Welcome to the Complete Game Podcast, where we're all about baseball with Ethan Dungan, owner of Glovehound Baseball glove repair shop.

Rick Finley, founder of MDNI Baseball Academy, and the creator of George Foster Baseball, the MVP himself, Reds hall of Famer George Foster.

I'm your host, Greg Dungan.

Now let's talk baseball.

All right, fellas, welcome to episode 11.

Oh, this is sad.

11.

I know we're gonna have a party on fast.

I said, can we have a pizza party for the last.

Oh, yeah, pizza.

There you go.

What the fellas are referring to, in case you don't know, is that we're going to make.

Next week will be our 12th episode, so we're going to make 12 episodes.

And then we're going to take the summer off because we got some stuff going on.

Guys are playing baseball and Ethan's got a baby coming.

Baby.

So we got a lot of things.

A baby.

George.

George.

A lot of things going on.

And we're going to take a break for a few months, and then we'll be back in September, October, November, with 12 more episodes.

So there will be more episodes this year, and there'll be some extra content posted on social media and things like that in between over the summer.

And there's going to be a chance for you guys to actually get.

Get out and mingle a little bit.

The.

George is gonna make some appearances, and they're gonna.

These guys are working up some clinics.

There's all kinds of things that are.

That are going on.

I'm dressed up like a clown.

Everybody loves clowns.

And we'll.

So there'll.

There'll be some opportunities.

One of the things that you want to do, if you want to know where we're going to be or what we're going to be doing, go to our website, completegame podcast.com, go to the bottom and sign up for the mailing list.

We won't send you a bunch of junk, but we will let you know when the.

When the podcast goes live again on the first Wednesday in September.

And then we'll also be able to let you know if the guys are going to be out doing things, clinics and appearances and that kind of thing.

So, yeah, go and sign up@completegame podcast.com and then that way you'll.

You'll be in the know when.

When things kick off again.

Just leave your bank account and your Social Security number.

Yeah.

Please sign up.

Please sign up.

I.

I run that for him.

It's okay, George.

George has no.

George does not.

George does not get your information.

All right.

So last week we, we, we laid down some reality and we talked about when, when it might be time to help your player decide to play recreationally rather than continuing to sort of strive for higher levels and to just make baseball a part of their life that they can enjoy and, and be a part of.

This week we're going to talk about, as a parent, how to get behind your child who wants to strive to play in high school and beyond.

So you'll remember last week we, we figured out that about 3% of all the players that start playing at, you know, t ball and first coach pitch, that kind of thing will actually play in high school.

So let's say you're, you're, your child wants to play in high school, your son or your daughter, if she's playing softball, wants to play in high school.

And you got, you have to decide how you know how to get behind them, what to do.

You're coming up with a plan for how to make that happen.

That's what we're going to talk about today.

And so today is called the Parents Guide to Advanced Baseball.

And we're going to kick it off with, we're going to name five things that the parents need.

Parents need to do in order to support their children who want to play in high school and beyond.

And we're going to kind of go around each guy and just kind of give one thing and we'll kind of go, we'll kind of keep going around.

One man have 20.

I know, I know you do.

21.

We'll get them all in sooner or later, but we're going to start talking about what are, what are the things that parents need to do, Rick, if their kids want to play in high school.

Oh, man.

Thank you.

First, now, a lot of things have.

Changed from since I, Michael Jackson, make a change.

Great.

Since I've coached travel baseball to now at the not rec level, but at more of a developmental level.

So one of the things that I would do is get in an evaluation of the skill first and then to see at advanced level where your kid can play.

You know, going from high school to beyond those levels can be, you know, your skill and athleticism and all of that.

So I would get an evaluation before I take up everyone else's answers.

So getting of that one, that's a great place to start.

Rick, how about you, George?

Well, well, well, well, the first thing, understanding that baseball may not be for everybody and then also kids gonna learn at a different level.

So because, because he doesn't excel in baseball, don't feel that he's a failure.

There are other sports that he may be able to participate in.

But I always use baseball as teaching life skills because baseball is a national pastime.

But the last time I was really given a lot of information about budgeting and it's an investment.

So parents, when you go out there, look at the monies that you're going to put into the program, but you got to find out from your kid what do you want to do.

And once you find out what you want to do, then you can set a program together or schedule together.

But if the kid doesn't want to play baseball, it's know, don't feel bad about it.

Maybe it's another sport, make sure that they're playing a sport.

But baseball is not an easy game to play.

And as Greg had mentioned about the, the, the percentage, the small percentage of players who are going to make it in Major League Baseball.

So there's a smaller percentage.

So you got to make sure, like Rick said, evaluate, see where the kid is athletically compared to other kids his age or team wise or desire that desire determines are you, are they really ready or determined to play the game to get better.

But being able to go out and budget, put a, finding out the expenses that are going to be involved so that once you get to another level, once you get to high school, as you're going through high school, making sure that you, you had a great plan, but the plan started with the monies that you're going to put out as an investment.

And if you're going to work, get a return on your investment.

Yeah, that's a great point, George.

And I can, I can tell you that's one thing that we did when, when Ethan made the decision he wanted to try and plan high school.

I remember sitting down and doing exactly that.

Because what parents will hear us talk about in this episode, you're gonna hear us talk about a lot of things that all that have price tags.

Right.

There are a lot of facets to this.

It is.

And we'll go, we'll round it all up at the end and kind of, kind of talk about what, what should be in your budget a little bit.

I've kind of got that in notes, but that's an excellent point.

Yeah, I'm gonna go with one that's a little more specific.

And mine is providing a quality diet.

Because if you want nutrition dietitian, because when you start taking things seriously, you start taking your workout seriously.

Diet is very important.

And for kids, that's ultimately controlled by the parents.

And that's something I learned once I became a parent.

When you're a teenager or a young adult, you control what you eat because you have the money to buy it.

You're planning meals, that kind of thing.

But when you have to provide for another kid, I'm like, well, I, I control what my son eats, you know, for every single meal.

So, you know, being able to provide them healthy meals that will fuel them for, for peak athletic performance is, Is very important and oftentimes overlooked.

Yeah, they don't really put a lot of emphasis on the, what they eat.

And now realizing that's very important what, what goes into their, their stomach or going to their body.

Cause it's going eventually you don't want to take, say, a lot of sweets and things as such.

You don't want to create a problem at an older, older age.

But this is, this part is funny to me.

So the dad is a chef and the kid was overweight.

And I said, well, my daughter, she makes meals that are that low calorie and everything.

And then they say, well, why should we pay somebody else to do what My, my husband, I said, okay, why hasn't he been doing it?

So it's right there.

You have access to it.

So making sure what you feeding your kid, you have control of that.

So it starts at home.

The control stay away from fried food.

For me, I stopped eating beef and I stopped eating pork.

The toughest place to not eat beef was in Japan.

And Japan has the best beef.

The best beef.

Yes.

So I started eating a lot of fish at the time.

And then right now, a lot of salmon most of the time.

But make sure that it's not farm grown, because with the farm grown, it's a lot of chemicals.

But get into fish, turkey, chicken, and making sure.

Oh, sorry about the fruit having the balance there.

Yeah, it's got to have the fruits, man.

But that was good, Ethan.

Well, yeah, and what you just touched on there was a big one.

When Ethan was little, I, I started doing all the cooking.

You gave him beer instead of milk.

Right.

I started doing all the cooking at home and when he was three.

When he was three.

From the time he was three till the time he was five, I was actually, I did stay at home dad thing.

I got laid off from I don't know how many jobs and, and I ended up having to.

We, we figured out that Leslie was teaching school at the time and we, we would actually come ahead if I just stayed home With Ethan.

And so I did, and I made everything we ate from scratch, like the bread, the pasta, the everything.

We grew our own herbs, we grew our vegetables, we grew, you know, this kind of thing and wait, time out.

Herbs, like culinary herbs.

I know.

So wound him up today.

But it.

Was a big deal to do to limit the amount of processed food, the amount of chemicals, you know, not eat, not feeding him and his sister things that had paragraphs of ingredients.

And in trying to limit the amount of preservatives and food colorings and things like that.

Now my wife has gone full scale crunchy mom.

And we're back to the whole, you know, we're trying all that stuff.

So.

But yeah, processed foods.

I went to my, I went to my doctor a couple months ago and he said, eat more foods that go bad if you don't eat them within a week.

So eat more.

Eat more fruits, veggies, stuff that's good.

If it's shelf stable, then, you know, there is something like preservatives.

So just be careful.

Yeah.

All right, So I have.

This may seem, this may seem kind of elementary, but find out what the, what the high school standards are.

Yeah.

Find out what they're looking for if you're, if your son is a catcher.

Find out what kind of pop time they're looking for.

If, if, if your son is, is working on his hitting, find out what they're looking for with regard to, to, to average and on base percentage.

And I mean, go through the stats, find out what it is that makes the high school people go, hmm, let's take a look at this kid.

Right, Right.

And I agree with Greg on that because I go to the local high school leagues here in Cincinnati.

If you're locally, the gmc, gcl, Co Ed, GCL south ecc, I go to all of those and I pull up the stats of the team and I can tell who's a good hitting team, who's a bad hitting team, and all of that.

And that says a lot.

So Greg is correct on that end.

Attend games too.

Yeah.

And eventually, especially if you're, if your child is a pitcher, find out what they're looking for with regard to how many pitches he can throw and how many pitches he can throw successfully.

Find out what they're looking for with what's his average pitch count and what's his velocity and what's his, you know, not any, any one of those stats does not make or break a pitcher, but the collection of them can be what, you know, they want to see.

And so, uh, that's going to go with one, with another one on my list here that goes hand in hand, which is then start keeping those stats.

Right.

And while your child is playing, start keeping those stats just for him, you know?

Right.

Like everybody else on consumption can do their thing, but you're keeping your child stats.

And so then you can go over those, you can go over those later, you can go over those with a, with a teacher, you can go over those with, you know, whatever.

But if you're starting it 14, you know, 13, 14, 15, and you're starting to keep those stats and work on those stats, by the time he's 15, 16 years old and he's trying out for the, for the high school team, or your daughter, she's trying out for the high school team, then you already been working those stats and you already know what, you've been working on that for a number of years and you know where you.

So what everyone is saying, from nutrition, okay.

To stats, it does give you.

There are certain stats that I look at.

And so when kids come to me for training or hitting and stuff, I don't necessarily go to batting average pretty much.

I go to on base percentage, strikes ball walks and strikes ratio, line drive percentage.

So those things are stats that I look at because it lets, you know, uh, don't get caught up on batting average so much.

You know, even though that is a great indicator.

Look at some things if he's striking out a lot versus walks and so you can help a kid with their approach to hitting and things of that.

Or if he's like a Gavin Lux, where he may not hit every time, but he makes that pitcher throw seven or eight pitches every time that goes up there.

Exactly.

You know, those kinds, those kinds of things can be, can be helpful.

But when Rick talk about evaluating the player, but you need to evaluate the coaches.

Yes.

Because you like, you don't want to.

College was a good example though.

I tell kids finding out what position that coach played.

So if you were, if you're a pitcher and you go into a team that the coach is not a pitcher, so he's not going to really understand pitching as much and vice versa.

If you're a hitter, you don't want to go to a college that has a pitch.

A coach has a, who was a pitcher because he doesn't understand hitting.

So but if he, if he's a catcher or a catcher, that's the, that's the one I want you to.

That's balance there because he's on Both sides of the plate.

So evaluate the coaches.

Even in high school, evaluate that coach.

Seeing that, okay, he, he wants speed, he wants pitching, he wants defense.

So making sure that your kid fit that mold.

I like that.

So that would be my one of mine.

Find the right coaching program.

So I'm going to add to that because George is correct on that.

You do have to find the right coaching and program.

That's actually was number one on my, on my list here because as such, because again what George said before the investment.

Okay.

The investment Greg started, I mean it's like, wow, the light went on.

I didn't even, I didn't even focus on that.

Yeah, the investment.

And you tie that into the right coach, the right, the right program.

So since I've been in this, this travel again, travel baseball for over 20 years and things and you got to find the coach that are able to, to develop your kid.

So say for instance, Art.

And I've been around some good guys and I was kind of picky when I started having my own teams.

I was picky about the type of people I wanted around.

So we can, I didn't have to micromanage, so to speak.

You know, I can still.

They understood my philosophy, the parents understood the goal and went from there.

So I went from coaching top travel baseball programs to developing the Indiana developmental program because I lost.

I learned a lot from there and, and I was around guys again.

Dads that we caught.

We taught hitting, we taught fielding, pitching, everything.

So our kids didn't have to go outside of our program to seek information.

We didn't.

And I'm not trying to say that we were perfect, but that's the way we were driven.

That's how we coached the game.

So we, we also knew where kids strengths and weaknesses were and we were able to develop that during practice.

Or we say, hey, do this at home and then they will come home because we can always tell if you've been working on your game or not.

So find the right coaching program.

Find out their philosophy and what their.

Goals are and that may be different from the programs that are most popular.

Yes, sir.

So just because you might get a tryout with whatever natural disaster is hot at the moment, you, you, that doesn't mean that that coaching staff fits your particular child.

Yeah, just.

Yeah, don't, don't fall for the name.

Yeah.

It might be prestigious to say, well, I played for this and such program, but if you didn't develop, then it didn't get you anywhere.

But that becomes a, Another part is Trying to find out the, the philosophy of the coach is development versus winning, right?

Yeah.

And if they're focused on just winning, the kid's not going to get developed.

But the add to the investment part is finding someone that can train, train your kid as far as hitting, pitching, running, conditioning, somebody who has expertise in that, that area so that now you're growing that kid so he's ready for that, that next level.

Yeah, that's absolutely right, George.

I think if your child is serious about playing at high school and beyond, a private teacher is an absolute must.

There's no way around it, Right.

It's just you're going to need that kind of development because I don't care what it is, you're not going to find a summer program that is going to provide enough development.

And your child may play for a really good summer program and he may have a really good coach.

They're not going to be able to develop specifically that child all the time.

It's just not as personal.

And there's nothing wrong with them.

It's just right.

That personal attention, there is no substitute for it when it comes to.

Because your child is going to be trying out against a bunch of other kids who've had that individual attention and that bad leverage.

Right.

It's going to be very, very hard for them to compete.

So I don't know, you know, you guys probably have put this together and you heard us talk about, especially if you've listened to the, the commercials and stuff during the thing, but these guys, Rick and George, they teach this stuff.

George is actually actively right now taking, taking new students to teach the fundamentals of the game of baseball.

Now, you know, let me go back and if you go back to last week, okay, you can, you can learn the fundamentals of baseball from lots of different people.

You can learn the fundamentals of baseball from guys who, who played in high school or played in college.

You also, you know, the opportunity to learn the, the fundamentals of baseball from a guy who was.8% of all players in the major leagues at one point in time.

That is a little different.

Wow, cool.

0.08.

0.08.

Yeah.

Because when you lead any, when you lead in any category, you are.008.

You are in the top minute 1%.

I gotta get that.

Write that up.

Yeah.

So, you know, you guys can do that.

If you go right now to georgefosterbaseball.com you can sign up and they'll contact you and you can talk to them about it.

But in case you Just maybe you haven't made it to the end of one of these episodes and you haven't heard George's commercial.

But yeah, get a private teacher.

It is absolutely imperative if your child wants to compete at a higher level.

And the coach only can get you to the level that they experience.

And I see coaches, you know, high school, they got to high school, they got to, got to college.

But the biggest difference, I look back at Major League Baseball when I was playing, you had former players being see a hitting instructor.

But now, I mean you had like a Dave Parker or you had a Chili Davis, Ted Klosewski guy who not only played the game, the, they were good at the game.

So they had expertise as far as teaching hitting.

But today you can name on one hand how many guys who really played major league baseball and had good stats.

So if you look at their resume, it's like, how did this guy get this position?

And so, but they complained about well, this team is not hitting.

And I would say to one, I said, is this guy teaching batting or hitting?

Seemed like they're teaching batting and they guarantee that kid's gonna get a hit every 10 times.

That bat they're batting 100.

But in the major league today, 200 is the replacement of 300.

But when I watch a team, so you go to Bobby Witt with Kansas City, you see these guys are excelling out there.

Say, why is that guy George Brett?

George Brett, how is that guy doing well?

And this guy over here is not doing as well.

It's the application.

They don't know because I watch these guys, it's so comical when a right handed.

The other day I was with, with the, with the Mets or not the Mets with the Reds.

I was, I said these guys, no one go out and evaluate because if you throw this a slider inside to a lefty, they won't hit it.

But what do they do?

They try to get smart, throw a fastball.

I guess they want to give a souvenir to the people in the outfield.

But I just, I was watching Arizona played the Yankees and they had five or six lefties and they're throwing the ball.

The slider really is in the left handed batter's box.

It's not over the plate and they're swinging at it.

I said, they don't really know the.

Approach to hit it exactly.

And I said, if you ask someone in room said how many know how to teach this?

No hands would be raised unless I'm there.

One of the most interesting things I saw over the weekend, weekend, I was on Facebook and there was a.

It was an.

An appearance that Pete Rose made on some MLB show where he was on there with, I think it was Derek Jeter and Frank Thomas.

Yeah, Frank Thomas.

And they were asking him about.

They're asking Pete questions, and they were talking about, so how do you.

How do you get out of a slump or somewhere?

You're having a hard time hitting the ball.

And he's.

And he says, well, you move around in a box.

He said, you don't change your swing.

Right, Right.

He said, if you're having trouble this way, you step up, you have trouble this way, you step back, you step in, you step out, you.

And.

And he gave, he gave an absolute clinic in about three minutes.

Keep it simple on how to do it.

He said, but don't change your swing.

It got you to the major leagues, right?

Have faith in.

Trust your swing and move yourself around.

And I thought, well, that was.

That's brilliant.

George was saying something that I like.

And so I throw a lot, okay?

So for me, I always tell kids, my job is to make it hard for you.

When you come in, come to me.

Because now when you go to the game, it's gone.

You're going to see, you're going to understand spin shapes and everything.

Because I throw every pitch that is so I can throw hard, I can throw a slide, I can throw a curveball, I can throw change up, I can up, down, in and out.

But my job is allow you to, to see different spins.

And, you know, if you foul off a pitch, man, that's great, man.

And I think sometimes kids today, they take it where if they don't swing or if they miss a lot, they, they.

They take it as well.

There is a problem.

It could be your eyesight or whatever, but they're focusing on results.

Yes, yes.

I said, don't worry about results, man.

Don't worry about results.

Understand?

So you got to break things down in, in.

In segments with kids and, you know, your approach at the plate, and then it's got to carry over also.

So I don't want to get too much into, but I just wanted to add to what George was saying also.

But I tell people that I'm a hitting psychologist because you have to mind, you can.

What are you thinking about?

It's not a trick question.

When I ask a kid, I said, what are you thinking about when you're in the batter's box?

And they said, well, I'm thinking about.

I said, you shouldn't be Thinking you should be reacting.

When you get in that undecked circle, you get yourself mind ready and we talk about zone hitting because that's what helped me to become a good hitter, zone hitting, you know, even.

And you gotta be able to trust yourself with two strikes.

But you can tell guys who afraid to, they're afraid they're gonna strike out or they don't trust themselves with two strikes, they're gonna swing at the first pitch.

But for me, I was a better hitter with two strikes so I'm really, really fine tuning.

But if a 3:1 count I think I over swing but I get a two strike count on me.

I'm more tuned.

So you finished the season last year exhausted from all the travel in the tournaments and you tossed your gear in a bag where it's been sitting all winter.

Now you're ready for another year.

But your favorite glove that fits just right is an error waiting to happen.

The leather's dry, the laces are brittle and this year you're on a new team with new colors.

And it sure would be cool if it matched well.

Wouldn't it be great if you had a glove guy who could help you out with that?

You do.

His name is Ethan and he owns Glovehound baseball glove repair shop in Fairfield, Ohio.

Just contact him@glovehound.com and upload pictures of your glove.

He'll give you a call back to talk it over and then you can send it in for a repair, re, lace, recondition, whatever you need.

If you're in the area, you can even just stop by the shop.

That way you don't have to bother with shipping.

And a lot of times he can even fix it while you wait.

Rawlings, Wilson, Mizuno, All Star, Nakona, he's seen them all and he's helped players at all levels from beginners to pros.

Last year he worked on a glove that Jose Trevino used in the World Series and he can help you too.

You can find Glovehound on Google, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and on the web@glovehound.com you're only going to get busier.

So reach out today and give your glove the love it deserves.

At Glovehound last week we talked about going to play it again.

Sports or places where you can buy gloves secondhand.

On there's what's the online.

Was it sideline swap online and yeah, a couple places.

And just this past week Ethan was out shopping and he picked up a couple of gloves.

You want to show us those?

I like those.

This One I picked up.

This is more of a collector piece, but this is a vintage, a 2000 here made in Japan.

It's probably, oh, late 80s, because Wilson moved from their manufacturing in Chicago and Ohio over to Japan in the late 80s.

But this thing is in pristine condition, so that was really cool.

And it says the, the, the quote.

Like the Ohio State.

And then this one here, this is a Zet.

This is a Japanese.

I thought it said Jet.

Jet Pizza.

Uh, but this is.

Again, this is, this is me because I'm a glove nerd.

Finding a brand that, you know, you don't see all the time.

No, but that glove, I like the trapeze.

I like how it's broken in.

Yes.

This is still a very high quality glove.

And I got, I got these both for a really great deal.

And this was only, you know, these are two out of hundreds of gloves that I, that I looked at.

So.

So this will be gone on auction.

Starting out like George Foster put his.

Hand in this glove.

This is game used.

And, and you did this all with, with a toddler in tow.

Actually, it was, it was a challenge.

But we made it.

We, we went around to four stores in the area and there's a lot of good stuff out there.

You just got to go check.

And the goodwill of sporting goods.

This is great.

This is quality here.

Never, you know, we were talking about investment and budgets.

If, you know.

Yes.

If you're trying to.

You can find some good gloves, man, that played against sports, man.

Yeah, this is proof I did it.

We weren't just talking about it.

Has expertise in gloves.

So the other, and the other side of that is so, you know, gloves.

Getting your glove repaired is, is.

Is a, an investment in a lot of.

In a lot of Smart.

Smart.

It's a lot of.

In a lot of cases because it's not cheap, but it's cheaper than a new one.

And so you have to try and.

Figure out it's proven the gloves broken in is ready to go.

Yeah.

How do I want to do that?

So, uh, Ethan does this from time to time.

Picks up and maintains a collection of gloves here in the shop.

So if you are on the fence and you're.

Sometimes he'd pay for them when he goes.

If you're on the fence trying to figure out, well, do I, do I have it fixed?

Do I replace it?

Do I want to bring it in, show it to him, take a look at what he's got there.

Maybe you could even, you know, find something that would work for you for whatever budget you have.

But yeah, one of, one of the things that I had on my list was invest in quality gear because if you're going to go forward and be serious about playing, you're going to need quality gear and, but that doesn't always have to be brand new.

So I was just wanting to bring that up.

Ethan, what's the next thing on your list?

Well, I don't know how many we've already said so far.

It's been a lot.

Three, four?

All right, well, my, this is only the second one that I have, but mine.

We've talked a lot about finding, finding people that can develop the skills, but I want to bring it back to something that doesn't necessarily require skill and that's load management.

So as a parent, you know, you're with your kid all the time for all the seasons of the year and so you're going to have a bird's eye view of how many games they played in this sport or that sport.

So you can manage their, their, their on time and then their off season as well.

Manage their rest, manage what else?

You know, you can provide a lot of value athletically by just enrolling them in a different sport.

You know, we talk a lot about cross sport training and that doesn't require you to have lot of, you know, super specific movement analysis ability.

You know, it's just you trying to diversify their, their experience.

So between that and diet, you know, those are two things that don't require, you know, you to be a major league or, or a semi pro baseball player and to have that experience, but just something that any parent can do to really make a difference in their kids.

But back to nutrition, case in point, the.

I know the Reds have a.

Have I better get it right.

Cause she may get mad.

I think she's a dietitian because I said, are you a nutritionist?

And she was like, she's like Bruce Lee.

Wow.

I'm not a nutritionist, I'm a dietitian.

But.

Cause the Latin players, they weren't eating well.

And so now, and so now she's providing healthy food, healthier eating and it's gonna make a difference in their performance.

But I laugh at also the fact that these guys.

Well, this guy was taken out of the game because he was cramping.

What, what is the trainer for?

He's supposed to go out there.

I know we had salt pills that we would utilize because your body's dehydrated so you need fluid.

I don't, I don't even.

Yeah, Potassium.

I didn't, I don't see them taking water out to the pitcher.

It's like what this guy is cramping, he's throwing a no hitter.

He can't finish the game or finish that inning.

But another one that we gotta hit on is the fact that when Ethan was talking about workload is making sure that at a certain age you start directing that kid to a sport that he's really good in.

So maybe he plays football, basketball and baseball.

Which one is he good at?

I want him to spend more time in that if it's baseball or football, because you don't need to do all those because your body can take a certain workload.

But I, when I played growing up, I played basketball to get myself in condition for baseball.

So there, there are sports that you can, that can help you towards developing another sport.

But in base, in football, it's like if you are quarterback or you are a receiver, I say yeah, let your kid play.

But if you're on the line or linebacker, I'm concerned about injuries.

Especially if you play.

You're a good baseball player.

I'm concerned about injuries.

Unless you're a quarterback or like say a receiver.

A linebacker.

Kicker.

Yeah, kicker.

It's not unusual for baseball players to.

Get Tom Jones to get.

Not unusual.

That's right.

To get hurt playing, playing basketball.

You come down, you turn your ankle wrong, you, whatever.

So when you do that second sport, you do have to make sure you're doing it correctly and make sure you.

Don'T you not be playing around.

Injury.

Yeah.

To keep you out of your.

Matter of fact, I got hurt in basketball because I was going up for a rebound.

I hurt my knee.

I hit my knee on the rim and going up.

Oh, it must been.

No, it was 10ft.

I was so, so high.

You have a, a trampoline to help you get.

This is, this is my story.

It's the mascot for so.

All right, well my next one is Mute that mic.

Mute it.

Let me see which one I want to go with here.

Cuz I've got some good ones here.

Let me see my next one.

Well, I'm going to build off what Ethan said when he was talking about.

Because he's your son.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, he knows, he knows a thing or two.

Eating, also sleeping.

Make sure your child is sleeping.

Yeah, make sure if it put a curfew on your child, there's nothing wrong with that.

You know, one of the things that we did in our house that absolutely helped when, when we, everybody got iPhones.

Okay.

Everybody.

Or.

Yeah, everybody had iPhones.

We.

We did the find my phone thing, and everybody signed in to everybody else's phone.

Okay.

And so we're still signed into each other's phone.

He can look and find me anytime he needs to, to know where I am.

Just all he has to do is look on his phone, see, where's dad?

Okay.

And so what I did there was I gained accountability to make sure that my children were where they said they were going to be, or at least their phones were.

And.

Right.

And I then gave them the same accountability.

Right.

That I didn't.

I didn't care that they knew where I was.

And so that way also, if they get.

If they get in a situation where something's gone wrong, they're in traffic, I got to get to them.

You know, they got a flat tire, they got a.

Whatever get caught on the escalator.

Yeah.

And maybe.

Maybe all I have is that.

All I have is that cell phone signal.

I can get to them when I need to to help them.

I like that.

Yeah.

So it's a good.

It's a good practice for accountability for the whole family.

Everybody sign in and make it so that you can find each.

I don't know what the Amazon or what the.

The Android equivalent is, but I'm sure there is one sign in to make sure that you can know where each other is all the time and then put a curfew on when people need to be home, when people need to be in bed.

And then eventually it becomes a habit and you have to.

You don't have to think about it.

Well, your body adjusts to it.

Right.

And because ultimately your.

If your child is serious about wanting to play sports at a high level, he needs to take responsibility and be doing that for himself.

He needs to be bringing himself home at a reasonable hour.

He needs to be putting himself to bed at a reasonable time because he wants to make it, not because you're putting it on him.

If year after year goes by and you're constantly putting it on him, that's when you have to sit back and go, I don't know that we're really committed to wanting to make this happen.

You need to see them take that over for themselves.

But sleep.

Sleep is a big deal.

And there was a.

It's gone around a handful of times, but the regimen that Christian McCaffrey's dad had on him, and he imparted an early bedtime from a young age and very strict on diet, and you know what?

It paid off.

Well, because here's the thing.

We're going to.

I mean, we're talking about several things here that have added expense.

And if a parent.

Brady's career, if a parent is going to spend into this to fund it, then they're owed an equal commitment.

George has talked about when he teaches lessons that a student has to equal his effort when he's teaching a lesson.

Well, it's the same thing in this regard.

If you're gonna.

If you're gonna make this happen, you're gonna invest this money this time, this effort to make this happen.

You're gonna go on these trips, you're gonna drive them where they need to go, you're gonna, you know, whatever.

Then, then, then you need to see that back in a commitment from your child.

And there's nothing wrong.

Draw it up, sign it as a contract if it makes you happy.

I mean, whatever gets it done for you guys.

And if you're not getting that, then we need to go back to George's first point and have a conversation and make sure that that is what they want to be doing.

Because you might be investing a lot of.

And when we say investing, it's not just financial, but you might be investing a lot of time and energy and money into something that they're not passionate about.

Right.

That's okay.

Anxiety comes in.

Exactly.

A lot of.

There's.

Well, there's a lot of pressure.

Yes.

And so, you know, then you need to step back and say, well, what are you passionate about?

Let's put.

Let's invest into that.

They.

You want it more than they do.

Yeah.

And that's.

That's dangerous.

But the other part is very important too.

You, when you support.

Support is that you're encouraging.

You don't want to go out there and say things that are.

That are critical or being negative.

Just go out there and support your kid.

I just.

This, this really resounding.

When I listened to this commercial, it said a kid successful, a future success depends on your.

Your support today.

So making sure that you're giving that support but know what support is all about.

And two words, you know, they.

They may be.

It sound the definition sound to be the same.

You know, commitment and sacrifice.

So you make a commitment.

You're saying that I looked at it as being more positive sacrifice.

Well, I'm giving up something for you, but is you making a commitment for that kid?

But it's.

Once again you're making an investment.

So you're going to invest.

What do you need to do to invest the Time.

So you're making a commitment, you're making a schedule and you're letting the kid know, okay, this is part of your contract.

You got to make sure your equipment's ready, you got to eat right, you got to, got to get a proper amount of sleep.

So it's a contract that's being verbalized or written.

So this is what you need to do to get to that, that next level.

Absolutely.

I'll go ahead and jump off of that one and I'll give you my, my third real quick.

And that was maintaining a positive environment at home.

I like that because there's a lot of negativity in the, there's a lot of failure.

I like it.

There's a lot of failure in the game.

And so that can, and you know, there's a lot of pressure that can become negative.

Don't bring the negativity home.

Keep the home positive, you know, and keep that training at home positive and then that will reflect out on the field.

But the one that, the one that sticks in my mind, it's all about how you, it's all about perspective and how you frame something.

But it's running.

I hated running as a kid until I came to Rick and then it was fun because it was a skill, it wasn't a punishment.

What, what did he make?

How did he make it fun?

He taught me technique and so I learned how to run.

And then there you go.

But we, and on top of that, we were running with purpose.

We were running.

We're going to run a 15 yard sprint, a 20 yard sprint, and we're going to do 5, 10.

It was the small increments.

It was incremental but defined.

It wasn't, oh, you're going to run stairs till you, till we, it's time to switch.

I'm like that.

Why not what you ate?

It doesn't make any sense.

Well, exactly.

So, but, but that was a mindset thing.

It's like, it's not a punishment.

It's not something negative.

It's a skill that we're improving.

It's positive.

So that's great.

But, but making sure that you're keeping that positive environment at home.

One of the things I, I want to add to what Ethan was saying, I learned something while I was coaching.

So with my own son, with Ricky and with all the kids, but if they had a bad game, I learned to not say anything.

Yeah, I, I, and it took me some time from other dads that were coaches and we, you know, very competitive environment.

But I Learned to not say anything and then waited 24 hours or so.

But this is the reverse psychology of it.

I learned that when I did talk, I started with something they did.

Positive.

There you go.

Then I can circle back around and kind of, you know, say, this is what we need to work on.

He was able to accept it a little better than versus somebody jumping on like, man, you didn't do this.

Well, because a lot of times, most people are their own harshest critics, and especially with kids.

So when you get in that car, he's already going through everything he did wrong, even if he had a good game.

So you piling.

He already knows that he struck out.

If he went 0 for 4, he knows that you telling him doesn't make it any.

You know, but like you said, taking that time and then you can go and figure out why it happened, figure out how to improve and all that.

I've seen a lot of dad coaches talk about, you know, when I'm wearing this hat, I'm the coach.

When I'm wearing this hat, I'm the dad.

And you have.

That could be a tricky thing to fight.

Well, and on.

On top of that.

Okay, so my next one was offer perspective and focus on what matters.

So one of the things I always tried to do with Ethan was speak into the.

The dad relationship.

Yeah.

I was also the biggest fan.

And, yeah, sometimes I was the coach, but I was always the dad.

Right.

And I needed him to know that what made me proud was who he was, not what he did.

Okay.

So.

And what he did is a reflection of who he was.

So let's.

Let's take this.

So how he behaves on the field, how he behaves with his teammates, how he behaves the umpire, how he behaves with the coach, how he treats his mother, how he treats, you know, other people, other kids, parents, how he treats people, you know, the kind of.

Of young man that he is.

Yeah.

That is what makes me proud.

Yes.

Okay.

And so when we get in, we get into truck, it could have been the hardest game he's ever had, but I'm already proud of him.

Even if he didn't.

Even if he went over and, you know, hit three batters and you struggled all through.

All through the game.

That doesn't matter.

I'm already proud of him because of who he is and the way he conducted his bonus.

So.

So then he.

So that we can build from there.

We're a team together.

Okay.

This is a.

This what I.

When we had this conversation when he was in junior High.

And he said.

I said, okay, it's time to have the conversation.

We need to talk about this.

Do you know, do you want to keep playing?

What is your goal?

And he said, I want to play in high school.

And I said, all right, if that's the goal, I will do whatever it takes, whatever I can to give you that opportunity.

That's important question.

You have to do whatever it takes to take advantage of that opportunity.

And from this step forward, we are a team.

Yeah.

And.

And so I try to offer him the perspective all the way through of what really matters.

Life.

What really matter.

What really matters is the person that he is becoming.

What really matters is his character and his witness and the way people see him and the way he represents our family.

That was always a huge thing, the.

Name on the back, the name.

That was drilled into me very young.

When you go outside this door, you represent this family, and that's important.

You need to do it well.

And so those are the things that really matter.

At the end of the day, we can work on better hitting technique.

We can work on, you know, getting that curveball to actually do what it's supposed to.

We can work on, you know, not throwing that pitch to that guy in that situation and, you know, those kinds of things.

But I always knew there would be a day when he would say, all right, I've played enough baseball.

I'm going to go do something else.

And on that day, I wanted him to be as proud of who he was as I was.

So we kept that front and center.

That's important.

And so offering that perspective.

And the thing.

The thing about being the parent is you are the only one who can really offer that perspective.

Right.

Coach can help.

Yes.

Private teacher can help.

Yes.

But they have to get that perspective.

From you to build on what Rick had said about a kid has a bad day.

I always say, you have a bad day if you don't improve on.

Learn from it.

Yeah.

You gotta learn from.

You went over four.

Okay.

What did you do?

Well, that game and build from there.

But just don't say I went over four and forget about what you had done.

Right.

But you.

You're looking to grow, and sometimes you can grow faster if you didn't get any hits compared to if you did you get.

I went four for four.

I don't need to work out anymore.

I'm fine.

No, but you always want to improve.

I always say better.

Your best.

Being able to get better and better when you go out there.

But that foundation, I love what Ethan had said keep the home life positive.

And I know that kids get uptight because the parent is more, they want it more than the kid does.

And if the parent feel embarrassed if the kid doesn't do well.

Yeah, I see that a lot George.

But I had done something with my daughter.

It may, may not make a lot of sense, but I made, I make it, it was like a reward.

So she played tennis.

So if she, if she wins, she going to carry her own bag because she's, she feels like everything's light as a feather.

She can, she can walk on water.

But if she doesn't win, I carry her bag because she's had a big burden already for, for, for not winning out there.

But I never say that she didn't, she, she lost, she said she didn't win.

But there's certain things that you've done well to build up to it.

When, when you play especially in tennis, you want to work on your forehand, your backhand or you build to be that like a Federer, he didn't start overnight so he build up to it.

Now he has confidence in what shots he's going to use at certain period of time when Greg was talking about so a guy.

A lot of these right handed players are playing a lefty but they forget they didn't.

They don't realize until like the third set they're playing a left handed player.

They keep hitting to the forehand and it's to the backhand to a, to a right hander.

So but it throw it and I watch it on tv.

So why did he throw that pitch?

I mean he had 02 count against Dela Cruz and then he threw him another a breaking ball outside and came back over the plate.

I said I'm not a pitcher but I would throw him inside and see if he would go at it, make him swing at a ball.

You don't have to throw a strike to get a strike.

A lot of these guys on the mound just throw the ball and they don't, they're hoping and, but you had to, you had some of these guys need two sets of outfields because those guys are tired after a while.

Well, what's another one on your list there Rick?

Well, mines I'm going to think outside the box a little bit.

It's the same as you guys.

But I think more is how do you support your children in high school?

And for me, and this is probably why developed MDNI because as dads we developed and I say this as dads because how we played and where we played at, and we had a great collection of us.

We developed our own kids baseball iq, developed strength and speed and baseball skill and stuff.

So I think what George said earlier, what you guys talked about on my end, it was more about time versus the money is spent.

And I think, and I'm talking from a perspective of kids that can't afford training and things like that, but I think also, too, that dads can pick up a lot of different things.

And I think that's support of your kids if you don't have the necessary income to pay for private training or what have you.

So I always have to keep that perspective.

And also the perspective that I know this generation and I see it through my trainings that a lot of dads didn't play baseball.

And I always say, that's okay, it's all right.

But learn.

This is what MDNI is.

Take a little bit of what I'm teaching and go home and work with your kid at home.

Because guess what?

I don't have a magic wand in my.

In my hand.

And also knowing that the process, it might be slower.

And I think you all hit on this, that everybody learned differently physically and mentally, man.

So just having that.

Just having that period, that's support for me, for the kids that's gonna play in high school and beyond.

Yeah.

The thing that stands out, what you were saying is stay in your lane.

Yes.

Because a dad think that he knows the game.

Cause you think it's easy.

It's not easy.

No, it's not.

He's talking about you gotta swing the bat like this.

You gotta do this.

Yes.

No, you don't know what you're talking about.

Getting the kid confused.

Yeah, I see that a lot, Rick.

One of the things on mine was aid and in home practice.

And I think one of the ways you can really maximize the value of paying for private lessons is sit there and watch it.

And like you said, pick something out of the lesson and work on it at home.

It doesn't take any skill to feed a tea or to.

Or to catch a bullpen.

You know, it takes a little skill to hit fungo.

Okay.

But you can get there.

So there's a but.

Just.

Just participating, you know, is a big deal.

And you don't have.

Like I said, you don't have to have that experience to still eat at home.

I ran into a guy while I was working out at Lakota west.

And I was on the football field.

I was getting my workout in.

So I had another dad comes in.

He had A bat in one hand, a glove in the other hand.

I've seen that.

Yeah.

And he was hitting fungoes fly balls, and the wind was blowing in.

So as I was ran across, I said, hey, you need some help?

I'll catch for you, man.

And so his son kept hitting some bad fly balls to him.

So he comes over and asked me something about, you know, we was talking, and I said, yeah, y' all.

You're.

You guys had varsity coach.

Cause he's on varsity now.

Varsity coach played with my son Ricky.

Okay.

And they won state and everything.

He said, really?

I said, yeah, and everything.

And we just got to talk to the dad.

I said, you sure you.

I'm like, okay.

He said, nah, I got it.

I said, but it was cool.

And I told the kid, I said, man, this is cool to see your dad hit.

Yes.

Yes.

You know, Fogos, too.

I always kind of gave him a.

Fist for working with him.

Yes.

And he says, I remember you from team first around the corner.

He said, yeah, I used to be with Diamond Elite.

I was like, yeah, man.

And I'm like, man, that is so cool to see you out here again hitting fungos and stuff with your kid, man.

And I said, yeah.

He says, man, it's been a while.

I said, yeah, but they.

I look at you go to training, you take hidey less, and pitching less is like a.

A gps.

So now you're getting directions on what you need to do.

So carry home and work on it.

Not just, okay, we'll wait till we go back to Coach Rick.

And.

No, I don't want to know.

Like you say, pick one thing out and just focus on that.

Yes.

And I love it when the dads that come in and work with a kid and stuff, man, because I take pictures of them and stuff.

I posted on there, man, and right now, even putting goosebumps on my arms when I see these.

These people.

If it's softball or baseball, whatever, CDs, dads coming in, they'll hit ground balls, they'll pitch a bullpen and everything.

And I'm starting to see the same guys come in.

And I.

And I love that, man.

I love that energy, man, because that's what it's about, really is.

And they.

They might pick my brain, like, hey, man, what you think about this and stuff?

You know, what you doing out here?

Nobody has.

I taught a lot, work with a lot of kids, and this is.

It was probably about the second lesson I had given this one kid, and it's like a light came on and he looked like a hitter, but before he looked like he's a pretzel up there.

He's trying to unwind.

But I said, wow.

But each time I was, wow, that is great.

But they're thinking, sometimes they're thinking that I'm saying something is false encouragement.

But it said, no, I'm excited.

That is awesome.

So I'm getting to the point, I need more superlative.

I'm going, awesome.

I may have awesome, awesome, awesome.

But that was the best, I guess, result that I had seen.

I said, I said to myself, wow, what you're saying they're receiving and there's One kid is 10.

No, he's nine.

And I asked him about his stride because he was.

His left foot was.

Or I started with having that.

I say, you see where your left foot, your front foot is going?

It's pointing towards me.

I want you to point it towards the plate.

Did.

All of a sudden I said, that's.

That taught me.

So when I'm working with these older kids, that's where I'll start.

Yeah.

I mean, that was so enlightening.

Ethan is more than my podcast partner.

He's my son.

And like every baseball parent, my first priority was his development as a player.

Every year we'd start out with a new coach and a new team, making new promises, only to end up playing the same same old tournaments with little to no practice in between.

You know what I'm talking about.

That's why I'm so thankful that we found MDNI Academy.

I first met Coach Rick over a decade ago when Ethan was just a kid.

And I'll never forget the relief I felt watching his first lesson.

I knew right then that no matter what team he played for, my son would have amazing, consistent instruction from someone who cared.

Rick has trained baseball and softball players at the select, travel and even college levels.

So I knew that Ethan could continue his excellence through training approach.

For his whole baseball career, he learned hitting, pitching, catching, fielding, and more all in one place.

Most of all, he learned to love the greatest game in the world and how to play it with character and integrity.

MDNI is a first class facility with plenty of tunnels for hitting and pitching instruction that open up into large areas for teaching fielding, base running speed and agility.

They even have a weight room for strength training.

So if you're wearing yourself out running all over town to multiple teachers or worse, you're counting on that new select coach to actually develop your child.

You need to check out MD and iAcademy today.

Go to mdaiacademy.com and contact Coach Rick to learn how you can get all the baseball instruction you need from someone who cares about your favorite player as much as you do at MDNI Academy.

Okay, so let me offer you this.

Now, we obviously are offering a lot of perspective, dad perspective, because we're all dads and all of that.

Let me, Let me offer you some suggestions in this regard.

Maybe, maybe you're a single mom.

Maybe you're trying to support your son and you're trying to get him, and you're not really interested in going out, letting him throw 85, you know, 80 mile an hour, fastballs at you.

Maybe you are.

And then good, good on you.

But maybe you need to engineer that opportunity for him.

Maybe you need to say, hey, get a few of your buddies together.

I'll be the one who'll drive you over to the park and you guys can go and do this.

Or maybe you're seeking out those opportunities.

I'll take you over so your grandfather can work with you.

Or I'll, you know, there's a couple of guys, you know, getting together over here.

Let's, you know, maybe you're the.

Maybe you're the person who brings lunch.

You're the person who drives the car.

You're the person.

But you're facing, facilitating that experience.

And you can absolutely be part of it.

Be part of it and be an instrumental part.

Well, George, you had said many times that your mom was a.

Was a big part of your development growing up.

Very much.

She was there every game.

Make sure that I was there.

But the thing that stood out, a lot of kids don't maybe look at it.

But my uniform was clean.

Every game she would watch not only wash and clean, but iron it.

You must die for balls.

Enough man.

Or slide man.

Angel man.

When I hit home run.

But I was clean, like out there, like Prince, you know, I was clean.

I had all the creases in my pants.

I'm looking.

I was styling out there.

But she was there all the time because she said, this is what you want to do this.

You got to go and work.

And she was there supporting me.

And he's talking about.

But in the country, you are eating right.

Yes.

Because you're getting food from the garden.

You don't have to be concerned about chemicals.

But talk about cook.

She could cook.

You had a tough mom, man.

That's awesome.

But she was stern.

She was learned another one on my list, which is something.

This could be your mom, your dad, or anybody is make sure they're staying up on their academics while they're doing this.

Those grades open the door.

Doesn't do them any good to throw lightning if they can't be eligible to play on the team.

So keeping that balance in their life of not only supporting what they're doing with, with their, their sports and their, their workouts and all that, but also making sure they're keeping those academics up so that they can be eligible because.

That can open up a lot of opportunities.

Right.

For college scholarships.

Another thing that I, I was with my boys, especially Ricky, since he was recruited in football and baseball.

I made it a point to.

In him too.

I kind of had to work him into meeting with his guidance counselor.

Man.

A lot, a lot of people miss that because I have.

My mom was involved in the school system, man, all the time.

My sisters were too, and just.

Our parents were and.

But I learned to keep in tow with the guidance counselor.

Man.

People I think they underutilized at least.

But they don't understand the importance of it.

The importance of it.

But that's what they're there for.

That's what they're there.

But what one thing that while we're talking about grades and I find that sometimes the best player is not the one that go to college, the one that go to college because they had the grades or they have the finances to do it, but the one, the better player may not go to college because they don't have the grades, they're not eligible.

I agree with that.

So that, you know, stress getting the grades have that balance out there.

And like Greg said, you can be the best player in the world, but if you don't have the grades to go to college and plus, even if you don't go to college and you go into pro ball, it's just going to help you with your balance, knowing what to do.

You want to have at least a high school education or something as such.

But having a good grade is going to open the door for you.

Sure.

Well, and we talked about last week that the average baseball scholarship might cover like a third, like a third of your tuition if you can.

That was a big awakening.

If you can combine that with academic scholarships on top of it now, you might actually be able to get more of your college covered and paid for if you can qualify both as an athlete and as a scholar.

So, yeah, I was talking to.

I had a pitcher from Miami Oxford in the shop the other day and you know, we were making small talk.

Ask him what his major is, whatever he said, Mechanical engineering.

I said, whoa, and you're playing ball.

I said, you just said you're a glutton for punishment.

He said, well, if I'm going to go, I'm going to get my money's worth and I'm going to get a good education.

I was like, I mean, hey, man, good on you.

That's interesting.

He's a senior and he's so.

With mechanical engineer, being a doctor, and I've had players that were in that at different schools now, they got to make sure that baseball and the coach understands their schedule, the travel schedule.

Travel schedule.

Now that's where the academic advisor comes in and kind of work with them on that.

So you got to utilize that once you get the.

Want to get to college also.

Yeah.

Well, does anybody have any more on their list that they feel they really want to get to something.

Something important that we haven't said yet?

I just.

Just to build it once again off what Rick had said is the scheduling and making sure that the schedule.

The guy, the kid plays a sport.

That is scheduling.

It does not conflict with the schooling part.

Some kids have gone homeschool to make it more convenient, but making sure that you have that schedule is not going to conflict there.

Yeah, yeah.

The only one.

The only ones I had left, one easy one is filming for review.

You know, film what they're doing so that they can look at it.

Yeah, I agree.

That's just a quick little one.

Another one, we kind of touched on it, but setting goals, you know, have something.

Have something specific and attainable.

You know, I want to throw this many innings or I want this many strikeouts or I want this.

I only want to have this many air.

You know, something.

Something tangible that you can say, yes, I met that.

No, I didn't.

That kind of thing.

Yeah.

And then my last one that we've touched on without saying it specifically, but keeping them accountable, it's.

Yeah, there's a difference between keeping them accountable and nagging.

And accountable is saying, hey, you said that you were going to do this.

Let's stay up to it.

Nagging is, hey, why didn't you do this?

Why?

You know, but.

But keeping them accountable is.

Is.

Is you.

You said you were going to do this.

Now I'm going to help you.

Yeah.

Reminder.

It's.

It's a way to keep.

You keep both the parent and the player on the same team on the same side.

Yeah.

And say, hey, we're going to do this so that we can succeed.

Succeed together at the same time, making sure that you are Accountable for your.

Oh, yeah.

As well.

They're going to use it as an example.

Yeah, that goes into my last few here.

Number one here or the, my next one here is know what you're getting into.

So let me, let me just kind of lay this out a little bit from a parent perspective.

So if you are going to head this direction, then you're going to be looking at playing select and travel ball, which means you're going to be going to tournaments.

A lot of these tournaments will start on Thursday nights, they'll play Fridays, they'll play Saturday, they'll play Sunday and then you're going to drive home and you're going to be hundreds of miles from home.

So that means that you have to make sure you can get that time from your job to go and do that.

I, I was self employed while Ethan was doing it.

I worked from the road.

There were a lot of times when I would work from our Airbnb or wherever we were, campgrounds.

I worked from all kinds of places.

And I said many times, I don't know how people who aren't self employed find the time to do this because it's extremely hard.

You're going to be spending your vacation time doing this.

And if you have more than one child, you have to figure out how you're justifying spending the family's vacation time from your job on one child and how you're going to make that work.

Now I have some suggestions for that, but that's, that is a thought process that you got to go through.

So time is a big deal.

You're going to have to have time for these things or you're going to have to send your child with another family.

And maybe, so maybe this family is going to go to this tournament and they're going to cart, make sure you rotate and then you're going to go to the next one and you're going to, you're going to cart their child with you.

And you know, maybe, maybe that's how you do it.

There's lots of ways to work it out, but it is a significant time commitment.

On top of that, you're going to have driving to practices, you're going to have driving to lessons.

You're going to have.

So there's a lot of miles on the car and gas in the tank and, and food along the way and kids this age are eating machines.

And so there's, there's, you know, this not cheap.

I mean, in a day you can't go to, you can't go to McDonald's for five bucks.

You got to pack a lunch.

Yeah.

Fruits.

You're also trying to have.

Yeah, yeah.

You're also trying to have the healthy food, so you're taking it with you, and you're trying to have options.

And eating healthy costs more than eating junk.

So all of these things factor in to what you're doing.

They do.

The other thing is the price of lessons, the price of gear, the price of playing on a team, and the price of playing on a select team can widely vary.

It does not necessarily correlate to quality.

Exactly.

You could get into a team where you're paying 6, 7, $800.

You can get into a team where you're paying 2, $3,000.

Yeah.

Yes.

You know, and, and.

And it depends on what the team is doing, what you're buying.

This kinds of things.

Now, let me give you some.

Some things.

If the money you're spending to be on a team is mainly going for travel costs.

Tournament.

Tournament registrations, you know, those kinds of things.

That's one thing.

That's right.

If they're, if you're paying in and your kid, they keep telling you that you're gonna get lots of swag.

They're giving you.

You're getting a big bag and you're getting three different uniforms and you get.

Okay, you can go shopping for clothes on your own.

Okay.

What a child needs to play ball is a T shirt and, and pants and shoes.

You know, I mean, it is not the, the world's fanciest outfit does not make your.

Your son a better ballpark fashion show.

So.

Yeah.

So what, what does the money go for?

Make sure you have the organization explain that.

I know.

If they're upset with it, back off.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

If they're.

And they.

Every one of these.

Well, the, the reputable ones anyway, are probably nonprofit organizations.

They, they.

They should be willing and ready to.

To share anyway, because that's the way the organization is created.

So you want to ask a lot of questions.

If I'm.

Every dime that I'm paying in, where does it go?

What does it buy?

What does it do?

Because if you're paying in, you know, thousands of dollars to be on this team, and then at the same time, they're going to.

Yeah, but you're also covering all your own travel and you're covering all your own hotel and you're covering all your own food, and you're coming up.

What am I paying for?

Like, how does that work?

What.

How does it break down and different Every organization is going to be different.

They're going to have different ways that they do things.

So you have to.

You have to make sure that fits in your budget.

So maybe have some offshore accounts.

All of this stuff, all this stuff is going to cost money, and it's all going to add up, you know, on top of it.

So that leads me to my next one, which is, if you're going to commit, then be ready to work to make it happen.

You may have to take on extra work.

You may have to do something in addition to your job to make it happen.

I know lots of.

Lots of people who have.

I've never had one job in my whole adult life.

I've always had things I did on the side and extra things here and there, trying to make the money that we needed to get by.

I learned that from my dad.

My dad always was doing extra things in addition to his job.

We call it hustling.

Yeah.

So you very well may need to find ways to have that side hustle, to have a way to bring in the money that.

That it takes to do this.

Now, that's great.

Back to the idea of you're using your vacation time now to do this.

Okay.

My encouragement would be when you go on these trips, make those trips more about.

More than just baseball.

We always did this.

We would find some fun place to stay, usually in an Airbnb, because it was way cooler than staying in the hotel with all.

With all the other family.

Right now, if you're.

If your church, if your coach is real wild about that, and there's, like, they want you to all stay together.

For reasons and because of tournaments.

Yeah.

Deal with it.

But we never did.

We stayed.

We would go and they would have some.

They'd stay at the Hyatt Regency.

And all the families are paying 150 bucks a night, and we're paying 99 bucks a night to stay in a complete apartment somewhere on somebody's, you know, in somebody's Airbnb, and we're twice as comfortable and better fed.

I'll add something into that, though.

And that was also partially a result to poor team chemistry, because I played on a different team every year, and we never gelled.

Well, if the team gels well and the parents gel well, I think that the hotel thing is a great idea.

I wouldn't knock it.

You need to identify your scenario.

And unfortunately, every time we went out of town, we did not have that chemistry.

And so for me as a player, for us as a family, it was better that we Were separated.

Well.

And so what we did was then we added on to the trip.

We would go and we'd use it.

We'd go.

We'd go fishing or we'd go find a different route home and go see some stuff.

Usually it was fun places to eat.

Yeah, we try fun places to eat.

Or you know what?

We always made it when we were.

When we're at the field, it was all about baseball.

It was all about.

It was all business.

But then when we walked off the field, vacation is about to have fun, had a good time.

So I would encourage you turn those trips into something.

Something fun and memorable.

There's a lot of memorable things, and some of them were weird.

Yeah, there was a lot of weird stuff.

But.

But we had fun.

Ethan and I always had fun on.

On the trips, and I will forever be.

Be glad that we took those.

Yeah, there's a lot of aggravation with teams that don't work well and things like that, but, man, that's part of.

Growing and to have kinds of fun.

Yeah.

Yeah, I could.

I remember when I.

When I got married to.

To my wife, and she brought up vacation, and I was like, what are you talking about?

What about vacation?

Vacation?

And it occurred to me, like, I hadn't been on a vacation since I started playing travel ball because that became the vacation.

So, yeah, you know, it's.

It's true.

But.

But I wouldn't.

I don't regret it.

We.

We found a way to have fun.

But we did, and we saw a balance at.

A balance.

Yeah, absolutely.

My wife, Sonya, man, she always.

Whenever we went on our last trip of the year for.

For baseball is always in July.

It's always on her birthday.

And for years, man, we celebrated her birthday and.

And all of that.

The parents would get her a cake or whatever.

Yeah.

After I would say, by the time you got to high school, it was just me and Ricky.

She said, I'm gonna do my own thing.

Well, like, we did a thing.

We went to.

We went to Myrtle beach, the Ripley Experience, and we played down there.

And then at the end of that weekend, my wife flew down and we.

She met us there.

And then we drove up and we did the.

The Outer Banks and came up through the mountains and North Carolina and all that, and then came back in through Virginia.

And that was also.

Ethan was a big one on trying to get in as many states as possible.

So we would always try and see how many different states we can get.

Interesting.

Yeah.

And then he was always about where we were eating I just love to eat.

Always have.

And it was.

He would think he would look up some fast food chains that he'd never, you know, dad, we got to eat at Whataburger when we go on this, or we got to eat and cook out, or we gotta eat, you know?

And so we would try all these different places that he always wanted to eat.

But like, now, when my daughters had come in, so they.

They stayed at the Hampton Inn, because what's great about it, they have.

They have breakfast there.

So now you.

That's money you can save, and it's right there.

Yes, we had a lot.

Had a lot of continental breakfast, didn't we?

And we went.

We've seen.

I don't know how many.

I don't know how many bass pro shops all over the place.

We would always try and go to one of those if it was at a different region, because, you know, they have different things in there.

When I.

In spring training, we always go to a cafeteria.

Okay.

And so that was the savings.

You get more for your money, right?

You do.

And, I mean, you had a lot of assortment of food.

So we enjoy going to cafeterias.

I will warn you, if you go down south for a tournament and somebody says, you need to go to a calabash buffet.

Yeah.

Be ready to shell out.

They ain't cheap.

They're a lot of fun, but they ain't cheap.

We got surprised by what.

Yeah, that was.

We had a family member that or another teammate who had talked was talking about it, and we didn't know anything about it.

We're like, yeah, we'll go.

And so we sit down, and he got up to go to the bathroom, and the waiter comes and.

And he said, are you doing the buffet?

I said, yeah.

He said, okay.

And so he brought us the plates or whatever.

Didn't.

Didn't give us a menu to see prices or anything like that.

All right, fine.

And he came back.

I said, well, here's our plates.

Let's go.

We finished eating it.

It was like 40 bucks a person.

Yeah, it was like 80 bucks.

It was a lot.

And I was like, I'm sorry.

He was like, I didn't know.

We made three more trips back for crab legs.

Yeah, we got maxed out on the crab legs for that.

You want to take a bag?

And so, yeah, we.

We did not do our research on that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well.

And we stayed.

We stayed in KOA campgrounds.

We.

We stayed in.

Yeah.

In Airbnbs, we.

You know, we've done a lot of different Things like that.

And so you can turn those experiences into something fun.

So these are just some things to keep in mind.

We just do a whole episode of Name Five.

Yeah, we just did.

That's all right, man.

That's.

That's this.

I knew this was going to kind of go this way.

Rick, did you have anything else?

I do.

If anyone's been listening to the podcast.

I've been part of travel baseball since 2001, so about over 20 years or so.

And there's a difference between select and travel.

And so we played travel, so went from rec to travel baseball.

And I've still got the ad that was in the newspaper at the time.

11 UABC baseball tryouts, and they won national championships and stuff like that.

So I knew that this guy was a great coach.

Okay.

We played to win a national championship in it.

And on this.

And I'll pass this around on in here, that was our mentality.

I think the mentality of that kind of.

Kind of passed away now.

Well, what I'm hearing from you, Rick, is just a tunnel vision focus on development.

And it was that simple.

And anything else, you know, now you're saying, looking back, oh, well, we could have charged that.

That's because of where the game's at now.

You weren't, you weren't thinking about that, that you're like, what do we need to develop?

We're gonna develop.

And we got this many kids, we're gonna develop them.

And then you ended up.

You.

Your success was where it was as a byproduct, like we always talk about, because of the focus on development and the focus on the process.

So I.

I hear what you're saying, our.

Back then, and I can look at players like yourself, Ethan and I, like, man, they would have thrived on our team.

That's what I said.

Because I see where the pieces fit.

Yeah.

You see what I'm saying?

If you come out stronger on the other side of it, you know, I was very fortunate in that.

Ethan has always been a very grateful person.

He was a very grateful child.

He was always thankful for the sacrifices.

But you said a great foundation.

Just listen to you talk that.

Mom and I.

You had a good communication that there.

Well, yeah.

And we.

We forged a.

We forged a teamwork, like I said, when he was three years old.

I mean, we were.

We were each other's buddy early on.

Great.

And we were very fortunate to have that time.

But this is, this is the thing it's going to teach as a parent.

It's going to try Your, your patience and your endurance and a lot of things as your child.

It's going to try them as their, their attitude, their, their gratitude, their lots of things.

Okay.

So that you know you're gonna have your, your, your discussions.

It's all part of the challenges that you're going to be confronted with.

Level swing, let it travel, Wait for your pitch.

Be aggressive out there.

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Apply at george foster baseball.com Let me go back over just a few of these things and wrap us up here.

This is like a psychology class which is needed.

The mental part of not only baseball, sports, but life itself.

Yeah.

So I've been writing these down while we've been doing them and here's some good ones.

Number one, get an honest evaluation from a third party who's impartial.

When you, when you get started.

If your child says I want to play in high school.

Good.

Get a good baseline.

Find somebody who will do an evaluation.

You can contact Rick, you contact George, you can contact him through our website.

See where you can go to get an evaluation so that you know where you're starting from.

Find out what the high school standards are.

What do they want to see when your kid gets there?

What do they want to.

Where do those stats need to be?

Keep those stats and start working on them going forward so that you know where you Are find a good private teacher.

If you're going to play at higher levels, find a private teacher.

It's very important.

In fact, I would.

This is just my opinion.

This is not based in any sort of science.

It's just my opinion.

But I would say I would rather have a top notch quality private teacher and play on a lesser select team.

If you had to, if it was a matter of budget and you had to cut somewhere, I would cut and play.

Because what matters is your quality of your instruction and then the playing time is the rope.

Right.

Yeah, I agree.

Okay.

So hold your player accountable for personal practice.

You know, hold them accountable for doing what they're doing.

Make sure they're eating well, make sure they're sleeping well.

Make sure that they, they stay up on their academics so they are eligible for being able to play.

Give as much positive feedback as you can.

Truthfully, that's important.

Yes.

It doesn't help anybody for you to get overstress that.

Yeah, it is.

It doesn't help anybody to give loads of positive feedback.

That isn't true.

So you need to give the positive feedback.

That is true.

Like what Rick was saying.

Start with, hey, this went well.

This went well with this.

This, you did well today.

Now let's talk about this other places where we can do some work and then finish it up with.

Here's another thing that just really went well.

You know, sandwich that in between.

Yeah.

A couple of things that were good but you know, give that, that positive feedback.

Keep it positive at home.

There's going to be enough, enough out there in the world challenging your, your son and daughter.

A lot of criticism.

Enough criticism outside.

They don't need it in the home.

Yep.

They know when they come home, everybody's on their team.

Yeah.

Okay.

Pick them up when they're struggling.

You know, sometimes that's what.

Sometimes they need somebody to just come along and say, hey, you know, pick it up.

There were times when, man, when we were at some of the biggest struggles and, and I would look at him and I'd say, okay, so is this where we, is this where we.

Where we call it quits?

And he'd be like, it's gonna take me a day or two.

I'm like, take a day or two.

Yeah.

And he'd come back and he's like, nope.

No, I thought about it, I prayed it through.

We're gonna keep going.

Okay, then we're keeping going.

That's great.

But there, there are times when you have to reevaluate that.

Yeah.

Take them to lots of games.

High school games, college games, minor league games, independently games, pro games.

Just game.

Pro games can be expensive.

A lot of these other things may be even free.

Odds are your local high school team.

Yeah, especially the local high school.

Okay.

Local college.

Yes.

So minor league tickets are much less expensive than major league tickets if you've got one near you.

Right.

Independent leagues like we have the.

In Florence, y' all, you know, we have.

They.

They Dragons, too, up there.

Dayton Dragons up there.

So, you know, go.

Go to lots of games.

You can.

It is not possible to watch too much baseball.

It just absolutely isn't.

And next week, we're going to talk about how to watch baseball, and that's going to be fun.

Offer some perspective.

Keep them focused on what matters.

Let them know that you are proud of them because of who they are and because the effort they put in and because of the commitment that they're showing, regardless of where the results are right now.

And then you work from there.

But it's not the results that make you proud.

It's the.

It's the person that they've become that makes you proud.

Yes.

Then very well put.

Advocate.

Advocate for them when it's appropriate.

As George said, interview the coach.

Look at that program.

What is your money paying for what?

Break that down.

You know, are they getting a lot of.

A lot of, you know, silly things that don't matter, or are they getting quality instruction and development and lots of opportunities and.

And make sure that you are advocating for your player to.

To get, you know, offer them the best opportunity you possibly can work to afford it.

You may have to sacrifice extra.

You may have to cut some things out.

You may have to go to your son and say, all right, but we, you know, we got to cut satellite TV if we're going to do this, because we got to make this okay.

We're so.

We're the whole family.

We're doing this together, you know, or whatever.

We may have to sacrifice this thing or that thing to make this happen.

Okay, fine.

You may have to take on extra work.

There's a lot of things that may have to go on there.

Make sure you're ready for that.

And finally just constantly make sure that you're getting a good return for what everybody's putting in.

You don't want.

You don't want your.

Your player to feel like they gave their heart and soul to something and got nothing back, even if what they got back was a lot of quality time with you.

Right.

That's value.

That's price.

Yeah.

That's in value.

So make sure that when you take these trips, you're, you're crafting them in a way that there's other things to do besides baseball that you're, you're making the use of the time you've been given to have that quality time together to do fun things you enjoy so that when you look back on them, you can say, man, that team was a mess.

And that, that whole, that whole tournament was absolutely a bust.

But, man, we had fun when we did that thing.

Right.

Know we want those split out.

Yeah, absolutely.

I would, I would have taken that trip again just because we, we were able to have fun.

And my, my favorite part about that whole list is none of that requires the parent to have played or have any prior baseball knowledge.

No.

Right.

Those are all, all easy.

Yes.

Well, I'm not gonna say easy.

They are not heavy baseball iq, you know.

Right.

Demanded things.

And that's kind of the point in that when you're the parent, your job is to be the support.

Support and the backstop.

Your job is not to be the coach or the trainer or the teacher or whatever, unless you are like in, in Rick's case, he was, he was, he was the coach and the trainer and the dad.

Yeah, okay, but not everybody is like that.

And that's, that's, and that's, that's what I'm trying to.

As the parent, you are the, you are the support, you are the funding, you are the, the, the partner, the teammate.

You are a lot of things, but.

I like that word partnering, because you're partnering.

And the other part is being accounting, taking accounting.

If it's a weekly or monthly, where are you in the program?

Where are you in the kids development?

Because, you know, they talk about 21 days to learn a new muscle memory.

So, like, you look at different stages.

Where are you.

So the first lesson you take, don't expect if it happens, but understanding that it may not happen right away, but see some growth and not, once again, judging on the results.

So I hope you've enjoyed the discussion that we've had about how parents can support their kids to play in advanced levels of baseball.

And I hope we've offered you some hope and some good suggestions on what you can do to really get behind your kids.

If this is where your baseball journey is going to take you, remember that in the end, it is a partnership and you are the first manager that your child will ever have.

And so, you know, you are the, the agent, you are the publicist, you are the, the, everything, you know, and no one is gonna, no one's gonna care about his development the way you will.

So that's, that's important.

And so if you've, if something that we've said has sparked some ideas or some questions and you want to ask us anything, feel free to do so.

You can find the podcast on all the places that you would normally listen to podcasts, Amazon Music and iHeartRadio and Spotify and Apple podcasts and all those places.

You can also find it on YouTube.

You can also find it on Facebook if you just search Complete Game Podcast on either one of those and you can leave us a comment, ask us a question, tell us about your experience.

What's your experience been with, you know, getting behind and supporting your child toward playing advanced baseball?

It at other levels like that.

We'd love to hear what your share has been.

Yeah, that'd be great.

So until next week when we get together again for the guys, we, we wish you well and we hope that you've enjoyed it.

We'll see you real soon on the Complete Game Podcast.

We hope you've enjoyed the Complete Game Podcast, the show that's all about baseball.

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Check us out at 2CreativeDigital.com on behalf of Ethan, Coach Rick and the Silver Slugger George Foster, I'm Greg Dungan saying have a great week and we'll see you real soon.