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 week nine.

Nine.

Whoa.

Yeah.

Moving on down the road, time has.

Flown, and this week we're going to talk about injury.

It's.

It's foregone conclusion that if you play long enough, sooner or later everybody will have to struggle through an injury.

So we're going to talk about how to properly handle that and how to.

When to say something and when to play through and all those kinds of things today.

So we'll tackle that in just a second.

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Let us know what you think and we'll keep going.

And if you have a suggestion, something you want us to talk about, let us know what that is, too, and we'll.

We'll tackle that in the future.

Always looking for good ideas.

Positive.

Positive suggestion.

Yeah, yeah, positive suggestions.

That'd be great.

All right, so we're going to start.

Today with our Name5 segment.

Name five common injuries that baseball players experience.

So five common injuries that baseball players experience.

So we'll.

We'll go one at a time here.

So we can make sure we get them all out.

Yeah, I've got a whole list, man.

Right.

20.

Been there.

All right, well, then, Rick, why don't you leave?

Yeah, you lead off.

Why don't you lead us off there, buddy?

And lead off.

That's my position.

Give us the first one.

Hamstring injuries.

Yep, that's a good.

I should have let off.

That's the first one.

Okay.

Hamstring injuries are very common.

Not stretching, probably some.

Not enough strength in a hamstring or Might be too muscular in a hamstring.

So those happen when you're running.

So those.

That's one of the common injuries, hamstring.

Being the back of your.

Yes.

The back of your leg.

Right.

Back of the leg.

Back of your thigh.

And those can be strains or pulls.

Either or.

So usually due to running, not properly warming up and things of that nature.

That's always been the.

The big kiss of death.

Ethan and I are big packers fans, and every time we go through a football season and we dread when someone says the H word.

Always, always seems to be hamster.

That means they're out for weeks and weeks at that time.

And it seems that those are.

They're hard to come come back from just because it always seems to nag.

And guys with.

Do seems like guys with a history of hamstring injuries, it plagues them through the rest of their career.

It's not usually something.

It's like, okay, I'm back and just how I was before.

It seems to kind of nag for a while.

Yeah, that's a muscle that you say it's.

It's one of the strongest muscles and.

But nobody really.

They totally come back from it.

But I find that one sport.

I.

I know Ethan would check it out, but one sport that I found that they don't pull many hamstrings.

That's basketball.

And there's an exercise that the.

The basketball players.

You running backwards, because that really helps stretch that.

That hamstring.

But today we didn't let you know we're going to talk about anatomy.

So certain parts of the body, like Greg was saying, it's in the back of your leg.

Because I had asked the kid, I said, where's your hammies?

He pointed where his quads are.

Well, wasn't that.

What.

Wasn't that the thing that kept plaguing Clay Matthews?

Yeah, my favorite player, Clay Matthews.

That.

That kind of.

Whenever he did finally come back, it always seemed like he lost a step.

It just.

He didn't quite have the same aggression.

Not because he didn't want to.

I think his body just wasn't holding up.

But that's something that Matt McLain's dealing with right now.

And he was out for most of the season last year and then just recently ended up back on the il and the announcers were talking about those soft tissue injuries are just.

They can be really hard to come back from.

So hopefully he can figure that out and get back in the lineup.

Yeah, he's a.

He's a catalyst on that ball club when he was in lineup like the first three or four games, you know, he's the guy.

Yeah, but with that, with that hamstring injury, that takes away from his game, even though he's out there playing because he, he's, he's a runner, he's going to steal that speed.

Well, and not even, just, not even just with running, though.

I mean, how, how would a hamstring injury affect you at the plate, George?

Well, it really if, if that hamstring is on your, your backside or your back leg, because you really drive off that leg and you start creating a different mechanics and yeah, that, that really compensating.

Right.

Or if you were a pitcher and you were driving off of that leg, that would make it.

Oh, that, that's tough.

Yeah.

What do you got, George?

What's your first one?

Well, well, since Rick always look at my paper and take mine.

No, I went to the.

Cause it's happening a lot today and Stevenson has it.

And as Ethan was saying, the soft tissue muscle, the obliques, you're talking about coming back from that because you always gotta use your obliques and getting that rotation and it's good.

You have to be careful, hopefully, because it's almost like if you break a rib, it's really tough to heal because you got to use that, that, that area many, many times.

So I hope they wrap, wrap his waist around his waist when he comes back because that, that injury is going to plague him from throwing or swinging a bat, even running.

All that is going to affect every movement that you make.

So we're talking about lower to mid back around your rib cage on the sides.

Right, right.

More on the side.

Side, side, front.

That's, that's where a lot of these guys don't work a lot on their, their core.

Their core.

And they, they don't know the importance of that and they want to try to, you know, take shortcuts and that you end up shortcutting your, your season, but being able to keep those muscles strong there.

And a lot of these guys, they don't really use their, their obliques when they're swinging because they're letting go with the top hand.

So when, once they try to really drive, then it's easy to pull.

Those are very sensitive muscles, but you got to work on that core.

Would that be you go back to somebody like Johnny Bench when he had the surgery and they had to cut around to go into his lung, Was that part of what would have hindered.

Him from coming back, that hint?

Well, not as Far as coming back, we're coming back completely because they cut muscle, right?

And in the core, you, you, you have those thick muscles and this, the smaller ones.

And that's going to create a lot, that's where you create a lot of power in the core area.

And in his case, he lost some of the strength, I would say, in that area.

And he, you know, when he talked about it, I said, yeah, that's really true.

But people don't really realize that, oh, you're a Hall of Famer, don't talk about your injuries.

But yeah, getting it, I guess cut in that area or surgery in that area is going to really affect your swing, your throw and if you're a base runner, you're running.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Ethan, what you got?

I'm going to take probably the most prevalent one in today's game.

I'm going to take the uc.

UCL tear or strain.

Yeah.

Oh my God.

Everybody explain UCL first.

In case you got young people listening, don't know what you're talking about.

That is the tendon that runs right here in your elbow, also known as Tommy John.

So that Tommy John is the name of the surgery that is used to repair that tendon.

But a lot of people just use it as a blanket term for that injury.

In general, he's the only guy that surgery is named after that doesn't have a doctorate.

Yeah, it's not named after the doctor that invented the surgery.

It's named after the guy that kind of pioneered having it.

He should get some royalties from that.

You should think, wouldn't he?

Man, he would, he would be a rich man with the amount of surgeries going on now.

But a great book that I, that I listened to was the Arm by Jeff Passon.

Yes, this is the Arm Inside the Billion Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports.

And so he goes through and kind of goes to the beginning of Tommy John surgeries and those injuries and then he follows a couple players through their journey with the injury and then kind of how it applies to today's game and something that you're just seeing happen in younger and younger and younger and there's a lot of different theories.

I don't think any one theory gets it 100 right.

But man, my best, my best analysis is that it has to do with workload and intensity.

I mean that's kind of the main thing that's changed over the years.

You know, baseball has become a year round sport of very high intensity.

And it didn't used to be that so something that you need to be aware of and it is avoidable to an extent.

I think a lot of it comes down to genetics.

I mean, you're only born with.

With so much ligament there and that kind of thing.

But, man, something I'm just seeing take a lot of talent out of the game today, and it's, it's very unfortunate.

I agree.

I, I didn't really play long enough to.

To deal with a lot of injury in.

When it came to baseball.

But the, the one thing I do remember, the, the thing that used to just terrify me as a catcher was getting that thumb jammed back.

Yes.

You know, you're, you're at there and you're ready to catch, and if you don't position your, your, your, your web correctly and catch it in between your fingers, you know, you're not paying attention, whatever, and you're like, oh, oh.

And you go.

And then bam.

And it jams that sucker back.

Man, that, That'll hurt you for weeks.

So.

But that's funny though, when you said a web.

But you talk about the web of the mitt.

Yeah, but your hand is like a web.

And the farther that thumbs away from the rest is not protected.

But there are certain things you can do to strengthen up.

But what, just like hamstrings or obliques, you know, people ignore that.

Well, that's where you've talked about, you know, putting two.

Two fingers in the pinky hole changes the position of your hand to where you catch more that way.

Yeah.

And I never even thought about doing that.

Well, that's the interesting thing, because you would think that the further away, the more susceptible it is.

But now, now the way that we're working up through the ball, it's almost you're.

And moving your hand, it's creating such a big space there.

I think we're just getting the thumb out of the way and you're catching.

Rather than catching it in here, you're catching it further out here.

And I don't know, I feel like I haven't heard as much about it recently.

I'm sure it's still prevalent.

It wasn't, it was never something that I dealt with seriously.

But every once in a while, you know, you get a, you get a stinger and it, it hurts for a while.

We used to have catchers that used to get their thumb there, and then it's this tendon right here that hurts a lot.

And so they have something that's called a catcher's thumb.

There's protection right here.

That's in there.

And.

Yeah, and I've seen a, I've seen a couple of different ones.

There's.

I have one customer who uses a.

There's like a metal plate with some foam on it and it laces in and he uses that to prevent that.

And then now there's something out there called the next guard pro, and it's something that it molds to, you know, the, the thumb portion of your hand.

And I've heard good reviews about that.

But there's a lot of different, different kind of injury prevention aids that can be used with a glove to try to avoid that.

I just remember when going that direction, sometimes I would tape, just tape around my hands just so my right, my thumb couldn't extend too far, you know.

And then it was just a matter of really making sure of how you're catching that ball and, and making sure that you're using your, your glove properly and you're not catching that ball on your thumb, but in between your thumb and forefinger.

So that was, that was the, the dreaded thumb injury from catchers.

It's not fun.

That's actually a nagging injury going to affect your defense and offense.

Oh, I'm next.

Oh, okay.

Lat strains, man.

That's happening a lot.

Okay, explain lats first and then tell me, man.

Lat strange is right up under here.

So talking about lower, lower up under, up under here.

So to prevent that, a lot of times, a lot of guys, even young kids, don't develop your lats, you know, underdeveloped.

So to develop the lats, chin ups, pull ups, these here, we're here to develop that.

So I never had a lat strain before.

So.

You're so strong, man.

Never had a latch rank because I do a lot of chin ups and pull ups, but pulling exercises that I help develop those lats and also separation a little bit too.

So if you're, you're not separating, some kids are probably here and they kind of short arm everything.

You can get a lat string that way.

Also, it just, just being underdeveloped.

I know that looking into Major league baseball, I see a lot of lat strain injuries now that I've never seen before.

So again, comes down to probably compensating, overcompensating for something.

And I think again, what Ethan George, the ucl, just overcompensating and not doing enough to, to prevent that strength training and things.

Well, and you, you guys have talked multiple times about how, you know, you're using the whole body when you do stuff like this, you're using.

You're using this, the turn, and you're using the.

The.

You know, everything from the rotation to, you know, how all this works.

And if you're.

So if you're doing anything with just one part of your body and it's not multiple parts of your body working together, then you're probably at a risk of overdoing that, whatever that one part of your body is with your arm or your leg or whatever.

Yeah.

And I would.

I would say the term for that is.

Is trying to muscle it, you know?

No.

No pun intended.

That's what.

What that really means is that you're trying to force something to happen.

And if I think any movement in a sport that you're trying to force happen, you're.

You're risking injury.

So you need to learn how to use every.

Use all your body fluidly to avoid overstressing a certain part of your body.

That's funny you say that, because when I see kids that come in now, I said I.

Slow them down.

Yes.

Be an athlete, Go to ball, nice and relaxed, see, so you can understand how your body is moving.

And I think sometimes kids try to muscle it a lot, see it a lot, all the time.

And so their accuracy is off.

You know, they're not using proper form, proper technique, so you got to slow them down.

And then from there, movement quality is.

So all these little injuries, like George was saying, obliques, lats, things like that, or movement hamstrings, you know, movement quality.

But in.

In addition to maybe overthrowing or overuse is overextending.

Yeah, it's like the triceps and the bicep.

They.

They balance one another.

Yes.

But once you try to extend that tricep too much, you're going to end up pulling something.

The other thing that reminds me of that is acceleration and deceleration.

Right, Right.

If you're going to accelerate, you know, your throw motion, something has to slow it down.

I think that's more where that.

That lat would come into play.

But, you know, something has to stop or it's just gonna fall right off your body.

Exactly.

But.

But, you know, nobody, I think, goes out to the field.

Like, man, I'm gonna work on my deceleration muscles today.

You know, it's just.

It's just overlooked.

You can't even spell it.

Don't.

Yeah, I'm not spelling it.

All right, George, what do you got?

It's.

They're.

They're a group.

But I just said one.

Well, it's one just like I said, tricep, bicep, but in this instance is the adductor muscle.

It's a euphemistic term for the groin pool.

Yeah.

And so I'm here a lot about these guys having the abductor pool.

So there's an abductor and an adductor.

I.

What.

How I distinguish it, say the AD is it's adding, so it's coming in and then abductors going out.

So you've been able to do exercises to make sure that the groin area is strong because you make a wrong or quick turn, you can easily pull something or you're trying to extend, you know, too much or too quickly.

So you got to work on the abductor and the abductor muscles.

Cool.

I agree.

Ethan, what you got?

All right, I'm going to take concussion.

Took both of mine.

You didn't have A.D.D.

doctor.

Kidding.

Hold on.

Hey, George.

I had.

I had growing.

You can't say that on air.

Well, I'm gonna take concussion.

Even though baseball's not a.

Well, not anymore.

It's not a contact sport.

Maybe back in the day.

Yeah.

But I think we see this most probably most often with collisions.

Yeah, not just.

Not just talking about base running, but you know, in the outfield running into walls, Running into walls.

Run into each other.

Running into each other.

That I would say that's the main one.

You know, you got two guys running, you know, trying to get the ball, and they're not paying attention.

You know that that's just a recipe for trouble.

You can also see balls hitting the catcher in the helmet, or a bat hitting the catcher in the helmet, or God, God forbid a ball hits the, you know, the pitcher in the head or something like that, but something Mike.

Matheny talks about how every once in a while you're back there, you take enough 100 mile an hour fastballs or one's going to get over your glove.

And he took enough of them to the head.

That's why he had to quit playing.

Yeah, and there's a.

There's a funny story with Devin Mezzarocco where he.

I don't remember off top of my head exactly what caused the concussion.

I think it might have been a foul tip to the head.

And he just.

He wasn't.

He wasn't.

Just wasn't feeling it.

He knew something was off, but he didn't want to come out of the game because he said Scott Roland would give him crap for it.

And so he waited till there was A kind of an iffy call.

And he got up and argued with the umpire, got ejected on purpose so that Scott, rolling, couldn't give a crap because he needed to go rest.

And then later, later that night, he ended up on the.

Ended up on the IO and was able to take some time off, but from arguing.

But that's one.

That's when you got to be careful because there's not a.

It's.

It can be a little less obvious from time to time.

And that's something, if not treated correctly, can really cause problems, you know, long term if you don't address it well.

And like George just said, it's cumulative.

So you have the first one, the second one builds on the first one.

Right.

You know, I mean, I remember there was a funny commercial Gary Burbank used to do on his show that was back when they first discovered that an aspirin regimen could prevent, like, a second heart attack.

And it would talk about how the aspirin regimen can prevent your second heart attack.

And so Burbank did a commercial where he was like, so if you haven't.

Had the first one, come on.

Because the aspirin only works on the second, neither help.

So it was his funny take on that.

But the idea is that each time you have one of those things, man, it builds on the one that was before, and over time, that will.

That will build up.

So they haven't addressed it.

The previous one.

Yeah, back in those days.

Just get back in the game.

You're okay.

Yeah, yeah.

That was.

I mean, I read a quote the other day.

It was a picture of Dick Butkus and somebody, and it was a quote from him that said, I never, you know, intentionally set out to hurt anybody unless it was something really important, like a league game.

Oh, yeah.

So my.

My next one would be.

When you're talking about injuries, there is.

Is a.

An ankle.

So, you know, you can turn in.

The ankle is so easy to do.

Whether you hit the base wrong, you step in a hole.

I mean, George, you've talked about how, you know, playing the outfield, there can be holes in the outfield.

No, they're not holes or craters.

Craters.

You can have those in the infield.

You can, you know, step funny off the pitching rubber.

You can.

I mean, there's lots of different ways you can do that.

You can do it running, you can do it, you know, pitching, you can do it.

All kind of things.

So that ankle, when you roll in or roll out, that can be really bothersome to, you know, really Set you back.

And it affects you whether you're hitting, whether you're running, whether.

You know, one thing that George has always said is that you run on both offense and defense.

You run no matter what you do.

So you.

You get a hurt, you know, somewhere in your running mechanism that's going to set back your whole game.

You from the ground up.

Yeah.

And that was.

That was the first time I really, quote, unquote, injured myself.

Was.

Was coach pitch.

I twisted my ankle pretty bad, but that was because I didn't know how to slide into home plates.

Oh, yeah, that sliding part, that was.

That was preventable had I actually known what I was doing.

But I landed on the plate funny, twisted my ankle.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

That plate's wet or.

Yes.

Yeah, that's.

Yeah.

Okay, Rick, what do you got?

Okay, the last one, I have two.

Don't say it.

But only going to do one.

The hand fingers.

Next, the hand, fingers, wrists.

They can get jammed head first, slide in the second, or sliding back to the bag.

Getting hit by.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's been a.

That's been a big one recently, having.

Your hands in the hitting zone.

Yes.

The outfielder for the Mariners broke his wrist running into the wall.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Running into the net.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Rodriguez.

I guess I forget who it was.

But I think Victor Robles.

Yeah, right.

Victor Robles.

And wrists.

Yeah.

And ran into the net.

So hand, wrist, fingers, those things, especially when you're batting.

And.

And also knowing when your hand is part of the bat.

Like, there are times when, you know, you could get hit on the hand while you're holding the bat, depending on what you're doing.

You don't necessarily get, you know, your hand is part of the bat, and it's considered, you know, part of the equipment.

Yeah.

But it's more so making sure that your hands are not in the.

A lot of guys, when they're going forward, their hands are exposed, so you want to be able to get in a position, the ball's inside, being able to turn.

So if you get hit, you're getting hitting the thicker part, thicker muscles.

But a lot of guys get hit because their hands are exposed and they don't get them out of the way.

You can easily break a finger, break a wrist.

Those bones are very, very fine.

But it's tough to really come back from it.

Yeah.

The number of times I see somebody, especially at the youth level, take a pitch like this instead of turn, turning.

Away, they don't know how to do it.

But you're just, you're so vulnerable.

You know, you've got all those little muscle or all those little bones right in the way of the pitch.

Well, you got to think about what.

What's in between that bone and that skin.

If you're looking at a rib, there's nothing in between bone and skin very much.

But so give it a muscle, give it your arm, give it your backside, give it something that you may bruise, but yet it's not going to be, you know, catastrophic because you're not gonna break a bone or bruise a bone or something, you know, much more serious than that.

I think Mookie Bats and Ohtani, they have pads now on the top of their gloves, right?

Mookie been out a couple times with hit by pitch.

I think I'll to Altuve one season.

Ohtani has been hit before.

He wears this new balance pad on his hands.

Endorsement.

Just for endorsement.

Yes.

And then, you know, you got elbows and things like that.

So those injuries, man, and you know, you got to protect them.

Yes.

George, you got another one.

This one is Acuna has had it twice knee injuries and you can slot with him.

His situation probably wear and tear of he stole like over 70 bases one year and then also playing the outfield and then sliding.

That's a lot of.

So that's a lot of stress on your.

On your ankles.

I mean, not your ankle, but your knees.

But once again, you got to do find exercises to strengthen those knees.

But a lot of these guys feel that I'm struggling strong enough or they don't understand the importance of every muscle in the body need to be addressed.

So that knee injury is something that even with pitchers, they.

They that front, that landing leg, it may be the one that you put too much weight on or you twist it or tweak it and you end up mess messing up your knees.

Catchers, a lot of times now they're catching on one knee, so so to speak, but before it with both knees.

But they don't have to worry as much about it now as far as collision at the plate because you had to give a.

Give a lane.

Yeah.

But when we played, you got to work.

Look out.

You have a Willie Maze or you have the oh, John Stern coming a day Parker coming in at you, you got to.

You got to mess up your knees or rest your body.

So but protect those knees and by getting them stronger and utilizing proper way.

Yeah.

Oh, let's see.

My, my last one here is shoulder dislocation.

So misspoke.

Earlier, Victor Robles dislocated his Shoulder, wrist, must have been somebody else.

But I wouldn't say this is a super, super common one.

But just any and more than just dislocation.

But any sort of shoulder injury that results from running into a wall that mainly has to do with outfielders.

You go back to Ethan may not know but he'll look it up.

Rusty Staub, this guy left handed hitter, I mean one of the top hitters in the game.

I think he accumulated over 2500 hits.

But he, he ran into the wall with his throwing arm and he jammed it.

And from then on it affected his throwing.

Hitting wise, not as much, but it's affected his throwing.

Last few things here being shoulder but not from, from a different perspective, just rotator cuff.

Yeah.

Because like you mind your, mind your arm slot and learn to not throw with too much arm.

I never learned that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And to this day I cannot throw a baseball for very long at all because my shoulder makes these delightful crunching noises every time it goes and crack a pop.

I have not been able, I have not been able to throw a baseball for I don't know, 10 years though.

With your left hand.

I need to learn to do that.

How?

Billy Wagner, guy into the hall of Fame, he threw his left hand, his friend broke his right arm.

So he, they would have left it but.

Well, I told Ethan, I said I may have to learn to do that just so I can play catch with the grandkids.

But yeah, I've just, it destroyed my shoulder and, and it just never really.

Well, Paul, Paul O'Neill is the best.

He said I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna throw it.

I'm gonna kick it.

I'm gonna kick it to the cutoff man.

That's funny.

So, yeah, I mean these are some, these are some very important injuries.

I will throw one more in there.

Sure.

I don't know if you can classify it as an injury or not, but don't.

But cramping.

Oh, oh yeah.

Oh no, no.

That's funny because I.

Like I said these guys are a wuss if they cramp up on the mound.

Yeah.

And so the trainer, you got to give him some salt pill or something.

Something to relieve that.

No, he's got to come out of the game, he has a cramp like oh gee, come on, toughen up out there.

But that one is dehydration.

Yeah.

A lot of times it's, it's pretty avoidable with.

It is with making sure you're drinking enough water or making sure you're replacing the Salt levels.

If you're sweating too much, there's a lot of salt in that sweat.

So just being.

Being mindful of that, you.

You can avoid some.

Some of those kinds of things that might take you out of the game.

Yeah.

If your team doesn't have a really good team who's always bringing the fruit.

Yeah.

Your bananas and your pickles.

Right.

But if you know that, you get hit real hard, you know, what could I say?

I got a crab.

But the one that we didn't mention, which is frequent, is blisters.

So especially for a pitcher, he would come out, he pitch it well, and has a blister on his fingers.

So you got to do things to toughen up your hands to avoid that.

And some guys are prone to that.

But finding something that's going to help prevent that.

Yeah, that's important.

The other one that used to plague me in adolescence was that that muscle right behind your shoulder blade.

You know, you, like, turn this way, and all of a sudden, something tweaks.

And then now you can't hardly turn your head because it's that your neck, and it runs right down behind your shoulder blade.

And then next thing you know, like, you can't turn your head very often.

Especially if you sleep on it funny.

Yeah.

It's just ice and heat.

Nice and heat until it lets go.

Yeah.

Usually there's a knot right in that area.

Once you get someone to get that knot out, we had a guy, Ted Kozewski, you know, he would put.

Get that.

His gigantic thumb put that.

Take that knot out of your shoulder.

I use a massage gun now.

There you go.

Oh, yeah, that's most.

They didn't have those back in the day.

Everybody.

It's popular now.

More popular than buying a glove or buying any equipment.

I mean, that's become part of your equipment.

They open their bag.

Okay, here's my.

Oh, here it is, Mom.

Did you charge it today?

Did you charge it?

I told Ricky one day that was my Father's Day gift.

I said, man, that's the best Father's Day gift of all time.

That massager.

Yeah, I need it for everything.

Boy, I put it here on my quads.

Everything.

But Casey Boyd, I had.

Had gone visiting my daughters during Christmas, and they bought me one.

So I didn't check it in.

So it looks like a gun.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

Oh, I'm going.

I'm going through the check, and they're.

Look, they said, well, we got to check this.

And luckily, someone said, oh, that's a massage equipment.

It's not a gun.

Like I forgotten it.

It was in there, but it's shaped just like a gun.

That is funny.

So you finished the season last year exhausted from all the travel and 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 is 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.

Relays, 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.

All right, so we're moving on to the main thing today.

And this is where we're going to do a little show and tell.

And you guys can just tell us about.

You can tell us about when you were playing.

So let's start with.

Start.

Ethan, let's start with you.

Let's tell me about a time when you faced an injury during your playing career.

So I was pretty fortunate.

I didn't really deal with a whole lot, but towards the end in my high school career, there was something that did plague me.

And I had a bilateral hip impingement.

Yeah.

And so what had caused me to get it checked out was I had some real severe stiffness in the hips and it would start to kind of hurt as I would walk.

And I would, I would try to roll it out and it just wouldn't roll.

And it was really causing problems in my hitting you know, I was a relatively good sized kid.

I had no power.

Everything was.

Was bass hits the opposite way.

And it was because I had no rotation in my bottom half.

And the ironic thing was that I didn't experience this until I stopped catching.

I was primarily playing third and pitching at the time.

So we went and got it checked out.

Got an X ray and a hip and bilateral just means it's on both sides.

But hip impingement, it's when the ball in the socket, it's not formed exactly correctly.

And so restriction.

Yeah, yeah.

So the bones can kind of rub up on each other.

And salt salsa would have helped that if you had gone to Latin America and learned salsa.

But something that, you know, they said we could, we could figure it out with, with, with rest or physical therapy.

And that did help to some extent.

But.

But really rest was the biggest thing.

And then once it was less inflamed, I could work on mobility.

And then, unfortunately, Covid happened and then I was never really able to get it addressed and see if it would affect me long term.

It doesn't affect me as much now, but I will say I noticed specifically sitting for long periods of time will cause it to get worse.

But like, if I'm riding my bike or something like that, that helps.

So just working on the mobility makes a huge, huge difference in something like that.

I think you just hit on something riding your bike now you're in a hinge area where you're here, and maybe hinging, like doing bent over stuff will help.

So when you was catching it didn't hurt you?

Yeah.

You now in a, in a hinge position?

Yeah.

Somehow I think what it was mainly was that catching it consistently worked on my mobility because I was constantly up and down, constantly moving around.

I think when I stopped, because it was almost like doing a mobility exercise every single day.

Every time I was catching.

I think stopping doing that caused it to stiffen up, but, man, it caused me some pretty good pain.

And the.

It was either let's try physical therapy or you got to get a surgery and to.

To go in there and reshape the bone.

And at that point in my career, it was later in my high school career, and I just.

It just wasn't really worth it.

And we wanted to see if we could address it, you know.

Right.

That's a pretty drastic measure.

I think you want to try to avoid injury or avoid surgery unless you have to, you know, just like you're talking about with Johnny Bench, you know, it's.

And anytime you're doing some sort of intrusive procedure.

You know, it's, you're altering something and it's not going to go back exactly how, how it was.

So.

But really rest was a big one.

And then focusing on mobility and I also think that not having properly developed muscles in other areas was causing problems with that.

I think being able to strengthen my glutes definitely made a difference.

And then I think probably core had something to do with that as well.

Um, so something I, it, it doesn't plague me as much now, but something that was kind of weird and I, I played through it.

Um, yeah, that's, but I through it.

But I will say I don't think I was as effective.

The ironic thing is I ended up having the best batting average on the team for a period of time that season because I had to.

I couldn't pull off on the ball because I had no rotational power.

I, I was base hits the opposite way, opposite constantly and I was all hands.

And it helped, but it was, yeah.

It was, it was weird.

It hurt.

A couple thoughts to follow you on that one.

So one thing that you said was, was rest.

And I think this is a, going to be a key thing no matter what the injury or risk of injury.

Okay.

Getting the proper amount of rest is, is going to be key because if you just drive your body constantly and you had said earlier, baseball has become sort of a year round pursuit for a lot of people.

Especially if you're down south where the weather's nicer or if you're, even if you're up here when you just go indoors and you just keep working.

Right.

So giving yourself that off season, there's a, there's an off season for a rest.

Yeah, it is.

And if you don't give your body a rest when it needs it, you're gonna, you're gonna wear it out and take the risk of actually hurting yourself.

Yeah, I think a lot of people equate rest to laziness and I think maybe rest taken to an extreme could be perceived that way.

But there is value to letting your body rebuild itself and recover.

That's the key word, rebuilding.

Yes.

And I think what you're saying, Greg, that.

I think a lot of parents need to understand that, that their, their 10, 1112 year old kid will break down if they don't give them rest or give them another sport to, to do or, or whatever it is.

They're not major league, they're not high school, they're not college players right now.

So their bodies will Break down a lot more frequent without the rest, without doing something else, without another part of.

Movement quality because their muscles not develop.

But.

Exactly.

But the same thing.

We would tell Rick, give it a rest.

Like, what do you mean?

I said rest your vocal cord.

But the other thing being.

The other thing being rest can.

Can sometimes take the form of doing a different activity.

So, you know, we've mentioned a few things here.

We mentioned bike riding.

I've noticed that as I've gotten older and wider.

Okay.

Wiser.

Unfortunately, the riding my bike has been.

Has been fantastic.

And I don't ride a regular bike anymore.

I have a.

But a.

Symmetrical.

Yeah, yeah.

He used the word intrusion, so I had to come up with a word symmetrical.

So why don't you go on side to side, which is going to really help that balance.

I ride a bike that.

That is battery powered.

So it's got a.

It's got a.

It's got an assist to it so that you still have to pedal it.

You still have to put effort in, but it takes some of the effort away.

Yes.

And makes it easier.

So it's.

It's like riding a bike.

It's just not like being so old and wide and riding a bike, but.

You can, you can control the workload that you're putting.

You can, you can.

And you can totally control much.

It assists you too.

So.

And I got my bike at the garage OTR down in.

Down in Cincinnati.

That's our friend Sean down there.

They, they deal in.

In electric vehicles like that all the time, whether it's scooters or bikes or whatever.

And he's fantastic in being able to help people, you know, find what they need and help me find exactly the bike that I.

That I needed.

And it's.

It's all kinds of fun to ride.

So sometimes when I've sat in the chair too long doing design work or working with clients or whatever, I.

I just need to get up and just go ride my bike for a while.

The other thing is kayaking that I found over the years.

I don't get to do it as often as I'd like, but you talk about something that will strengthen your core, because your core is what keeps you balanced and keeps you from tipping over.

So you find that your.

Your core is where.

And then you're doing that, that lap, that pull motion, getting yourself going somewhere.

So, you know, you get a.

Get a kayak and you can do this at, you know, Wynton woods or around.

Like around here in Cincinnati.

You go to lots of different lakes and rent a K and go out for a day and just paddle yourself around till you get tired.

But it's using your body differently than you would if you were playing your sport.

And so sometimes rest can be just doing a different activity.

If I use that word again, intrusive swimming is the whole body's being utilized and that's something you can do anytime.

It's more accessible.

But people don't understand that the swimming part, even if you're just sitting there working your legs and just working your arms, but the whole body comes into play and you're not overworking it.

Yep, it's a good idea.

George, what about you?

What about a time when you faced an injury in your career?

I don't know if you had this in, in this, this session because of me, but I don't want people out there feeling sorry for me.

But in the game of baseball, like you said, or gaming sports, you're going to get, there's a, you're going to be susceptible to, to injuries.

So in 79, I hurt my left ankle and I thought it was just a regular strain, but since then, you know, I've been having problems with it.

I know it changed my swing because I wasn't able to put as much put weight on that side.

So instead of driving, getting that weight transfer from the back to the front, I ended up, end up more so hitting off my backside.

And I know my hormone total start, I was averaging maybe 25 afterwards, but before that averaging over 30.

But that's.

I was able to play through it.

And so the anchor injury turned out to be more severe than I had had thought.

And, but I was trying to be cool.

You know, the third out of the fly ball was hit, two outs, I'm rounding third base.

Instead of looking at the bag, I was trying to look at the, look at the bag and look at if the guy's going to catch it or not.

And I turned my ankle as I'm riding around in third base and I look back, I said, wow, if I did, if, if there's certain things in your life you say, you say if I could change and, but I knew from then on it really affected my, my plan.

I use the word, it compromised my, my career.

But I was able to put in what more years, but not as quality.

But that anchor injury lingered for, still lingered, lingering.

And I'm still getting treatment for it because one time I had gone in, there was a lot of scar tissue in there and the guy got it out.

You talk about painful the most painful experience I've had is somebody massaging your big toe.

Oh, that hurts.

Because you got a lot of little spine nerves and ligaments in there.

But I've been getting a treatment for it because I love playing tennis, I love playing golf.

So.

And if I'm not, not able to utilize that ankle, I mean, that's a lever right there.

So that anchor injury really cut back as far as my career was concerned.

But I was able to put in over 15 years.

But I knew that the last six or so years that.

And I was dominating up to that period of time.

Then I was more average.

But I knew.

But it's like, hi, I'm not going to make an excuse.

But last but not least, when I had gone to the Mets, if they required a medical, I wouldn't have.

The tray wouldn't have gone through because that they would looked at the ankle and realized, nope, there's some damage that's there.

But no, it is what it is and it's history.

Now, did you.

Did any tendinitis, anything like that set in, in your ankle or just because Arthritis, Arthritis.

I had gone last week and this, this is what I wanted to stay away from when I played.

Staying away from getting shots like cortisone shots or, or taking medication to me maybe have helped them.

But I just Looking at what's going to happen later, you don't know what the side effects are going to be.

That's good.

And so now it's, it's.

It's driving to.

What I do is, is not get a bucket of rice and I put my foot in and to twist it or exercise it.

And it helps to work it without having to.

Without straining it.

I, I guess I learned that from Steve Carlton.

He did that with his arm.

He never did have a sore arm.

So he put it.

Put his arm.

Put his stick in the middle of the bucket and twisted.

So it's in the form of Thorn.

Thorn, A slider.

That throwing motion.

So it's helping some, but it's still, you know, I could leap tall building with a single bound, but I'm not able to do that now.

And I want to touch on something you mentioned about pain management and cortisol shots and that for younger players, a lot of times that takes form in the, that takes place in the form of ibuprofen or something like that.

Right.

You got to be careful using that because while it can be a good inflammation management, you should not be relying on it.

No.

You know, if you're taking that Every day trying to.

Trying to manage pain, then something else is wrong and it needs to be addressed.

And so it was something that I carried in my bag for the occasional use.

And I had a teammate ask if anybody had.

I said, yeah, I had somebody dumped a hand, you know.

You know, I think he.

4, 5, 6 of them in his hand.

I'm like, what are you doing, dude?

I was like that.

That's not how this works.

I was like, this is like a one or two scenario every once in a while.

So just want to stress, be careful leaning on that stuff.

It's there as a tool, not as, you know, a regular part of your game that needs to be used.

Well, I mean, the thing is, if your body hurts, your body is not supposed to hurt.

Correct.

So if it hurts, it's trying to tell you that there's a problem.

And if you refuse to listen and you just tell it to shh, be quiet.

Yeah.

Then that's only going to last for.

So that whatever's causing that pain, you might be able to block it with some Tylenols, might be profane, some whatever, but you didn't fix it.

Right.

And so it's just going to get worse and it's going to come back at you later.

And so that's why when it came to managing arm pain, or not even pain, but.

But recovery and having, you know, a lot of people really stress ice.

Well, ice is going to reduce that inflammation, but.

But it's inflamed for a reason.

And so try.

I wanted to feel how that felt my body understand where the inflammation was, try to figure out why it was happening so that I could get a better idea of how to address it going forward.

But if you just suppress it, you just.

You got to be careful with suppressing it because your body has all these fascinating, you know, ways of alerting you.

Just masking it.

Yeah.

And then does that for a reason.

So try to learn and listen to your body and will help you tremendously going forward.

Something from a completely different.

From a completely different direction, though.

When Long, you know, after I've made the.

You told this before, after I quit playing baseball and whatever, and I went into music.

There was some time there when I did a lot of travel and a lot of touring, a lot of.

A lot of shows over and over, you know, and they were very strenuous.

Lots of high notes, lots of long sets, lots of things like this.

And.

And what you learn on the road when you do that is you learn that it takes a lot of Vocal rest in between.

So I would go days without speaking.

Ethan probably remembers when he was a kid I was playing in a band, doing a lot of shows.

There were days when I would have to write things down for him or I had an app on my phone that would speak for me and have to order things that, you know, at restaurants and all kinds of.

Because I just, I had to give it three, four days or it wasn't going to work.

And that was our, that was our livelihood at the time.

So we couldn't afford.

And then, and then a lot of ibuprofen.

I took a lot of ibuprofen to reduce the, the swelling in my vocal cords.

I would ibuprofen up prior to a gig and then again afterwards to try and manage the swelling.

And what it did was it gave me stomach problems.

It will mess side effects, ulcers.

Ibuprofen is not a natural thing that your body has in it.

Right.

You are putting large amounts of something in your body that does not naturally belong there.

You, you're going to cause yourself problems in another direction.

So, you know, if you are managing something with, with a medication like that, you know you likely to hurt yourself elsewhere.

Well, and that was the thing.

When I had the hip problems, they prescribed me an anti inflammatory.

It was like a stronger version of ibuprofen.

And so I would take that to help me play through.

But that didn't resolve the problem.

If anything it made it worse because it would numb it so I could play and then it's just as bad or worse when I'm done.

So it, there, there's benefits and there's a lot of drawbacks.

So just, just be careful and use caution.

But read the side effects.

Yeah, the side effects could have take, had more power or impact than the, the original medication in itself.

Yeah.

And I had heart last year and I have to be careful what I would take because one thing can affect the other.

But they said, well, maybe you need to make the adjustment.

But same with injuries, you got to make the adjustment, cut back on it.

But we said earlier, rest, rest is very important and trainers come into play.

But a lot of times these trainers, they don't have expertise in that sport.

So you have a mechanic that you're throwing, but he's working on something else.

So getting somebody who's attuned to what you do.

Yeah, and our, our school, you know, we had one main trainer and like maybe one or two kind of assistant trainers.

Well, they're, they're the trainer for the football Team, the baseball team, the basketball team, tennis, lacrosse, I mean, for everything.

So.

But yeah, that's a good point.

Specialized.

That's a good point.

Why don't you tell us about what you got?

Oh, well, for me, I really didn't have a injury, per se, but I did have an injury before a varsity game.

I had a high ankle sprain, man.

And I remember it just like it was yesterday.

A good friend of mine was playing three on three and his name was Steve Shirley, man.

Went to the high school.

He went D1 and came down on.

On his foot.

Twist my ankle and it was swelled up like, like this, man.

It was huge.

And.

And then it kind of kept me back for about a week or two until it landed.

But back then you kind of not really played through it, but you did kind of play through it a little bit, you know, so that was the only real.

You're conscious of it all the time.

Oh, yeah, man.

Yeah.

And it was, man, it was huge.

And it.

A high ankle sprain.

Almost like you broke your ankle.

Pretty much.

Sometimes it's better to break your ankle.

It is.

Because that was painful.

Painful.

That's the only painful.

And then I would say recently, probably like last year, I.

I did something to my shoulder and I just went.

So we were throwing a football.

I just went to reach like that, my shoulder pop.

And I was like, man, you know, I couldn't throw from here to the window right here, but I could do all of this.

So there is a.

So you and Greg could throw together.

Well, I could throw now.

So what I did was kind of nursed it back to what I needed to.

And then I went to Mother Earth, which is not right around the corner here.

And so she gave me this magnesium to roll on and this, this other 500 milligrams of something that's natural.

And.

And it actually took the inflammation away.

So.

But I did go back to doing.

What I usually do best is band work.

I use kind of two pound little weights to do, you know, shoulder injuries and shoulders back.

So.

But when you have that, it does take time.

So you can't rush back.

You gotta, you know, because this, I always say this my money maker.

I was gonna say how, how.

How many pitches of batting practice you think you throw?

And I still, I still throw hard, you know, but I am cognizant of what I do now.

And I still long toss.

I throw football softballs.

You know, I do this week in and week out.

So my arm is still strong, but also conscious of.

I stretch Just like in, like I would tell the other kids, stretch your band work, shoulder work, and whatever else comes with that.

So.

And you.

You mentioned there, you mentioned going to Mother Earth.

Mother Earth is a local health, health, food and natural remedy place we have here in Fairfield.

And Ethan played on a team with her grandson.

Small world.

And I'm telling you, there are some.

There are some natural remedies that work well.

She's ahead.

She was ahead of her time.

She is.

She had this stuff called arnicare that was.

It was an ointment that you would rub on for sore muscles and whatever.

Oh, it was the stuff that's like.

It was miraculous.

It was amazing.

I think the Karate Kid used that.

But yeah, shout out to Mother Earth.

Yeah.

Good thing.

Yes.

So we're at the risk of this thing being.

Being.

Talking about this till breakfast.

I want to ask you very quickly rules for.

How do you know when to play through and when not to so that you don't hurt yourself?

You got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them.

That's it.

Got to listen to your body.

1.

One key way that I always thought of is thinking of it in terms of the team.

So if your regular play is here and because of some sort of ailment, you're really here.

Well, by forcing it and playing through, you think you're helping, but you're really hurting.

Because if, you know, if you're in the outfield and you can't run as fast, you know, and you're giving up extra bases or, you know, you're in the infield and your lateral movement isn't quite there and balls are getting through the.

You're going to be hurting your team by trying to force it through.

Maybe there's a guy on the bench whose ability is a little bit above your injured.

Give him a shot, take the rest and go at it.

From a team mindset rather than, I'm on the field, I have to be there.

I have to do this.

And allow your teammates to help you through that sort of thing.

Don't be a martyr.

That's what I have down.

Can you perform without hurting the team?

And then that's perfect.

The other thing.

That's a good metric.

Yes.

The other thing I would say is for younger players, take the rest because the.

The younger you are, the more baseball there is to be played ahead of you.

So the championship at 10U is not nearly as important as the championship in high school.

So take.

Take the hit.

Take the.

Take the time off the field and Put more emphasis in rest and recovery the younger you are.

So that it's more like rather than sacrificing the playing time at the young age, you're investing in the longevity of your career down the road.

And younger kids are playing more and more baseball than ever.

And that's okay.

But keep in mind that there's a lot more baseball to be played in the later years.

One of the things I always tell I have a, we have an Indian eye player on our 13 year team.

He's got a, some type of elbow issue and he's new and everything.

He's going from somewhere to, to here now.

And so always when he comes in, in practice, I always ask him, okay, what has your doctor?

And he says, we're going to the orthopedic or whatever.

I said, told him.

I also told his dad, listen to him, you're only 13, man, you got plenty of time.

But listen to what they saying.

So you, you know, you rest and stuff.

And then I've seen it where that kids that have that and parents will push them forward.

I said, you shouldn't be doing that, man.

That's right there nodding my head because a lot of times the parents are pushing, saying that you can do it, you got to play through it.

But a lot of times the parent, it is pushing that.

That's, it's like a gold mine for that parent.

You know, that kid's good.

I just want you to be seen get, get exposure once you get drafted.

But you got to be even laying, laying off or resting that one month or that one year is going to make a big difference.

And these kids are just developing, being able to go out there.

And I seen on what these guys get Tommy John surgery like he's going to be over a year.

I mean that take a lot of determination and perseverance to be able to come back from that particular injury.

But you got to be able to limit yourself what you can do.

Letting the trainer, letting the coach know what you can and cannot do because they, they know you being a fast runner and they put you on base to pinch run, you can't run.

Right, right.

You already let the guy know that.

No, I'm limited in what I can do.

So getting somebody else, like Ethan saying somebody else is just as fast or faster now because they're, they're healthy.

So it's helping the team.

But you going out there plant and you're not able to do it the things you had done before, it's going to hurt the team.

Yeah.

At the professional level they call it making a business decision because you know their career is their business and so they have to protect you know, the way that they make a living going forward and that that applies to younger kids.

Make that business decision so that you can have those years to play later, later down the road.

But I laugh at the fact of, I look at these different injuries and I said I never heard it, I've certain injuries but like I said when they say they're cramping up, I said never heard of someone come out of the game because they're cramping up but they're find something that's when the trainer comes in, has been able to massage that area, putting some, some ointment on that area so that can, can relieve it.

But no, they come out of the game so they either trying to protect or the guy are saying that you know, I can't do it.

I guess with the, sometimes the multi year contracts really affect their performance out there.

Yeah.

So I mean a couple of, a couple of rules of thumb number one, if it hurts, say so pay attention to it and tell somebody that you, that you trust that this, I have some pain here.

Pain is not normal.

So if, if it hurts, tell somebody.

Okay?

That's important.

We are not medical professionals.

We're not given any sort of medical advice today.

We're just talking about our own personal experiences.

If you are experiencing pain, you need to tell somebody, tell a parent, tell your trainer, tell your coach, tell your private teacher, tell somebody and, and that's, that's important and then listen to, listen to what they're, what they're telling you back.

Grown ups, just by virtue of living longer than than youth players have faced a number of different things.

And hey, our bodies hurt all the time.

We know what that means, we know how to fix it.

A lot of times we know when, oh, you need to stretch this or you need to you know, work that or you, whatever.

So listen to people who are older than you tell you, you know what's going on with your body.

The other thing is parents, the value of a private lesson teacher here is, is, is incredible because it's invaluable.

If you, if your child is coming back from an injury, you've got somebody that can work with your child who understands that their body understands what they're going through, understands coming back from their, their injury can help them follow up with what the doctor or the therapist is telling them, can double check them and make sure that they're following up with what the doctor and therapist has said, like Rick said sometimes, hey, so what is, what are they telling you?

You know, what's going on?

Like don't be shortcut needs a need to have feedback, have some patience, some accountability as well.

Yes.

And develop that partnership.

Yeah.

And to get that from on an ongoing basis.

The most well meaning coach in the world is not going to meet with your child as often as a private teacher will.

Right.

So, and continuing through the off season and those kinds of things.

So having a private teacher, somebody who teaches like Rick or George, so who works with kids on a regular basis, who understands what's going on.

This is another area where paying for those lessons can really pay off because you're getting that extra help from someone who understands these issues and it's an extra person for your kid to talk to.

Sometimes your, your son or daughter may be reluctant to, to tell you what it is.

They don't want to disappoint you.

They don't want to, you know, they don't want you to pick at them or they don't want, you know, whatever, whatever the issue is.

But they're willing to tell a private teacher, you know, that's good.

And then that teacher can communicate back to you and everybody can work for the benefit of.

It's a great investment.

It is.

I've used other MDNI parents that's been through an injury with their kid and to talk to another parent about it, you know, so we've had a Fairfield kid shout out to Ronnie George, but anyway, his son went through a shoulder issue, had another parent comes in hidden and I'm listening to him and I said, man, I would get that checked out.

Go to, you know, consult with your orthopedic.

I said go to Ortho, Sensei, Beacon, whatever you need to go to and get it checked out.

And I said I had another parent with who.

So he talks to the parent also and said, hey, my son had the same issue.

Get it checked out.

So next thing you know, she didn't get it.

They didn't get it checked out.

Like, well, I'm not going to do the, told him I'm not going to do the lesson until you get it checked out because it's going to hinder and it's going to hurt what he's doing.

Guess what?

The parent went, got it checked out, comes back in and this guy just happened to be there.

She said, yep, you was right.

He's had a little league shoulder.

He's going to be down for about two months.

He might miss the rest of the season.

And I said, see, we told you, you know, and those are, and I utilize the parents that's probably went through that to, to let the other parent know, hey, be patient.

Listen to what the doctor is saying.

Your son is still young.

He'll be able to come back for it from it.

That experience.

Yes, the experience.

That's another case where, you know, again, the most well meaning coach in the world is running a practice and he's got 12, 14, 16 kids he's looking after.

He's not going to see every kid's mechanics in depth.

But if that, if that kid is having a one on one lesson with a private teacher, that teacher will watch, will be looking at their mechanics.

They're hitting mechanics, throwing mechanics or running, they're sliding or whatever they're doing.

And when they do that, they will be able to spot.

Hey, be careful.

Don't you know, you want to make sure you correct and come from this angle, not that angle, or you want to make sure you're engaging this part of your body and not just that one.

And that can help to prevent those injuries because somebody is, is looking specifically at the mechanics of your player.

Yes.

Whereas you know, your players, not just one of a big group that sometimes.

Look at their form.

Yes, sir.

Right, yeah.

So Ethan is more than my podcast person 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 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 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 games 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 Academy 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.

So what are some things, fellas, that.

What's your.

Let me.

Let's go it this way.

What's your number one thing that you've done in your.

In your careers to prevent injury?

What is it that you do?

What's your thing that.

I do this every time, all the time.

Because I'm preventing injury by doing it.

For me, it's stretching.

Yeah.

Yes.

Make sure you stretch and warm up your body.

Yeah, that was a.

That was a big one for me as well.

And I had teammates poke fun at me for taking.

Taking a long time to warm up before a game or, you know, making sure I was doing my bands or whatever.

And you know what?

I didn't have any major injuries.

So, you know, it.

It definitely paid off.

My, My big one is making sure that you have good mechanics, because bad mechanics can lead to injuries.

And so, like, Rick had touched on this at the very beginning, slowing down and.

And building that, building those movements from the ground up.

Because it.

It's so easy to form bad habits when you're moving fast all the time.

And it's a lot easier to cause problems when you're.

When you're moving fast, intense.

So slowing down, adding some fluidity can.

Can make a big difference.

And then the other word that came up a lot at the beginning was compensate.

So because you're weak in one area, you're compensating with another, and then you can.

You can cause problems there.

You know, if your biceps are too.

Are too strong and your triceps aren't, you know.

Yeah.

You can hurt one way or the other.

So making sure that you have a good movement profile on your arm and your running motion and the way that you're sliding, diving, you know, that makes.

That can make a big difference in prevention.

Cool.

Well, my.

My big thing was always.

And again, this is from another, you know, from another perspective, but warming down.

So you're done.

You're done playing, man.

Don't just pack it away.

This is.

We learned this.

And I learned this from.

From.

From a musician's perspective.

I was a trumpet player in college.

And, you know, you get this all warmed up.

You're working it, you're doing everything with your face.

You got to put that away.

You got to calm it back down, get the blood back in your lips, get your body, you know, set to rest.

Because otherwise you've got.

With your voice.

Same thing you got to, you got to warm it back down.

You can't put it away hot because at that point in time you're, you risk, you risk injuring yourself.

So learn to.

After a game, what do you do?

Do you, do you run?

Do you run slowly?

Do you take a walk?

Do you go.

You know, I've saw, I've seen some people who are runners and then they spend time walking backwards or running backwards or they do, you know, whatever they do.

Find a, find a good warm down routine.

Yes.

Like you unwind your mind, decompress.

But yeah, that's very important.

But I didn't realize until I had a kid on my team that was in the band.

And I said yes, it couldn't be that hard, you know, being in the band.

But he tells me the, the workouts that they have is that they run.

I think take choosing baseball was good for me.

Especially if you played the tuba.

You out there with that, those things aren't light.

So.

Yeah.

Learning to warm yourself down before you put it away.

For me, the, the number one thing that I really focus on, parents and everything.

You can go to hitting lessons, pitching lessons, whatever lessons.

What I see more the if building a foundation of strength and flexibility.

Yeah.

It doesn't matter what kind of bat glove, whatever that if you don't have a foundation, all those things gonna break down like a car.

And you gotta treat kids today have to.

Or parents today gotta think of their car.

I mean, their kid has a car, man, it breaks down.

Right.

You know, but that's back to that when, When Greg was talking about pain.

Yes.

But you have these like you said, maintenance, check the batteries, whatever.

So the car is telling you what to do.

So you go in and do it.

But when the kid says they have pain, it's telling you something's wrong.

And going to somebody to get that diagnostic testing, finding out what, what is wrong and go from there.

And that's it.

Oh, you can play through it.

You'll be okay.

And then the kid know that he can't.

Then he doesn't perform well then now it's worse.

You know, you did this before.

Yeah, but the kid doesn't want to have get I guess bombarded about you.

You're not, you're not going out there performing like you should be you're embarrassing me out there.

Like, no, let the kid play, but make sure that he's in a position to play.

They talk about an ounce of provision prevention and being able to go out there and prevent that and slowly bring that kid back.

I like that.

He's young, you know, don't make him, don't abuse him.

Well, and to carry that, to carry that illustration even a little further so your car starts to, you start to get these lights on your.

Right, on your, you know, the warning, like, check engine light comes on.

Okay?

And, and you just ignore.

I just ignore it.

I just keep driving.

Right, right.

When it comes time to sell that car or trade that car in and go to the next level of vehicle, somebody's going to say, oh, well, you know, if you're, you say you're going to put it on marketplace, you're going to try and sell it yourself.

The first thing anybody's going to ask you is, are there any lights on in the dash?

Like, I want to know is this thing have any problems?

Right?

So if, if you got lights on in the dash, man, there's a problem.

And ignoring those is only going to really come back to revisit you at the next level.

So it actually makes you worth less at the next level, whether that's high school or that's college or that's whatever, you know, you, if you're in junior high and you're just constantly pushing through and, and wrecking yourself, then you get to, then you get to high school.

Well, then you, you can't compete at a high, as high a level because you didn't listen to your body when, when it was forming itself and growing.

And now you got lights on on the dash and, you know, it's, it's a problem.

And the longer you go into your life, the more that's going to be an issue.

And that's, that's a really good point.

And yes, when you're young and you face injury, you know, young kids do tend to overcome things quicker than, than further down the road.

But the thing that can kind of jumble that up is growing.

And a lot of things change in a short period of time.

So you got to be careful because you can really stunt the growth of something else by not dealing with something properly.

When I started MDNI developmental program, that's one of the things that was a core value is not development baseball players, but developing athletes to become baseball players.

And to be able to do that, you gotta understand movement, okay?

Developing a foundation for each kid.

So for me, it was easy because I didn't.

I wasn't a parent, you know, I'm more like a.

Not a coach, but an uncle to everyone pretty much, you know, and that's how I relate to them.

And I can see how each kid moves.

I can give each kid something to work on, and that's how I got them better.

So that's what development is.

And then from that point on, then you're able to help them prevent injuries.

So another thing, we're talking about stretching and stuff.

So one of the.

Another core value is my MDNI teams.

When they come in, they know how to stretch, they'll do band work, they.

They know how to jog, they know how to do foam roll.

They.

They know how to toss, long toss, all these things.

And some guys takes 15 to 20 minutes.

And I said, if you need longer, take longer.

You just catch up with us on whatever drill we're working on.

And they understood that and they took it serious.

Yeah.

So.

So something I want to add into that.

I had Matt Ponotoski's dad in my shop a couple weeks ago, and I was able to talk with him.

You know, Matt's a great.

A great athlete.

Yes, he is.

Got a killer arm.

Yes.

And so I was asking him, I was like, so, so has Matt always had a really strong arm or like, how does that work?

He said, yeah, pretty much always.

I said, so how did that happen?

And both of Matt's parents were collegiate athletes.

And so he said, you know, he had good mechanics because we started with good mechanics.

He said he never really had problems because we started with a healthy arm motion, and then that just progressed going forward.

So there was never a big obstacle they had to overcome because they started with such a good foundation.

So very important.

And he's a walking example.

Yes, he is.

Of.

Of how that can affect a player in their high school career.

That very important to start getting that foundation, getting someone to help develop you and put you on a good training program.

And some of the guys will maybe oppose this, but get into yoga because you can get that stretch is going to be really great for you.

And I always support or recommend martial arts because it's going to help you to.

With balance.

We talked about balance earlier, but I know in my career, people look at.

I have.

I said, I don't.

I'm not going to ask you to do something I didn't do.

So on a major league level, every day before a game, I go out and run my four to five sprints, pole to pole and other guys seeing that I'm doing it.

So, I mean, you're in Atlanta or someplace real hot.

No, it's too hot.

But I want to get my body not only loose, but acclimated to that temperature.

And then in cold weather, I would sometimes take a cold shower or put baby oil on my body so I can acclimate to that temperature.

But a lot of these kids go out there, they're not ready.

The muscles ready, ready, ready to pull.

So but doing those pole to pole, four to six of them before game, getting yourself ready, getting your mindset ready.

So I know my body's ready, physically ready for this opportunity.

Because I see, guys, there's a place you got to be on the field every play.

But some guys, I'm a little tired today, but that I put pat myself on the back knowing that I worked to this point, so I have that stamina.

I'm backing up third base when the balls hit down the right field line.

So you're there.

I'm able to take the extra base because I worked at it.

But those legs are very important and stretching, very important.

You got to do it.

And you don't want to wait till you get hurt to know that, you know, you had to do it.

That's by doing it now to help prevent you from getting hurt.

Right.

Well.

And you were talking about being an uncle to everybody.

And, you know, we grew up, at least the three of us, we grew up with grandfathers, fathers, uncles.

We were raised by people who went to war.

Okay, Right.

We were raised by people who rubbed dirt on it and walked it off.

Yeah.

We were raised by people who just were.

I mean, I cannot tell you how unbelievably tough.

Yeah.

The.

The men in my life were growing up, and I.

So I learned that.

And there's time for that.

There, there.

There are times when you just.

You gotta power through and keep going.

But here's my philosophy on this.

I would much rather pay the copay, see the doctor and find out there's nothing wrong.

Right.

And go on than power through it and then go to the doctor and find out that because I did, now there's something wrong.

More setback.

You know, Henry Ford made the.

I read a quote from him earlier this week talking about employees, and he said, I'd much rather train an employee and have them leave than not train them and have them stay.

Yeah.

And, you know, it's kind of the same idea.

Like, I would much rather find out and know that I'm okay than not Find out.

And find out that I'm going to hurt myself.

So, you know, in.

In the age of telehealth and, and all these other things that we got going on.

You know, be careful when you choose to just walk it off.

Yeah.

Okay.

The actual title of this episode is when you can't walk it off.

Yeah.

And.

And that's, you know, there's times when you, you, you got to face the idea that this is going to take more than.

Than rubbing it, walking it off, and sucking it up and going.

So, you know, let's say you get hurt sliding or, or whatever, and then you want to finish the play or you're on base, you want to make sure you get home.

So after you've scored, you sit on the bench for a little bit, then you get back up.

Now it still hurts.

Okay, that's something.

Or it's worse now than it was a few minutes ago because you sat.

Now it's swollen, and now it's really giving defense, you know, or you hurt yourself when you were playing defense.

You come, you sit.

Maybe it wasn't your.

Your inning to hit, and now it's time to go back out in the field.

And now it is a bigger problem than it was before.

Okay, don't let any after inning go by before you say, hey, coach, there's something's not right here.

You know, this is.

And so, yeah, there is time to be tough.

Don't get me wrong.

There are times when, you know, you got to make sure that you're not just.

You're not just hanging it up at every little hangnail, but at the same time, be careful if it hurts.

It's not supposed to do that, right?

You got to have the courage to know how to admit, you know, be afraid to admit that something's wrong and to back off from it.

And, yeah, other people may criticize you.

Well, that Ethan, you know, he's very soft.

You know, we can't rely on him, but he only.

He knows how he feels and not being able to, you know, judge somebody else because one day you may be in the same position, but I've known that, okay, if there's my hammies tight or something, as such, once again, I'm hurting the team.

I'm on second base, and my run is very important.

Coach need someone to pinch run.

He may say, you know why?

You really say, are you okay?

I said, no, I'm not.

So admit something, because now you get thrown out at home and because you had a bad hamstring or so but you hurt the team in that situation.

So knowing when to, knowing when to fold it.

Yeah, that's true.

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

Be aggressive out there.

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So I want to wrap us up here a little bit with going back over some of the things that we talked about.

So number one, pain is not normal.

If you're feeling some pain, tell somebody, tell a parent, tell a coach, tell a trainer, tell a private teacher, tell somebody and, and may, and get some expertise.

That's, that's more than what you have to make sure that you're not, you know, continuing to hurt yourself.

Also make sure you have a good, strong, a good strong foundation of muscle development.

And if you're not, you know, if you're not surrounded by people who understand that it's not because there's anything wrong with them, but they just may not know, then you need to seek that kind of help.

If you, if you don't have a parent or a, or a coach or an adult in your life that understands all of the different development, especially if you're looking into, get into weightlifting or you're getting into, you know, some of these other places where you could really hurt yourself, make sure that you got some guidance on that.

Don't just go watch something on YouTube and give it a shot, you know, because YouTube is not going to watch you to make sure you're not going to yourself.

So, you know, that's, that's, that's, that's a dangerous thing nowadays because now we have the, the Internet.

It's so easy to go, oh, well, this, this professional baseball player does this thing.

So I'm going to do that.

Not a professional baseball player.

I don't know what they're working on to improve.

And they have a whole team of doctors and trainers who are watching them while they're doing that, too.

And so, you know, that's, you got to be careful with that kind of thing.

Make sure that you're giving yourself the rest.

You know, take that off season, maybe take time and do other activities besides your main sport.

If you, if baseball is your main sport, then, you know, learn to enjoy hiking, learn to enjoy kayaking, learn to enjoy riding your bike.

Learn to, like Ethan, learn how to dance.

Yeah.

Ballroom dancing.

There you go.

Learn how to.

Learn how to do something.

That's.

In addition, and George mentioned martial arts.

There's lots of different kinds of martial arts, too.

Like, for instance, if you're not into, you know, you want to, you want to do, do the, the sort of slower, deep breathing kind of mechanical things, but you don't necessarily want to spar and fight with people.

You know, take tai chi and, and spend it.

It's still useful as a defense, but it's also as a, as a mental focus and as a breathing exercise and lots of slow muscle development.

There's, you know, not everything is karate, not everything is Taekwondo.

Not everything is in.

There are lots of different ways to go about that.

Also, once you have injured yourself, make sure you listen to the, what people are telling you.

Don't, don't let the pressure of, oh, I got to get back on the field.

I got to get.

I'm going to lose my spot on the team.

I got to, you know, it's much more important that you bring your body back to a healthy position.

It's no good to get one more season out of high school, but then find out you can't play with your kids and grandkids down the line.

You know, not everybody is going to play baseball up through college and higher than that, but everybody's going to want to play catch with their kids.

And I'm telling you, I would.

What I wouldn't give to be able to throw a baseball again.

So, you know, it's.

You have to be careful with those things.

You have to make sure you're not, not doing yourself.

You're working for the long run, not.

For a short term.

Yeah, I mean, there's other things in life besides baseball and you don't want to end up giving yourself fits down the line just to try and get one more season on a select team.

So, you know, that's, that's an important, important deal.

But these are some of the things that we've talked about today for, for injuries.

And I know there's much more to discuss.

We'll come back to this topic later down the line from a different perspective.

But I hope you've enjoyed our discussion today.

I hope that you've maybe learned something if you're listening to this get share a comment somewhere on YouTube or wherever.

Let us know what you've been through.

Let us know what your experience is.

We'd love to hear from you.

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Please share.

Yeah, and then share this on social media.

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So you can look and see and share it out with other people and let them know and you know, who knows how many people we could help with it.

So we hope that you'll join us next week when we talk about yet another great baseball topic.

And until then, we hope that you have a great week and we'll see you soon.

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.