Episode 218 - Mashing Away Cancer

Carter Catlett has started an independent summer collegiate team near Greensboro, North Carolina. With matchups against Coastal Plain League teams, Old North State League, Blue Ridge League and others, it will be sure to be quite the inaugural season for the Mid State Melon Mashers. Not only will they be playing baseball on the field, they will be playing for a greater cause off of it. Be sure to hear all about how the Melon Mashers are raising awareness this season and what Carter shares are his Proffitt & Loss.

Follow the Melon Mashers online.

Mid State Melon Mashers - 

Website: https://www.melonmashersbaseball.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melonmashersbaseball/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melonmashers_baseball/ (@MelonMashers_Baseball)

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/msmelonmashers (@MSMelonMashers)

Earned Fun Average -
 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/earnedfunavg/ (@EarnedFunAvg)

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/earnedfunavg/ (@EarnedFunAvg)

Blue Sky: https://www.bsky.app/profile/earnedfunavg.bsky.social  (@EarnedFunAvg.bsky.social)

Threads: https://www.threads.com/@earnedfunavg (@EarnedFunAvg)


Curved Brim Media -

Website: https://www.curvedbrimmedia.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/curvedbrimmedia/ (@CurvedBrimMedia)

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CurvedBrim/ (@CurvedBrim)

Transcript

0:00

Uh, uh, uh. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of the Earned Fun Average Podcast. I'm your host Eric Profit, coming to you for Wch Stock Kansas. And with me as always, I have, Johnny Bowen, late Charles Gumbo Gator super fan, coming tonight, from the beautiful Bayou Broadcast Center. Well, Johnny, we have a special guest with us today. We have Carter Catlett with us. How are you, Carter? Good. How are y'all? Good. Doing well. Appreciate you joining us. So, uh, Carter, I believe you work in, uh, a little, summer collegiate ball. Would you mind sharing with everybody who the team is and what you do with the team? So this is the first year team we're starting this year, this summer. my son is a. And he played last year in the old North State league, a summer league here in the Carolinas. And there was not anybody else in in our community really on the team except for one other player. So we noticed that there were a lot of local kids to the Ashbury, North Carolina, Greensboro, Carolina area that were looking for a place to play and didn't have a place to play. So we put this team together with the idea of being a player first experience and. I put together a good schedule. I have friends in the old North State League. I have friends in the CPL, so we put that schedule together to try to be competitive and give these kids an opportunity to play. I serve as the general manager. you can call me the clubhouse guy. You can call me the, the merchandise guy. You can call me. What? I, I wear several hats right now. I love it. Well, that actually is a pretty good segue. So, uh, we actually do a segment where we talk about a favorite hat and, uh, I believe you have a couple hats of the team. Would you mind sharing with everybody Oh yeah. The listeners, what hats you guys have. we have a couple of hats. Well, I have three right now. I have a green one, a, a black one, and then I ha the feature knocker the cowboy. Now, as we get into this, the turn, the team's name is Melon Masters State, me Masters, and that is based off of, we're gonna use this team. For baseball, but also breast cancer awareness. My, my wife is a breast cancer survivor and was, diagnosed last year and while we were trying to do this team and come up with a fancy name or a catchy name, the Mid-State Melon Masters was born out of, out of that time in our, in our lives last year. the colors are black and green and pink, We have our, our mascot, the hat that y'all have seen before and looked, looked at my new hat. My green hat just came in today, so. I'm lucky, but it's called Knock or the Cowboy. It goes back to, part of this community here in, in that North Carolina where we're at, where there's a lot of farming, a lot of cowboys, so it kind of just fit to use that. I sent, I kind of doodled the diagram out, sent it out to a cartoonist to do it for me. Uh, I wanted to have something tied to the, the community in the area that we play in. So it's called Knock or a Cowboy. It features a cowboy with a cowboy hat swinging a bat. Through a watermelon. so attaching the, the melon master thing and the, the cowboy farmer ideal for where we're at in North Carolina was the, was the thought process with that. I love it. I appreciate you sharing that background. Mr. Bullen, a wet hat do you have today, sir? I'm, uh, representing the newest, uh, entry, one of the new entries in the Mid-American League representing my home adopt adopted home state. I'm rocking a little Meridian blues tonight. This is, uh, came in yesterday actually. I went to the post office and it came in a flat envelope. I thought, great. They sent me a child's t-shirt. I was expecting a box right for a hat. And of course they shipped it past Calhoun City to Jackson, Mississippi to come back this direction. So it looks like the old game bar design, just a simple design hat. So they have three hats right now on their online store. And so I wanted to jump on, uh, getting a little blues merch. We're planning on hopefully 1st of June going over to Meridian for a game. So we're. the CEO and I are talking about, maybe roughly June 2nd. once she gets outta school, of course her schedule will be, you know, radically, uh, more open than it is now. And it's about two hours. It's 109 miles, okay. From two meridians. So not bad. We could go there for game, come back and so, uh, I couldn't resist when I saw some merch the other day. And so. little meridian blues. I wish it had the fox on it, that'd like on, maybe on the back. But it's just a very, just kind of a clean, clean look with just the team name. And for myself. So I'm wearing the Wichita Chili buns. So after this past weekend, our local AA affiliate of the Minnesota Twins, the Wichita Wind surge, played with the alternate identity of the chili buns. And so, here in this area, they do, uh, chili with the cinnamon roll on top of it. And so our local baseball team, as Carter has a kind of a not sure about that face like most people have. Yeah, I dunno about that one guys. but uh, we had the, the one and only Mr. Joey Chestnut here on Friday and I got a chance to meet him and they did a chili buns eating contest. So he ate, 10 bowls of chili. 10 Cinon rolls in about three minutes and got to face off about eight to 10 other people. And of course, beat them pretty good. So kind of fun to watch him do a, a eating competition and everything. But that's the hat, after the wind surge played is that identity. This past weekend is the Wichita Chili bone, so that's what I'm wearing today. Was there Halls or tum, excuse me, Tums, not Halls, Tums, uh, issue maybe. That, um, product in a pink, a pink liquid in a bottle given to the contestants. Not that I saw, but maybe afterwards. There might have been, you know, for hearts, you know, upset stomach, you know, and other things it'll help cure. Uh, after, I like obviously like cinnamon rolls. You can tell that by looking at me. Uh, and I like chili. I just have never known that marriage. Carter, I'm like you, I don't know together. How that would, uh, would, would work. But apparently, in Wichita, the people love some chili buns. Yeah. They actually had, they played as them two years ago, and Joe and I were on a trip and. I didn't get a chance to, try it and they didn't play this in last year. So this year I had the chili with the cinnamon roll and it was pretty good. And they have a new thing this year. It's called the synagogue, and it's a hot dog with the cinnamon roll wrapped around it, icing, sitting on a bit of chili, and that's actually really good. They must have stronger stomachs in Kansas than we do here. Well, obviously you can higher fortitude, you can see they play as that team early in the year when it's still kind of cold out. 'cause you don't wanna do that in late July or early August. No, you do not. Well Carter, so I wanted to get a little more, uh, on your background. Obviously you said the melon matchers are starting up this year, so kind of prior to that, did you do anything in the baseball or what's a little about your background? I'm retired from the federal government. I was in law enforcement for 25 years. I have two kids baseball age and I run the local ballpark in our community, which has got five fields. So I've been with both of my kids since they were six years old, working for that ballpark. Uh, I'm the middle school baseball coach at the local middle school as well. When you're retired, they think you can do a lot of stuff, so they offer you a lot of stuff. so that's, that's where my baseball came from. I played baseball all the way up through, you know, up to college. I love baseball. But I, I didn't play in college and, but I've always followed it. We're we're big baseball people. My kids love it. So we were just kind of trying to get, I'm, I'm a big community guy. I try to give back to the kids the best I can. And this is how all this got started between the, the, the middle school program running the ballpark now getting this Mellon Masters team together. It's all about the kids. I want them to have a player first experience with whatever age group they're in. So that's really my background and what my, my mission is with baseball. appreciate you sharing a little bit about that. Yeah. One thing, if I'm not mistaken, and I, I was taking a look at your guys' website, so, currently this first season you guys are playing what I can tell, it looks like an independent schedule, but you do have some coastal playing. Yes, sir. League teams on there. Looks like you have the corn dogs from the Blue Ridge League, so some of the, leagues kind of in that area. So just tell us a little bit kind of about, how it is trying to kind of schedule an independent, I guess, schedule overall and, uh, how you were able to get some of those teams on there to face off this summer. Sure. Well, like I said earlier, I have, I have friends at the old North State League. The Danny Kirkman with the Flying Pigs has been very instrumental in helping me guide me through this. shockingly getting a schedule together has not really been that hard. I've had several people, I've reached out to several people, and then several people have reached out to me. the, Raleigh Red Oaks, uh, in the, in the old North State League, the New Ghost Crabs team out in, uh, Cape Fear out in Wilmington. They reached out to me based on the name of the team and they wanna do, uh, a awareness night when we come. So I've had a lot of teams reach out saying, Hey, we're doing this. This event, would you mind bringing your team? We'd like to schedule y'all. So that's really been been very helpful and it's not been as difficult. I do play, I also play the Greensboro Ducks in Greensboro. I think I played them four times. he's been very helpful in getting game scheduled and kind of guiding me through this process of putting the team together, trying to find players, trying to get schedules, Hey, this may work, this may, this probably won't work. You know, do this, do that. Don't do that. All in all, I, I feel like for a first year startup team that I'm doing pretty well and a lot of people have helped me get to where I'm at. Schedule wise, I'm not, I think I'm at 30 games. There's probably two more I gotta add on there to make it 30, but I'm at a 30 game schedule and I'm with the exception of one game. I'm not going to more than probably. An hour and 45 minutes outside of where we're stationed so, or where we're based. So that's, that's been very helpful. Oh yeah, for sure. That's awesome. Yeah, where you don't have to travel a whole lot, at least in this kind of first season until you get everything underneath you here. but you know, we were talking about the logos a little bit earlier and one of those that I saw. one of the kind of alternate marks did have the pink ribbon that Yes, sir. You mentioned. So I just think that's awesome. I figured it probably had something to do with, breast cancer and awareness and everything, but I think that's really awesome that that's kind of not only playing baseball, but making that kind of your motto or mission this season as well, I think is really cool. Yes, sir. And we've gotten a lot of support for that. get off the baseball side for a second, my wife and, and all these, like, we run tournaments on the weekends and stuff at our ballpark, and you see all these baseball mamas, I was, okay, that's not gonna happen to us. And until it did. So it makes you realize what's important. we're putting together the team with the, idea that we're gonna use it as outreach to. you know, for awareness about breast cancer, we have a game in June versus the ducks where we're bringing the mammogram bus out to the ballpark. Women can get mammograms done while they're there. regardless of, If they can pay or not. If there's a financial responsibility they can't meet, we wanna make sure that they get that. So we've, gotten sponsors to help pay for these people that can't afford 'em. That, that is very important to me. I don't remember. I think, Hey, it's just baseball. It, it is baseball for the kids, but people pay attention to, to baseball. Mommas pay attention to baseball. And if we can get the message out, that's what I want to do. That's tremendous. Yeah. I can't wait to follow along with you guys this year and kind of see how everything goes. So, well, Carter, first it's good to, to speak to someone who speaks correct English. Okay. It is good to hear a southern accent. You good? I like it. Southern accent and some sweet tea. We'd be all right. Well, I'm drink, I've got un right here, which is Dirty water, which I drink all the time. Gotcha. I love the origin story, of the team name and your mission. That is, that is fantastic. such a fun name, unique, different. As Eric talked about the logos when, he was sharing with me that you were coming on tonight and sent me a picture of the logo and I just laughed out loud. I thought now that, that is clever, that is smart. and I think it really stands out in a, in a crowded landscape of collegiate baseball and minor league baseball. I, I think this nickname and your mission It is. It is just right up there. I mean, trash pandas was a dumb idea until they made millions of dollars. Right. Bananas was a dumb idea till they started to become a worldwide famous of making millions of dollars. I know we're previewing the beginning of the season, the first season for the team. If I was to ask you at the end of the year. how would you define success when this first season wraps up? to define success, and that's a lot of funny you asked that because that the last couple weeks I've been like, okay, where do I wanna be? success for me, based on what I've seen in the past, is that the players. Enjoy and feel like they got a good experience out of it and they were given a quality experience and that we interacted with the community and. People said, Hey, we know what you're doing. That's a great cause. Hey, I came to a game. Hey, I came to your mammogram game and got a mammogram. Hey, we heard about this. We want to help you with, with that part of it. So that is what I would, deem as successful wins or losses. Obviously you wanna win every game. That's not realistic. I have a lot, I have a very young team, uh, and I'll be the first one to tell and I tell the kids when they come, guys, we're a young team, but I have a bunch of D 2D three JUCO players that are looking to get better and possibly move on somewhere else. So I don't think I'm gonna have any issue with the player being able to give me a hundred percent. We're playing CPL. There's some very good teams in the CPL playing in some old North State League teams. There's some very good teams there. So I want 'em to have a good experience player wise and say, Hey, they did us right. 'cause that's not always what you hear in some summer league situations. And I also want the community to know, Hey, we had a good time going out to watch the game and we appreciate your mission. Hey, because of you. I went and got checked, even if it's, you know, hopefully it's a negative check. But if, if I drive somebody to make sure they're safe, then that's what I want and that's, I want to hear, that's what I would deem success as. To hear somebody say, Hey, because of what you were doing out there. I went and got, got an exam. I mean that's how we found out last year was through a routine exam. You've gotta have your exams and if that drives somebody to do it, then that's a successful, a success for me. Oh wow. That that is, that is absolutely tremendous. and I love your response there about, from the player's point of view as you've shared, Eric and I, oh, it's been a while, maybe a year. We interviewed, uh, actually it's two guys from the Chili peppers and they that they viewed their mission in helping these players. You know, this was a. Yeah, they're playing and yeah, it's competitive, but it was almost therapeutic for them to play some baseball and that, that seemed, that popped in my mind as you were sharing that, about helping the players, you know, and I remember saying in that interview that we forget these college students, right? They're taking classes, they're doing all this plus baseball, and to be able to go somewhere, have fun, continue to play baseball. Continue to work on their skill sets, but yet fun. And then with what you guys are doing to have a, a cause attached to it to help people is, uh, like I said, it's just abso absolutely tremendous. now Carter, I, I use this question all the time. I use this same line every time. but this is, I believe in recycling. Here is my go-to team or owner. I know Eric's tired of this question, but we do get some great answers. General manager question, if money was no option and you could do a one night promotion for the team, what would it be? Wow, that's a good question. I would tell you that. huh. I would probably wanna bring in. Let's see. In this community being in North Carolina, the biggest, I would say, bring in Chipper Jones for a chip hair. Chipper Jones bobblehead slash Autograph Knight. 'cause I mean, this is braise country and he's the man. So that would be, and I'm a. I'm a Bobblehead guy too, so that would be awesome for me. But I would definitely, that would be something that would draw, if I could bring Chipper Jones in here and, hey, with your ticket, you get an autograph or a Bobblehead and he's here to answer questions. I wouldn't be able to put everybody that, that showed up at the ballpark. Uh, it would sell out. The fire marshal would be after me and we're playing a high school with an open field, and the fire marshal would still be after me. do you know roughly how many Bobbleheads you're, I'm, I'm a Bobblehead guy too. Big, big time. Love them. Well, I, I would say that my wife tells me there's probably well over 300 down there. Woo. Um, go ahead, Carter. So, but I mean, we were just out, my son and I were out in Chicago last week and got the Bobby Jinx, AJ Prezinski Bowhead, and I like the White Sox. I'm not a, you know, overly, I'm a brave guy and I'm an ORs guy, but. I love Bobbleheads. They're cool. I got the s Sid steals home Bobblehead from the Braves. There's some really cool stuff out there. I, I love Bobbleheads. I'm in Braise country and Chipper is the man. He'll always be the man here. So if, if you, back to your question about promotion tonight, chipper Jones Bobblehead Act. Maybe a Chipper Jones Bobblehead with a pink metal master jersey on. Oh, yeah, would, would, would be awesome. I liked that idea. Um. To put him in one of your jerseys. That would be an epic bobblehead. That would really, yes, it, it would be fantastic. I sought after, uh, bobblehead, I've been collecting them like 21 years. I remember we were, in New Orleans, a Zephyr game, and I got the old Boudreaux DRA in oh five, and that's the first one I ever collected. And I'll be honest, I, I don't even know. How many I own. There's several in here, uh, in this room. My office, I have a whole curio cabinet. My wife let me, take possession of to display bobble heads, but you're right, they're just a really cool collectible. It is. Nothing is better. No, they're, they're, they're awesome. But you gotta be careful with 'em. Now, my question to you is, have you ever been to the National Bahe Museum? I believe it's in Milwaukee. No. I would love, I would love to go. I, we went, we went while we were in Mil, I believe it's Milwaukee. We've been there. My, I got the little wristband and it's still in, on my counter for the National Baldhead Museum. I was proud Carter. Oh gosh, this was last year. We went to the Southern Negro Leagues Museum in Birmingham. Or was that two years ago, Eric, when that trip was? It was two. Two. And I have a Bobblehead that's in that museum that's as close. I got a Rick Woodward, who was the original owner of the Barron's. Gotcha. And have a Rick Woodward bobblehead, that same bobblehead, that I, that I have my daughter when she was little. Said it looked like my dad wearing a fedora. She called him Pops and said, that looks like pops wearing a hat. There you go. That's the, Hey. I like it story as I've gotten with a Bobblehead. It was a giveaway long time ago. A Rick Wood Classic, they gave away the Rick Woodward. Well Carter, one of the segments we do is the profit and the loss and the profit's. Something you gained or earned could be a favorite moment with the Braves or getting a chance to start up this team with the Melon Masters. Any, specific profit you can think of? So, you know, you asked me that before that, so I had an idea and obviously everything's a profit with a medal masters. Right now I'm learning something new every day. And I'm enjoying, I'm loving it to death. It's hard work and you get frustrated, but it is, it's awesome. But I, I will say that probably one of the, the biggest prophets was the last game at Turner Field. I had my oldest child who is kinda like, he sucks up history. He just, just like a sponge. And when John Smoltz. Tom Gladwin and Greg Maddox walked through center Field. He was in awe of those three guys walking through center field. And, what's that, nine years ago? I don't know how old, how long ago it was, but it was the last game there. And to see my son realize what he had was watching coming through there and the history, and he can tell you RAs strikeouts. Biggest games, he knows at all about those guys. And he was just in awe. And that really was like, I'm like, he's sucking us up. So that was really my biggest profit, maybe I would say, was to watch him understand what was going on and who the, who those guys were. 'cause they were my heroes growing up. We, like I said, I'm a huge brace fan. We watched 'em on TBS back in the day. I watched them when they were terrible in the eighties, got better and then, I watched 'em when they had Bruce Benedict, Biff, PO Robba, Glenn Hubbard, Raphael Ramirez, Rick Miller, and then to watch, what, 10 years later was Andrew Jones, shipper Jones, small sch, mad, Avery, Clavin, all that stuff. So for him to understand who those guys were, it just was a, a moment that I'll never forget. Yeah. That's awesome. I appreciate you sharing a little bit about that. What about the flip side, the loss, any specific, Braves moment, you know, player get traded or team didn't quite win it or anything unrelated? Any loss you could possibly think of? Well, you know, I don't know. Is, is a personal loss. You talk about baseball and a game, you always hate to see a CUNY get hurt 'cause he is such a superstar in this game. Mm-hmm. Um. He can do so many things and it's been you, you're devastated as a brace fan when he gets injured. I will say to Pastor Hank Aaron is, is always a loss. I mean, that's a loss anyway, but what a great role model he was and what a great athlete and a great ambassador for the game and to lose him a couple years ago during COVID, I believe is, you know, that that was a loss that you feel as, as a baseball fan. I don't think you have to be a BRACE fan. To feel that loss. You just have to be a baseball fan and you realize what that man meant to the game. Yes, for sure. Well, Carter, I really appreciate you sharing the profit and loss with us and Absolutely had a blast having you on here. Talking a little bit about the melon mashers, if anybody wanted to go on and follow you guys online, do you have the website and then do you sell the hats yet? Yes, sir. Well, now that I have some in stock as of today, we do sell them and the website is melon masters baseball.com. if you want a hat, you can just email me atCarter@melonmastersbaseball.com. Uh, right now for the next probably three weeks, there'll be $30 plus shipping and handling. After that, when the season starts, they'll be 35. But that's the easiest way to do it. I haven't, I have not gotten good enough yet to be the IT guy instead of an online store. But I, I'll, I will find somebody to do that. I can do most anything else. It is an online store is probably not, not me. So that's all right. And then, uh, what about like social media on Twitter, Instagram, anything like that? Or you guys on there as well? We're on, we're on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If I, I tell you the handles I. I can't tell you the handles, but Meow Masters Baseball, if you punch that in, we come up on, uh, all three of those. I've been told I gotta get a TikTok page channel, whatever it's called. So I gotta have somebody else to do that too. My, maybe my kids can help me with that. 'cause that TikTok stuff. I'm like, Lord, help me. So. Yep. I don't even do any of that. Well, make sure you guys go out there and we're excited to follow along with you guys this summer and, not only see how you guys are doing on the field, but what you're doing with your mission and everything off of it as well. So again, just appreciate you joining us and if you can make sure you guys follow us as well, we're I'll do it. Earn fun. Average average is a VG, Instagram, Twitter, blue sky and threads. And Carter, one more time. Really do appreciate it. Thank you so much. Yes sir. Thank y'all for having me. Good luck guys. Good talking to you. I enjoyed it. America, lower your standards average is what these two guys do best. Background music