SWING HARD #271 - BASEBALL AND 9-11

0:00It's time to swing hard with Coach Diny Barrett. Diny has recruited and coached some of the top athletes from around the world. During that time, Diny created the nationally renowned travel baseball program called Batters, which prepares young players to succeed at the high school and professional levels. In this podcast, Diny talks to coaches, comedians, actors, scouts, and Hollywood elites about sports, relationships, and life. Now here's Diny Barrett. Good to see you. What podcast is this? We are 271. Damn, man. Yeah. You know, we've been going along. We've been going for a while, man. That's kind of cool. I want to say three, four years. God, I love it. You know what? And that's all that matters. I swear to God, sports to me. I met a friend. His name is Rob Michaels, whatever you want to call him. Is Rob Michaels?

1:00I met a friend. Yeah, he's the producer. Yeah, we did this podcast, but sports is what brought us together. And the baseball, the baseball, and I was thinking, man, what a great segue into the 25-year reunion of 9-11. Would you agree? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know what baseball, we'll talk about this here. Well, it was a big thing that actually made me feel like the country was in unity. And I'll give you a specific. This is not political at all. But when Bush jumped out on the mound through the first pitch of the Yankees game, and I'm a Yankees hater, I'm like, OK, this is serious, but we got our **** together and we're putting this together as Americans should be. That was the breaking point for me to feel like that we had, we were going to be OK. I don't know if you saw that. I did. Well, I did. And I, you know, you see things, you know, at the time, I don't know anything. I know I'm a college baseball coach. I know I'm this. I know I got three small kids, you know, two, five and eight.

2:01I mean, everything is. And then you can look back and then review me and go, whoa, now I realize how important baseball was at the time of the tragedy, especially in New York, New York, which is a closest to it. Absolutely. They talk about Shay Stadium because they cut baseball down. They cut, I mean, they stopped because baseball's, remember, this September and it's the end. October's coming up. The World Series and stuff's coming up. The playoffs. And they, they took a break because of this disaster, this tragic disaster. And when they came back, yeah, the Yankees, you could see the crowd. You could see, I can remember Bush, someone that first pitch. I remember Geter in the story told, told Bush, you better throw a strike. You can't do the, these men are dependent on you. Yeah, exactly right. And then I remember, I do remember, if you remember Shay Stadium, Mike Piazza hit a home run. And it was just, it was the first, when they first got back and it was, man, it felt like

3:01it was a moment of hope and healing. And I'm taking that, I'm, I'm, I'm, when he taken from somebody else, I saw it, but I like the word hope and healing. I do. And I'll always remember where I was and I don't mean this in a sad way. And what I was doing as we should, we should tell me, I'm here. I just moved to LA. I'd been there less than a year, but I'd moved from Houston, Texas, long story short, I was doing a morning show and radio. So in the show split apart for good reasons. I moved to LA and the other person moved to New York and my partner. Yeah, yeah. She had been there six months. I'd been in LA maybe six months. And I get a call at 5.45 in the morning or 5.30 from her. I'm like, oh my God, what is she doing? Maybe she's a long later needs to talk or whatever. And she was telling me, say, hey, are you watching this on TV? And of course, I wasn't. I was still in bed. And she was on the Hudson River on the New Jersey side. Wow. She was working in one of the buildings that was near the target.

4:02Z100 was the radio station she was working at. And she was on the air at 10 o'clock. Wow. She was headed that way from New Jersey into New York and couldn't make it because they had it all blocked at that point. She says, man, I'm scared to death. I'm new to this city. I don't know what's going on and talk me through it. And we watched it for hours. Yeah. Finally, I had to go into my radio station in Los Angeles. And this is where the story ends here is our building got shut down because rumor has ended. There was so many nasty rumors going at that point that our building was one of the targets because it was one of the higher buildings in LA is 5900 Wilshire, which if anybody knows that building, it's very high. I do. Yes. The Bank of America building, that building, we're one of the targets. So we were closed down. We signed a cast CNN for days and the rest is history after that. Wow. That's my story. It's crazy. Yeah. So the point is, so today, you know, the podcast, it's just 271.

5:03We're just a little podcast we have here, swing R and K. Sheets, all baseball, baseball and other things in life. But to watch what I was talking about is to watch how sports and baseball, even if you watched it, New York Rangers, Mark Messier, the fireman came out and gave Messier one of the cheap who passed had his fire helmet and made, asked Messier if he would put it on, had no idea. I saw that. My heart just went, whoa. Yeah. The Super Bowl came up in January. Obviously, the World Series was October and, man, the Yankees games at home, they won them both. They ended up losing a series of Arizona, the Diamondbacks. And I remember it well, but to just put together, if people are listening, those that are, I highly recommend, go back and there's a couple. There's so much on 9-11. There's so much, but there is a sports part of this thing that makes it even that much

6:04more special to happen. Well, a lot of people don't remember that football season open up that weekend too. That's right. Yeah. It was that weekend. I mean, it was a huge sports weekend. So I don't mean that to sound weird, but because sports are important and it's what unifies this country the most. And of course, what pushes people apart, but it's fun. It's a weekend. And then nothing since then, like 9-11, unified this country. And if you have to take a positive part of that, I guess that would be positive. A lot has happened since then. And it also did nothing like that happens again. Yeah. Yeah. I just thought they were talking about shutting everything down. And they did it during COVID and again, nothing political. It doesn't matter. I just when you shut sports events down, even if there's rivalries, the game brings people together. It brings the teams together.

7:04That's a compete against you. You get a chance. I love that they open it back up. I love that they said they made it. They made a decision. Didn't matter your democratic or Republican. So you know what? Let's carry on. Let's have the let's continue the world's continue the playoffs and the world series. And let's go for it. And it worked. Yeah. It's a great idea. It's funny. You brought up COVID. We almost did the same thing. Yeah. I know. I was doing the same thing. Like stop the world. I know. And it stops sports. We didn't learn there a lesson. I guess. No. No. No. No. No. No. But it's coming up now. So we have. So that's. Let's get again. Yeah. We just want to acknowledge that. Yeah. Not to get political. We want to acknowledge that in. And those of you that have lost people up there. Absolutely, man. It's a. I can't imagine. I can't imagine. I can't imagine what they wouldn't do. You hear those voices. And it's not even the. It's a little like I said. It's just two people talking about a moment that man on and respect what happened in at 9-11.

8:06And it's important for those of us. Anybody to just make sure there's a memory that that doesn't go away. I have something a little bit different this week. I have fan mail. Oh, in the. The swing hard podcast mailbox. I have five of them here. You prepare. I don't mean to throw like tough questions at you here, but. No, let. If it wasn't for my kids that want money, I were not answering. I'm not. I don't care. I know. At Barrett and GM now. Now you're good. The first one actually is from. This is great. Jake lefty Morales. Do you think lefty was a picture? Maybe. I love it. And he loved the show. You're breakdown of high school coaching culture hits home. I coach JVB. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. This works well. I got watts it's home. I have a dog with me down the track spots of high school clubs. I have a grand music special. In my game, you can play with back ground or with any other something, you know, that doesn't have such a huge family in your class. Have you ever seen my school clubs come up and they're busy doing

9:11and it's like— And Dave is not how it works. I'm going to say and then he becomes a mayor. I think the biggest mistake, JV coaches, or any, which is really the first year, you gotta kid for the first time that comes to your program, what have you. I think the big, and Jake, by the way, thank you very much for the question. I don't think coaches build a relationship enough with these players before they arrive. I remember when I took my very first college coaching job, called my coach Ed Sheff, back at Lewis Clark, many rest in peace, and I'm the head coach of the Oxygenale College, and I said, Ed, well, actually Glendale College, and I said, Ed, I've never done this, what do you do? I'm 29 years old. He goes, go take your pitcher out to dinner, or out to lunch. I said, what? He goes, and then we know that, go take your shorts up. Go to lunch, your shorts up. On campus, not take them out, on campus, on campus, on campus, and I didn't know what he meant, and he meant man, you gotta know your players coach. You gotta know your players. That's perfect.

10:11So, Jake, I recommend, instead of in this team, thing, try to get to know, head coaches tend to, everything's team, team, and our assistants end up having relationships with the players. If you can, try to get to know these players off the field, put them in different types of group, put them in contests outside of baseball, and see if they, with kind of competitiveness they have there. Awesome. Look, you see, I know you kill this. I love it. Next one is Sarah Kim. Just listen to the episode on player development. Okay. So, I think you explained confidence, building for young athletes is spot on. My son listens with me and he's helping him approach the game differently. All right, so her question is, I guess he's gonna be home confidence. I love it. How can parents help build confidence in their kids without putting too much pressure on them? My God, I'm so hungry about that with so many times, but that's a tough one. That's a great, yeah. And we've all, I think you rather mentioned, I have, we both made mistakes in this area. We have, yeah, 100% and it's a great question.

11:14If we could take the emotion out of it, does a parent about a child's baseball is not, what they, is not who they are. Baseball is a game they play. And if you can go in there with the same mentality that they're just playing a game and have a conversation about it, not asking about why did you do this and how could you have done that? Or why don't you go work out more out there? Denny goes, my dad did that to me and I do it to my kids. How about, you know, how about don't mention the thing at all and let your son or daughter tell you, and if we can listen more than, then, then, then touch, I mean, then, then give demands or give advice. Just listen more and then you can give suggestions on how and confidence takes time, but it, it's one of those, when it comes to baseball, man, you can hit, I mean, think about it three out of 10 times, Sarah, you're, you're successful. That means seven out of 10 times you're not and we're supposed to be confident with that, tough call. Yeah. Let me ask you, Robbie, what do you got on that? How would you build the confidence? Man, I would go on the mistakes that I've made.

12:16I wouldn't pressure them. They got to, they got to like what they do first. I really do. They have to like it in order to buy into it and then you have to build them. That doesn't mean, Pat him on the button, say you're a great kid, no matter what, but you got to build that confidence and let them know when they do great stuff and help them when they don't. I, I, just, and, you know, trying to live vicariously, and I know that's a common rule or common thing, living vicariously through your son or daughter is not the way to go. Is it not? Yeah. You know, and one more thing, finally, you know what I'm thinking, this is a, this is an action to do. When you're home, turn the game on, turn the game on. There's a lot to get, just turn on. Don't, don't say go watch it. Just turn it on. These houses today, there's a TV in every flipping room. I was watching football game last night with my, with my girlfriend's son. And it was great. We watched maybe 15, 20 minutes of it. We talked about the Seattle. It didn't matter, but the truth is, it started a conversation and I'm telling you, she wants to, if there's more, see what kind of interest and just throw it out there, man.

13:16Just a thought, okay? Yeah, no, absolutely. I didn't realize how much my boys were into football. This happened last two years ago, maybe now, is we were watching the Kamama Riteskin fan, Commander fan, sorry, sorry, Riteskin's people. Anyway, fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah, there were games. Joe Gibbs, Rigo, I'm not allowed. Oh, but there you go, my guy. I'm not, yeah. I'm in, yeah, yeah. He goes on with that. They were playing the Bears and it was that Hail Mary game where Jane Dengue was through the ball last second. And I'm getting ready to leave. I'm walking out, I'm taking them somewhere. I'm going to have the games over with. This game's over. I'm walking out and they said, Dad, you're leaving the end of the, I mean, they cared. You're leaving the end of the game. I'm like, okay, since you guys want me to stay, I stayed, they won the game and we were screaming and yelling at the room, including my boys. It wasn't, I love it. I love that and I'm going to top you. This is an easy one. The game seven of the Dodger game last year when I was in the pocket. I'm sitting with my two boys and we never, you know, into the bonding of the game winner.

14:18Like we were in it. We were celebrating on the field with these guys. The high five and the hugs. I mean, hugging, hugging. Yeah, you were on up to you on that one because that was exciting. That was a good one. That was a good one. The point is everybody, that was it. Everyone would have been hugging. No, it's great. The point is the point you were with your kids. You were sexually with your kids. That's what I'm doing. I'm having a moment. Yeah, yeah, I love it. All right, next one. I got to feel this guy has a heavy fastball. His name is Marcus Big M Daniels. Wow. Anybody with Big M's got to have a heavy fastball. I want to know what that means. Big, big, big machine. Big, big, big, big, big muscles. Who knows? Danny, your energy is unmatched. The interview with college recruiters was eye opening more episodes like that. Okay, that's good to know. More comments though. I love that. His question is, what's one thing families misunderstand about the college recruiting process that you wish everyone knew? You've talked about this one as well. Yeah. Well, yeah, one big misconception is that, man, you're going to have to be patient. Just because your son is not getting pounded

15:21with phone calls and pounding with letters and pounding with does not mean there's not a place for your son to play. There is a college for every guy, I coach division one, division two, division three, and a IA, junior college. Not because I wanted to cover it all, it just happened. I can look back. I covered every area. And I know personally, teams in New York, some division three schools, division two schools, division, there's a place for me to play. So they must stay patient. And I highly recommend, man, if you're waiting to wait for someone to call you, it may not happen. You got to be more proactive in what you want to do and take it from there. Has that changed over the years? Is that changed? Would they come for you more when we were younger? I don't remember. I mean, I remember giving some calls and some visits and things like that, but it's changed, right? You need to go after them at this point. Yeah, yeah. It changed so much. And you can never, and don't be, listen, man, it's like the business that you're in, the entertainment business. I mean, you could bid,

16:22how many times did you audition for a position, a job in your business and not get it, not get it? And you're finally, yeah. And if I had nothing to do with you, they just wanted the female voice over there. If you're a second bassman, they're looking for a center of field, it's not because they don't want you, they just don't need you right there. You know? Exactly. So I think these, I do. I think these understood. Did you stay patient? And again, I think like Adam Siriancix and Adam's great, but go look what you want to do and then maybe the college can fit you what you want. That is good advice. Yeah. All right, two more, Danny here. Olivia Reyes, the mental game. Oh, man, this is so important. Olivia says, you always talk about preparation and mindset. What's one mental routine every player should adopt? That's a tough one. Yeah, I don't know what man. Yeah. Well, I will tell you, I don't know if this is mental, but there's gotta be a moment, they, there's gotta be a moment throughout where,

17:23the one thing they can adopt is just that his wake up and then prepare what's gonna happen that day. Not, not prepare my swings and not prepare my, but I always think that my best mental moment for me was, was laying my uniform out. Socks. Okay. The pants, the jersey, the undershirt. I still wear a coach of jersey I have the hat. And I like to wear it. I would lay it out every, I still do it today. Now in college, sometimes uniforms are already there. So what you can do though, like if you come to Notre Dame, you gotta dress, not in a coat and tie, but you gotta dress in a college shirt and pants and to come in the locker room, only on game day. And so I think the way you wanna prepare without sitting down and meditating and go, it's lay your uniform, lay your, what you're gonna wear for the following day to prepare you for that game. And now that takes away from waking up going on you. This, it just gives you a piece of mind. And if you can create a piece of mind, it's huge.

18:26How many times did I yell downstairs in my mom, mom, my red stirrup is not here. What's going on? Seriously, when, how many times, how many times did you go to the dirty clothes than hamper and wear the pants, the pants you wore last week, because you didn't get to do that. I still do that, my work is so fast. I swear to God, have you seen my hat? Nothing worse, man. Do you feel the pain? You wanna know about mental, she's probably thinking, what do you mean to, I'm serious. How to focus on something else. No, that's good. It's prepared over here. It's really good. You don't want chaos before a game. Well, I'll give you one example here in football, not necessarily baseball, but football. Every week we did a walk through on Thursday. We did a team dinner of Thursday night. Yeah. We wore a coat and tie on Friday. We got out at the same time. Every Friday, I mean, it was routine. And then once we got in, ready to play, it was sitting in calm, quiet atmosphere

19:28to think it through. That was it. Now, some people are better that way. Some people like the headphones, other people like chaos. It's right there where it gets you motivated, right? I guess. And I do. I think the mental preparation can only begin once your own house is in order. I can't, meaning my own mind, there's gotta be a piece of mind before I can mentally prepare. And that's why guys that are, they say, man, happy, what is it? Happy wife, happy life. And some of those guys, they gotta make sure their home life is good or coach. I know many coaches, man, that would struggle. I've done this a long time. Yeah, my wife at home are going through divorce, we're going this. And I'm telling you, it affects their game. How could it not? Yeah, how could it not? Yeah, that's so true. So these young kids can do that. Yeah, go ahead. I don't want this. This is from Trevor. Has a scout question. And this is you from your conversations with MLB Scouts, what's the most underrated skill they look for any young athlete? I mean, we've talked about this with the six. Yeah, the sixth one is, oh gosh, from the Dodgers.

20:29I forget. Tommy Meyer, Tommy Meyer. Tommy Meyer. There you go. He's the guy that pointed that out to us. It's that character one, right? Exactly right. I'll see Tommy Saturday, which is great. What the Dodgers have for these next four weeks. Big time guys, we were at SC last week, the year before we had Cal Baptist, which is a great division one school. We're going to bring on Gary Adcock, the head coach at Cal Baptist. What a phenomenal facility, by the way. You walk in, they get eight pairs of cleats. They get a glove every year. Each new kid that comes in. So they can go, it is such a top, not division one baseball program called Cal Baptist that I highly recommend players. That's all we need to impart? Yes it is. Yes it is. We'll be at UCSB on Saturday and then UCLA next Saturday. So, but that character, you look at Tom, Tom, Tom and I talk a lot. And he'll, I'll say Tom, I got a guy once come on out. He goes, yeah, I know that guy, Danny. You know what? I've seen him. He's, and this is, we won't mention Dave, but I've seen him. I don't want him. Like wow. Wow.

21:30He didn't call me back. Here's the thing. I sent him a letter. I sent him an invite. He didn't call me back. Didn't return my phone call. Didn't send me a, didn't send me an email back. And now he wants to come play. Don't want him. That's how the, that's how Tom is. And a lot of these guys have said, wait man, it's not, it's not this way on this kind of well. We'll see. They see so many flipping players. They get, you know, across the country. So they're not going to have one guy come in and not call back. Rob, that's a, that character is, is huge. And there's, now of course, you know, you got, there are some measurables. You got to hit 91, 92, you got to, that's all fine. But at this level, man, if there's two guys that are close, Jacob Madrid, New York Mets 13th round, we had him on. He's having a good year right now, man. He had a home run the other day. That's great. Jacob is, he's swinging okay. Not swinging great. He's a, but what they like about him, his character, they like to, that's why they get him at a high school.

22:30They don't make, take many high school kids anymore. They want him to go to college and then, and, and, and they took him at a high school because he's got strong character, strong work ethic, things like that. So he's great on this podcast. Oh, man, he sure, great. He's great on this podcast. Yeah, he's loving it. He's loving it. Yeah. That's it. Let me, let me, let me ask you, Rob. I got a nine year team right now. Nine year old. I haven't coached you in a long time. Here we go. And, and I'm, and right now we are, we had our first scrimmage yesterday and the parents want the kids to play all the positions. So they get used to it. They came over and, and I said, okay, we'll do that. So I made it one, it first inning, this second inning, they change seven different positions because I want to show them. Well, it looked like a, like a, a guy with a word, man, a, a, a fire drill. You know, a bat, it looks like a crazy fire drill. Whatever it is, it looked like a chaotic, it was chaotic. It was like recess. And the kids were, they were planning

23:32to get the team to that as a play together. They played together and they, and they took it to us. And, and it was, now I get an email back from the, from the dad guy, I said, hey, we could do this, but I'm telling you right now there's got to be some sort of, what do you feel about if you, to play as a team, they got to be, they got to be confident. How would you go about coaching a nine-year team? Here's my question to you. Would you put them in the positions where it's going to make the team better and possibly be more competitive? Or would you just let them play all the positions, no matter what happens, things like that? You know, I heard this and this could be wrong. I heard this from somebody is, I, I wanted to play a position where first of all, they're not going to be in danger of a line drive or hitting them in the head. Perfect. You know what I'm saying? You know, if you're playing third base and you can't catch the ball, you can't, you shouldn't be playing third base. You know, I'm just sorry. If a parent would get on me about that, like, well, I, you know what, this is a safety thing. It's just a safety thing. So that would be my first, first thing.

24:33Secondly, I guess you have to find out, we've had this conversation is, what do the parents want to do? What's their goal? Do they want to win? Or do they want to, do they want to develop? And you have to kind of figure that out as well with these guys. My, your answer would be, well, we want to develop them, but not all parents are like that, right? I mean, not a, they want to win. And they don't want to be embarrassed. You know, I just, it's funny. You know what, I, I, I, I feel people should talk it out. We talk it out, you can get your own answer. I'm sitting here thinking, they can go, there's nine positions out there. And you, you're saying you can go sit, stand at third base, or you can stand in left field, or you can stand at first base. To play a position, there's a lot more than just standing at the position. Oh, God, yes. Cut. There is about, you know, the hot, there's a hot corner they want to call about. The middle guys are in the back. There's put them in different places. There's the one across the diamond, how to turn to a place. Where to stand when a runner goes. There's so much out there. And I was telling you with these nine, I am putting guys, I want to put guys in positions that are taking in this information. And at least, heirs are not the problem. Heirs are not the problem.

25:33It's taking on and going, okay, they're, they're getting the idea of where to be. But I want parents to understand. They can play all the positions. But that's, if you just have them stand out there, that's not the idea to stand at the position. That's not the point. That's not the point. Yeah, not at all. I think, you know what, let me go, let me throw this out there. I think practice is for experimenting with other positions. Yes. And when it's game time, it's best you listen to the coach for safe reasons and for whatever other reasons he has to put these things in. It's tough when a parent doesn't come to practice. Or says, my son wants to, why is he always playing left field? And by the way, left center and right at nine you can play any one of them. It's good to play. It's experienced that that. It's good to experience different positions. I get you. But because he doesn't like the infield right now. He doesn't, he doesn't, there's some fear would have you. But he only wants to play it. I know he may want to, but maybe he's not ready yet. And let's be patient. He's nine. Right there. Yeah.

26:34And by the way, by you saying that would inspire me and hopefully some other parents like, maybe you should work with them on the off-time. As an impu, you know, maybe do some drills. Or maybe he gets a little more comfortable in front of the ball when, no, man, when he comes out here and gets a chance, he'll look comfortable there. I don't know. Exactly right. No, you're right. You're right. Hey, good podcast. Awesome. I love the questions. Love the listeners. Listen, one more time that's Jake, Sarah, Marcus, Olivia and Trevor. So, you know what, you know what? I'm going to throw it out here right now. If someone call, if someone sends questions out like this, they need to send their, if they could send their information, we're going to mail them out a batter, a swing hard podcast sweatshirt. I'm going to order them today. All right. And let me get my email. I don't put it out in the little chat there. You can do it to me. Send it directly to me. Robert Scorpio 64 at Gmail. And I'll put it in the actual podcast too. That'd be great. I'm going to call normally baggers right now and maybe not a sweatshirt, but a shirt.

27:34Some sort of long sleep, some sort of baseball, but with our logo on there. Take it from me. Sounds good. We'll have fun with the Dodgers. You said you're doing something this weekend. What you're having something in this weekend. I got Dodger's Saturday at UC Santa Barbara, which is great. We have every kind of club, those over 90 miles an hour. It's really fun to watch. Oh, nice. We'll see. I don't think they'll be fighting you on what position to play. I think you'll be okay. And if they do, we just send them home. They'll put it at simple. Yeah. You don't let me reply? OK. Go home. Next. That's in short conversation.