mentality bleeds into the recruiting process. Like, you have to do enough to earn this. Like, you have to go out and earn it and take it and take advantage of your opportunities. But you hit on something that I think is. And I hadn't really thought about this until you kind of brought it up. But you're talking about, like, well, I could just call Andy and we can go hit. You know, you got access to things. You're around people who want the same thing. It. It kind of drives that. You need to find it. You're a high school kid. You need to find a support system. You need to find a place, right? Whether it's a facility that you go to, you need to find a place where when you walk into that. Into that gym, to go and lift or to go hit or to go throw, that. It's an environment that is conducive to improvement, right? Competitive environment. You don't want to be the best dude in the facility right away because you want to be climbing a ladder, right? You want to go work. If you're a pitching guy, like, you want to. You want to go and work at a facility that has some, like, it's got some energy to it, right? And you get there and it's like, it's time to work. It's not time to chit chat and flip around on your iPhone. Like, you're there for 45 minutes, you get your work and you bust your ass. You go hang around some people who want it just as bad as you do, right? You need to. You need to get a support system around you. And sometimes that support system isn't just your teachers or your. Your instructors, if you will. Some of it's like, you need to have some buddies. Find some people who want it. They don't need to necessarily even be baseball players, but, like, if your buddy's a football player who wants to play college football, like, go lift with him, right? You got another buddy who wants to play college baseball. Like, go find time to work with him and get around people that are gonna prop you up and are gonna challenge you, right? That are gonna help you in this process that. I don't know if you can put a price on that.
• 33:14
  Speaker A: No, you can't.
• 33:15
  Speaker B: What's the old AD like? Iron sharpens iron, right?
• 33:18
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 33:18
  Speaker B: I had a buddy who had that tattooed on his leg. Shout out, Shout out. Michael Westbrook. But that's just. That's a throwback all the way to high school basketball. He's really a basketball player, by the way. I played at Colby. Really good. He's from Ireland of. Of all places. But I digress. If you're around people who want similar things that you. As you do, they're going to help you get there just by being there. When you pick up the phone, you're like, yo, Jimmy, like, let's go. Let's go get some hacks in. Like, I'm going to come over and pick you up. We'll go to the facility and let's go. Let's go bang some balls for an hour. Or being with the right instructor who is going to challenge you and isn't just there to put you through the motions. Like being an environment where you walk into the gym and it's like a bunch of people getting after it. Like that elevates you. That's what you get in college organically.
• 34:16
  Speaker A: Right.
• 34:17
  Speaker B: You show up to a college weight room and you're a freshman. I hadn't really lifted weights before I got to school. This is long before it was, you know, in the, in the state that it is right now with. With guys being introduced to it way earlier than they used to be when you got into the college weight room with us. And I imagine. And it's like this and probably even more intense at other places. But, like, as soon as you walked into that weight room, like, it was on. Like, dudes were getting after it. They knew what they were doing. They were going to go there, they were going to lift, they were going to get after a hard for 45, 50 minutes, and you were forced to assimilate into that environment or else, to your point, like, you were going to get left behind.
• 35:00
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, I, I think you didn't.
• 35:02
  Speaker B: Show up in those moments. Like, you. It was easy to pick out the dudes who didn't want to lift and didn't want to go do that kind of stuff. And very few of them are able to overcome the ability to not be excited about that. And I know you're thinking about one person in particular. This is the only person I'm thinking about right now, too. But, I mean, you get that organically. Like, you always, when you're in college, you always have somebody who wants to go hit.
• 35:30
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 35:30
  Speaker B: Get into the weight room. Like you're there with 34 dudes. Back in our day was 35 guys, and it was 35 dudes who were full of testosterone, who had just mastered protein drinks and some sort of energy drink, and they were ready to get it on for 55 minutes to an hour. And if you're a high school.
• 35:51
  Speaker A: Explode.
• 35:52
  Speaker B: Yeah. If you're a high school guy, go find some people who can give you that energy because it's a lot more fun. Right. It's hard to go and lift four or five times a week, but if you got a buddy who likes to get after it, too it's way more fun to show up and go do it with somebody who gives a shit.
• 36:11
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I mean shoot the four of my best friends in high school. One, two, three. Yeah, four. Three of them played college baseball. One with us at Marist, another one at Duke, one at Hartwick and another dude played football at Union. Like it was easy, you know. And I don't mean that from a. I mean to say it was easy for us but to your point, like it was easy to find people to go do stuff with and to go to the gym and to work out and like because you had, you know, at least one other person that was probably going to be freed up to go do that stuff with you and you know, it. It's a lot easier to go get better. Especially in our day. Like there wasn't, you know, your machine was the old.
• 37:06
  Speaker B: Right.
• 37:06
  Speaker A: Still think they make them but the two wheel jugs machine like a little hard to feed that thing on your own and hit. You know, it was. Now you have your three wheeled and they feed theirselves and all these things. So it was a lot easier with or now than it was then, I suppose. But you know, with two dudes you could feed the machine and. Or you could throw to each other whatever it was, you know. But I think you're dead right. Like if you can find people that you know have. And it doesn't have to just be baseball, it could be whatever other sport. But people that are looking to elevate you in, in the high school realm to get to where you want to be athletically in the college game, then you know it all of a sudden that work ethic piece becomes a hell of a lot easier for you to kind of overcome and learn. So when you get to college it's not incredibly difficult to do. Like you just find other people who have the same drive and then go from there, right. Like it's. I think that those are one of the things and I like it's, you know, it's. You've made it when you. When you're a younger guy in college and you know more so your freshman, but you've made it. When some of the older guys start asking you if you want to go hit with them or take extra ground balls or whatever it was because they're starting to wreck or they've recognized, I shouldn't say they started. They recognize that you're willing to do the things it is that's going to be asked of you to get them to where it is that you want to be as a program and as a team because you've shown up and gotten after in the weight room or, you know, you look like you want to get after it, you know, doing the other things that it's going to take to help you win. And, you know, I think the old. My dad used to always say, like, on a construction site, like, you don't have to be, like, shouldn't be worried when guys are, you know, busting on you all day long. You should worry when no one's talking to you. Like, it's the same kind of thing. Like, you get on a college campus when you're playing college baseball. If no one is speaking to you, like, then you. You should probably look in the mirror and figure out what it is that you need to do in order to get better. And I'm not saying that you have to change everything about yourself, but, you know, the likelihood is it's way more about your work ethic and what you're bringing to the program than it is anything else that's going on. Because no one cares about any. Really. No one cares about anything but, like, are you a good teammate? Are you a good person? And, like, are you going to work hard and help us win? Like, those are probably the three. The three things that people care about the most when you get into college. Don't care about all the other ancillary stuff. They'll, you know, we'll figure that stuff out as we go. But, you know, you good person. Check the box. Good teammate. Check the box. You work hard, you're gonna help us win. Check the box. Let's go. Let's go do it. And I, you know, I. I think that that's true in a lot of things, but, you know, if you can surround yourself with the people that, you know, want to elevate you instead of, you know, drag you down, then you're gonna find yourself in far better spots. And that might mean you have, you know, you might have to change, you know, maybe not change friend groups, but you might have to be friends and. And do things with other people that, you know, are outside of your normal friend group because, you know, you don't want to look back in 20 years and be like, well, if I did a little bit more, right, like, how many times have you heard that? Like, duh, you know, I could have played college baseball. I had scholarship offers everywhere, but I was just, you know, hung out with the wrong guys. I like to drink. Like, oh, okay, yeah, like, you just didn't want it like that, like, and that's you. Like, I don't say that outright, but like, that's usually my first thought. Like you just didn't want it hard enough. Like, that's what that comes down to. Like, you can say all you want, you can tell yourself all the excuses in the book, but I would rather be somebody who laid it all out on the line. Maybe it didn't work out for me, but, but like, I just, you know, those bonfires in the woods were just way more fun. Like, yeah, man, you just didn't want it enough. Like, that's okay. Like, you don't have to try to tell me anything different. Like, you just told me exactly why you didn't make it. But you know, like, don't be that guy.
• 41:35
  Speaker B: And the, the other thing too is like surrounding yourself with other good people, people who can keep you on the straight. And this might be mom and dad, right? But hold you accountable in the classroom, who are going to be honest and open with you about where you're at baseball wise, what you need to be doing, not forcing you to do anything, but holding you to a high standard. Everybody needs people like this in their lives to get them on the right path, to go where they want to go. And some of it's knowledge that they need that they can't get because they've never experienced it. Other times it's just somebody to hold them accountable. So that mentorship, somebody who can give you really good guidance throughout the recruiting process on what you need to be doing, you know, where you fit in the grand scheme of college baseball. Like all of that makes it easier 100% and can help you get the outcome that you're looking for. But all of this stuff that we talked about, prefacing this, the hard work, the dedication, the commitment to doing the things that are required of you in order to get there. Like, it all starts there. You can have a wonderful plan, but if you don't do the work required to put that plan in place, that plan is not going to be, it's just not going to be successful. Like, you got to lay the foundation. And the foundation is the commitment to actually being a college baseball player.
• 43:08
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 43:12
  Speaker B: Do you got anything else you want to add to this?
• 43:14
  Speaker A: No, I do not.
• 43:18
  Speaker B: I mean, I guess we'll, we'll get off our bust your ass and commit yourself to this process soapbox, but I think it's an important conversation to have and without a doubt, you know, in order to, to get this right, you got to make, you got to make some sacrifices. So thank you for listening everybody. Tune in next week. We'll talk to you then. Thank you for listening this week. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and smash that like button for us. Check us out on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast as well as Spotify. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram MD Baseball. If you want to find out what me and Keith do to help families and players navigate the recruiting process, go ahead and check us out on emdbaseball.com take a few minutes to check out our new online academy. I promise you'll get some good information out of that. Thanks again for listening. Check in with you next week.