EP83 – Why We Actually Miss Baseball and What To Do About It

Baseball season arrived, then quit on us. But, this is a bigger heartbreak and a more confusing time than some parents may realize. Identity as an athlete is tricky, and in today’s episode we dive into why so many ballplayers are struggling, how identity as athletes comes into play, how to identify work ethic, and what to do going forward.

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Full Transcript: Dear Baseball Gods EP83

You’re listening to the Dear Baseball Gods podcast. I’m Dan Blewett, and on this show you’ll learn advanced concepts in baseball. Explain simply, I’m here to guide you on your baseball journey and help you paddle through what’s now an ocean of misinformation guru wisdom, an overly technical diamond babble.

in today’s episode of dear baseball gods, the, uh, first episode back as I revive this podcast, we’re going to talk about why we need baseball. And specifically why athletes need it and how they might be feeling. Cause I know a lot of parents, more so than athletes are gonna be listening to this. And especially if you haven’t played, and especially if you haven’t been injured and especially if you haven’t retired, then you probably don’t have quite that perspective except for the, the obvious fact that your son is maybe a little sad and a little disappointed and a little not sure what he is doing with his time right now.

So I still remember the day when I woke up and I think my first thought was what my teammates were doing, and then I put my feet on the ground and I stopped. And then I walked into my kitchen and I reached up for my big jug of protein and was going to make a protein shake, and then I stopped. And then a few minutes later as I got dressed, I kind of rude around in my underwear drawer for my compression shorts and then I stopped.

And that was the first day of the rest of my life. That was the day after I uttered the words that I was retiring and yeah, it was the first day that I didn’t know what I was doing. I woke up and my routines didn’t make sense. My rituals didn’t make sense. Why would I make her protein shake? I’m not going to go work out.

Why would I get my compression shorts out? I’m not going to go work out. Um, what are my teammates doing? I’m not allowed to go be with them. It’s a really confusing time and it comes for every athlete and it’s something that your kids right now, and for those of you who are kids listening to this who are still playing the game.

You’re experiencing this and you don’t know what to do and why you get out of bed and the routine that we all have in our lives and everyone has a routine. Everyone wakes up and they brush their teeth hopefully, and they, they make their breakfast or don’t, I don’t really eat breakfast myself, but we all have these routines, but as athletes, especially, they’re, they’re rooted in who we are.

They’re a big part of our identity. And when that’s not there, whether it’s the off season or whether it’s this unplanned off season, it’s really confusing. It’s really hard to get back on track. It’s hard to know why you’re doing the things that you’re doing with your day and. It’s weird because the perspective sometimes gets lost because everyone else who was never an athlete, they don’t feel this.

They’ve always just gone about their business and life doesn’t seem that hard. Obviously. Life is hard for everyone, even when it’s not. This is probably the easiest period in time to have ever been alive as a human being. Uh, but. We all have these routines and it seems so easy to be a normal person. And it seems also on the other hand, to be so easy to be this cherished athlete, uh, getting to go gracefully, do athletic things on the field and you know, have a onlookers fall after you and be revered for your, your ability and your athletic prowess.

And it’s, it’s weird how complicated life can be when that’s no longer there. And so for a lot of young athletes, especially, this is the first time if they’ve never been injured, that they’re sitting out and their routines don’t make sense to them, and a large way, a large portion of their identity, the way they see themselves, and they all see themselves as baseball players.

They all see themselves as future college baseball players and future major leaguers. They all don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t know who they are at this moment and they know baseball is going to come back, but they also, they also don’t, they don’t know when, and there’s no easy solution to how they continue to feel normal and act normal when this major hole in who they are is present.

It’s like walking around with that Elim and there’s a genuine. State of grief that all of his athletes go through when we especially hang up our cleats for good and it’s tough to make sense of and everyone right now is getting a little early dose of that. And it’s hard, I think as parents, if you never play this sport before, to really have a firm perspective.

Now everyone goes through life transitions. Everyone you know was a husband or a wife and then a divorce comes along and you’re no longer that, or you’re a son and then your parents pass away and your low longer, um, the son to your mother or your father. In the same way that you were, um, you know, you were an executive and then you got laid off.

You know, you were a lawyer and now you’re not. You were a mother and now your kids are, have left the nest. All these, everyone goes through their own transitions and so everyone has some way to empathize and understand what’s going on. But a lot of us miss baseball because they want to be, we want to be entertained, right?

We want to watch it on TV when we want to talk about it, we want to tweet about it. We want to drink a beer while watching it. We want to go out to the ballpark and watch our kids play it. But that’s the much lesser portion as far as what’s going to happen going forward. I mean, a lot of these kids right now, they just don’t understand why they feel the way they feel and why they miss baseball so much and it’s there.

Again, it’s their first time realizing how tied into their identity that it is. And there’s no good way to ever really take that litmus test and say, Hmm, how important to my character in my, in my self worth and my identity as a whole is this sport that I play. There’s no way to really dive into that until it’s taken away.

And for me, the first time was when I was injured, you know, the first time I sat out with an elbow injury, and then the second time out. After a sec, after an elbow surgery and then my other elbow surgery, I had major periods of time where I was away from the game and it was very, very strange, very unsettling.

A just a blue state of being. And then when you hang up your cleats for real, for me, after two plus decades, there’s just a long period of grief that you go through and everyone right now is going through that in some little dose again, many for the first time. And so. There’s nothing to do about it, except I think empathize, and I’m sure most of you have already been doing plenty of that and trying to keep your kids busy kids trying to find something to be busy playing video games and just waiting for the time that it, that it comes.

And then baseball, we’ll be back. We don’t know in what capacity this summer, but it will be back. And so I’ve gotten a lot of questions from parents. And when I say a lot of questions, I mean a handful of questions. This is one of those, the sort of douchey things online instructors say, I get a lot of questions about this.

I get asked this all the time. I’ve gotten a handful of questions about what should my kid be doing. What should we be doing to keep him on track? And I had a, I wouldn’t say it was a critical comment towards one of them recently, but it was a very Frank discussion because a parent messaged me and they said, you know, my son, he’s a sophomore in high school.

He’s a pitcher and an outfielder. And. Um, he hasn’t really done much since, uh, the coronavirus hit. And, uh, we’re just trying to figure out, you know, he’s thrown a little bit, but like, what should we be doing? And my answer was pretty, um, I guess you could say classic, classic me if you know me, but it was to the point, it wasn’t high.

It wasn’t low. It wasn’t, it wasn’t a mean. It wasn’t soft. It was. Your kid should have been doing baseball stuff this whole time, this entire time he should have been doing baseball stuff. What were you waiting for and what were you doing and what was he thinking? And does he even really love the game?

That was, that was my, essentially my response and I said, this is a, this is a time for you both to look really hard in the mirror and say, do you actually care enough to play college baseball? Is that really a goal of yours? Cause it doesn’t sound like it is. That was essentially my response. And so that can be hard to hear.

But there are lots and lots of kids that I worked with over the years who I don’t even have to ask them what they’ve been doing this whole time because I know for a fact that from the very beginning they were wandering outside and throwing a tennis ball against the wall. Then they were going to go hit, they’re going to jury rig some sort of thing to hit in their backyard for another hour, and then they were going to go.

Throw a ball and just like walk after it for a while. And if they didn’t have a partner, they would find something to do. And those are the kinds of athletes that make it wherever making it means. And it means something different for everybody. But for all of you out there who have a kid like that, you’ve I’m sure watched him do these same things this entire time.

And there was never a question of what he should do. The only questions that you probably had were. How many days a week should he be throwing a bullpen or how many days a week should he be doing this or what exercises specifically are probably best for him during this time? Those are the, those are the questions to ask cause those are hard.

Working out in your home is hard. Working out without equipment especially is hard. Um, you know, finding ways to throw in and not knowing when the season is going to come, how to keep your arm in shape as a pitcher. Those are hard questions. The easy questions are. What should I be doing? The things you should be doing or the things kids were doing back in the fifties they’re wandering out of the house for five hours in a row and going and doing baseball things, and that’s what all the best players in the country were doing this whole time.

Without a doubt, they’ve all, all the best players have been doing that this whole time because they sat at home feeling a hole in their, in their hearts. That they couldn’t go out and play baseball, that their identity, again, they hadn’t, they probably never ascribed that term to it, but who they are is a baseball player and when they’re in this house by themselves, they’re not a baseball player.

And so they wander out of the house and they find a tennis ball and they Chuck it against a brick wall or the side of their own house for an hour like I did as a kid like you did as a kid, like Bob Gibson did as a kid, like Mickey mantle did as a kid. And so now’s a good time for you as a parent, for you as a player to look in the mirror and ask yourself what you did during this downtime.

And it’s not to be, it’s not to have the finger pointed at you, it’s to really just ask yourself, is this a big piece of who you are? And if it is wonderful, if it’s not, that’s okay too. No one says you have to be a world-class baseball player. No one says you have to be any sort of thing. You can be anything that you want to be, but you should know where your effort lies, where your passion lies.

And. Who you really are at the end of the night. Cause some of you are ballplayers and you can never take that uniform off even when you retire. And some of you parents out there are parents of ballplayers and you probably already know that. And some of you are the parents of kids that like to play baseball.

And there’s a very big difference. And again, it’s not one’s better than the other because many of your kids who like playing baseball will go on to become doctors or lawyers or speakers or teachers and be fabulous members of society, but they won’t be ballplayers in the same way as others will. And that’s completely okay.

But this is a good time to just do an inventory check as to what kind of kid you have. And again, it’s not a moral judgment. It’s not a good or bad judgment. It has nothing of the sort like that. It’s just where is this thing going? Because if your kids sat at home for a good portion of the last three months.

Then he’s probably not a ballplayer in the sense that he’s going to grind it out when baseball gets really, really hard and it gets really, really hard. And if you don’t believe me, um, dig back through this podcast, there’s 80 episodes to this point, and a lot of them are stories about, about it being really hard.

And there’s also my book, which is basically just one long story about how hard it is. Um. And I think it’s just a good idea for you as a parent to just sit back and understand like, okay, this is how bad my son wants to be a ballplayer. And it’s a good time to think, okay, when it comes time to paying for college or you know, shelling out money for that $500 bat or for this $2,000 tournament, I’m going to remember this time and the effort that was put in when.

It was really just up to him to say, Hey dad, Hey mom, can you go hit me fly balls. Can you go hit me ground balls? Can you play catch with me? Can you drive me to the field real quick? Even though it’s illegal? Can you, can I go walk to the park even though it’s three miles, but I don’t have anything else to do and I want to go?

No. Hit balls off a fence. Those are the things that I think are marking who’s a ballplayer and who’s not, and it can also be a great time to say, okay. This is my wake up call. It’s time to work harder. And that’s a good thing too. Cause we all have those moments. I had one in college and uh, and those are valuable in their own right.

So that was my speech for today on why we miss baseball and who we are as athletes and why this has been so hard for so many of us.

Okay, so today’s 92nd mindset is, again, for players, and this is. An extension of our talk today, but also quite different. So who you are as a player, who are you? Who are you as a player. Many of you don’t know this, many of you, it will take you 20 years to really, really deeply know this, but the earlier you start asking yourself this question, the better, and this is why I’m so adamant about players calling their own game and being allowed to make mistakes in games because ultimately the wins and losses, they matter in the sense that being competitive is incredibly important in sports.

You have to have the ability to compete until the last out and really want to win. But players also have to be put in position in positions to be out competed and be in positions where they have to compete just to save face and not be embarrassed. And this is when, this is why playing really good teams is important.

Um, but also pull it in a position where they are going to fail and figure out what they can and cannot do. And a really good example of this is watching major league players. Where does a player hit in the lineup? Where do they play on the field? What does their body look like? Where does their speed play?

Where does it not play? What are the different qualities of a third baseman versus a shortstop of a shortstop versus a second basement of a right fielder versus a centerfielder? They’re very, very different, and baseball is a game that’s in many ways naturally selected for. As far as different positions.

You can’t be a third baseman in the big leagues unless you’re a pretty big dude and have some pretty big pop in your bat and have a pretty big arm thrown across the diamond. So second basement or not third basement and third baseman can’t play second base because they don’t have the range. They don’t have the hands.

They don’t have those premium defensive tools perhaps that. Second basement half. And I know there’s examples like Nolan, Aaron auto, who the dude’s just a fabulous infielder in my where where you put him. Um, but in general, these, um, these archetypes of what a third basement, what a catcher, what a pitcher, what a shortstop.

It looks like they’re pretty consistent. Much more so in the infield now field than they are at pitcher and catcher. If you throw 95 you can be tall or short, skinny or fat, whatever, and you can be a pitcher. But that’s not the case for shortstop. It’s not the case for a center fielder. So that the golden rule of pretty much everything in life is to figure out what you’re good at and go do it.

Go get to the business of doing it. And many players who are small and under size and fast. They think they can be power hitters and they can, and they waste a lot of good years and a lot of good months and a lot of good weeks. Trying to be power hitters when they really should be focused on hitting line drives and learning how to get good jumps and steal and steal second base and taking so many ground balls at their $200 Mitt wears out in a year.

You know, players need to figure out who they are, and the faster they can do that, the better. Uh, as pitchers, you get breadcrumbs. For me one year I got 10 straight outs by way of fly ball. I could not get a ground ball during different periods of my career where I started to realize, Hmm, maybe there’s something different about me.

And the way my fastball flew and maybe pitching up in the zone was good for me. Even though your whole life, you’re taught as a pitcher to pitch down the zone, which is also a good thing for the vast majority of players. And by me following those breadcrumbs and saying. Maybe this is who I am. Let’s test it.

Let’s go with it. Let’s embrace it. It gave me a chance to really succeed and that was the reason I was the best version of myself. Even after two Tommy John surgeries, even as a, as a broken down 29 30 year old, because. I started listening to who I was and really asking questions of myself and others about who I was as a pitcher.

And I don’t think enough players are introspective and self-aware like that, where they want to know, they don’t want to know that they’re not a power hitter. They don’t want to know that they can’t really steal basis. They don’t want to know. They’re not really a shortstop. They want to dream and they don’t want that dream to die except by losing their Jersey on their back because now they can’t play the next level.

Where is there if they had. They’d accepted that reality earlier. Maybe they could’ve gotten that Jersey back and continued playing. Oh, if only is a second basement, or if only is a right field or not a center fielder, the game will tell you where you belong. If you listen hard enough. Alright, now it’s time for our listener Q and a portion of the show questions from the pious.

Pious means to be devoutly faithful. And if you’re devout to the game of baseball, then you’re exactly the kind of person I want to hear from. If you have a question you’d like answered on the show, please email a voice recording to hello@danblewett.com AU.

All right, let’s, uh, let’s get our first question out here. This one is from Beth in Illinois. Thank you, Beth. Hi, this is Beth from Bloomington, Illinois. And my question is, how important are college camps or showcases in a baseball player’s recruiting process? So yeah, college baseball recruiting can be a really complex thing.

And in general, here’s my quick advice. Number one, college individual college camps. So say. You know, university of Massachusetts, university of Connecticut, university of Maryland, university of Illinois, they’re offering their own individual camp. Come to university of Illinois camp. It’s, you know, $95 or whatever.

They’re often much cheaper than a big showcase. Combine like prep, baseball report type of camp, or perfect game type of camp. Um, these individual college camps have two main purposes. Number one, to tell that college that I’m interested in, you. This is like asking the pretty girl out to dance. So if you want to dance with her, go up and tell her.

If you want to go to university of Illinois, go to their camp. You be able to interact with their coaches better. You’ll be up in front of them. There’ll be to get a longer look at you, you’ll be able to see other players at the camp. So that’s number one. Number two is the last, uh, last little fragment of that last explanation.

So when you go to these camps, they’re, again, they’re often cheaper and they’re often from kids within an hour or two of that school. So you’re going to get a good idea of how your son fits in compared to other kids in the area. So if you’re not sure if your kid is good enough to play at the university of st Louis or the university of Chicago or whatever.

Send them to the university of Chicago’s camp and see how he stacks up, watch, stay for the combine, watch the other kids, see how good he actually is, and be as objective as you can. You’ll usually get some kind of evaluation. It’s usually not super intensive because they just don’t have a ton of time to write out really long evaluations, and they’ve only seen your kid for an hour, you know, doing a couple of things.

Uh, but it’s a really good test for. Your son to get his feet wet, to compare himself to other players, and also being a mixer with other players of different ages and ability levels. So you’ll see kids that were 1314 years old at these camps and 17 year olds, these camps. And so you’ll say, wow, that kid’s pretty big and strong, and he’s also a shortstop.

Maybe I need to get in the weight room. So those can be really good. Um, emotional kick in the pants for players to work a little harder and say, wow, maybe I’m not as good as I thought I was. The last thing is to also just like visit the campus and interact with coaches and be less intimidated by them.

If you’ve never seen a college coach in the flesh, they are like these scary ghosts. Like who are these people? But when you go to a camp, you realize that there are people just like you. They’re like. Cool guys, kind of. Sometimes, sometimes they’re not cool, but usually they’re pretty cool and they’ll talk to you and they’re just like pal around and they’re like, Oh, they’re not so scary.

This isn’t a big deal. And they start to, you know, start to learn to interact. And it’s kind of like getting like that coaching for, you know, when they coach athletes and celebrities about how to deal with the press, something like that. So that’s another tertiary benefit. Um, so those are the main reasons you would go to a specific colleges camp because you’re only really going to see it get seen by that college.

And it’s a good chance for you to say, I’m interested in this school specifically, so let me show who I am and get to know you as coaches a little bit. And that’s a good thing. So obviously you can’t go to every school’s camp, so go to a couple of different levels and go to ones you’re really interested in.

And I would say, wait until, I’d say go to one. When you’re a little bit younger just to get your feet wet like we discussed, cause they’re cheaper and they’re a good learning experience. And then when you get a little older, like 1617 where you’re actually potentially recruitable. Then those can actually be very good recruiting tools where if you’re good enough to play at university of Illinois and you go to their camp, they’re going to be like, Hey, look at this kid.

Let’s, you know, they’ll chat with you after. Um, it depends on like the recruiting rules and all that stuff, the time of year. Um, but you’ll put yourself on their radar if you’re good enough to play there. So it’s a great chance to be in front of a school like that. The other ones, the big combines, the showcases is something like a prep baseball report or perfect game or whatever your local one’s called.

Those are ones where you know, you’ll get a profile on their website and you know, maybe like 250 or 300 bucks, maybe a little more depending. And then your profile will have your numbers. And then depending on the recruiting age, which is probably 16 or 17 a, you. There will be Scouts there actually watching if it’s 15 you know, freshmen age players, there’s probably not gonna be many Scouts they’re attending.

They’ll just be really from worth like a profile type thing, just to get your numbers, get some video, and put it on the website. So really if you’re, if you’re cost conscious, which I think you should be, because if you really say like, Hey, I want to go play. You know what, a school across the country, it’s going to cost a lot of money to go to that school’s camp to fly over there, dry there, drive there, stay in a hotel, pay for the camp, et cetera.

You might have to make those choices later on their recruiting process in June, you know, junior year, senior year, something like that. So you want to keep some of your cash reserved for when that day comes. If your kid’s like, Hey, I know I’m from the Midwest, but I really want to go to the university of San Francisco.

Can we go out to university in San Francisco and can I go to their camp mom and dad? And you’re like, okay, that’s going to cost us. A grand. Um, you want to have a pretty good idea that your son’s potentially good enough to play there, but also you want to leave some money left over to maybe do that, if that’s really important to them.

Like, I really want to go to this school, so find a way to, to make it happen if you can. But if you’re always going to use $300 showcases left and right, and all these younger years, you might. Be out of your budget by that, by that point. So be conscious there. So it really doesn’t make sense to go to a lot of 15 year.

So freshman year showcase camps because they’re just not going to sign you there. They’re going to say, okay, there’s your profile. A college might be there and say, okay, we’ll come back and watch you in a year. But the reality is that you’re not going to get pretty much anything out of it. Sophomore year, if you’re a premium player, like the best player on your, on your team, um, your varsity players a sophomore and you’re pretty darn good, then sophomore year is probably the time to start going to some of these recruiting, uh, camps.

Just a handful of them. Just get yourself a profile, start to like get your name out there, get in front of some schools. That’ll be a good thing because players do start getting signed by the, by the D one schools after their sophomore year. So. Then the junior year is really the key. So this is again, if you’re going to say, I’m only going to spend X amount of dollars and I want to get the most bang for my buck, it’s your junior year.

So the winter before your junior year, your junior season starts, go to some camps, get yourself seen. So then local schools can come watch you in that high school season, and then definitely watch you that summer season. You want to be on radar for your junior summer for sure. So if you’re going to spend most of your payload.

I would do it in their junior year before the season starts. So that’s a the best time to go those big showcases because by that time, most players have started to mature a little more. They’re starting to put some meat on their bones. If your kid’s 150 pounds as a sophomore, he’s just not going to get recruited by anybody.

That’s just, I mean, that’s just the way it is. So if you want to go spend 300 bucks and get them a recruiting profile. Okay. But you pretty much just threw that money in the trash. If your kid then is 185 pounds the next year, or even 175 pounds, that money’s going to be much better spent because they can see the cake is actually starting to look baked rather than just this big blob of dough still sitting in a warm oven.

So make sure, if you’re going to let me, let me summarize my, my advice here. Go to individual college camps. When your kids young so he can see what it’s like, so he can start to interact with coaches, realize they’re not scary, and just start to get his feet wet. They’re not as expensive. It’s a good experience.

If you really are really interested in, in a specific school, when you’re a sophomore, junior, senior, go to their camp again, get in front of them. Tell them that you would love to be a part of their program. Show them that you’re enthusiastic. It makes the recruiting process easy. Like, Hey, this kid wants to play here.

Do we want him to play here? Yup. Okay. Well, it’s a fit. You know, it’s a go. And then with the big co, the big showcases, those are the chances to cast that wider net. But you only want to cast that wider net when you’re a fish worth catching. So save your dollars until you’re a pretty darn good sophomore or you’re just a junior.

Cause junior year is the time where you need to start showing yourself. And if you’re a junior and you’re just still a tiny run of the litter type player, which many of you still are, then maybe save it until the, the, the fall and winter before your senior year. That’s okay too. Again, if you’re just really not.

Built like a D one ballplayer, yet there’s not a good reason to go spend money on trying to say that, Hey, I’m a college baseball player. I didn’t mean really just, do you want him to just college baseball player in general. So if you’re still 145 pound, um, college junior or a high school junior. Save your money until you’re 165 pounds sr and go beat the pavement in the, in the fall and winter of your senior year, because now you’re fully baked again.

You need to be a fish worth catching or a fully baked cake for the recruiting process to really even matter. Because again, if you’re not there yet, physically, they’re just going to wait until next time. And so, uh, we’re just some last 30 seconds. Here is just quick parameters. If you’re not above 80 miles per hour as a pitcher.

I’d say don’t bother. I’d say wait until you’re at or around that 80 mile per hour Mark to start going to camps. If you’re a hitter and you can’t run a seven three 60 and you’re not at least 165 pounds, don’t bother because you’re just not going to look anywhere near physical, physical enough to do the job, and chances are if you can run a seven three or better than you also got some arm strength and some bat speed.

It’s a pretty good overall lettuce as a measure. By no means the only standard. But um, I like using objective measurements less for position players because how fast you can swing the bat. Like your exit speed is fine, but it’s not to say that you can actually hit, because at the end of the day, the schools will have to come back and see you play baseball.

So. That’s why you need to say, am I one of the best players on my team and in my area? If the answer is yes, that means you’re hitting the ball. You’re getting singles, doubles, triples, home runs, you’re hitting, you’re hitting your face off, and you’re a dominant pitcher. Then you have a chance. Otherwise you need to keep working, put more of your money into training and wait and wait and wait on the recruiting process until you’re a fish worth catching.