Season 1 Episode 10.

Jay's talk, Jim Malone strength and conditioning God in baseball weighs in on modern day training methods and specialized athletes. The roast covers some rookies Gone Wild

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is Walk Off Slams with Great Dawn on AM 1150.

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Welcome to edition number 10 of Walk Off Slams. Can you believe it? I mean, it's gone by pretty fast. We are now in month three of a whole lot of baseball trash talking and Blue Jays news. Well, let's get into it, gang. We let's talk about these Blue Jays. You know, it's uh you know, they had a chance to get to 500 about a week or so ago, and they kind of went the other direction. Lost six straight at the time when I'm sitting in front of this microphone, and I'm looking at the situation and thinking to myself, well, you could have predicted that it wasn't going to go well in Tampa. They are 92 and 146 all time at the drop, according to the Google machine. That is fifty four games below 500. That's the w apparently it's the the worst visiting record by any club at the trop. And it's the worst record of any visiting club at any ballpark in the big leagues. Now, I might be wrong about that last point, but wow, it's bad. And I gotta tell you, um I was a member of both teams, the Toronto Blue Jays and the Tampa Bay Rays, and I can tell you there's a reason for it. One, there's a lot of guys on the team, coaches, players, that when I was there had homes in and around the area of Tampa and St. Petersburg. My spring training home was in Palm Harbor, and there's a lack of focus, shall we say. I remember Gibby asked me one time, he said, What do you think I should do? I said, make it mandatory for everybody to stay at the hotel and outlaw use of the pool. Because even when you're at the hotel and you're at a gorgeous hotel, probably one of the best properties in Major League Baseball, in my opinion, best room service cheeseburger of all time, the Renaissance Vinoy Hotel. Great hotel bar, too. Beautiful, beautiful, old world looking building. Right on the water, uh the jewel of the area, in my opinion. Well, most people don't stay at the hotel that have homes in the area. Obviously, they're gonna want to stay in their own house, but what does that do? It it provides distraction. You are sitting there in the middle of summer, likely gonna be in the pool at your own home, because I don't know who would buy a home in Florida without a pool. That's just nonsensical behavior. You're throwing your kids around the pool all day, you're in the sun, and then you're gonna try to go play ball. It's it's like vacation. And so I told Gibby, I said, Look, make it mandatory that everybody stay at the hotel when we come to Tampa and outlaw the pool. And maybe ask them to wear a suit on the road. Because one of the things that I loved about being on the road was wearing a suit. I love being in a suit. You've seen me on TV, you know I love my suits. I celebrate a suit. Well, what it does is it signals you're on a business trip, and that's exactly what a road trip is. It's not party time, although uh baseball players do tend to have a good time eating at really nice restaurants, staying in really nice hotels. But it's a business trip, and business people wear business attire, and that was one of the things I loved. Even after most teams went casual, I still wore a suit on the road because that's how I was brought up. Fact, when I was a member of the Texas Rangers, you imagine a hundred straight days of a hundred degree weather, and we had to wear a sport coat to the ballpark on the road. Not just on the planes, and people like, well, you're getting into the hotel at 3 o'clock in the morning. I told you it's a business trip. You're in business attire. So you look good. I know you're not riding on trains and commercial airlines anymore and trying to look good for that, but it's a business trip. So you've got to separate it. So back to the Jays. You know, they they had you know lost six straight with a chance to get to 500. You ask yourself why? Why is the offense so dismal? Why one week are we talking about being aggressive, getting good pitches to hit, and trying to do damage early in counts, and then the next we're pulling catchers out of the game because of a poor at bat when he swings at the first pitch. Well, it's called being a professional. You know, I know some people might say you can't have it both ways, but yeah, you can. There's a higher level of expectations for a major league baseball player. And when you look at that road trip and you sit there and you you go and just dive into what happened at the drop, they went three for eighteen with runners in a scoring position. Um, what was once uh a top offense is now 25th in runs per game at 3.97, 24th in OPS, 690. Uh it gets worse when there's runners in a scoring position at 652, which is only better than the worst team in baseball at 642 and the Kansas City Royals. I'm telling you, this offense is one-dimensional. It is made up of a bunch of dudes that go up there with no plan. And if they've got a plan, it's the wrong plan, I'm telling you. It's okay to have one or two guys that are hack monsters, you know, but it's not okay to have one or two guys that are patient. You live and die by the hack attack, come on. Like they're they're they're not getting good pitches to hit. The bats are over early, and I know I keep I sound like a broken record, and it drives me nuts listening to myself. When you go up there and you swing at the first pitch of the inning and you make a week out, and the guy that's on deck is your best hitter, the one guy in the lineup you don't want taking strikes down the middle, and he has to take a strike down the middle because of what you're doing every single at bat, man, I'm taking somebody to the woodshed. I'm sorry. You know, there has to be some accountability in that clubhouse. You know, talk to your teammates. Tell them to figure it out. Get better pitches to hit, have a dad gum plan when you go to the plate. You know, I've always said a bad approach is better than no approach. Well, let me re- let me let me take that back. It shouldn't be that hard to figure out what a good approach is gonna be, especially when you've got the data that you have available to you in the big leagues. You should be able to figure out strengths, weaknesses of the opposing pitching staff, who's on the mound, what are my strengths and weaknesses, probably figure out within a gnat's ass what they're gonna try to do to you. It's not that tough. You know, the swing part, that's not easy. Get good pitches to hit. The Jays don't get good pitches to hit. Plain and simple. And they really don't get good pitches to hit when it matters most. Runners in the scoring position. I literally I watch these at bats every night and I scratch my head and I'm saying to myself, as a former player, as a manager, I say, what does the situation call for here? What pitch? What speed? What location should I be looking for in the count to get it done? Should I be swinging here or should I let the pitcher cut his own throat? I wonder if the Jays have any sort of a plan if they have pregame meetings on this stuff, or they just let everybody, you know, wear a different color belt, different color shoes, different color wristbands, different color armor, and go out there and do exactly what they want to do. Well, I'm sorry. They hack with no plan, they're literally swinging in case they hit it. You can tell how uncomfortable they are at taking a walk. They will not pass the baton. 28th out of 30 teams in walks. 24th in on base percentage. That's awful. And if you're gonna go up there and your only plan is to hack, you better do some damage. Like literally do damage. Okay, but they're they're not doing damage. Um slugging. That's the definition of not doing damage. So the approach has to change. Guys have got to try something new. Okay? Um, you know, the league, they have a pretty good idea of what it is that you are as a Blue Jays hitter. Unless, of course, you're Akamoto, who who I don't know what he's doing. He's he's he's he's tricked the league into thinking that if they just keep throwing him unfinished off-speed pitches in the zone, he's gonna start swinging and missing at it. Like, I don't know what I don't know what to tell you. I hope it continues, and you just scratch your head sometimes, you're like, why does this guy keep getting unfinished breaking balls and change ups in the middle of the zone when he's clearly got slider bat speed? Anytime somebody executes a fastball, he's blown up. You know, Vladdy's still doing his thing. And you know what the funny thing about it is, he's doing exactly what he did last year. He didn't have any pop early in the season, but he's still hitting for a high batting average, still has a high on base percentage. The run production is up there, and it's really good for a guy with only two home runs. And so for me, I look at you know Vladdy and I'm like, guys, this is the one dude who should not be taking strikes down the middle. If you're going up there, your only job around him is if you're hitting behind him, you better be on it. You better be doing some damage. If you're hitting in front of him, get on base. Do something. You want to talk about some teams that are doing it really, really well? Talk about some teams in the NL Central. Once the laughing stock of the National League, now the best division in baseball.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Leading off the latest MLB news.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

So the NL Central boasts five teams. Every single one of their teams is ranked in the top ten MLB power rankings. Why you say? Uh pitching, defense, timely hitting. They get on base, they get over, they score. The number one club in Major League Baseball on base percentage, the Chicago Cubs. Milwaukee, five. The uh St. Louis Cardinals, 14. Pittsburgh Pirates, sorry, I passed them seven. Like it's it's unbelievable how the tables have turned. You don't think it's important to be on base all the time? Well, yeah, it is. The best teams in the league uh get a lot of guys on base. The Cubs are fourth in OPS. Uh the St. Louis Cardinals are eighth in OPS, meaning they're doing damage when guys are on base. Uh the Pirates are 10. It's just, it's it's not rocket science, people. You get on base, you pass the baton, and you do it. Now, the the Cincinnati Reds, their OPS is a little bit lower. They're toward the bottom. But what they're doing is they they've got the best ERA in the division, and they hit jacks. Like that's a the great American small park. It's it's a joke, it's a bandbox. But they know how to play in that ballpark, and they're doing an unbelievable job. You know, on the slugging side of it, you know, the Cubs are fifth, they're all around, just probably the best team in baseball right now. Uh St. Louis Cardinals, they're in at nine. I just look at the Reds at 15, they bang. These teams bang and they pitch well. And so when you look at, it's not a mystery as to why. It's not a mystery as to why these teams are doing so well. Every one of them's over 500, they're all playing good baseball. Going into that uh central in the NL is a is a grind. Everybody's afraid of these teams right now, especially the Cubs. Like, anybody want to go play the Cubs at home? Like they won 15 straight, 16 straight, something like that. Like, crazy. And it's not even middle of summer yet when things are getting crazy there with the wind blowing out. So uh trust me when I tell you, you gotta learn how to pass the baton because you're only gonna get so many hits in the game. And when teams make errors, when they walk guys, you have to be able to take advantage of it. And hits are not the only way to get on base. They're not the only way to get on base. And if you're not driving in runs and you're not scoring runs, you're of no use to me unless you're an unbelievable glove man up the middle. So better not lose the glove. Uh otherwise start producing runs. Again, walks, you know, situational hitting. It's unbelievable. Pitching defense, timely hitting. It wins, it wins, it wins over and over again. When we come back, we're gonna be talking to probably one of the greatest strength and conditioning coaches the game has ever known. Um old friend of mine named Jim Malone. When we come back on Walk Off Slams.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

You're listening to Walk Off Slams with grades on on AM 1150.

SPEAKER_02 13:25

Welcome back to Walk Off Slams. This week's guest is a veteran strength and conditioning coach with over 30 years of experience, uh, most notably in Major League Baseball and elite college programs like the University of Georgia. He's worked with the Padres, the Mets, uh, the Pittsburgh Pirates, uh, Cleveland Guardians, Kansas City Royals, St. Louis Cardinals, uh, strength coach of the year in Major League Baseball in 2012. He was the NL strength coach for the 2013 All-Star Game. He is legit, ladies and gentlemen. This guy not only looks the part, but he is the part. He's a decorated masters world champion weightlifter and actually works with USA weightlifting on talent identification. Uh currently um running the baseball strengthacademy.com. I mean, I've I've looked over this, I've I've worked with this gentleman. This is about as legit as it gets. And when it comes to strength and conditioning, uh Jim Malone is probably the peak of all peaks. Welcome to the show, Jim.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Thanks for having me, Greg. That's uh I was flattered that you asked me to be on.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Yeah, I'm I'm excited to talk with you. You know, I I you know how chatty I am. Um in fact I'm kind of a mouthy guy and you know that. So I I I I'm critical.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

I'm critical we've known each other a minute.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

Yeah, quite a few, yeah. Um so I'm gonna I've been critical of of you know the modern day ball player and and how my perception of them is that they're soft or that they don't necessarily get them shelf self into shape for baseball. They can do some amazing things, but they're not in baseball shape, in my opinion. And then now, and I'll get this out of the way right right away. It's not an indictment on modern day training methods, but my question to you is in all of the years that you've been doing this, how have you seen the methods change and the athletes change? Sure.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Well, let's talk about the methods first. The strength and conditioning and physical preparation as part of player development has changed quite a bit since you and I both came into the game, right? So I was a I was a football coach who did strength conditioning that became a head strength coach that jumped into uh baseball, professional baseball in 1997. You know, and I and you and I met shortly after that. And you know, I would say that myself and a handful of other guys, we were probably the first wave of baseball strength coaches that came in from the collegiate setting and changed the general training landscape from old school, cautious, preventative, two sets of 15 reps with bands or lightweights into hey, it's okay to lift weights as part of your training, right? I I think that you know, when you look at the late 80s and you get into the early 90s, you kind of had two roads you could go down. You could go down that sort of preventative concept that was really probably led by the athletic trainers, and that's not an indictment on the athletic trainers. That's just that's just kind of where things were, especially in baseball, uh, versus baseball players who went and did it on their own and really engaged in more of a bodybuilding type program, right? They got big uh and they got stronger, but was it the most practical way to go about it as a baseball player or as an athlete? Probably not. So you get into start getting into the late 90s, and you start bringing training concepts that were more widely utilized at the collegiate level, part of athlete preparation, and you started implementing those things. The idea of, okay, it's okay to do squats, it's okay to do uh heavy lunges and heavy hamstrings and RDL exercises. Uh train your back, train your upper body, it's okay to do that. Um, you know, not so much bench press or anything like that, but you know, we still emphasize that being a well-balanced and well-put-together athlete mattered. Um, so nothing was necessarily off the table. It was just about how it got implemented. And then changing the narrative from the idea, especially with pitching, the idea that, hey, just go out and run for distance, really scaling it back and going into more power-type running, hard sprints, interval running, you know, polls done in interval fashion versus just going out and running back and forth across the outfield, which you know, you probably saw a lot of when you were in your early days, right? And it was the turnover of the baseball coaches as this became more the norm, where pitching coaches were like, oh, when we were playing, you know, we didn't lift weights, and all we did was go out and run five miles a day after we drew, and we go run for for time and distance. And this was kind of where things, you know, really started to move. So I think you saw a period of time really from that, let's just say late 90s into the you know 2000s, early 2010s, where that became really kind of the standard and the norm. It was about strength conditioning, it was about lifting weights, it was about going out and running sprints and running hard and just having a plan and trying to get the athletes to buy into that. I think what we've really seen a lot of in the last 15 years is this sort of mentality of sports specialization training. And in some respect, I think it has, again, depending on the the program and the organization, I think you know, some of it has shift shifted more to sort of spending too much time on specialized and sort of lower impact training and foregoing and forgetting about the the big return for the time investment that just steady basic strength training gets you. And I think you can make an argument that in doing so it has maybe taken things a step back uh here and there with individuals that they're not as robust and challenged physically as maybe they were before.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

Yeah, I look at yeah. I mean, I I I wanted to jump in real quick because I I remember you know working with you and you know, I was a small guy to begin with, and I just wanted overall strength. I just wanted to be as big and strong as I could possibly get while still being able to throw the baseball. You know, that was the big thing for me was mobility behind the plate. You know, but I I noticed that when I was coming up, and you probably can speak to this too, the the the the country boys, the football players, the the guys that were multi-sport athletes in baseball that be ended up being pro ball players. Was it your take that those guys were a little bit more durable, a little tougher to tougher to kill, so to speak?

SPEAKER_01 20:55

I I think I think that that an argument an argument could be made for that idea. There it's look, I and I don't know the ratio, right? We'd have to literally go down roster by roster who were multi-sport athletes, right? And I still think that there are probably a lot of them that were. Um, you know, the argument these days is are athletes at the highest level there because they were multi-sport athletes, or were they multi-sport athletes just because they happen to be such good athletes, right? That's kind of the chicken and the egg, or you know, why did a chicken cross the road? Whatever, whatever you want to label you want to throw on it. Um I think that across the board, the vast majority of sports, that is an element that is lost. You can say that about almost any domain. It has just drastically changed the the idea of travel ball uh in baseball, right? And it happens in basketball, it happens in hockey, um, the idea of being hyper focused. On a particular sport for the majority, if not the entirety, of the year, has uh has hurt overall athletic development and athlete robustness and durability because they are not getting exposed or as much exposure as athletes of the past to different physical stresses that the different sports cause to the body and force body adaptation to. And then I think the other layer to that is that in general uh there is a more sedentary aspect to what youth and teens and quite frankly adults go through now that was not part of the norm 30 to 40 years ago. Because we weren't locked into screens, there wasn't as much TV to watch, the idea of just being out and doing chores and and and having jobs as kids and going out and playing until the streetlights came on, and more free play, um, you know, street football, stand lot baseball, pickup basketball, street hockey, all those things. I think that there is a dramatic decline to that aspect for the average 18 to 30-year-old now compared to 30 to 40 years ago.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

So when we were coming up, you know, I I saw the kind of the advent of the strength coach and weight rooms and ballparks. I remember my first big league camp that I ever was invited to just catch a bullpen at was 1992. And you know, you you in '88 you you had, you know, the 88-89, you had the Bash Brothers in Oakland. You know, who knows what was going on? But I just know that those guys were lifting a lot of weights. They were big, strong guys. Over in Oakland, they were lifting weights.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Whatever else you want to say, they still had to lift weights.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

They still had to lift weights, and yeah, it is what it is. But I remember, I remember a a moment like it was yesterday. I was sitting in a clubhouse, and uh, you know, some of the Oriol teammates were making fun of Mickey Tettleton because they were waiting on him to go eat or play golf or something. And Mickey's in the in the weight room, which uh was basically it was a makeshift weight room there at Twin Lakes Park in Sarasota, Florida, where they kind of cleared out some lockers while the big leaguers were there and put some weights in there. You know, and they were making fun of it, like oh, Mickey's in there pumping his biceps. And and they and it was never a thing. You know, growing up I was told, hey, you you can't lift weights, you'll stunt your growth if until your growth plates are completely shut. Don't lift weights. You know, meanwhile, now we know that natural testosterone has probably peaked out between the ages of 15 and 18, and that's exactly when you should be training like a mad person. Um I remember uh the the taboo of of lifting baseball or lifting weights in baseball. So you came into the game uh from college in 97. You and I uh hooked up, I bought I want to say it was Kansas City. It was either Kansas City, first Kansas City and then San Diego, I believe. We had we we worked together twice. Um so the methods, the the like sets, reps, uh you know, weights, weightlifting routines or exercises that were taboo once that are now the norm.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Well, like I said, I don't think anything's off the table. You know, everything is a tool, it's all on how the tool is used, right? Uh you know, you wouldn't use a screwdriver to to put a nail in. Um and methods of training and the tools that you use in the training all matter. Like what is the outcome? What are you trying to what are you trying to accomplish? If you're a a young, you know, 17-year-old, undersized, underweight baseball player, then some time is probably gonna be spent on trying to get you to put some lean mass on. And that will be accomplished by you know more a higher volume, a higher training load uh to to provoke hypertrophy, to provoke muscle growth, and also special attention's gonna be paid to the diet. Um so you know, training to get strong and training to get big can be two different things. I think what hurt lifting in the game of baseball back in the day was the idea that when you put a baseball and a bat down in September or October, and then you went and you decided you were gonna start lifting weights, especially maybe if you haven't done a whole lot of it before, and then all you do is lift weights for the next four months and you haven't picked up a baseball or a bat, and you put some size on, well, you have effectively literally changed the physics of your body and potentially had negative impact on your motor skills because you haven't been practicing those motor skills along with your changing body. That is, I think, where you start to get into the idea of the muscle-bound baseball player, and that's why baseball is bad for, you know, that's why lifting weights is bad for baseball. You know, if you're still tapping into some of those skills, going out, maybe hitting off the T a couple times a week, still playing catch a couple times a week, well now, you know, you are it's it's the idea of doing things concurrently, and you are still affording your body the chance to adapt while it is going through those changes. Does that make sense? Yeah, no, it makes perfect sense to me because I and I and I think that's that's a big part of it. Now, you know, on the flip side of it, I think what you see is there's so much baseball being done, especially younger, that it's hard to get strong when you're playing that much of your sport. You know, whatever sport it is. And when you need to get stronger, and you're spending uh more time on the sport, then you're you know you can't chase two rabbits and catch them both, right? It's gonna be hard to catch one if you're chasing it, let alone uh you know, two. So you know, set it aside, decrease the amount of time you're spending on it, and focus on what your primary needs are for that time period. And if the primary need is that, hey, you know, you have an end-of-the-year meeting, especially if let's talk about just in the Meyer Leagues of Player Development, you have an end of the year meeting, it's like, hey, you need to get stronger. Like you're just simply not strong enough right now. Well then you better go spend some time trying to get strong, you know, and then let the tactical or the baseball part of it take care of itself. Now that's not me advocating for not picking up a ball or bat, right? We just talked about that. But you can't go out and take 300 swings a day and go out and play catch every day and then think that you're not gonna have a negative effect on your ability to get stronger because you're emptying your you're emptying your your reserves uh on the wrong task, depending on what you're what your what is your objective, what's your primary, what you know, what's the outcome that you're trying to chase from a primary standpoint.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

Yeah, I mean what I'm hearing is we we we gotta go what's the result we're trying to get, reverse engineer from there. And you know, for me it's always been there has to, given the given the the daunting task, even in the minor leagues, you're playing, you know, 142 games in, I don't know, 155 days or whatever it might be, 162 in 180 days. Right you gotta have some rest. You gotta let your body heal. You gotta let your body grow. Um, you know, the ba the most basic uh idea of weight lifting and uh you know growing your body is you tear it down and then it scabs over and it fills in the gaps. And but if you don't have rest, if you don't have recuperation, you don't have an opportunity for growth, uh you're not gonna get stronger. You you know, you're not going to get to become a better ball player. And I try to remind people that you know, at least my attitude was I'm not lifting all these weights to be able to do superhuman things. I'm doing I'm doing all this working out so that I'm stronger so that what I already do well comes easy to me and I can repeat it more readily over and over and over again.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

And that and that is it. That that that is it. So like we've talked about, uh you know, you talk about what are what are your what are the goals of the program, right? Number one, it's first and foremost, it has to be to improve performance on the field, right? To get better at whatever you're trying to be baseball player, football player, basketball player, whatever it is. You're training for that, you're not training to be a weightlifter, you're not training to be a powerlifter, you're not training to be a bodybuilder. But there are elements of those things that come into play when you're putting together a well-thought-out strength program. Um the second thing is injury prevention. And I think that injury prevention is a byproduct of good programming and well-thought-out recovery and well-done nutrition program. Um, and it just kind of comes back to what we talked about earlier, right? In the old days, it was more very much it's still do no harm, but then it was very much just like stay cautious and don't take risks. You know, if you don't, if you don't challenge the body, it's not going to adapt, right? Old school bands and tubing and you know, high reps, few sets, that's it's just not how you get strong. So injury prevention is a byproduct. And then the third thing is to help each athlete become the best that they can possibly be as an individual, right? And and part of that is also creating longevity. And that has economic you know, the other thing too, we are strength condition coaches that work in all professional sports, we recognize there's an economic impact to that. Player availability affects the economics of the game itself, and player availability uh and performance as an individual affects your chance to make money and to make money as much as you can for a longer period of time until you hit your expiration date as an athlete.

SPEAKER_02 32:30

Yeah. You can't stay on the field, you can't compete. So I mean that that bottom line is I mean, we we we can try to improve our performance on the field, but if we can't get out on the field, we don't eat right, we don't hydrate, we don't sleep well, we don't it all comes, it's all hand in glove. Um and I love I love listening to uh you talk about it. And I wanted I wanted to to to say thank you. I know I I reached out kind of last minute to talk with you about this, but I was like, you know, I I you well I know you're laughing, but it it was I knew I was gonna have to get to it as sooner or later because you know I talk a lot of trash, and uh one of the things I like to do is bring on people who might, you know, disagree with what I have to say and maybe set me straight because I'm always trying to learn too. I mean, I'm still I'm still coaching, I'm coaching college kids, and I find their comfort level, especially in today's generation, they they're they're not okay with the idea of being uncomfortable, whether it be trying a new mechanism, whether it be a new technique, or I mean, hell, one of the reasons why I still hit the squat rack every four days is because I don't like the way it feels when I take time off. That sucks. Right. You know, I I and I don't I don't like being uncomfortable. Huh?

SPEAKER_01 33:40

Yeah. Movement is medicine. Yeah. You just have to, as we, as we, as we gently age up and our body, you know, mileage accrues, uh, we just have to be a little bit more judicious in how we how we you know uh exert ourselves. And uh but you you can't be inactive. You know, if we're gonna throw that out to throw that out to all your listeners, like look, movement is medicine. You need you need to move around in some form or fashion. But you know, at the look, it's multifactorial. It's never one thing. Uh, you know, I can get on the soapbox as an older as an older uh uh gentleman and say, you know, and yell at the clouds and be like, well, you know, back in the day we didn't have screens, we didn't have phones, we didn't have iPads, and all these distractions and blue light at night, and this and that, and the other thing, right? And and and it's true, but it is what it is. You can't reverse the clock. All you can do is try to educate your athletes on the value of being able to, you know, put some of those things away, be very diligent in how you're fueling and hydrating yourself. And you know what? Frankly, Zonny, sleep is free, and sleep is the greatest recovery tool there is out there. And I think on average, athlete or not athlete, people just in general don't get enough sleep. And there is a ton of research out there on how sleep deprivation and sleep debt, uh incidence of likelihood of injury goes up exponentially. Cognitive function goes down exponentially. And if we're talking about a baseball player that is having durability issues because they don't get enough sleep, rest, or recovery, and also can't process what's going on from a mental, from a cognitive and a recognition standpoint, it's a bad, it's a bad recipe. And uh, you know, once you get hurt, you know, that's uh, you know, also injury is the greatest predictor of injury down the road. You know, once you get hurt, if you can't kind of stop the bleeding and get yourself right, you're gonna have a hard time fighting that battle further on down the road as an athlete. I I just am a big believer in bang for the buck, you know, find things that you know work and and you know, do simple things really well and and be willing to train hard and get yourself uncomfortable, which is something you just brought up.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

Yeah, I mean I couldn't have said it any better. I mean, it's just wonderful because I, you know, I I'm I'm still trying to educate people, fans, players on how to do it and try to avoid some of the pitfalls that that that I you know ran into. And you know I was chasing that neon rainbow a few times and it and almost every single time it led to an injury. Um I know it did one of the years when I was in Kansas City. I got all excited and went out and celebrated a little too hard, came into the ballpark the next day, dehydrated, sleepy, and tore my calf and missed four months. So uh it it it all contributes. Um you know, I just uh well I want to thank you, Jim, for for coming on and and really being uh probably the most educational uh episode of walk-off slams uh so far because most of the time it's just trash talk and uh uh a little bit of a little bit of Blue Jays news. Um you know, for all the fans out there who you know are as intrigued by fitness as as I am and and and have you know an athlete at home that are looking to get bigger, better, stronger, uh check out Jim Malone, baseballstrengthacademy.com. Again, baseballstrengthacademy.com, and you can find him on Instagram at J MaloneStrength. At J Malone Strength. Jim, thanks for being here. I really appreciate this.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

Thanks for asking me, Zonnie. You know, I'll pick up the phone anytime you call.

SPEAKER_02 37:30

I appreciate that. To your own detriment, buddy.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

Never, never.

SPEAKER_02 37:35

Be well.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

All right, you too.

SPEAKER_02 37:38

All right. When we come back on the walk-off slam, you're gonna get to hear your favorite part of the broadcast. The Sunday roast.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

And now the Sunday roast with great dog.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

I know it's hard to believe, but uh, I was a loud-mouth rookie full of hopes and dreams and plenty of piss and vinegar. I took liberties with my teammates before I understood there was a pecking order and dues that needed to be paid. I quickly found myself in hot water and was harshly dealt with, but I learned valuable lessons. Two young players have recently caught my eye in different yet similar ways. The first is Marcelo Mare. Well, who is Marcelo Mare, you ask? I had no idea either. Apparently he's a light-hitting Red Sox player with less than a year in the show, who recently clapped back at an 11-year vet, three-time All-Star, and World Series winning teammate, Wilson Contreras. Contreras was asked about the offensive struggles of the Boston Red Sox and responded by saying he thought there might be too many young players in the lineup who've never been through a big league slump and come out on the other side to be productive major league hitters. Totally valid observation and one that tracks, given the roster and the fact that the coaching staff can't even say that they've been through it. It's full of a bunch of guys who never played Pro Bowl, true to form, in an attempt to stir the pot. What does the Boston media do? They go right to Marcelo Mayer and they ask the apparently ordained team mouthpiece for his impression of a quote by his teammate. Clearly triggered by the comments, Mayer clapped back at the thought that young players were being blamed for the team struggles and described everyone there as professionals. Well, not your place to comment, kid. And are you really sure that you're all professionals? I beg to differ. Given the collective resumes of the coaching staff and the service time of the roster, I'm gonna go ahead and say I don't agree. Well, over that week it looks like he got sorted in-house. For mayor's sake, let's hope we don't hear anything other than a personal assessment from him until he's arbitration eligible. The other young player catching my eye is Dalton Rushing. This kid is gritty. He's a throwback and he is definitely digging himself. He's hitting over 300, has seven jacks and 17 ribs in 19 games. He gets smoked in the ribs by the Giants, and what does he do? He goes after the shortstop to break up a double play. Old school. Some thought that the slide was dirty, but anyone who believes that, in my opinion, you're just soft to begin with. It doesn't even come close to approaching dirty, but by today's standards, I can see how people might think that. There was contact in a contact sport. Oh, God forbid. If you don't like the way this kid plays, you need to retreat to your safe space. He takes no prisoners, but like Mayor, has a lot to learn about behaving like a professional. Dave Roberts recently warned him not to get reckless, and hopefully rushing got the message. He seems to have heard his skipper loud and clear and was quoted as saying, you want guys to hate playing against you because of the player that you are and how great you are on the baseball field, not because of the verbalized things you say. Well, okay, kid, that's a little bit redundant. So here we go. Go play and be quiet. I'm a fan, and I have definitely been there, not necessarily statistically, but I made plenty of mistakes. Thank goodness I had veteran teammates to clip my wings and educate me. Looks like rushing has a manager who's ready and has the street cred to do it. I hope he listens. And I hope all the rookies out there are listening to me when I say just shut up and go play kids. It's Sunday. Can you smell that roast?