SWING HARD EPISODE #247 - OPENING WEEKEND

It'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.

Well, well, well.

What do we have there?

Well, I'll let your shirt, huh?

Oh, yeah.

You know what?

We need three feet.

Today's a big day.

Rob, today's a very big day.

Well, not only it's podcast recording day, it's undefeated Notre Dame day.

I'm assuming that's still happening as we record in an opening day, right?

Open day.

Yeah.

The night's the Notre Dame.

Okay.

So you got everything.

You know, you're, you do you work.

There's not a better producer out there than Rob, than Rob Michael.

I'm going to say it right now.

I stole your thunder, though.

So I do apologize for that.

I am bad about that.

Fair enough.

No, you're not.

You know what?

You're not that sorry about it.

I still haven't got fairway for it or for it yet.

Still, and you still have fair facts furniture.

Yes.

I was at a furniture store the other day.

And now every time I see a furniture store, I think of, God, they could sponsor my next

team.

Maybe I don't know.

That's the.

There's a famous one out there called Bob's furniture.

So maybe I need to go.

Go.

That's the one I was looking at.

I'm in Woodland Hills right now.

Bob furniture.

Yeah, Bob's.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, what you're up.

We're today.

A little t-shirt time.

You're not dressed up a little bit.

No, I'm going to hit the gym after this.

I do try to mix that in every once in a while.

So I hit the gym.

Yeah.

Between meals, which is tough.

Absolutely.

But, uh, yeah.

I try to do that.

So I'm going to do a little gym time after this.

Love it.

So here's what's happening.

Dodgers opened up today.

He gets the diamond backs.

I got invited to go.

And I wanted to go.

And you know what kept you away from going is the frickin' parking at the drive.

It's a, it's a, it's a, we're at the games at 530.

And they said, we'll meet at three.

That means you're not three o'clock until nine o'clock tonight.

That's a long day.

Yeah.

No, this is going to sound sack religious.

I would rather go to a angels game.

As opposed to a Dodgers game.

Just for that reason, the traffic and the parking.

And of course, the experience is great there too.

I mean, they have a good part.

But I hate it.

I, I want to go see a Dodgers game.

But I swear I don't want to fight the traffic.

I swear.

I don't, I don't either.

And I don't like leaving in the seventh inning.

But I'll leave in the fourth.

I'll get there in the third and leave in the fourth.

Just to make it quicker.

Okay.

It's in a hole.

And in half of that inning, you'll be texting on the phone.

I've seen you do it.

Yeah.

You've seen me text.

Yeah.

I've seen it.

I, you know, when you, I swear, when you play baseball, coach

baseball, work baseball, baseball, what do you do on a night out for

entertainment?

Go to a baseball game.

I don't know, man.

It's not that easy.

Yeah.

It's not that easy.

Yeah.

You girlfriend might not like that.

You might want to come up with a plan G and C.

Yeah.

I am taking her Saturday night.

Saturday night.

Crystal and I are going to the, and we got, we got invited to go to

the, uh, in the, uh, in the, uh, in the, uh, uh, oh god.

The lower deck like that.

No.

Um, the sweets, the sweets.

Yes.

Okay.

Sorry.

That would be worth it.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So you don't play today?

No.

No.

No, we have, uh, we played a moral.

So, I mean, I could have taken a day off for a practice to go.

We, we're 12.

I mean, who needs to practice anymore?

I mean, you guys are too good.

Who needs to practice?

Who needs to take BP?

Who needs the moose or not?

Who needs to take the knockout?

Who needs to take the knockout?

Wow.

The great Kevin Bird, after the other day, said he jinxed us when we were

10 and 0.

And we were going against Cressy.

He says, man, thanks for the jinx.

I said, kev, there's no such thing as jinxes.

There is no such thing.

Rob, do you believe in jinx?

I do.

I am a little superstitious when he comes to baseball.

I, you know, I had that same issue and football, too, because

I wouldn't uh, wash my, uh, practice uniform and football until we lost.

And we went undefeated that year.

Yeah.

So that was, that was gnarly.

Uh, but baseball, I would do the same stretch.

the same stretch, I would do the same thing before I pitch.

So I'm a little, little superstitious that way, yeah.

But so do you rip your kids like, so we're 12 and oh,

and I'm happy, I don't believe in it.

I'd never have reason why,

because I don't want the kids believing in it.

So I don't want the guy, if a guy says coach,

I do not have, we're not playing the same music before,

or not doing the same thing.

Well, then did fix it, but I just can't even imagine.

I kind of believe in him too though.

I mean, I know no hitters,

the first experience when I was a head,

the assistant coach at UC Santa Barbara,

I'm 20 years old, 21.

I'm a intern basically, you know, no paid job.

And we had a guy going seven innings

and we're sitting with the head coach, Al Ferrer,

who we've had on this.

And I said, hey man, to the three coaches,

Al Ferrer, Bob Bronzma, who was also the next head coach

after Al at UCSB, and Jack Freeland and Bill Bonham,

who pitched for the Reds.

Boy, my drop in names.

Boy, you are, this is good.

Bill Bonham, Bill and H.A. in my believe.

But anyhow, I pitched in Major Lakes,

and I'm sitting down, there's a young kid,

and they go, hey you guys, he's still in no hitter,

and they all went, oh my god.

No, no, you don't do that.

Yeah.

And I swear the next guy up, he had some bass hit,

and I went, all right, I got it.

I got it.

Yeah, no, it's a thing.

Maybe it's an old thing.

Maybe the new, the kids don't do it anymore.

I do remember this though.

It's completely opposite when you've struck out three times.

They are encouraging you to strike out four times

because they want to throw the,

what is it, the Golden Sombraero?

The Golden Sombraero.

The Golden Sombraero.

It's the shoes for three strikeouts and the Golden Sombra.

They are desperately wanting you to do that.

So there's nothing to do with it, hit it.

No, no, I could see it.

I know it's out there, it's superstitious,

but what if we said, no, it's not.

What have we said?

The guy got a bass hit, because he got a bass hit.

We're going to blame the bass hit on the assistant,

a grad assistant over here saying he's going to know it here.

I don't know it.

It's a bad pitch.

Yeah.

Exactly right.

That's a bad pitch.

Right.

Something like that.

So you guys don't have an excellent year, Danny.

I don't want to jinx it, but we have nothing

better to talk about than your undefeated season.

So, I think we're, I tell this,

we're a lot of talk about it.

Why don't we enjoy it?

So we have to start out.

I'll say this.

We are 12 and 0 and it's nice.

We're ranked number one on some in the state,

number two with others in the state.

So it's kind of a good season.

And now the next quay will, Danny, be played anybody.

Yeah, we played the teams at our schedules.

It's not like we dodged anybody yet.

Is it going to get tougher?

Yes.

We haven't played Harvard and West Lake.

We haven't played Sierra Canyon.

We got Loyola left.

And then the fourth one, then there's an Alamani.

So there's four good teams.

And here's the key.

In Harvard, West Lake's beatable, too.

I saw they got beat by Alamani, right?

Twice.

They got beat twice by Alamani.

Oh, wow.

That's a three.

So we're just trying to stay above water.

And what game did it turn on now?

We played them tomorrow.

And now we're going to non-league stuff.

We got Mira Costa, then this national baseball tournament

with it has corona in it, ourselves.

And so it's not going to be easy to continue this.

But, Chip, I don't know.

I saw Bosco is ranked.

It's seen weird to me.

Are they normally a baseball power?

And a full power really well.

They really are.

The great Nomar Garcia-Para went to St. John Bosco.

And they've always had a good baseball program there.

Obviously, football is amazing.

But they've had really good baseball players and teams.

I think they won.

Last year, I think they won the CIF last year.

OK.

So they're pretty good.

They did win it last year.

They beat another division one team,

but they beat corona in a semi who was loaded.

And then they got dang it, man.

I wish we'd be more prepared on this.

They beat someone else to win the whole thing.

I'm going to jump really left here.

Because we talked about this kid a couple of years ago.

And we knew he was making a decision

where to go.

The Lewis Lappi.

Is it Lappi that plays for Harvard West Lake right now?

Now, I know that's a familiar name to a lot of guys

that watch Little League Baseball.

He was the star of that Little League Baseball team

from Orange County, right?

Was it Orange County?

Yeah.

Yeah, you sure was, down some.

Now he's a high school player.

And I guess he's pretty good, yeah?

He starts at third base, he gets Notre Dame,

we thought he was coming in.

Freshman, right?

Freshman?

Yeah.

We thought he was going to come.

And he's a right-handed pitcher,

but he didn't have a phone in much.

Great kid, great family.

He's got plenty for a really good coach at Jared Halpert

and those guys and so forth.

But he's a freshman.

And we were hoping he would come in Notre Dame.

Or just stay home.

Elsa Gundo is where they were at.

That's right, Elsa Gundo.

Yeah, that's her.

And he's having a pretty good year over there at Thurough.

They're traveling now.

I know Harvard is traveling.

And again, not just about respect from Jared and Joe Gundz

who we've had on.

Those guys aren't happy with, they all think Notre Dame

hasn't played anybody yet.

And that's fair enough.

Oh, I can imagine that text changing all of that chat.

I get to get, oh yeah, yeah.

And we just said he was good, he was fun.

He was so good.

But we're 12 and 0.

I don't know.

The Patriots were 15 and 0 and they lost to the Giants

in the Super Bowl.

They went, I think, 16 and 1 or something like that.

Is that because Bill Belichick didn't wear the same underwear

that night that got beaters up?

Well, if you'd asked the guys from the play in the 80s,

you would say yes, but I doubt it.

Let me ask you this, do you?

Okay, so this is a question.

Do you want to lose a couple games?

Maybe to get your boys down off the high deal?

What's your theory on that?

Heck, no, man, yeah.

No, shit, shoot.

No, you don't have to lose.

Well, when we do lose, which it's going to be very challenging,

you're going to say, well, it's a good force, everybody.

Sure.

However, no, I don't want to lose.

I've never, eight years old, Rob, and I'm dead serious.

Tigers, my dad was a coach and we went 18 and 0.

And I realized the first organized baseball I ever played

to look a little league, 18 and 0.

And I thought, okay, you never have to lose that.

We don't have to lose when you play this game.

It is ruined my life.

I'm just competitive having fun to play

because everything I do now, everything.

Even when I played hockey with, what do you call it?

Not for hockey, but the shuffleboard hockey,

whatever the hell it is, play with the girlfriend.

And I don't want to lose.

I can't say I'm losing because I know air hockey.

Yeah, air hockey.

Oh my god.

Don't tell me you're that competitive.

Oh, well, I pretend to not be, but inside what she wins,

I go, okay, okay, that's great here.

Let's go home now.

Let's play again.

Let's play again.

Let's play again.

Put the money in there.

Let's go.

No, but I don't know if Winning or losing helps out.

I think you find out at the end of the year if a team needs to lose.

You can kind of see it coming.

We didn't play great defense yesterday.

First time we had, we've only made four airs in 12 games.

Yesterday we made a couple airs.

So we're going to practice today and not even mention

about Winning or losing.

We don't mention it, obviously, but there are some areas

as a kosha sea.

Okay, we're starting to, let's look at some of the areas

that we're bleeding in a little bit.

That's smart.

Yeah, that's just smart coaching.

Yeah.

And you never would say, if you don't do this,

you're going to lose.

Right.

No, you don't do that.

No, you can't bring negative into it,

especially with kids these days.

Negative boys.

That's a killer.

As a parent, as a parent, as a little league parent,

a high school parent, did your sons ever come home?

Did they ever come home and say, God, man, I shouldn't have.

If they tell you, hey, I didn't wear the same under,

my undershirt today, like I should have.

What do you tell my parents?

I think I told them that before the game started.

So, hey, you better wear that shirt again,

or hey, did you get your pair of socks you wore last night?

Wow.

That's interesting, because that says a lot to do

with the car ride home.

Right.

So try to keep that positive energy,

which I rarely did after the game, which was terrible.

But I think it's just different.

I think you've got to bring the positive energy to these kids.

It's just too much to, it brings them down too quick,

and you lose them, you just can't lose them like that.

I'm not saying you sugarcoded by any means,

because I think there needs to be some still,

some little tough love every once in a while,

but I also think that you have to be positive

more than negative.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I think the hardest thing is a parent, too,

to not talk about, to not talk about the coach.

This is probably another podcast for sure.

Wow.

That's true.

Yeah.

That's a challenge.

In fact, we'll, we'll, we'll table that.

Like, what's the best, what's the type of questions

do we ask our, our child, whether he's eight,

another different, different levels, eight, 12,

because then eight year olds gonna go,

God, I can't believe Johnny's, our coach,

he did this to that.

Do we, do we agree?

Do we, we don't want to ruin the kid,

but we could say that's probably not

the way we want to do this, John.

No, I have, I have stories on that,

and I'm not going to throw anybody out there,

but it's, it's more in the lacrosse world than anything.

But I have coach stories.

Sean and I went through a couple

while my kid was there, and it was challenging.

And it was challenging for me to not open my big mouth

at dinner time to have my two cents about it.

Because I want to give you one, give me one.

Give me one.

Oh, I, I, I, I,

perfect example is, is when they would show up late

for a prep, yeah.

I would be the first one like, hey, you know what, this,

there's no discipline here.

You know, what's the coach talking about is the, you know,

is, what's going on with this instead of holding that

and maybe having a conversation with the coach,

which I should never have.

I was, I was spewing that out to my son,

like, you know, that's no excuse for him to be late.

You guys are expected to be there on time.

So what's that all about?

And I was like, bad mouthing.

And I should know better than that being a coach.

I should know better than that.

And just a couple other coaching booths and, you know,

I would say, hey, what was you thinking about

playing that person there?

Or what was you thinking about that?

And I had no business asking my son that.

There's no business.

Yeah.

Well, it's, you do have a right to,

I think we have a right to ask the coaches,

maybe we don't use our son as their sounding board.

That's exactly what you agree with that.

I can't do it.

Yes, exactly.

Absolutely.

Yes.

Because I decided that the son's then,

because I did the same thing, man, you're not alone.

And our son's then, my son would go being a baseball coach

would go to the team and say, yeah, my dad was watching the game.

We talked about last night and say, way, hang on.

My dad said, we should have done this.

Or my dad said, and so he's trying to utilize,

get the information out utilizing his dad.

And yeah, it, it, it, it's not, it's not healthy.

But you are, now there are certain parents.

And we've never talked about this.

There are certain parents that are intimidating.

I'm telling you, in a way where, okay, they pay attention.

You were one of those guys.

At the beginning, we did not know each other.

But I knew you exactly where you were at all times.

Because you weren't just sitting down there

with the other moms or dads, you know,

dicking around having you, you were, you were,

and probably because some things you wanted to learn

or just see what was going on.

Yeah, absolutely both of that.

Absolutely, yeah.

And, and I remember, man, I know you're always walking by.

Hey, Rob, you know, I think it was Mr.

at the beginning.

I'm not sure Mr.

No, I was Rob.

I think you introduced me.

I think it was Rob.

Yeah.

But, but you had a look on you to go,

just hold these guys accountable.

I remember the cages that Sherman notes

that like, you'd be right there.

Those arms crossed kind of back

over there by underneath.

But you weren't, you were focused on what was going on.

Would you agree?

I was hoping I wasn't that guy, but okay, all right.

You weren't, no, you weren't verbally that guy.

But you just help, you help people accountable

to say, hey, I'm paying this guy.

Let's see, he's good for my son.

Wouldn't you agree if he is a good for my son?

That was, that was always what it was about.

It was, it was the most for my son.

He had nothing to do with me.

But exactly is, is he had nothing to do with money?

And he had nothing to do that.

I agree with that.

I agree with that.

I agree with that.

I agree with that.

I agree with that.

To get the best experience as possible.

If you're gonna spend the time here,

let's, let's get the best opportunity

and experience as possible.

No, man, I, you were never that money guy.

And I do know there are a lot of,

the parent turned away.

Never is there a, a, a player turned away

because there may be some sort of financial challenges.

There may be.

And I know they're real.

I know they're real.

Never.

So when we take that off the table, like we,

I just coach, you parent, kids play,

on par as on par, things like that.

So, well, one last thing to that.

Like I said, this is another podcast.

We should talk about that.

Is what we, we had a brand new coach for seeing a year.

Man, that was, that was kind of heartbreaking

because my son had been with this coach for three years.

Heck yeah.

He taught him how to play.

He never played before.

So, so when the new coach came in,

I think the coach was a little intimidated

with the seniors, meaning, well, I,

I can't teach these guys anything.

They're not gonna listen to me.

Yeah.

My big mouth, I said, okay, if he said that,

then don't listen to it.

Don't listen to it.

You guys do your own thing.

You as seniors, beat leaders and lead the freshmen.

Ignore him.

That was what.

That was that.

No, you know what, don't.

Okay, man.

I'm not.

No, please do.

Please do.

It's not a tough word.

Ignore is bad.

It's terrible.

It's terrible.

But, how many teams have you and I been on?

Where the coach is awful?

I'm not saying any coach out there is awful.

Yeah.

And you know what?

We've had to win on our own out there, excluding taking the,

and I've seen a lot of good teams go a long way

with the weak coach.

Well, they went 500 that year.

That's the best me personally thought they could ever do.

And with the new coach and losing all the,

that's the best I could have done.

So I tell him that all the time, I tell my coat or my son

on that and like, like, you know what?

You guys, whatever way you did it,

whether, you know, you went what the coach was saying

or you as seniors were strong and really gathered the troops,

but you guys overperformed.

And overcheat overcheat overcheat overcheat overcheat

overcheat that particular and I'm super proud of that.

So whatever way you did that.

But that was my advice in the beginning.

And I'm like, oh, this is probably not great advice.

I've told all the kids when they go home,

don't listen to your parents, ignore them.

I don't know if that's the same.

Okay, so balance is out there, right?

It's about balance.

It balances out completely.

No.

Hey, all right, so Dodgers open up today.

We're just about done here.

Can they 3P?

Sure.

I think so.

I do too.

Yeah, I do too.

If class now stays healthy,

if the lefty always forget his name,

can stay healthy.

Sure.

Snow, if snow can stay healthy,

I think they're strong.

They're strong.

I think there's something idea to be fun.

I'll tell you what, man.

It's their fun to follow.

They are definitely fun to follow.

No, so in quick shout out here to locals in the big Max

Fried who pitched last night and lights out.

I guess.

Wow.

Oh, San Francisco.

I mean, it's no slash.

Yeah, he was really good.

Seven nothing.

They beat him seven nothing.

Pete Crow Armstrong, I know,

is playing in the world baseball classic.

Yeah, of course, Gene Carlo.

He looked pretty good last night.

He had a couple, I think he had a couple of hits

or at least hit the ball really hard.

Okay.

And there was one other one that I forgot about.

Hunter Greene's out for a little bit.

Hunter.

I want to talk about Hunter.

I know he's hurt, right?

Yeah, a little bit.

He said a nice email out to everybody.

He'll be just fine.

He'll be just fine.

Yeah, I expect him to be right back.

I think what, June, maybe he's back.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I'm going to go see Pete Crow in Chicago.

I'm going to go watch Dodgers Chicago game in Chicago.

First time ever been in Ridley field.

Have you been in Ridley?

No, never.

I've been to White Sox, but never Ridley.

Yeah.

Staying here.

Yeah, a big deal.

So now I'm going to go to Ridley and check that out

and then fly over for the weekend.

So we'll see how it goes.

All the best for you this weekend.

Go Dodgers, go at nights, and we'll talk again next week.

You're a great man, Robbie.

You're a great man.

I'll talk to you soon, brother.

I appreciate it.

Thanks, Danny.

Hi, this is Danny Barrett, founder and head coach at Batters,

which stands for Baseball Advanced Training

and Recruiting Services.

Batters is a full service baseball school

that is dedicated to building complete student athletes.

We provide the best instruction at top facilities

in order to mentally and physically prepare our players

for success at the high school level and beyond.

Click on batterssocal.com.

That's B-A-T-R-S, socal.com for details and sign up today.

In addition, we also hold open tryouts

for top local players who are interested in joining a batter's team.

Our travel ball teams typically practice two times per week

and play double headers every other Sunday

in addition to entering local tournaments or at a state tournament

on off weekends two or three times per season.

If you have a player or team who is interested in joining batters,

please email me at batterssocal at gmail.com.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks.