Jim Malone - The Truth About What Separates Hall of Famers From Everyone Else

I talk with veteran strength coach Jim Malone about why authenticity is the fastest path to trust, buy-in, and better training outcomes in pro sports. We dig into how baseball strength and conditioning changed over the last 30 years, why one-size-fits-all programs fail, and what youth overuse is doing to pitchers. 
• choosing authenticity even when it costs you 
• building relationships that last decades in pro baseball 
• earning athlete trust by explaining the why 
• why strength and conditioning shapes team culture 
• how MLB strength training evolved since the mid-90s 
• why baseball has no single body type blueprint 
• using guardrails plus customization for each athlete 
• managing workload and readiness across a long season 
• prioritizing performance, durability, and personal potential 
• connecting weight room work to on-field results 
• genetics, robustness, and the limits of injury prevention 
• the UCL and Tommy John problem in youth baseball 
• early specialization, travel ball incentives, and missing guardrails 
• team mentality, role discipline, and long-career thinking 
• where to find Jim and what he is building next 
Tune in next week. Download the pod, subscribe to our YouTube channel, check us out at athleticfortitude.com. Five stars only, baby.

Transcript

Authenticity And Real Relationships

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I appreciate people who are authentic to what they believe in. So uh yeah, 'cause I always know exactly what I'm getting with people who are really authentic, which I appreciate because that's not everybody.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

So Yeah, well I think I I you know I think I try to be that way no matter what. Uh and it's look, to be clear, I think it's it's it's helped me a lot in my career, and it's probably hurt me a little bit in my career. And that's fine. It just sort of is what it is. I think you, you know, it just means that you're probably not where you were meant to be, or at least to be around the people you're, you know, you're that you're around. Um, I think it's okay. I'd rather be myself to be challenged anymore.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Yeah. And I'd say this I'd rather be myself and repel the wrong people who I don't want to be associated with than pretend to be someone else and end up in places where I am constantly having to be or pretending to be someone else.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Yeah, there's a saying, right? I'd rather be hated for who I am than love for who I'm not. You know, and look, I've got I've got people that I count as really good friends that we have differences of opinion on certain things, you know, maybe politics being one of them. That doesn't mean I I I try not to paint with a broad rush because I know that, you know, these are people that I still care a lot about and that I that I I consider good friends. It's just okay that if we're gonna have a difference of opinion on a few things, because I I'm not gonna cut someone, I'm not gonna necessarily unless they do something horrible themselves, then I'm probably not gonna cut them out of my life, you know, just because we have a difference of opinion.

What He Is Most Proud Of

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Some people might might not agree with that, and then that's fine too. So you're 30 years in, Hall of Famer, Cy Young Award winners, MLB managers. When you look back over your career, what are you most proud of?

SPEAKER_01 1:47

The relationships. The relationships, the the fact that, you know, the the people that fall into some of those categories that you just mentioned, you know, I can I can pick up the phone and give them a call, shoot them a text, and I know I'm gonna get a response. And I I think that's not out of obligation. I think that's out of building genuine relationships. And it look, it's just really kind of I I I tell people this all the time. I fell into baseball on a goof, really. I mean, I just took a flyer um uh back in '96. And uh, you know, my first season of baseball was in '97. Um, I just saw an opportunity, met some people that work worked in baseball, and I saw some opportunity there, and I just I took a shot. I mean, I was a college football coach who did strength conditioning and just reached a crossroads that I was gonna have to probably pick one path or the other. And uh I enjoyed being in the weight room and I didn't love recruiting. I'm not a great salesperson. So the the weight room made the most sense and the the profession just really was really taking off in a big way so that I I couldn't I couldn't sort of strandle the fence anymore.

Earning Buy In Without Selling

SPEAKER_00 2:58

And that's uh, you know, and what enabled you to build those deeper relationships with some of those guys?

SPEAKER_01 3:05

I think being authentic is you talked about at the outset. I wasn't trying to sell them anything that wasn't what I thought was gonna be valuable to them. I I wasn't trying to sell sizzle without the stake, so to speak. And you know, I was gonna be in it with them. I tried to even this is this is sometimes where I struggle on two sides of the coin. Um you know, I grew up in a time when when people that were in authority, uh, let's and in particular coaches, coaches told you to do something, you did it, right? You didn't really question it. But what I learned is that the good coaches, maybe they didn't tell you why immediately, but they backfilled it. So that encouraged building a relationship. And I tried to do that, even if it wasn't necessarily consciously. I just I wanted to be able to sell them on the value of what we were trying to do. Because our role, especially as strength conditioning coaches, coaches in general, but our role as strength conditioning coaches is to ask athletes to do difficult things that are not comfortable. And they don't all love it, right? They they certainly love what they're doing, but they don't always love the stuff that is adjacent to that. Um I mean, or what's one of the most most entertaining clips out there, right? Alan Iverson, we're talking about practice, right? And you know, not everybody loves the weight room. They don't love to be put in uncomfortable situations. And that's that's what worked, it's that's that's my role. So I think that being genuine and being invested in that with intention and being genuine throughout that is what helped me build the relationships. I will also say I think what helped me a lot in baseball, having been a coach, a position coach and a sport coach afforded me a little bit different way to communicate with the baseball coaches versus just being sort of, even though I was the weight room guy and I was, especially early on in the mid-90s, I was a little bit of an outlier when it came to baseball. And I roll in there with, you know, 200 and at that time, 250 to 260 pounds and throwing a lot of weight around. You know, I was I was one of the earlier guys that sort of came from college and tried to bring that mindset of intentional training, intentional preparation to baseball. You know, I think it helped me create buy-in with the coaches, which in turn helped me create buy-in with the athletes. So I think I was able to communicate kind of on both ends, you know, because we're kind of placed in the middle, much like athletic trainers, you're kind of in the middle of it all. And I just tried to always be very open. Nothing was a secret. It wasn't, it wasn't so much, as I said earlier, to do what I said because I said someone on the coach, especially at the pro level versus college. But I think that I think that's what really helped me. And I think they respected so the things that I was doing personally from a training standpoint. I think they I think that helped create some buy-in. And when they knew I wasn't trying to turn them into me, that also helped. Because when I first met Al Leiter at a Christmas party in New York, when I got my first big league job with the Mets, I was introduced to Al by Michael Kay, who's the radio guy for for the Yankees. And uh Michael's like, hey Al, this is your new strength coach. And Al looked at me, looked at looked at me up and down. He goes, You know, we don't want to look like you, right? So yeah, yes, Al, I'm I'm aware. It's not my first year in baseball, it's just my first big league job. So um but uh but yeah, so that uh now again, just sort of the idea of being open and and genuine with the guys helped.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

I always say the best programs and organizations are direct uh are directly downstream from the strength and conditioning programs. The culture and the tone that those guys set, I have always felt is a direct influence on the actual performance and the culture of a team. And I don't think it's possible for a team to be successful or an individual to be successful without the proper strength and conditioning coaches. For you, what is it that you do that may be different or unique that allows you to get that trust from some of these world-class athletes pretty quickly?

How Strength Training Entered Baseball

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Well, I think wrapped in that question is the idea of what we in our role are empowered to do. Because and I think it's it's sport, it can be sport, and then the subcategory would be organizational specific or philosophy. Very early on, what we did was very secondary. It wasn't necessarily supported by all the coaches, but if there was organizational support, then it was hard for coaches, especially older, old school coaches who didn't necessarily believe in or trust in this aspect of player development. Um at the very least, they didn't have to necessarily be supportive, but they couldn't be, they had to be silent, if that makes sense, right? Yeah. So I was very lucky that coming into the Cleveland organization in the mid-90s, they were one of the first, if not the first, organization that was putting a strength conditioning coach at every level of their minor leagues.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

And sorry to interrupt. So this like so strength and conditioning wasn't like a regular part of professional baseball until mid-90s. I yeah, without a doubt. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

I I'd I'd I'd have to really think hard. In 1997, if every major league team even had a full-time dedicated head strength conditioning coach.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

So they just didn't find the value in weight and strength training.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Right. Baseball players didn't lift weights. That's you know, that that's kind of how it was. That, you know, now you were just getting into that, but you're just getting into that mid-90s era, right? You know, you think about the great home run race, you know, Sosa and Maguire. There's a spotlight on that. You know, despite some of the peripheral things that are said about that era, you know, let's just take that out of it. There's still guys still had to train and still had to work hard. Okay. Um and there became a recognition that, well, if our guys are going to do this, we better make sure that we've got some people with knowledge to help at the very least put some guardrails in place. Because just like, you know, then, just like now, the idea of your athletes, in a particular baseball players, where it's a high skill and motor pattern game, you don't want them going and training like bodybuilders. So, right, you start to try to find the path to bringing in people who were training for performance on the field versus training to train or training for looks or aesthetics or or what have you. So, right, because we all know there's different different ways, you know, depending on what your end game is, there's different ways to train for that for that end game and that outcome. So, and if you think about like old school pitching, you know, what did pitchers do? Pitchers ran a ton, and I don't mean sprints and intervals, they just went out and ran, you know, because it was conditioning. And, you know, in retrospect, you can take a lot of the research and the science aspect of it, and you could see where the value lied and where it was counterproductive what you were actually trying to do based on the needs of the sport. So um, so that that time frame, Cleveland Fernando Montez, who was the head strength coach, Fernando had had come from Stanford University as a strength conditioning coach. And he also had an athletic training background. So he was really kind of early on, he was the nice mix where he could kind of sell the aspect of, hey, I'm an athletic trainer, I'm a certified athletic trainer as well. So I know you know what might be um counterproductive, but also I'm a strength conditioning coach who's worked with high-level athletes and worked for Bill Walsh, worked for Dennis Green, and said, okay, well, let's try to, you know, find the best of both worlds and make that happen. And what Fernando really excelled at was like being organized and being intentional and having a system in place. And, you know, at the same time, you're you can do kind of what you're allowed, but I think it's it's important to be able to try to push the boundaries to sell, so to speak, what you're trying to accomplish and the value of that for your athletes.

Why Baseball Has No Body Type

SPEAKER_00 11:55

And so when I look at baseball players from like a functional physique standpoint, it's very different than football, which is different from soccer, which is different from basketball. Is there a particular reason the demands of the sport of baseball may have baseball players look a little bit different? Because you look at a lot of these guys and they're not shredded. I'm sure some of them are, but you have a lot of guys who may be perceived as a little overweight. You get the babe roof jokes, and obviously that was a different time frame, but some of the best hitters in baseball aren't, by definition, rocked up, right? They may carry a little bit more weight, but it meets the demands of their sport. So I'm kind of curious from that perspective, how what is different about training a baseball player than maybe training a football player or basketball player?

Guardrails Plus Individualized Programming

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Well, I think one of the things that really stands out is that there's really no physical blueprint for baseball. And I and I I have I literally have slides and a presentation, kind of uh in the can presentation that I will use at certain times and talk about. You know, there's all look, there's always outliers, right? Yeah, basketball, you have like Muggsy Bowes. In in in football, you had like London Fletcher, you know, at five foot nine and Sam Mills at five foot nine, playing a middle linebacker in the NFL, right? Those are outliers. In baseball, you kind of have your little area that you're responsible for and in the field, right? I joke that baseball is not really, I like to say a four-dimensional sport because it's not really chaos, it's not soccer, it's not American football, even though you know you run organized plays, but there's still a lot of chaos that's happening, a lot more reactive. And and I for me, the fourth dimension is that the the maybe the vertical aspect of athleticism. And your baseball, you've kind of got your own little patch of ground that you're responsible for, and you've got two really motor pattern specific skills that are being executed play by play, right? You've got a pitcher throwing the baseball, and you've got a batter trying to hit the baseball. You can be five foot eight. You could be David Eckstein, who I had as an athlete, loved, one of the greatest, nicest human beings there is out there, too nice. Um, but you can have David Eckstein playing shortstop, World Series MVP, at like five foot seven, five foot eight, and I might even be being generous, you know, this little pasty white, super nice, clean-cut dude. And, you know, on the on the other end of that at shortstop, you're gonna have someone like Alex Rodriguez, who's six foot three, four, whatever, two hundred pounds, two hundred and twenty-five pounds, playing the exact same position, exact same requirements. And look at the size differential. You have Tim Lindsacum, who same thing was maybe five'e, throwing in the 90s, mid-90s as a pitcher, winning Cy Young awards. And you had Greg Maddox at 5'11, give or take, you know, throwing with precision, winning 355 games. Jake Peavy at 6'1-ish, 190 pounds, who could squat 405 for five, you know, win a Cy Young, throwing in the low 90s, snow with control. And then you had someone like Chris Young and Randy Johnson, who are both 6'10, 6'11 with two very different body pipes, the body types at that height. And all those guys are doing the exact, they all have the exact same job. So, but I couldn't train all five of those guys in the same way. There could be aspects or variations of certain, you know, see the needs to work back from, but you can't train all those guys the exact same way because the bodies don't, their bodies aren't gonna be conducive to certain things that you might think are gonna be valuable for one person, but not gonna be as valuable or or counterproductive for another.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Like, that was actually gonna be one of my questions is like, how customized can it be to the individual and or is it just broad concepts that should apply to everyone, or is it a little bit of both?

SPEAKER_01 16:09

I think it's it's I think it's a little bit of both. I think you try to have sort of again the guardrails in place, uh, you know, certain valuable working motor patterns that you're trying to get get get good at. But, you know, I'm probably not putting about although I used to look, I used to do back squats with Chris Young, but he's a big robust, he was a big robust athlete, you know, former center in basketball. You know, he got offered at NBA contracts, and he he had to stop playing basketball in college before he was done because he had he had signed his first pro contract. And the Ivy League, you couldn't double dip, you couldn't do that. Once you said once you were pro in one sport, you were done. It wasn't like when, say, Ricky Williams was still playing running back in college, got drafted by, I think it was the Phillies, and played a couple summers of of minor league baseball. But, you know, at Chris's size and the success he had in basketball before turning pro in baseball, he got offered NBA contracts. But Randy Johnson, who I I did not have as an athlete, who I've had a couple interesting conversations with, but you know, Randy Johnson wasn't putting a bar on his back and squatting. Just too long, kind of too narrow, just didn't have the body type that was ideal for it. But had I trained Randy, I would have probably talked to him about the value of the pattern and trying to work on the pattern in some aspect, you know, gobble squats, some, you know, just just something, you know, uh physio ball wall squats, you know, just just whatever. And then find other ways to load him, you know, to for a a better strength outcome. But that's you know, and that's the same thing I would approach because everybody moves a little bit different. Baseball can wreck you from a from a uh symmetry standpoint, especially back in the day, I think, but much more than now because there's a a much more conscious, there's a great much greater awareness to the value of training. So I think it's kind of having those sort of your base philosophy in place and knowing what maybe you think is ideal or optimal, and that knowing that there may have to be regressions for the athletes and the individuals that aren't as good at some things as others, and then some progressions for the guys that are really good. And they're looking and there are the outlier athletes in baseball, and well, even in football, like in any sport that are great adapters and you know, maybe have a high mesomorph aspect to their to their physique. And you may need to dial back what they're doing and talk to them about, hey, you know what, you don't need it. Uh, and you know, kind of figure out what strength told, you know, at what point is sort of enough enough. And I think that's gonna be very individual because um, you know, a guy who can maybe squat one and a half times his body weight, that might be plenty for him versus the other individual that's capable of two or two plus times his body weight. You know, how much how much more do you have to keep chasing a quality that they've kind of already mastered?

Workload Management And Daily Readiness

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Yeah. So like I I think about it too, like the higher you get at certain at a certain point, you're gonna hit your peak in terms of the weight that you can move, how strong you are, relatively speaking, how hard you throw. So when it comes to like those training protocols and you're maximizing or you've maximized your ceiling in terms of physical development, maybe, it's how do you still strain the body without just unnecessarily pushing for more? What goes into that process?

Three Training Priorities That Matter

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Yeah, well, I think it's it's it's kind of, you know, how are you gonna distribute their workload? And again, if we're talking about baseball in a situation where you're playing a game just about every day, um, you know, you have to be hyper aware of that. And there are gonna be days where an athlete is gonna be fully equipped to kind of have a full workout, and there are gonna be other days where you might have to dial it back. I mean, I've had again, it's kind of how the game's changed, right? It used to be nobody worked out during the day, everybody worked out after a game. Um, maybe the only guys training during the day might have been were probably pitchers, a starting pitcher that's somewhere in between his rotation starts, and then a reliever who, you know, through the night before and is probably might might not be live that day. That's trained has changed drastically. But you know, so it's really all in having discussions, I think, with your athletes. I think nothing really tells you about an athlete's readiness than just asking, hey, how do you feel today? You know, this is kind of what we've got on the schedule. You know, how do you feel about that? You know, where are we at? Or if a guy, you know, did happen to work out after. Um I was with Pittsburgh, Arlie Marte and Gregory Planco always after the game. Come in together. He told me to put Bad Bunny on, right? But I knew who Bad Bunny was long before, long before anybody else did, because Marte would walk in the way room and he'd be Malone, Malone, Bad Bunny, Bad Bunny. And so I'd put it on box, put it on, you know, put it on Pandora or Spotify and let it rip. But you know, if they came in and and they were dragging a little bit, then I'd say, okay, well, look, here's kind of what we had on tap. Let's let's strip it down to these two things, or let's strip it down to two sets of everything versus three, because we're training for performance and readiness. We're not training to peak for a 1 RM eight weeks, 10 weeks, 12 weeks down the road, right? I mean, their their most important KPI is playing the game every day. And even and starting pitchers who I've always said in baseball are the easiest guys to program for because you know what their schedule is, you know, barring a rain out or some sort of, you know, maybe scheduling issue. But even them, it doesn't just fit neatly on an eight week plan on your Excel sheet or in your program. There's always going to be some variability, and it really always comes back to being prepared and ready to play when it's your time to play. It's not about me trying to prove numbers in the weight room. I've never been a big advocate and and maybe spending so much time in Pro Ball has helped me define this. I don't I don't need to put up a leaderboard for training or weightlift or training or outcomes to provide proof of what we've accomplished in the weight room. Obviously you want to see progress in certain things, but that's really gonna be dependent on kind of what your overall program and maybe organizational philosophy is and figuring out what the what the important things to be keyed on are. But in the end, it's still gonna be showing up and being able to play and perform. I mean, I talk about three things when it comes to training that are important. Number one is improved performance on the field or the court or the rank or whatever it might be. So we're gonna try to spend time doing things that are gonna help with that. Not so much what's gonna get your squat up or how big a bench press can you get or what you deadlift or clean. Uh number two is creating athlete durability and injury prevention, which I think are byproducts of a sound program. I think if that becomes kind of the focal point, you're probably not really training aggressively enough to elicit the type of uh uh adaptation and and and work potential that you could. And then last is like that much more personal aspect to help each athlete uh reach their full potential, you know, and and how do I slash we in our in the performance domain, you know, make that happen. And that might be different. That's gonna be different for everybody on the roster there because everybody's full potential is gonna be a little bit different.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

When I reflect back over my career and I think about how I had to change the the way that I trained and the way that I competed, um, I like to think that the the latter part of when I changed the way that I trained, if I had trained that way the entirety of my career, that I may have had a different outcome in my career. Now I'm very proud and I did make it to a very far level. Most people would say I overachieved. However, in my own world, I felt I underachieved because in the latter part of my career, I saw the heights that I could personally reach. And I think about your pillars. And I noticed that you're number one in two things to me are the most important, right? Actual performance on the field, number one, and number two, staying healthy. And so over my career, the number of broken bones, surgeries, torn ligaments that I've had are unbelievable. And so, and then I think about a lot of my training protocols at the time, and it felt like it was more chasing numbers on the squat, chasing numbers on the bench, and less about how do I fundamentally perform better on the field. And I have two questions here. The first question is how do we utilize the weight room in direct correlation to performance on the field? And then my second question will be injury related that I want to circle back to, but I really want to understand how do we fundamentally measure from or transition from the weight room to performance on the field? What is the correlation and connection there?

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Yeah, I, you know, it's hard to say, I don't know if there's a correlation. I think the connection lies in communicating with the sport coaches for a couple different reasons. Number one, one thing about us as strength conditioning coaches or performance professionals is unless, literally, unless you're a powerlifting coach or a weightlifting coach, everything you're doing is to help those athletes do something different and be better at what they're doing as an athlete. And no matter how fancy our title might be, senior associate, athletic director in charge of physical performance, or head strength conditioning coach, or vice president of athlete performance and readiness, anything, like whatever you want to put on it, whatever's helping you get a bigger salary, whatever, you're still an assistant to those sport coaches. You're still a subordinate to that, especially in particular the head coach, right? Because if you go back and you talked about culture and kind of you know where that might fit in and to the bigger picture. The the the the hand in hand, the mesh point is that we as strength conditioning professionals really have a grasp on what the sport coaches are looking for. Because I can get an athlete to jump his squat by 20%, maybe shave, you know, a couple tenths of a second off of a particular field time that's being measured. But if they're not, if it's not helping change what they're doing from a player performance standpoint, then at best it's a net neutral outcome. And that's of course better than a negative, but you know, is that because maybe the athletes reach their actual performance ceiling, right? They've they've maxed out, they've tapped out. Or is it because maybe we don't have a full understanding of the sport or the game or the individual and what those coaches sorry what those coaches, what those coaches and uh what the organization are looking for out of that athlete. So it's I think it it it it eventually becomes about problem solving and trying to figure out, you know, what tools in our toolbox do we need to use to help find the most favorable outcome for the team first, if it's especially if it's a team sport, and where that individual athlete fits into the the team needs and outcome, and then right the athlete needs for their outcome. So I I would say it's that. I don't I don't think you can label any one thing in the weight room or what we do even on the field as being the make or break thing. I certainly think from certainly I I think sort of from that neutral line, right? When it comes to the positive and there are plenty of things we could do to F up an athlete. There are plenty of things we could do to to regress, to to literally ruin what they're trying to do as athletes. I think you also have to kind of a conscious awareness of that. And maybe that kind of comes back to the idea of just deciding having an awareness of like if if sort of an an athlete is maxed out a particular bucket, if we just you know use that term, you know, how much more time do you need to spend on that? Right. Even again, even if an athlete is maybe capable of more, is it more just for the sake of chasing numbers or is it more because it might actually help them out?

SPEAKER_00 28:34

So in that realm in direct relation to injury then, how much of like injury is genetic, and maybe not a fair question to ask, but if we were to like assign percentages, like what is it like genetically versus how much we can actually prevent from happening through strength and conditioning? Because throughout my career, you know, I've had five knee surgeries. You know, I currently have torn labrum. I had fractured and separated the shoulder in the past, broken leg multiple times, fractured knee, you know, sprained ankles, fractured three vertebrae in my back, wrist surgery, you know, fractured my other shoulder. I've had just about every broken bone, torn ligament that you could have. And I felt like a ton of my training was, you know, again, part of my career, but I've still had injuries since then, was injury prevention. And I still get hurt and I quote unquote did everything right. And it's something I've been searching for in my own life because I refuse to label myself as injury prone. But understanding that there is a genetic component to this that I, and I speak for a lot of athletes that I see out there, can't seem to get over that injury bug.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

Yeah, well, you know, remember you played a sport that, you know, has a physics component to it, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:56

That is being five 185 pounds didn't help me yielding my sport.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

So and unrelenting. And the fact that, you know, it's like, right, they talk about it, it's like the idea of being in a being in a car accident every, you know, once every 40 seconds, especially depending on, you know, the position you played. You know, you played defensive back, your role was to seek out people and try to take them out, right? I mean, and because you were, you know, quote, undersized, you probably played with a chip on your shoulder, which made you that much more not necessarily reckless. I think look, there's we just all there's an expiration date on all of us. And you know, some people are durable and like indestructible, but those are those are the outliers. You know, I think that geez, especially in football, it's not like if you get hurt, it's when. And it's just the kind of the degree of like what you you know, what can you play with or through.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Um, I think the part that drives me the most mad, right, is like I said, I did everything right. Like I never drank, I didn't do drugs, like I went to bed on time. I was about to.

SPEAKER_01 31:09

You're a lot too tight. You were out too tight.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

Some of these cats, man, they did they drank, they did drugs, they never went to sleep on time. And they never got hurt. They never got hurt ever. And I'd be like, what, like, what is going on right now? But like to your point though, like I never felt like like I never like wanted to do those things. So it didn't feel like I was giving much up. Like it didn't feel like I was wound too tight. And I think that was the part that like bothered me was like, it wasn't like I was like, man, I need like I want to go out and like have fun. Like I never felt I was deprived of fun in like my career and my life. I'm just kind of unique in that way. Like I just wasn't drawn or interested in in doing some of those things. But like I knew functionally that I like it was I was a healthy person in like choice. Like I was doing healthy things, but like my body just didn't respond. And I think that, and obviously, you know, I understand like the physics, the physics component of my sport, you know, it just like that type of stuff is like when I reflect and people ask me, you know, like what I think about it. Like I default to I think some of it's genetic, right? Like I I don't know because like that's not my area that that I spend a lot of time in. Right. But just that's the only rationalization I I have is why I got hurt so much, is some of it was probably just genetic, uh, is something I continue to to work through as I you know, I try to compete and stay really active as I continue to do those things.

Youth Overuse And The UCL Problem

SPEAKER_01 32:36

Yeah, I mean, I think that we're biological mechanisms. There's just fragility to us, to all of us. And and I think again, if you want to like sort of get into the genetic talk of it, and I I think it really just comes down, I don't think it's necessarily something that's in your genes. I think it's just it's in your genes in the sense that like how fortified are you sort of from the inside out? Like what's what's your you know, kind of where does your somatotype score fall? Like how much of a mesomorph are you, how heavy boned are you, how much of an endomorph are you, as far as like robustness, how you know, how much of an ectomorph are you as far as like maybe length and frailty of bone, not that that's a part of being ectomorph, uh, but but muscle bellies, tendon thickness, connective tissue, you know, it's you know, it really kind of comes back to we used to joke about picking the right parents. Kevin Barr, who's a longtime Major League Baseball strength coach and one of the funniest human beings I know, KB just talked about you know, genetic trash versus, you know, genetic jackpot. And, you know, we just kind of all I think we all have an expiration date and it just and it just happens, right? There's wear and tear on our body. I think the idea that, you know, kids are indestructible, you know, we're finding out that's not the case, and the mileage and the wear and tear, especially in the sporting baseball, you know, we're finding out that that the you know that rent is coming due as these kids turn 18, 19, 20 years old, pitchers especially, and you know, we talk about the epidemic of Tommy John surgeries and what can we do, what can we do, what can we do? But you know what we need to do is we need to take control of what's happening between the time that they're 10, 11-year-olds till they're 17, 18-year-olds.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Yeah, it talks to me a little bit about that. Yeah, it talks to me a little bit about that because I mean, listen, I didn't pitch and uh like you know, would have had Division I baseball offers, I chose football. But like even now, like my arm is still like my right shoulder is still significantly less mobile, tighter than my left arm. I attribute to all the throwing I did growing up, and even like from a football perspective, throwing the football all with my right hand. And I can only imagine the young generation now with the AAU circuit that we're playing, how often these kids are throwing. Again, not my area of expertise, but when I apply common sense, I assume that they are not getting one the appropriate physical training to meet the demands of the volume of pitches that they're throwing. And I'd love to hear your perspective on hey, what is going on with the UCL epidemic and just arm problems in general for pitchers, and how do you address it at a young age?

SPEAKER_01 35:25

Well, I think that the thing that has to be addressed is creating guardrails and standards that actually get adhered to. And I don't have the answer. There are people way smarter than me, uh, you know, with medical backgrounds and physical therapy backgrounds and biomechanic backgrounds that are all right. This is always talked about and being worked on. Studies here, studies there, you know, there's you know, USA baseball and MLB have come out with certain recommendations about, you know, pitch count and usage, but there's no, there's no, you know, that's not policed. There's not, you know, these things, you know, if a kid pitches on a Friday in a high school game in, you know, at the end of their high school season in June, and then they pitch on Sunday in a travel ball game for the travel ball club that they're on because that coach wants his best pitcher pitching, there's not whether it's a lack of communication, a lack of transparency, or just a lack of give a shit, there's no there's no way to monitor forcibly monitor and and you know put put put researcher plates on that aspect put on that aspect. I think you know, and then you just then you go down that philosophical rabbit hole about the monetization of youth sports and right capitalism and everybody's got an up, you know, should have the right to try to make a job, but at what expense? I think that you know, and you in and you see some of the things about like, well, why do like why does Finland have this great development process or Denmark, you know, some of these other some of these you know, pick a country, pick a small country where they have, you know, a much more centralized youth athlete development system. Well, you're also talking about countries that have a population the size of you know a state here, and it's it's become it's almost like it's it's not too big to fail because there is failure happening, it's too big to control. And I don't have the answer. I'm not smart enough to have the answer in that. But I it still comes back to the idea that like the old, I think the old school, and at my age, I think, you know, that's what I grew up in. Kids, kids are indestructible. Hey, go out, whatever, you know, play tackle football in the street, do whatever, just don't come home until the street lights come on, whatever. Now everything's so hyper-organized and early sports specialization, and the more is gooder, and parents that are unreasonably hopeful that their kid is gonna be the next Cy Young Award winner or Michael Jordan or Paul Skeens or um Tom Brady or whatever it's gonna be. And kids, it's these it's like these micro traumas of overuse, especially in repetitive movement patterns, that are just killing kids when they're not physically mature enough to handle it and there's not enough of a break, right? It's it really kind of comes back to the whole idea of like rotating crops and what they learned, you know, hundreds of years ago about keeping the soil fertile by you know changing what everything that was going on from a crop standpoint. It's I think it's the same thing with early sports specialization. It's the kids aren't getting uh exposed to enough different stimulus, physical stimulus. And when they are, sometimes it's forced, right? Forced. And it doesn't end up being complementary, it ends up being contradictory or concurrent, and it's not it's not in their best interests.

SPEAKER_00 38:54

At what age do you think specialization makes sense?

Multi Sport Versus Early Specialization

SPEAKER_01 38:57

Well, I think training age, you know, player uh, you know, versus biological age or you know, uh uh uh experience age might probably factors into it. I think that we're seeing that like that 16 to 17 year old age range is probably best, really. I think because you're kind of on the you're you're on the back end of a l adolescence and you're on the early, you know, again, depending on the individual, um, kind of on the early end of that like adult maturation process. Uh because uh you still have kids that are 16, 17 that are, you know, all of a sudden they turn 19 and they're four inches taller than they were two years earlier, right? It's just kind of you know, that's and that's where you know mom and dad and your your your two family uh genetics come into play. You know, aga again there's no answer because now it comes back to the individual. But I think that I think that just 13, 14 and again, and maybe it it it probably depends on the sport you know, is it how how much and this is a question I can't answer, so it's really more of a hypothetical if you start specializing in let's just say soccer, okay, um because it kind of comes back to that idea of it being a more chaotic environment versus baseball, where it's this over and over and over and over again. I don't know, I think I think it's the specialization in the particular motor pattern repetitive aspect that's doing the damage versus focusing in on a sport that's got a little bit more overall general athleticism to it.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

I get so fascinated in this space because I see this is just a conversation I really enjoy having, because I see that there's different arguments to be made for different ends of the spectrum. And the one argument that, you know, uh I see a lot of strength and conditioning coaches make is in the realm of that the best athletes play multiple sports because they're just the best athletes and good at everything. And at a certain point, for some people who are less generally athletic, it makes sense to specialize at some point. And then I think about all of like generational athletes, because I'm I I love the high performance side. I get really fascinated with the the outliers. I think of like Novak Djokovic, Leonel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James, and you know, a lot of these guys, you know, Steph Curry, like a lot of these guys did specialize for a long period of time. Now, hey, Steph Curry's an elite golfer, LeBron James was an elite football player. I get those things too. But like I look at some of these, you know, uh, you know, high-intensity skill sports, you know, baseball, golf, tennis, wrestling, and a lot of these people did specialize at a young age. So I get that side of the argument too. And I I tend to operate in the mode that I think one, playing multiple sports is really good for general athletic development. You learn how to move your body in different ways, you get resilience adaptations from from different sports psychologically and physically. And then I also do believe that, of course, like if you're more athletic, you're going to play multiple sports because being better is more fun. And so you will do those things. And I just think it's so fascinating because I do see a lot of people who are so definitive on one side and so definitive on another. And I think it's much more gray, and it depends on your natural ability in said sport, your physical maturity and the types of sport that you're playing. Because I look over in Europe, one of my buddies, you know, played college football with. He came over from Italy. He said, I asked him, What got you into football and not soccer? He said, Well, I wasn't a pr in a professional academy by the age of 12, so I had to find a new sport. And so, you know, so it's like, I'm like, Well, there's all these like different things. I I just find it super fascinating because I'm not sure there is a right answer. I might be seeking nothing.

SPEAKER_01 42:58

Yeah, I don't I and I I I agree. I don't think I th I think it just comes back to it depends, right? I think it depends, can answer a lot of questions that sound wishy-washy, but it's still nuanced. It's very nuanced because it's you know, first of all, you don't there's a social aspect to all of this too, right? And that's I think part of part of it is the idea of like just different experiences and different interactions, and it helps you mature from an emotional and psychological standpoint. You know, we don't like we all shy, we all like it's a natural defense mechanism, right? You shy away from things that are hard. Just because you're good in one sport doesn't mean you're gonna be good in another. Well, if I'm not gonna be good at it, then why should I play it, right? And that might be part of it. Um you know, it's a little chicken and egg, like to the point you you know you kind of said. Is a guy playing multiple sports because he's just such a good overall advocate? Athlete that he's going to be good at all of them, or you know, uh or or do they gravitate to what they're good at and let the rest of it fall by the wayside? I think you know, environment has a lot to do with it too. I think if you know if you're like a small high school, then there's probably an expectation that you're gonna play multiple sports because it's just kind of probably kind of inherent that you need bodies to fill out rosters and it just kind of becomes the cycle, right? Football to basketball to baseball or you know, football to wrestling to to to to track and field, you know, whatever whatever your mix might be. Um and you you you don't necessarily have to be good at all of them. And instead of just saying, Oh, well, I'm good at this one thing, so everything I do is gonna be centered around that, and I'm gonna do um, I'm gonna spend my off seasons training to get better at that. I can't really say it's wrong because it's not for me to judge. I think it's it just becomes, like you said, it's nuanced and it's sort of general philosophical, and I think it may just have a lot to do with sort of the community environment that you that you that you grew up in. Uh you know, if you're in a school with 4,000 kids versus 400, then you know, you might be the 50th guy on the football roster, you know, but you're a starting five guy in hoops, so why am I gonna be the 50th guy on the football roster? But again, some kids see value to that because they just want to hang out with their buddies. I think that's I think in the end that's probably kind of what's lost. I get a fe I get a sense that that's kind of what's lost. If I'm not good enough to play, then what's the point?

SPEAKER_00 45:39

Well, that is so true. And I hate when I see I hate that. Like I I actually just had a conversation with an with a younger athlete about that not too long ago, where they were fixated because they were embarrassed because they weren't playing and they decided to quit. And I was like, what like and I get it too. It's easy for me to come down, you know, from my level and say, you know, what's the point when I had a very successful career in the sports I did play, like I was a starter. I was, you know, a successful player. But it was never necessarily just about that. One, I did things because I enjoyed it. I trained hard because I enjoyed it. I wanted to be really good. It was always, I wanted to, you know, be the best. But I don't understand the mindset of if I'm not gonna play like, or if I'm not gonna be on the field or on the court, why do it? And because the knowing what I know now, of all the infinite things that come from playing sport that prepare you for life or that create a more robust personality, that create a more resilient self. And I get very frustrated with parents and you know, youth in high school sports because I believe it is constantly being preached of the wrong messages. And where we've become a very self-centered society and we don't focus enough on serving one a greater purpose, but to understanding too, we get downstream benefits from doing things we may not be the best at, too.

Commitment Culture NIL And Japan

SPEAKER_01 47:06

Right. And I I I I think I'm gonna I'm gonna touch on a point that you made there based on a recent experience of mine. But I I think the other thing too is people struggle to sort of wait their turn anymore. You know, there's an expectation that like, and we've enabled it, we've made it easier, right? Look at like in college. Yep. NIL, transfer portal, like I can't play here, so I'm gonna jump to there. Or uh, you know, I'm too good for here, so I'm gonna jump to there. It's become very, you know, it's become very mercenary. And you know, and obviously there's an aspect of that in pro sports, but at the same time, when you sign a contract and made a commitment, you're expected to honor that commitment. And we've allowed that aspect to get away from us. And I think that in the very big s sort of societal picture, I think that that's not good. I think it's not good. We made it too easy to just drop from commitments and you know, what does someone's word mean anymore? Or where are they legally bound to? I think that they it's hard to unring the bell or put the toothpaste back in the tube, but boy, that that needs a lot of reform. And I think there's some people with some good ideas out there. It's just being, you know, getting enough momentum or, you know, having strong enough people to to enable that and enact that to put some put some guardrails back in place and tighten things up a little bit so it's not just a wild western it's not just a shit shell everywhere. But the, you know, I just spent 11 days in Japan. First trip ever to Japan, because I was fortunate enough to get assigned over there by Major League Baseball. And it's a really interesting society. It's a really interesting place and a very population dense. You know, it's not like they don't have a lot of people. There are a lot of people over there. But the idea of having a responsibility to the collective versus I'm an individual and you're trampling on my rights if I can't express myself, I think it's a it's you know, it's hard because I know you can make an argument for both sides, but I really I was really impressed by everything over there and just the organization and structure and behavior, societal behavior over there. And, you know, you'll have some people on one extreme say they're a bunch of sheep. Or you or you'll say, Well, you know what, you have to live side by side with your fellow man and and you know, for the greater good, you know, this is behavior that is is probably should be admired and and sought to be emulated in some respects.

SPEAKER_00 49:41

But yeah, I think that's very so I've heard so I actually know of like four people who've just come back from Japan, ironically enough. And one of the things that I think are really unique in terms of like human behavior and societal behavior that is really hard to figure out what's right and what's wrong is so one of my friends was born in Japan, you know, comes from comes from there, went, visited, came back, talks about how they hate tourism. They hate, I usually say they hate, but they don't like new cultures, new people coming into Japanese culture and trying to change things. And humans are very tribal in nature, and we want to be with others who are like us. Now, on the other side of that is, you know, innovation, development comes from diversity of thought and getting new ideas, new cultures, new mixes in there. And I think part of the problem in, you know, American sports and American culture is we don't have like one true culture of nationality. We are a mixture of a bunch and it creates conflict and tension to where it's hard because there's no like understanding which one culture we're serving. That's one thing why I appreciate so much about sports is because we can create sectors of that in the you know, uh, American world is hey, if you're part of this team, this is what we're about. You have to serve this purpose. And so the human behavior side of it and the societal culture behavior behind it is when it's sports specifically, it can be so challenging when you have too many people of different, you know, personalities. And I think it was I think it was Pete Carroll that said it, and I really liked it is you can have different personalities, but you can't have different mentalities. You have to have one mentality and you can comprise the personalities underneath as long as they have the same mentality. And I just think it's a it's a really hard thing to execute, but it is very something philosophically that I that I agree with.

SPEAKER_01 51:44

Yeah, I mean, again, because it's it's right, it can in in some respects it could be a microcosm society, but within the parameters and the framework of sport and the game, you know, whatever your chosen sport slash game is, right, the outcome is to compete and to ideally to win. At what point does that become the primary goal, right, is up for debate. Like how important is it for the 12-year-old, the U-12 team, you know, in your travel ball to win, you know, to play nine games over 72 hour span in order to win, you know, a medal or a plastic trophy. Right? Because you can make two sides of the argument. Oh, this should be for fun, it should be for development, it should be for you know kids to, you know, develop, you know, good habits. Oh, you want to keep score, you want to win, you know, not everybody can win. You know, there's you know, it's life, you know, life lessons, not everybody's number one. You know, what's right right? Because you can you can have two people, right? It's just like anything else, right? You got two people at at both ends of the spectrum that can be polarizing, you know, making a valid argument for either case, and you know the the the truth generally falls somewhere in the middle, you know. And I again I don't know what the answer to that is, but you know what you said, like if you know Coach Carroll said, you know, it's a little different when you're getting paid for it, or you know, or you're finally at the like the upper echelon because right, you play to win the game, you play to compete, you play to win, and that in the end should be if everybody's gonna be wearing the same logo and hunting for the same outcome, then whatever your role within that mechanism is, then you should be trying to be the best within that role. And if you're a nose guard, then you realize you have to realize that you know you may get credited with two tackles a game, but if your linebackers are making 15 and you're probably doing your job and you've helped do your part to win the game. If you have a nose guard that is caught up with the idea, well, I'm gonna get paid if I show some sack numbers, and all of a sudden they're, you know, playing, trying to play outside of the system in order to pump up their own personal stats, but everything is crumbling around them because they're not occupying that aid gap or taking up the two offensive linemen like they should, then you're not helping the team and you're not helping the collective, what is supposed to be the collective outcome.

SPEAKER_00 54:26

Part of the reason I hate the media because they they will stat, and we're gonna, I'm gonna use football because that's the game I'm most familiar with. They will stat search and they'll be like, oh, this guy's a game wrecker when we use your nose guard example. They had X amount of sacks, TFLs, but what they're not counting for is all of the MAs and missed assignments that enabled big gap plays that created explosives. Some organizations are really stupid, just flat out, some professional organizations are just really bad. Okay, and they fall, they succumb to those types of things. But the good organizations and the people who are really good at evaluating players notice the guys who do their job exceptionally well that may not show up on the stat sheet and they will reward those players. And we unfortunately showcase to the younger athletes who are coming up that individual self is always more important and to go get those stats, to go get those numbers, because then you're gonna get paid with a big fat check. But we don't talk about the other side. Well, if you do your job and do your job exceptionally well from a disciplined manner, hey, maybe you don't get all the stats that that you're looking for, but there's still equal, if not more money to be made and be in a winning organization and in a winning environment, which also is going to increase, you know, your mood, increase your productivity, increase your longevity, which may lead to more money to be made if that's the ultimate goal. And not that side is not talked about enough because it's not sexy, it's not entertaining, it's not highlights. It's, I did my job, I did it consistently, I did it exceptionally well, and I'm gonna be rewarded for that in some capacity. And again, I hate saying as society, I hate generalizing, but a lot of that is missed right now, and it is making leadership positions incredibly difficult to hold right now because you have to find new ways to communicate and bring these points home.

SPEAKER_01 56:16

Yeah, well, it's right, it's objective versus subjective, essentially in the end. And and that's tough in pro sports, right? Right. The joke, joke, especially in baseball, and you get to arbitration is you know, you may think that you just had a great you had a great first three years in pro baseball, and you know, maybe you made an all-star team and you've you know you've accumulated these stats. You get to arbitration and then you just find out you find out exactly how bad you were, right? Because you want$1.5 million and they're offering you a million, and now you know both sides are trying to make their argument, and if you can't meet somewhere in the middle or get that contract hammered out, you're you're going to present your case to arbitrator. And I've heard plenty of guys say it. Man, I never knew how shitty I was at this game until I went to arbitration. Um you know, and and and that that's that's you know, probably happens in in anywhere. So it it you know, economics makes things really tough, right? Everybody wants more, and everybody, you know, wants to sort of try to um maximize their value. And you know, even just coming back to the strength conditioning side of it, I've always said, you know, I've I've told young strength coaches, I said, our our job is to try to help, you know, we're trying to help athletes. And I've t I've said this, what I've said to athletes is hey, you're all you're literally your own, you're your own individual corporation. I said, so uh, you know, how can I help you? Part of my dialogue has to be how can I help you? Because sometimes it's not even just about like performance, it's not the superstar aspect of performance. It's it's trying to create longevity. Like if you're a middle to the back end of the roster athlete in whether it's whatever sport, right? But you can create some longevity and all of a sudden you've strung together 10 years and you've maxed out your pension in baseball. You know, maybe you were only making the league minimum or the or the veteran minimum for those 10 years, which compared to the average person is quite a bit of money, but not necessarily enough to live on for the rest of your life. But now you had this pension and the MLB pension is tremendous. So that you have something that you know is gonna fortify the back end of your life at least. Now you have to close that gap between the end of your career and when you can reasonably start collecting your pension. But the same thing in football, right? What do people say? What's the best job in the NFL? I would say punter.

SPEAKER_00 58:51

Or backup quarterback, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 58:53

Bingo, right? Yeah, be the second or third quarterback, right? Be the second or third quarter.

SPEAKER_00 58:57

I would pick punter. I would pick punter personally. I think that's the best job, but sorry, you're right. People do say backup quarterback, right?

SPEAKER_01 59:04

Or long snapper, right?

SPEAKER_00 59:06

Long snapping long snapping sucks. Don't let anyone tell you differently. Long snapping sucks.

SPEAKER_01 59:12

But there are there have been plenty of guys that all of a sudden you blink and you find, you know, you see that you know, you know, Joe Long Snapper, you know, just finished his 13th year in the league. 13th year in the yep. Right? Yep. But you know, you joke, right? Back up third, third, third quarterback. Emergency quarterback. And you probably set yourself up for a nice coaching career when you're done because you're almost like you're almost like a player coach, probably. Yep. But so that's you know, there's that really should be part of your consideration as a coach of what you're trying to help these athletes do uh for for their lives versus just their athletic performance. And I I think it takes some time to recognize that if you haven't been that hasn't been sort of uh verbalized to you early on in your career. Like you realize that through, you know, I can be I can be life-changing for someone if I help them hang on.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:09

Yeah.

What Made Marte And Polanco Special

SPEAKER_01 1:00:09

And if you're the 25th guy, well now 26th guy on a major league baseball roster, you're still better than the 180 guys behind you in the organization. And you can make a living and a career out of that. You can go about quietly, go about your business. And and those are the guys that are usually right, they're they're they they realize they kind of know what their limitations are, but they go and they put the work in and they're prepared. The best, they're certainly the best ones. The best ones embrace that and they uh you know, and and they know that, hey, I'm I'm gonna be I'm gonna be the guy that they can count on and be reliable, and I'm always gonna be ready mentally and physically. And even those opportunities have changed in baseball now with the universal DH. And like you're not gonna have a Mark Sweeney or Lenny Harris ever again because how frequently does someone get pinch hit for? It's very rare these days. Maybe for a lefty, righty, you know, maybe to switch up the matchup later in the game, but it's just you know, the game has become a little bit more homogenized. And I I frankly find that sad. Those are conversations you know you have philosophically with with other guys in baseball. But for a guy who was a football player and a football coach and that came to baseball late, I really love the game and there are aspects of it that I miss. And I I and I I I get the business part of it and and and the things they do. It's just right, we all, as you get older, you all wax poetic about what you know time's gone by and you know what's lost in the past, and I'm not the first, I won't be the last. And you know, there were there were guys my age 30 years ago saying the same thing about where things were at then. But it it's just a shame when sort of some of the wrinkles in different things that really made it unique and interesting start to those wrinkles start to get a little bit ironed out, and it just becomes a little vanilla.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:03

When you were in Pittsburgh and you mentioned some of these guys earlier.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:07

Yeah, you've had Mike, you've had Mike McHenry on your podcast way too much. I think I was scrolling through your history.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:13

I think I saw like four of them in there. So it's probably gonna be more too, for it's my guy. He's uh he's uh he's I I love getting him on here. He's uh he's one of my favorite guests, and we were texting earlier this morning about getting him on again. But so some of my favorite players ever in baseball, Andrew McCutcheon, Starling Marte, what made those guys exceptional? What made them different?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:36

Well, I didn't work with I didn't work with Kutch. He got traded that same off season that I came in. Traded or signed somewhere else. So I'll I'll never forget because when I took the job with Pittsburgh in January of early January of 2018, um I got his number. My my my thing is for first of all, I'm not afraid to reach out to anybody. So I got the numbers, started to reach out to some of the veteran guys, and I texted Kutch, and literally, I think it was like a day later, he got traded. So he never answered me. He never answered me. I still got his number, and if he doesn't change his number, I still got his number, but he never answered me. So I and it's funny too because right there are a lot of guys in the league that I didn't work with, but I've been around a long time. So especially through the 2000s into the, you know, and through the 2010s, um, when you're just around, tend to, unless you're shy, you know, you have opportunities to interact. You still have opportunities to interact with. And when you're seeing the same people over and over and over again, they kind of know who you are, you know, you you can still build some relationships. But Kutch, what I was getting at is oddly enough, I never really had much interaction with with with Kutch. So I've thrilled that. I think it's great. I I love the fact that he made the that he made his roster. I'm I'm really happy for him because I do respect the respect the shit on him. I think he's a hell of a player. I just I I sadly didn't get to develop a relationship with him. Um Starling, love him, works hard luck. He just, right, they I think he's making the Royals roster. I mean, he's just he's just ageless. You know, he's had yeah, he's had a couple injuries, right? I know he had a knee thing right a few years ago, but but man, he's one of those, he's one of those really outlier athletes where he's just been able to retain a lot of his athleticism and he's still, right? And again, you know, he's clearly playing because he loves the game. Because he doesn't need to. He's made plenty of money. And money goes a long way on the island. Those guys that have made money and and elect to stay in the DR, you know, they live like kings, but they, you know, and they hire their own little security forces and everything to kind of to right because of the economic. You think we've got economic disparity here, or you talk there, it could be it could be really bad. Bad. But uh but you know, he's still playing because he loves the game. And he's just he was a guy, he was so much fun to round be around because he he it never seemed like he had a bad day. He was just always up. He's just always up, like personality-wise, he was always up. So much fun to be around, and so much fun to watch play. And like I said, I mean him and Polanco together, they were two two of the funnier guys to roll in, and like I said, 90, you know, not even almost, definitely 90% of the time when they worked out, it was together and it was always after a game. Um, it would be there'd be some funny times when we were literally the only three people in the weight room at 10 30 at night, and it would be some funny, be some funny stuff. And by the way, he is Starling is freakish, especially when he's younger, freakishly strong. Yeah, freakishly strong. Loved to squat.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:42

You would imagine because he he had a laser. He would he was super fast. He could hit the ball everywhere in the park. He I just I really enjoyed watching him play.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:52

Yeah, and he wasn't a big guy. I mean, he was very muscular, but he wasn't a big guy. And he's doing he'd doing lunges with 275 and 365 for reps and could have been and could have been doing more. But we didn't need but again, it kind of comes back to what we talked about earlier. He didn't need to. That's kind of like he knew, like just because I knew he could do more, it wasn't like I was chasing him around to put well, let's put 405. He didn't need to. He's strong and he moved well and he was explosive, and you know, and then you know, Polacco, very different body type, much longer legs, high backside, tall, um, you know, different levers, different levers. So, you know, he wasn't a back squat guy, but I'd have him goblet squat to fortify the pattern. And but he was a big lunge guy, lunge and step-up guy. You know, big legs, high, high, high, like I said, high backside. But man, they were they were just they were just fun. And just special athletes.

How They Connected Plus Where To Follow

SPEAKER_00 1:06:48

Special athletes. Well, this is why I end up with getting people for it on my podcast four different times. I had this whole script, I got through maybe a uh fifth of it. So we'll have to get we'll have to get you back again. I'm actually at the port with the point with four. I don't even have a script anymore. We just get on and talk. Well, yeah, yeah. But uh no, hey, I appreciate you for for coming on. This was a fun conversation for me. I know we've been trying to get it for a little bit now, so I'm glad we got it on.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:15

Uh I know what you know what I wanted to ask you is how so, because we we actually didn't discuss this kind of leading up, but how did you how did how did how did I end up on here? How did that happen? Because I'm always I'm always shocked when people ask me because I'm not I'm not big, you know, I don't I don't have like a a a shtick, I don't have like a system that I sell. I don't, you know, I personally, I told you, I think I'm terrible at social media. I know you're entertained because I'm not afraid to kind of pop off on some things, but um, you know, I'm just I'm not I'm not great at all that stuff because I'm not used to, I'm not good at selling myself. And I don't I don't feel I have anything to sell other than just being authentic. I try to be authentic. So I was curious. I was I wanted to ask how I ended up on here.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:59

So recently I've been having a lot more baseball guys. I would say baseball guys in general, probably some of the more generous, kind demographic I interact with. Additionally, they're they're pretty in tune with a lot of the things that I do in the things that I like to talk about. But so with I forget which baseball guy I had on, uh, you had either commented or liked like one of the posts, and you ended up following me on social media, and I followed you back, looked through your stuff. Um, and I have a strong interest in the strength and conditioning field as well. And so I was like, hey, why not? We'd love to get him on, get his expertise on some of this stuff. Um came to fruition, my friend.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:41

Yeah, yeah, appreciate your answer. I enjoyed it. Yeah, yeah. No, I well, I I appreciate I always appreciate being asked because I'm not like jumping, I'm not I'm not jumping around and trying to get on a bunch of these. I never know how I come off.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:54

No, hey, I appreciate it. And if you do have anything to promote or people can reach out to you, or if people want to work with you, you know, how can they reach out to you? How can they find your stuff?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:03

I uh yeah, so my socials are right at J Malone Strength. My website is baseball strength academy. I'm trying to I'm trying to get into the space where I'll do some odd, try to do some online stuff with kids if they're interested. I don't have that fully formulated. I'm a terrible procrastinator and I also have terrible imposter syndrome, but I'd like to get I'd like to get some programs out there for kids that they can jump on if they want to, or if anybody's interested in some one-on-one stuff. Um, you know, I I'm just at a point now with not being with an organization um or a team. I do a lot of work with MLB and uh doing a lot of work with USA weightlifting. So my last little plug will also be for any any peripheral out sports outside of baseball, um, especially college and high school strength coaches, if they happen to listen to this, I'm the athlete identification and recruitment coordinator for USA weightlifting. We're trying to do, we're trying to kind of I won't say parallel or mimic what USA Bobsled does, but we're trying to create an awareness that if you are a powerful, strong and powerful athlete and your career is over and you're a sport of choice, you may have an alternative. And you know, if you want to try weightlifting, then I'm the guy to reach out to.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:16

Well, maybe I'll just I've been looking for a new challenge.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:19

Yeah, be be very sort of it's obviously very specific. You know, you have to have the the the physical the physical tools to be able to snatch and clean a jerk and a snatch in particular. Yeah, snatch is snatch is a snatch snatch is a really, really difficult movement. Yeah, we're looking for outlier athletes um that that that might be able to do that. And and there's a there's a we've got a we've got a page dedicated to that on the USA weightlifting website. But again, that's that's kind of a whole different tangent, but I do want to make people aware of that because it's uh if you're if you're a really strong, powerful athlete, you might be a gymnast, you might be you might be cheer and tumbling, you might be baseball, wrestling, football, track and field. But once once your competitive career is over and you've got the capacity for to maybe get weightlifting a try, um I'm the guy to talk to.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:12

Awesome. I appreciate it, man. So listeners, thank you for tuning in. Tune in next week. Download the pod, subscribe to our YouTube channel, check us out at athletic42.com. Five stars only, baby. Appreciate you, Jim.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:25

Thanks, thanks for having me out. I really enjoyed it.