Speaker 1: All right, all right, welcome to our bonus show, the
Speaker 1: show gram program known as over Promised with Covino and Rich. Yeah, buddy,
Speaker 1: you may know us from Fox Sports Radio Monday through
Speaker 1: Friday two to four on the West, five to seven
Speaker 1: on the East.
Speaker 2: But we can't fit all of this now call it
Speaker 2: ThisDay into two hours.
Speaker 1: So we bring you over Promised And today we have
Speaker 1: a special guest.
Speaker 3: And let me tell you, the minute you get involved
Speaker 3: in the coaching world, hard to avoid this guy, because
Speaker 3: I think he's the best of the best. We welcome
Speaker 3: to over Promised and Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 2: Coach Ball Game James. What's up man?
Speaker 4: Welcome, High praise, high praise. You guys are awesome. At
Speaker 4: the sound of your voices makes me want to be
Speaker 4: a better coach right away.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, glad we could inspire you at a coach
Speaker 2: is right.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you the minute I started coaching my daughter,
Speaker 3: I'm doing eight U softball and pony ball T ball
Speaker 3: for my son. And the minute you look up one
Speaker 3: coaching thing on social media, it's in your algorithm. That
Speaker 3: becomes your algorithm. And I'm like, who's this guy?
Speaker 2: He's great? And that is coach baseball from my favorite thing.
Speaker 3: I learned alligator vacuum, groundball alligator vacuum. So coach ball game.
Speaker 3: I got to start by asking how did this all
Speaker 3: come about? Like, how did you become coach ball game man?
Speaker 4: Well, I hope you got about four and a half days.
Speaker 4: But it starts in North Carolina. I love playing baseball
Speaker 4: with my brothers, my father in the backyard. We play
Speaker 4: sandlot ball in the backyard. Had a small house but
Speaker 4: a really big backyard, so we'd invite all the neighbors.
Speaker 4: And the love of the game started right there with
Speaker 4: just a broomstick and a tennis ball. I was fortunate
Speaker 4: enough to go to Brown University and play baseball there
Speaker 4: four years. Nice career hit by pitch record holder at
Speaker 4: Brown University asked Chris Berman at a boy and from
Speaker 4: there I didn't get drafted. I had an eye opening moment.
Speaker 4: I was facing Justin Verlander in college and he threw
Speaker 4: me a curveball that was stripe three. I did not swing,
Speaker 4: but I did dry heave. I almost threw up on
Speaker 4: home plate, and that was the moment that I knew
Speaker 4: I was destined to do something other than play baseball.
Speaker 4: So I moved to California. I started coaching with some friends,
Speaker 4: and I was a really bad coach for about five years,
Speaker 4: but I had really good mentors that showed me how
Speaker 4: to engage, how to teach love of play. And my
Speaker 4: nickname being Jimmy ballgame in college because I was kind
Speaker 4: of crazy. I'd run into walls and get hit a lot.
Speaker 4: It just working turned into coachball game when I started coaching.
Speaker 4: So it's been twenty one years of figuring it out, learning, failing,
Speaker 4: but here we are having a great tame you.
Speaker 2: Know, coach ball game.
Speaker 3: It dawned on me last night I went from coaching
Speaker 3: my kids to playing softballlas night. I play a couple
Speaker 3: of days a week as again, nothing feels better than
Speaker 3: hitting line drive still, and I realized I looked around them,
Speaker 3: like these are just a bunch of grown.
Speaker 2: Men that love baseball.
Speaker 3: And then I'm thinking all these kids could very well
Speaker 3: end up being forty year old guys that are playing softball.
Speaker 3: It's just the love of baseball that we all have,
Speaker 3: like you said, from playing stickball with football it We're
Speaker 3: all just kids that love this game, love it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've been coaching for twenty one years and there's
Speaker 4: one kid that made it to the major leagues. One ye,
Speaker 4: there's hundreds and thousands of kids that became fathers, went
Speaker 4: to college, became adults. So I learned be a life coach.
Speaker 4: First teached love of play so their careers last longer.
Speaker 4: How many life lessons can you teach on a baseball field?
Speaker 4: It's barely baseball. I think a good coach changes a game,
Speaker 4: but a great coach changes lives, you know, hundreds and
Speaker 4: thousands of them. So good on you, man, you're changing lives.
Speaker 4: Tell an eight.
Speaker 1: Year old we're here at the world famous coach ball game. Now,
Speaker 1: Rich is a coach as well. I'm a cheer dad.
Speaker 1: I'm not a coach, but I want you to know
Speaker 1: I do have twenty seven little league home runs under
Speaker 1: this spell. So yeah, twenty seven little league home runs.
Speaker 2: Thank you. But I got to ask you this.
Speaker 1: Mitch Hedberg, the comedian, said, only one piece of sports
Speaker 1: equipment has made it to the mainstreaming. Only one sports
Speaker 1: hat has made it to the mainstream wardrobe, and that's
Speaker 1: the baseball cap. But you chose the Fedora. I gotta
Speaker 1: know why, because when Rich was like, you know, coach
Speaker 1: ball game, I'm like, oh, the Fedora guy. That's everybody
Speaker 1: does the Fedora guy. How did that happen?
Speaker 4: Well, I have my mom's side of the family is
Speaker 4: from Puerto Rico, so I had a grandpa, Tony Antonio
Speaker 4: Bowza who introduced me to that culture, Roberto Clemente and
Speaker 4: that whole culture. This is the vibe, it's music, it's dancing,
Speaker 4: it's party vibe. So I had that ingrained in me
Speaker 4: at a young age, and then in my twenties to
Speaker 4: put food on the table. I was doing private lessons,
Speaker 4: but I was doing baseball lessons in the middle of
Speaker 4: a packed soccer field. And the only way I could
Speaker 4: get the people's attention and let them know, Hey, I'm
Speaker 4: the guy that you're trying to meet here on this
Speaker 4: crowded field was I'll be in the funny hat. I'll
Speaker 4: be sitting on a baseball bucket in the middle of
Speaker 4: this crowd, in a funny hat. So I've always been
Speaker 4: a little lesson center and everything. I think they were
Speaker 4: the box and it worked with kids, you know, they
Speaker 4: like to be surprised.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this to as a as a
Speaker 1: Puerto Rican guy, you know, obviously Bob Clemente Roberto Clemente
Speaker 1: is the guy who's second?
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 2: Burnaby Williams, Bernie Williams, Jarge Pasada?
Speaker 1: Who else is Yankees for me? Those are the guys
Speaker 1: you know? Who are they for you? After Roberto Clemente.
Speaker 4: Well, I've got a conga and I call it the
Speaker 4: on deck Drum, and I bring it everywhere I go.
Speaker 4: And I've gotten a lot of Hall of famers to
Speaker 4: sign it. I've gotten Francisco Lindor, my guy, and Bernie Williams.
Speaker 4: But if I had to pick, I'll go Bernie because
Speaker 4: he's a guitar player.
Speaker 3: You know, coach ball game. What I love about you
Speaker 3: is the enthusiasm and the fun you bring. I think
Speaker 3: sometimes the criticism I might get from some of the
Speaker 3: parents is that I'm too fun and light.
Speaker 2: I try to keep it loose. I bring music to
Speaker 2: the game. I got the bluetooth speaker.
Speaker 3: I'm being silly with the girls and the boys baseball
Speaker 3: or softball. Every game. I'll run out to right field
Speaker 3: after the game. I caught kids and I do taking knee.
Speaker 3: I love you do the clap three times. How do
Speaker 3: you get the focus of a bunch of t ball
Speaker 3: five year old boys? Who are picking their nose, picking
Speaker 3: the grass, writing in the dirt. Are there any additional
Speaker 3: tips you would give?
Speaker 4: Absolutely?
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 4: First of all, good on you when you're in the
Speaker 4: minority there and parents are like, oh, you're not serious enough,
Speaker 4: keep going. Good job. The first thing I do is
Speaker 4: build trust that they're not going to listen to anything
Speaker 4: I say, especially if they're picking their nose or chewing
Speaker 4: their glove or rolling around tickling each other. I got
Speaker 4: to build trust with them first, so I let them know, yes,
Speaker 4: I'm a grown up, but I'm here to listen to you.
Speaker 4: I'm interested in you as a person. That's straight out
Speaker 4: of the Dusty Baker book of become a savant of people.
Speaker 4: So when you build that trust, you ask questions about
Speaker 4: these kids and they say, you know what, I love Superman. Okay,
Speaker 4: that's going to be your nickname. The nickname is the
Speaker 4: number one rule of Sandlot. And I don't pick them.
Speaker 4: I let them pick it for themselves. But that immediately
Speaker 4: builds trust. So when I do ask to these kids, hey, okay,
Speaker 4: now I need you to be quiet, shoulders back, uncomfortable,
Speaker 4: eye contact. Let me teach you how to throw. They
Speaker 4: don't hear that as anger or militant. It's this guy
Speaker 4: that they trust and they're willing to go to battle
Speaker 4: for them, So build that trust. I also think you
Speaker 4: gotta be you. You can't try and be somebody else.
Speaker 4: I don't try to be Jim Carrey. Once I figured
Speaker 4: out who I was and what my voice is, I
Speaker 4: brought that to the table. As a kid, I love
Speaker 4: drums as a kid. I love storytelling as a kid.
Speaker 4: I really responded to humor. So I bring those three
Speaker 4: to the table every practice and it works.
Speaker 2: Are you taking notes because I feel like you're trying
Speaker 2: to be Jim Carrey over, I have taken notes. I'm
Speaker 2: having fun with it. Honestly. It brings me more joy
Speaker 2: than I like to admit.
Speaker 3: Like watching these kids make progress, especially when a kid
Speaker 3: may contact for the first time and you've been working
Speaker 3: on their swaying. That's it's a lot of joy. You
Speaker 3: bring up the drum coach bawl game about the drum
Speaker 3: I saw you on. I don't know the pitchers mound
Speaker 3: at Wrigley Field. Can you tell us about the thrill
Speaker 3: of throwing out a first pitch at Wrigley Well.
Speaker 4: I'm a Cubs fan born and raised you know, grew
Speaker 4: up in North Carolina where we had no teams, so
Speaker 4: you got to pick. And most most everybody in my
Speaker 4: hometown are Braves fans. But I would come home from school,
Speaker 4: it's three o'clock in the afternoon, I'd make a big
Speaker 4: bowl of apple sauce and watch an entire Cubs game
Speaker 4: on WGN. That was my thing. So I fell in
Speaker 4: love with Andre Dawson, Ryan Samdberg, Mark Grace, lifelong Cubs fan.
Speaker 4: The opportunity came up. I was doing a sandlot in
Speaker 4: Chicago and the Cubs reached out. I got to throw
Speaker 4: out the first pitch, and I thought, you know what,
Speaker 4: I've seen Bill Murray throw out the first pitch. I've
Speaker 4: seen Eddie Vedder. Nobody's brought out a drum to the
Speaker 4: pitchers mound at Wrigley Field. Well, that's my thing. I
Speaker 4: bring it every where I go, and I get Rod
Speaker 4: Carew and King Griffey Junior and Albert Pools to sign it.
Speaker 4: So I bring it out there and I start beating
Speaker 4: on it, and Clark, the Cub who's catching the first pitch,
Speaker 4: he gets up, starts clapping, getting the crowd going. Then
Speaker 4: I get on the rubber and I throw the pitch
Speaker 4: and I thought, you know what, this might be the
Speaker 4: first and only time a drum is on this mound.
Speaker 4: I better make it count. And the guy who was
Speaker 4: singing the national anthem right before I threw the pitch,
Speaker 4: he says, aim high so I wouldn't bounce it, and
Speaker 4: thankfully it got all the way to Clark the Cub.
Speaker 4: But yeah, yeah, I thought about my grandma. She loved
Speaker 4: baseball and she's not with us anymore. But I looked
Speaker 4: up to this guy before I threw it, and I thought, man,
Speaker 4: she's watching. And it kind of calmed me down, and
Speaker 4: it gave me a you know, just a moment of perspective,
Speaker 4: but special, one of the most special days of my life.
Speaker 1: It's so cool, man, coach ball game here on over
Speaker 1: promise with Cavino and rich, millions of views and followers
Speaker 1: on social media. So appreciate your time. Got to ask you,
Speaker 1: how do you handle it when your kid stinks, your
Speaker 1: kid's just not good? As a coach and a parent,
Speaker 1: how do you handle that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think as let's start with the parent. You
Speaker 4: have to make sure that your joy as a mom
Speaker 4: or dad is detached from their results. You need to
Speaker 4: be their champion, and they can't be afraid of failure.
Speaker 4: They can't be afraid of striking out five times. I
Speaker 4: had a dad who sat behind the left field wall.
Speaker 4: He would keep score quietly. He would treat the zero
Speaker 4: for fives and the five for fives equally. So I
Speaker 4: was blessed with natural talent, one of the best players
Speaker 4: on the team, but that didn't really matter to him.
Speaker 4: He was all about character. The only time he would
Speaker 4: get upset is if I was having a bad attitude
Speaker 4: or not being a good teammate. So I had a
Speaker 4: good role model with my dad. As far as a
Speaker 4: coach goes, you're a life coach. It is your job
Speaker 4: to reel them in, teach him how to love the
Speaker 4: game so they can learn as many life lessons as possible.
Speaker 4: At no point are these little league games or these
Speaker 4: ten U travel ball games. They're not life or death.
Speaker 4: But there could be a tool that you teach these
Speaker 4: kids of how to overcome adversity, how to battle that
Speaker 4: it could become life or death down the road. They
Speaker 4: could make a bad decision, or they're about to make
Speaker 4: a bad decision, and then they go, you know what,
Speaker 4: Coach rich On my EU team. He taught me how
Speaker 4: to overcome failure. So I'm going to make a good
Speaker 4: choice right now instead of a bad one. So yeah,
Speaker 4: it's barely the sport. It's all about what kind of
Speaker 4: adult are we creating here?
Speaker 3: No doubt, you know, coach ball game. I think about
Speaker 3: when I was a kid. I feel as though I
Speaker 3: was sort of coach poorly in certain areas.
Speaker 2: Like I was told I always trying to pull the ball,
Speaker 2: and dude, our coaches were smoking cigars.
Speaker 3: I'm always smoking and listen, I feel like we're in
Speaker 3: the same you know, age bracket.
Speaker 2: Coach ball game.
Speaker 3: I feel like if you were a kid of the eighties,
Speaker 3: your coach had a pipe, he was like, yeah.
Speaker 2: Get out there, who gives a shit?
Speaker 3: And he and hey, if you're not pulling the ball,
Speaker 3: you're not getting around on the ball. Elbow up, kid,
Speaker 3: elbow up? Hey what did you what?
Speaker 2: You said? You had a coach and be like hit
Speaker 2: the green nothing in between, Like my dad used to
Speaker 2: say that. As a coach, how.
Speaker 3: Do you now, with all the knowledge we have, how
Speaker 3: do you handle if you see someone coaching your kids
Speaker 3: incorrectly or you know, someone getting bad advice?
Speaker 4: Yep, It's the same thing I do with kids. The
Speaker 4: first thing I got to do is build trust with
Speaker 4: that person. If I see a parent, they're overbearing, micromanaging,
Speaker 4: fingers are wrangled in the fence, elbow up, knees bent,
Speaker 4: don't strike out all of that stuff, I go, Oh,
Speaker 4: I got to take that guy out for coffee or
Speaker 4: or a cold milk and just listen to their story.
Speaker 4: I gotta I gotta find out why are they the
Speaker 4: way they are. Then after I've built trust with them,
Speaker 4: then I can drop the truth bomb. But I got
Speaker 4: to do it in a way they can hear it,
Speaker 4: and I gotta provide science behind it. Your kid performs
Speaker 4: really good when you're at work, but when you're here,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of looking over their shoulder wanting to
Speaker 4: impress you, and they're never gonna be able to match up.
Speaker 4: One of my best buddies growing up, he came up
Speaker 4: to me when we were seniors in high school and
Speaker 4: he's like, you know what, I don't feel clutch. I've
Speaker 4: never been clutch. I was like, what are you talking about.
Speaker 4: You're one of the best I've ever seen, But in
Speaker 4: big moments he was afraid of failure because his dad
Speaker 4: was micromanaging every moment. I love the big moment because
Speaker 4: Dad didn't care. The car ride was never miserable.
Speaker 2: So it works.
Speaker 4: Kids play better when they're feeling joy. But you can't
Speaker 4: just fight fire with fire. You got to build that
Speaker 4: trust first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but coach ball game, what if the parent is
Speaker 1: right and that coach stinks, what do you advise them
Speaker 1: to do?
Speaker 4: Yes, that does happen, and you are the superhero you've
Speaker 4: been waiting for. So raise your hand at the next
Speaker 4: practice and say, hey, you need help, and right field
Speaker 4: with that throwing and catching station, I'll be there. You
Speaker 4: need help break in the field, like, you got to
Speaker 4: become a coach, and that's why you got build trust.
Speaker 2: So there you go. That's how I actually did start
Speaker 2: coaching for the first time.
Speaker 3: My kid was like four or five playing soccer, and
Speaker 3: I felt like the coach was hungover and lazy, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, hey, let me give you a hand. The
Speaker 3: team was called the Dinosaurs coach ball game, and the
Speaker 3: coach didn't even have the instinct to be like, all right, kids,
Speaker 3: let's roar. I'm like, what the hell is this guy doing? So, yeah,
Speaker 3: sometimes you.
Speaker 4: Are the superhero. You're waiting for I've met so many guys,
Speaker 4: and a lot of them played Major League baseball. They
Speaker 4: played at a very high level, and they started coaching
Speaker 4: their kids because they were like, whoa, my kid's gonna
Speaker 4: he's gonna hate full after this. I got to do something.
Speaker 1: So jump in there if you're listening. James Lowe is here.
Speaker 1: If you're watching his coach ball game, he's got the
Speaker 1: Fedora on. And as kids have changed, kids have changed,
Speaker 1: how have coaching technique techniques advanced? Because it seems a
Speaker 1: lot more scientific. You brought up science. It seems like
Speaker 1: a lot more complex than it used to be, no.
Speaker 4: Doubt about it. Like you said, everything used to be
Speaker 4: my way or the highway and rubs the dirt on it,
Speaker 4: let's go. But everything's changed and you got to go
Speaker 4: about it a little bit differently. Now. A lot of
Speaker 4: folks see my social media and they go, well, he's
Speaker 4: just entertaining one hundred percent of the time, and the
Speaker 4: kids gravitate to that. What they don't realize until they
Speaker 4: come to my camps in person. I'm pretty firm and
Speaker 4: I have high expectations, but it's not for the talent.
Speaker 4: It's not for the skill. It's for their choices. I
Speaker 4: actually bring baseball cards, put them in my pocket, and
Speaker 4: I'll give them out to that are listening, being a
Speaker 4: good teammate, cheering, hustling, being kind, all those things. I'll
Speaker 4: do the same for parents that are being positive in
Speaker 4: the bleachers. I got to give you a car, a
Speaker 4: great mustache, and I love your positive vibe. Their dad.
Speaker 4: But you got to roll with the times, and I
Speaker 4: feel like it worked. I didn't really listen even in
Speaker 4: the eighties and nineties. I didn't hear coaches that were
Speaker 4: yelling at me. I would go fetal position and just
Speaker 4: go inward. Oh, I'm a failure, and my coach hates me. Now,
Speaker 4: all my coach was saying is, you know, throw strikes
Speaker 4: or swing at strikes. But you hear the tone and
Speaker 4: you see the body language a lot more than you
Speaker 4: actually hear the words, especially for kids. So I think
Speaker 4: I've had to be aware of my body language and
Speaker 4: hyper aware of my tone, and then this positive reinforcement thing.
Speaker 4: I started out a bad coach. I started out shaming,
Speaker 4: embarrassing out the negative right away. That's a self righteous approach.
Speaker 4: And I had to become aware enough to go, you know,
Speaker 4: what I got some narcissism in here, and I'm coaching
Speaker 4: this kid like he's the eight year old version of me.
Speaker 4: I had to take a step back, and I had
Speaker 4: a mentor named Sean Flicky who was like, hey, buddy,
Speaker 4: I love your energy. You got the energy of fifty camels.
Speaker 4: But that kid hates baseball now because of your tone,
Speaker 4: the way you're talking to them. So once that light
Speaker 4: bulb happened, I pointed out the positive. First. Maybe they
Speaker 4: weren't doing the alligator vacuum, but their feet were in
Speaker 4: a good place, so I'd say, love the feet, work,
Speaker 4: love your socks. Now let's talk about the hands. But again,
Speaker 4: the lens you have to put on is what kind
Speaker 4: of human am I creating? What kind of adult? What
Speaker 4: kind of server of this community am I creating for
Speaker 4: this kiddo? So you're not trying to create the next
Speaker 4: mic trap that that's not going to happen, but you're
Speaker 4: going to create the next father mother server of their community.
Speaker 4: So yeah, it's it's a deep dive.
Speaker 1: And that was a great answer. And I want to
Speaker 1: reward you with your choice of Don Mattingley card here Man, which, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which mustache do you want?
Speaker 2: Take your pick. I'll take Don Russ nineteen ninety.
Speaker 4: Well, you can't go wrong with nineteen ninety stash. But
Speaker 4: we're going to go down here, you know, just a
Speaker 4: little more than usual. Yeah you have food, man, but no,
Speaker 4: the mustache. You're speaking my love language. Now. I've written
Speaker 4: songs about Wade Bogs and Don Mattingley's mustache. Yeah, hey,
Speaker 4: coach ball games.
Speaker 2: Weird not to get a dirty on the show.
Speaker 3: But we used to say, if you were, you know,
Speaker 3: with a woman for the first time, and let's say
Speaker 3: you didn't want things to go too fast, think of
Speaker 3: one of those mustaches.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there you go. Keep you a game works.
Speaker 2: We called it the Don Mattingly Stall mustache stall.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the mustache. The find thing is it might work
Speaker 4: differently for me because I just love the love the
Speaker 4: stash and my dad had like a Sam Elliott in Tombstone,
Speaker 4: and I have such high regard for him that man.
Speaker 4: Just uh, I'm glad to see the mustache coming back.
Speaker 4: Paul Skins, thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Skins with the mustache and Livy Dunn as his girlfriend
Speaker 3: might work to the mustache's advantage. You might see more mustaches.
Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure. I saw Randy Johnson strike a guy
Speaker 4: out with his mustache and pick a guy off second
Speaker 4: base with his mullet at the same time. It happened
Speaker 4: coach ball game.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm glad to hear how much fun he
Speaker 3: brings to the game, Like when I feel like sometimes
Speaker 3: I second guess, am I doing too much? Like if
Speaker 3: a kid gets a hit, I'll run it on first base, like, hey,
Speaker 3: wait to go, buddy.
Speaker 2: In a little fist bump. I guess it's not too
Speaker 2: much bribery.
Speaker 3: I'm glad I heard coach ball game talk about, hey,
Speaker 3: here is a baseball card, because I have a current
Speaker 3: thing going on with my T ball team. If they
Speaker 3: get five outs in a game, not three in an inning,
Speaker 3: five in a game, I'm taking them out for ice cream.
Speaker 2: Nice. And someone's like, is that bribery?
Speaker 3: And I'm like, I don't think, so, get some focus,
Speaker 3: maybe right something I'll look forward to.
Speaker 4: Well, you can call it whatever you want to.
Speaker 5: Maybe it is, maybe it is bribery, but I just
Speaker 5: I highly recommend try to keep the game balls or
Speaker 5: the briberies to choices.
Speaker 4: When you start awarding Benny the Jet Rodriguez for talent, well,
Speaker 4: then Smalls is like, well, I might as well quit.
Speaker 4: I'm done here. But what I love about the movie
Speaker 4: the Sandlot, and I think it's why the movie stands
Speaker 4: the test of time. And I talked to the writer
Speaker 4: director about this, the dynamic between Benny the Jet and Smalls.
Speaker 4: Benny embraced him, taught him how to catch the ball.
Speaker 4: So I'm giving Benny the Jet an award at the
Speaker 4: end of the game or a baseball card or a
Speaker 4: hug nice because of the choices. Same with Smalls, the toughness, improvement,
Speaker 4: all the good choices he's making. That's why they're gonna
Speaker 4: get the awards. So yeah, I think that's when toxicity
Speaker 4: seeps into youth sports, when we're so focused on winning
Speaker 4: and talent and we lose sight of the most important things.
Speaker 2: Coach ball game with Kavin un Rich.
Speaker 3: I love the involvement that you have with Major League
Speaker 3: Baseball and the impact some of these star players can make.
Speaker 3: Like I just recently, I'll give you a quick personal story.
Speaker 3: My daughter has been struggling a little bit eight U
Speaker 3: softball and I posted a little video she was talking
Speaker 3: about she loves softball and she's struggling a little bit.
Speaker 3: Jenny Finch reached out, and the fact that Jenny Finch
Speaker 3: gave my daughter a little message meant the world to her.
Speaker 3: And I see you work with Bobby Witt Junior, one
Speaker 3: of your heroes, Kavino, He's hanging out with Jeets.
Speaker 2: I was so jealous. I know, amazing, so cool.
Speaker 3: I mean, do these players I'm guessing they do, but
Speaker 3: they've had a long journey to the bigs. Do they
Speaker 3: understand the they have on these kids?
Speaker 4: One hundred percent? Let's start with Jenny Finch. I work
Speaker 4: alongside her for many of the NLB events that we do,
Speaker 4: the All Star Game, the World Series, and she gets it.
Speaker 4: She gets it. I mean, she's nobody's ever going to
Speaker 4: match up to her level of talent, but she's actually
Speaker 4: in the business of creating good humans and she really
Speaker 4: thrives on changing these lives for the better. So it
Speaker 4: doesn't surprise me that Jenny Finch did that. Derek Jeter, Wow.
Speaker 4: So I mean at this point, I've met my heroes
Speaker 4: and I've interviewed a lot of studs. I mean, this
Speaker 4: guitar behind me, it's signed by Albert Poohols, It's got him,
Speaker 4: and you know big Bird on there I've got baseballs
Speaker 4: for Ozzie Smith and Andre Dawson, but getting to meet
Speaker 4: Derek Jeter, one of the best of all time. None
Speaker 4: of the kids knew who he was, all the parents
Speaker 4: knew who he was, and to see him, no phone,
Speaker 4: no entourage, just hand in hand with his two daughters,
Speaker 4: and he was incredibly present with these kids. I was like,
Speaker 4: top shelf player, top shelf individual. He's high fiving, he's
Speaker 4: into it. There was no when can we get out
Speaker 4: of here? Looking at his watch. I mean, he was
Speaker 4: so great and he was communicating amazing life lessons to
Speaker 4: these kids. I meet a lot of great players, it's
Speaker 4: tough to find a great major leaguer that can also
Speaker 4: engage and communicate with kids. He was a natural savant
Speaker 4: at it. And his foundation they've been going for thirty
Speaker 4: years and he really you can tell his parents did
Speaker 4: it right, and he's he's way up there. You know,
Speaker 4: maybe the top name on my congo drome.
Speaker 1: How about that, Adam Boy and doctor Jeter raising a
Speaker 1: good kid. And it's so cool to see you working
Speaker 1: with these pros and super stars and all these kids.
Speaker 2: It's so cool to see even the Savannah bananas.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I love the videos man, and I do
Speaker 1: have one last question, because we have a lot of
Speaker 1: parents listening and watching over Promise that are into you.
Speaker 1: What sort of advice do you give the parents that
Speaker 1: can't afford coaches and clinics and camps and things like that,
Speaker 1: because you don't want your kid to fall behind.
Speaker 2: How do you balance that?
Speaker 4: I think people think, well, I got to have the
Speaker 4: most expensive bat glove, you got to have a real
Speaker 4: baseball field, foul lines, all that stuff.
Speaker 2: No you don't.
Speaker 4: You really just need a lemon and a stick. I
Speaker 4: talk about Roberto Clemente. He grew up using a lemon
Speaker 4: for a ball, a stick for a bat, trash for bases.
Speaker 4: If you go down to the Dominican Republic right now,
Speaker 4: you're going to see kids with no shoes, no coaches,
Speaker 4: no parents, sharing some sort of stick and using an
Speaker 4: old rag ball, and they're playing at an elite level.
Speaker 4: So find whatever you can. Maybe that's a tennis racket
Speaker 4: for a baseball, maybe that's a volleyball instead of a
Speaker 4: real baseball, but just get them playing.
Speaker 6: And as long as you can wrangle the kids and
Speaker 6: be somewhat of a good pe teacher, you can have
Speaker 6: a herd of kids have their friends come over to
Speaker 6: a local park, drop those bases down and play some
Speaker 6: fun version of baseball.
Speaker 4: I think that's it. That's free. You don't need that
Speaker 4: private lesson or anything like that. So yeah, it's hard
Speaker 4: to believe what I do is novel that you just
Speaker 4: find something to hit. I find a stick and go play.
Speaker 4: But it has to become novels. So that's why I
Speaker 4: go from city to city so people can see it
Speaker 4: and go, oh, so that does exist.
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
Speaker 3: Coach Ball Game, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3: Where can people find your stuff? Because I know you
Speaker 3: do clinics. I know I gotta get myself. I got
Speaker 3: to buy one of those at a boy out of
Speaker 3: coach t shirts.
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, absolutely at coach Ballgame on thesocials and Coachballgame
Speaker 4: dot com is where you can sign up for any
Speaker 4: of my camps. I've got an online coaching course where
Speaker 4: you can watch lots of videos and skill like how
Speaker 4: do you teach a kid how to how to cover
Speaker 4: second base or how to hit it to the opposite field?
Speaker 4: All those questions are answered. And then I got a
Speaker 4: book coming out in a few weeks. I spent five
Speaker 4: years writing my story of my coaching pillars and how
Speaker 4: I got there. And there's a lot of name drops
Speaker 4: that I've already dropped today. And and you know, like
Speaker 4: a Derek Jeter, he taught me how to be present.
Speaker 4: So yeah, at coach ballgame, all the good stuff.
Speaker 3: One last random question, how do I get a How
Speaker 3: do I get the kids to hustle in the game
Speaker 3: like they do in practice or in their own house?
Speaker 4: Oh? Are you talking about my own?
Speaker 3: Like Mike, Like, my son will run around the neighborhood
Speaker 3: like he's been in the jet Rodriguez and then he
Speaker 3: runs the first base and he like to skip at
Speaker 3: the first base like he doesn't even give a shit.
Speaker 4: So this is a whole chapter in my book of
Speaker 4: how to coach your own son or daughter and basically
Speaker 4: hand them off to an assistant coach, Like go up
Speaker 4: to one of the assistant coaches or you're you know,
Speaker 4: maybe their uncle, somebody you know they really look up to,
Speaker 4: and say, hey, can you just somehow get this kid
Speaker 4: to hustle because you know, there's there's too much baggage
Speaker 4: with me and with me being dad. So with my daughters,
Speaker 4: I find that dance teacher or that coach, and I say, hey,
Speaker 4: probably not going to hear me when I say it,
Speaker 4: but they'll definitely hear you.
Speaker 2: So that's good advice.
Speaker 4: I have the the passed off as we call it,
Speaker 4: passed that one off.
Speaker 3: James, Thanks for your time, man, appreciate A big fan
Speaker 3: of what you do. I'm I'm glad we got to connect.
Speaker 4: Thank you, had it happened. I'll be listening.
Speaker 1: Perfect, Thank you, my friend, James Low coach ball game.
Speaker 1: And that's episode eighty seven, bro, perfect Bob. We'll see
Speaker 1: you guys next time.
Speaker 2: All read it. There you babe, you in the over
Speaker 2: Promised Land. Goodbye,