Storylines Are Starting to Form: "It Took Two Whole Episodes for Coaches To Get Mad At Us!"

This week we dive into the midweek debate. Do they matter or not? Depends who you ask. From Michigan vs Oakland to players making their case for more innings, we break down what these games really mean. 

Then we shift into a loaded recap across Michigan college baseball. Big Ten, MAC, GLIAC, GMAC. Who’s hot, who’s slipping, and which names keep showing up every single week. 

And then… Macomb Community College coach Nick Caruso from joins the show. 

We talk injuries, expectations, and what’s really going on behind the record. He didn’t just call in to chat. He wanted the story told right.

Write in at thewalkonscast@gmail.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:00

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to episode three of the Walk-Ons podcast. And uh, well, it took us two whole episodes for coaches to get mad at us, and we'll get into it. A lot to talk about. Um, Mike pissed everyone off on Twitter. We'll get to that later in the show. Uh, but I think the big the first debate we started to have this past week had to do with midweeks, and we'll get into that because it involved one of the first teams we talk about with Michigan. And Mike, uh, Big Ten's Yours area. So we're gonna get right into it later in the show. Uh McComb head coach Nick Caruso going to join us, and there's a lot of things to talk about. And I feel like uh Jay's gonna have a lot of opinions because, well, he Doug, we just gave Doug his homework.

SPEAKER_03 0:46

We knew he wasn't gonna still. No. Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_04 0:48

I don't have time. The nerd started doing the homework. When are we gonna make things?

SPEAKER_03 0:52

Doug, I appreciate it. Uh, we are gonna have an AD come in and probably roll.

SPEAKER_06 0:58

I'll be off the show within another two episodes or so.

SPEAKER_07 1:32

Mike, start off with Michigan in the Big Ten. Do you want to start or end with with the uh midweek?

SPEAKER_03 1:38

I'm gonna go in order.

SPEAKER_04 1:39

I'm gonna I think we'll we'll talk a little bit more about midweeks, but he's gonna start off talking about infield BP before the game.

SPEAKER_03 1:46

No, this won't be that's a good point. Maybe we should address that. This won't be as long, but I feel like people want to hear me more than they want to hear Doug talk about sports. Nice shirtable. Nice shirt, by the way.

SPEAKER_04 1:59

A C4. Go skippers.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

So the midweek last week, OU uh played Michigan and OU took the game. So OU got the win 7-6. And what did you immediately say in our group chat? I don't even know if it was about this specifically because it's it's different for each team. And I think I sent the I heard the words midweek. Yeah, midweek means you kind of get your guys out. I probably said it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_07 2:24

You said I think I think the exact text was it means nothing.

SPEAKER_03 2:27

Right, but it's to Oakland and a lot of different players individually, it does mean something. Right? Like because you got kids that might not be playing on their weekend series, conference games, showing them how they can play. From a record standpoint, I think it means something to Oakland and Michigan. You know, they don't want to lose to a lower conference squad, but it really doesn't mean anything when it comes to the side.

SPEAKER_07 2:54

Well, no, no, it's not a 10 out of 10. It's not like in football where if you know a max school beats a big 10, it's a huge deal, but still, they're still playing them. I mean, it's I'm not saying it's a 10, but like, can I get a four out of 10, especially for an Oakland team that very much struggled against the bigger schools in the non-conference when they went and played Georgia and Tennessee and Texas AM?

SPEAKER_03 3:13

It's a momentum thing, it's a belief thing, right? They believe in themselves. They put they knock some. I mean, they scored seven runs against a pretty darn good Big Ten team. And, you know, as far as Michigan goes, I did write down a couple stats. I'd like to look at the local kids. So Ty Finkbeiner went one and a third, zero runs, zero hits, one walk, one K. And then Preston Barr, you guys are familiar with Kurt Barr, right? We talked about him last week pretty much being the ace at Michigan. So his little brother went one inning too last week with zero runs. And then the infamous Colby Turner, who I'm talking about every week. This guy is a dude. I gotta get out and watch him like personally. I've only watched some things online, but he's playing multiple positions. He went he went three for five in that that midweek, and you know, Greg Pace, Brandon Jeffer, they all chipped in that week for Michigan. So I didn't go through the Oakland stats because I'm responsible for Big Ten. You might do that too. But again, my point with midweeks, yeah, it doesn't matter, but for the players, it does. So it does matter. For the individual players, it does, but it's not a big deal.

SPEAKER_07 4:16

I don't think Michigan's not losing any credibility by no, I think they know they're not throwing their ace, but it's still, especially for Oakland, like Oh, 100%.

SPEAKER_04 4:25

Well, I I remember last year, didn't Oakland play Michigan in a midweek last year, and Trent went off and had like a home run and a double? That was a midweek game, correct?

SPEAKER_03 4:34

Yeah, and what he's doing is saying, hey, I can do this against a Big Ten team, right? The individual players. Yes. But I'm thinking pretty sure Tracy Smith is probably the Michigan coach, is probably like, let's move on and let's learn from it. Where Oakland's like, let's build upon this thing. So I guess it does matter that sarcastically via text, like, Brady, leave me alone. We text 9,000 times a day. I can see the score on Twitter.

SPEAKER_07 4:57

Like, no, I will not leave you alone. And that's more so so Jay knows what we're gonna be talking about.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

Yeah, you see at least see how important it is to Jay right now.

SPEAKER_07 5:06

Microphone and whiskey. But they actually had two midweeks, which was a little odd, and then they did beat Toledo in the second one.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

So maybe it is important, right? You take an L to Oakland and you say we gotta come back, we gotta beat this Mac team. They won five to two, uh, six inning pitch for uh Bradley Grant, four hits, one walk, three K's. Uh oh, Gavin Devote looks like that's their closer. Looks like they solidified who their closer is. He got his seventh save of the season against Toledo.

SPEAKER_07 5:35

Well, when that's half your wins, that's not bad. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:38

So they're bringing him in to close out the games. It's nice to have a closer, right? You go eight innings and bring in your shutdown guy.

SPEAKER_07 5:44

Uh took two or three from Rutgers, who are the standouts in the big ten play.

SPEAKER_03 5:49

Who do you think I'm gonna say from a position player standpoint? Colby Turner. Colby Turner. One I'm putting him on my list every time, no matter even if he gives us an O for three. He went one for three with a run. Greg Pace, two for four with a run. Uh, nice little story here. Josh Campbell, local kid, went to country day, and I think he ended up going to like IMG or something. He hasn't played yet until this point, but he went three for four with three RBIs and earned himself some playing time throughout that Rutger series, so it's nice to see.

SPEAKER_07 6:18

All right, so now Michigan, uh, they're three and six in the Big Ten. They're 14 and 13 overall, they've been all right. But I again asterisk, they had to play UCLA already.

SPEAKER_03 6:28

Yeah, I I keep looking at the rankings, I keep looking at the standings, and I almost feel like it's cheating, right? When you got UCLA, or I know it's great for the conference, but Oregon, USC. By the way, do you see Nebraska's uh ranked in the top 25?

SPEAKER_07 6:42

Are they now? Jet Buck.

SPEAKER_03 6:44

Yeah, there it is.

SPEAKER_07 6:45

There's a worst association for Jay.

SPEAKER_03 6:47

Jet Buck. Yeah, hey, a couple more guys from that Rutgers series. Um, Colby Turner four for four in game two with three RBIs and a homer. Uh game three, wanted to give a shout out to David Lally, local kid. Was at Notre Dame, came back to Michigan last year. Six and two thirds, four hits, one run, two walks, and six K's. That was in game three. He got the win in that game, so that was pretty cool to see. Colby Turner won for four with a run in game three. Got to sneak it in there.

SPEAKER_04 7:14

If he goes O for, are you gonna still be able to do that? Yeah, I just said it.

SPEAKER_03 7:17

If you were listening, I would just I just said that probably like one minute ago. But up next, they're at EMU for their midweek. And I'm excited to talk about EMU here. They're playing well a couple minutes. And then they got three at home versus Oregon. I think one of us should at least go to that. See Oregon at Ann Arbor would be kind of cool.

SPEAKER_07 7:36

Sounds like a good spot for you to go to. Yeah. What day is that?

SPEAKER_03 7:39

It would be Friday, Saturday, Sunday. That's when most of the games are.

SPEAKER_06 7:44

Sunday.

SPEAKER_03 7:46

I guess.

SPEAKER_06 7:47

Let's go Sunday.

SPEAKER_03 7:48

You don't drink on Sundays.

SPEAKER_06 7:49

I'll go.

SPEAKER_07 7:51

On Mondays. Michigan State. They did win their midweek. I thought it was a bit odd. They went up to Central for their midweek.

SPEAKER_03 7:57

Uh yeah, they're they they kind of do that every year. They take turns. It's what is it, 60 miles, I think they said. So I think they have another midweek at home against CMU. Yeah, I wrote it down.

SPEAKER_07 8:07

Yeah, 19-8 win.

SPEAKER_03 8:08

I mean Yeah, but like they needed it, man. They needed to, they needed to find some barrels, uh, multiple pitchers, right? Just getting work in those midweeks, right? You still don't, again, you don't want to you don't want to lose to that, you know, so-called lower level.

SPEAKER_07 8:25

You're not playing to win that game at all costs. But you're playing to see some things.

SPEAKER_03 8:30

You're playing to see some things again. Like Trent Rice has been DH'ing for this game, they put in right field. Like, let's see what we got. Let's see if he can make some plays out in right field. He did well. He went one for three, three runs and two walks. So the kid's getting on base. Kamari Thomas, two for four with four RBIs. This kid, the shortstop, Dayton Murphy, is a dude. Like he's built like Jay, right? He's not six foot four. He's he's a gritty, muscular kid, but he's a dirtbag, and he's been really fun to watch. And you know, dirt bag is a good thing in baseball, right? Yep. Do you guys agree? Yes, sir. It is. It's just funny.

SPEAKER_07 9:05

Like if someone, like if someone's mom's listening to this out of context and like, oh, they're so mean, they call this kid a dirtbag.

SPEAKER_03 9:11

Yeah, but if she knows sports, if she knows sports, it's a compliment.

SPEAKER_04 9:14

And that kid is you could clarify it right now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:17

But he's a dirtbag, and I love him. No, that there's a clarification. Listen, Dayton Murphy, three for six, four RBIs. Kamari Thomas, two for four, four RBIs. I already mentioned him, but Kamari has is going to be a good story. He was a kid that did not play a lot last year. He did not transfer because he wasn't playing, right? He's he stuck it out and showed the coach that he can play some ball. So four ribies for Kamari. Isaac Sturgis, one of my favorite players, two for five with an RBI and two runs. And what did I not mention? Fricking Randy Seymour. Did you guys see this? Why am I such a dork? Why would you ask me if I saw that? Yeah, I saw. You look at Jay. But you can tell what a dork ambo, because it's exciting. First baseman, Randy Seymour, three for seven, which is pretty good, right? Right. Three bombs. That's a pretty good one. Three for seven, three bombs. He's up to ten homers on the season, and he's becoming take this for what it's worth, he's becoming a like a next level draft prospect, in my opinion. He he's uh long, he he hammers the baseball. He played third base and shortstop last year. Being a team player, he's playing first because they picked up some dudes. But three for seven, three bombs, pretty cool to do. Um so what what do they do against Purdue? They play what they go to. They drop two or three. Yeah, they dropped two of three.

SPEAKER_07 10:34

They won four to three and then they gave up 27 runs in the next two games.

SPEAKER_03 10:38

Yeah, which is tough. It's getting to be that point, that time of year where pitching's got to start holding up. They're starting to come around with hitting, as I've been saying, the past couple weeks. Doug, am I going at a decent enough speed?

SPEAKER_04 10:48

I I fall asleep. I'm trying. Hurry up. Doug's gotta go.

SPEAKER_03 10:51

That's true. That's true. I'm trying. Doug, Doug's exiting today early, and guess what? We're gonna talk some shit about Doug. I'll be quick. Aiden Donovan had a good outing in the win, okay? Nolan Higgins, Aiden Donovan started, went five and a third. Nolan Higgins ended up getting the win. He went three and two-thirds with zero runs. Ryan McKay hit a go-ahead homer. That kid is he's a hitter. If you guys followed high school sports in there, he was on that St. Mary's team, Doug, that we were just talking about. That had probably the best high school team ever.

SPEAKER_04 11:21

Uh at least in the state of Michigan.

SPEAKER_03 11:23

Yeah. I think ever, dude. Like I think ever. All those players together, three of them are in the minor leagues right now.

SPEAKER_04 11:29

Pretty sure like nine kids went D1 off of that team.

SPEAKER_03 11:32

Yeah, dude, they had a JV kid go to Penn. Like D1. All right, so we'll be quick. We'll move on from that. But good good weekend from uh CJ Decking, too. Freshman, who I just found out was drafted out of high school. Decided to go to state, and he's doing it. So he's a freshman playing. Up next for uh State, they're at home versus CMU on Tuesday. Kind of interesting. On Wednesday, they're at Lancing Lugnuts. I don't know if you guys knew that up there.

SPEAKER_07 12:01

Yeah, they usually play that every year. They play, it's like the kickoff for the lugnuts season, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 12:05

Really cool. So state is playing the lug nuts, and then they're at Northwestern for their conference.

SPEAKER_04 12:10

That's a cool stadium, too. That lug nuts stadium.

SPEAKER_03 12:12

Oh yeah. Is it called fifth third? I feel like every minor league stadium in the area is fifth third.

SPEAKER_04 12:16

I don't think is it? I don't know. I don't remember. I just remember liking the stadium.

SPEAKER_07 12:20

Anyway, uh onto the Mac. Uh, Western. They lose to Notre Dame in the midweek. They get smacked 14-3, but then they sweep UMass, who's at the bottom of the Mac. Uh, and you know, Western 9-3 in Mac play now, 19-7 overall. I'm loving it.

SPEAKER_03 12:36

They're playing, they're playing some ball. The midweek, again, like you say, for some things, nobody cares. But Mason Polarski is starting to pop up a lot more. And I think I I've mentioned him every week, and it might be a little bit biased because I love the kid and I think he's an actual stud. But he went two for three with a two-run double. What I thought was interesting about the midweek, I'm not gonna speculate, whatever. I guess I am biased to just saying that. The best player, the best hitter in America right now is Tanner Malley. We can look it up if you don't believe me. He is leaving. But for Western Michigan. And I think maybe hits. He did not play at Notre Dame. So midweek, leave him out, let him rest up for the uh the big series against uh UMass. They swept him. Game one, they won six to two, game three, they won three, two, excuse me. Game two, they won three, two, game three, they won 13-4. Um, a lot of same, a lot of the same names showing up. Pilarski had a good weekend. Uh let's see who else we got that I want to bring up. Uh Ricky Kidd, game three. It looks like he's been their Sunday starter. He went six innings, four hits, one run, two walks, and four K's. Uh Polarski, two for five with two two runs. One thing I got a text. Oh, game three, Tanner Malley, five for five with four ribies. That'll the dude is a stud.

SPEAKER_07 13:54

That'll help you lead the country in anything.

SPEAKER_03 13:55

I went to watch uh Michigan State Purdue yesterday, and I got a random text from a guy that I know, and he goes, freaking Polarski's on the mound. So Mason Pilarski went from third base. I think they were up like third, yeah. I think it was 13-4 at the time, and Pilarski uh pitched well. So that's cool to see. Up next, there's actually no midweek for Western, but they're at CMU for their conference, and they start on Thursday. So that's probably why.

SPEAKER_07 14:20

Well, uh Central's been struggling. They they get swept by Eastern, uh, actually. Uh, and two of the two of the one run wins they had were walk-offs. Eastern's walked off like three of their last six games or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 14:34

I I texted uh Trevor Bierman this morning. He's the the new head coach, and I said, keep freaking kicking ass. I'm six six in a row uh for those guys. Like really cool. They have a beautiful field. Have you guys ever seen their field?

SPEAKER_04 14:48

I've seen the football field.

SPEAKER_03 14:50

So tell us about the football field. Well, it's gray. Okay, so their infield at Eastern is green and gray, which is pretty cool. Good job, Doug. We got to talk football. Um I'll be quick with this. I kind of combined the Eastern CMU stuff. Right going through most of the stats are gonna be uh Eastern. Uh multiple pitchers in their 9-8 win. Uh one guy I wanted to mention was uh Tommy Rose. He's a local kid, freshman. I actually watched him at like a scouting combine last year. He was he was like a late commit. I'm like, who the hell is this kid? Long wiry kid. Uh he got the win in relief. He went four innings pitched, uh, one hit, zero runs and zero walks. There you go. There it is, set yep, seven K's. Um Bruce uh Jellison three for six with three ribbies. TJ Williams or shortstop in game one went five for seven. There's so many like big five for sevens, six for eights.

SPEAKER_07 15:49

Well, when you score like 30 some runs, you're gonna have you're getting some offensive production.

SPEAKER_03 15:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean it is nuts, but CMU had multiple pitchers. Uh Harrison Bowman, their big guy went three for seven, and my boy, one of the kids I'm gonna report on all the time, Nathan Ball had a pinch hit double. Kid just hits freaking doubles whenever they play him.

SPEAKER_07 16:08

So Eastern, I mean, they're now in a okay spot. They're five and seven in the Mac, which already with seven losses, you're probably climbing uphill. Uh they're 10 and 17 overall, central uh three and nine in the Mac and nine and fifteen overall. I mean, Western's the one chance in that league, I think, to win it.

SPEAKER_03 16:28

Yeah, they got the arms, they got the experience, and they and they got that kid, man, with Tanner Malley, man. Like he's he's a real dude.

SPEAKER_07 16:36

All right. Uh let's go to Oakland, who uh I will try to be be, I guess, a little nicer. So let's tell the story.

SPEAKER_03 16:43

Yeah, go ahead. Right? Let's tell the story. Wednesday, right? That well, the podcast. It was Thursday. Yeah, Tommy, Ami Nahas put it out from Hunch Free. Shout out. Put out our podcast on Thursday, Friday morning. I got a call.

SPEAKER_07 17:00

It was Thursday morning.

SPEAKER_03 17:01

Okay, so Thursday morning, I got a call from a really good friend of mine, uh, head coach at Oakland, and he's like, and he was cool. He was really awesome. He's texting me, he's like, I need you guys to come out and watch, and I want Brady to come out and have some conversations with me so we can tell the story. So these guys are they're injured, right? There's a lot they gotta especially in the outfield. A lot of injuries. I forget the number of he'll be on, he'll be on the show soon to go through some things, but they're they're fighting through it. You can go through the games, Brady, but I can see they're getting better. I mean, like I said, they they won their midweek, which is important for those guys.

SPEAKER_07 17:41

Because I mean, yeah, so I mean they they dropped two or three to Wright State, but I think if we were to sat here last week and said, okay, Oakland's gonna go two and two against one against Michigan and three against Wright State. I know from their perspective they want to win every game, but sitting here, especially at the start they had, that's not bad because right state's one of the best mid-majors in the country. Yep. And that they've been running the horizon league. Uh so they they won the Sunday game in ten innings. They started that game. In that one, it was Ben Green. Green, baby, green day. He didn't go quite as long.

SPEAKER_04 18:14

It wasn't as strong as the uh four and two thirds, I think.

SPEAKER_07 18:18

The northern Kentucky one. It's still a decent outing, but it wasn't anything um anything wild uh in that one. But it was Sam Griffith was the uh hero. He had the game winning RBI.

SPEAKER_03 18:29

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I love Sam, right? He's got he's got that great sweeper stash like you. No batting gloves. No plays short, stop, plays third, place second. I think he was playing outfield probably now because of the injuries, but he's a dirtbag and I love him.

SPEAKER_07 18:43

Had the game winning hit. Kyle Revere had four hits and two RBIs. Uh a name that would make Jay have an aneurysm. Tony Kona Piaz uh had three hits and three RBIs. Kona Piaz? Yeah, it's not how it looks. So three hits, three RBIs, uh, and then uh Clark, Shuck, uh Griffin, and Halloran all had uh two hits as well in in that one.

SPEAKER_03 19:08

Um I think Rule, did Rule get the win against Michigan?

SPEAKER_07 19:12

So I'm gonna the win because they they did use a lot of pitchers. Uh but I did want to give a shout out to a reliever. Owen Thompson uh came in three perfect innings to close out the win. Zero blocks. Yeah. No, it was nine up, nine down in this in the eighth, ninth, and tenth. Wow. And you know, usually relievers don't get a lot of love because it's hard to get a eye-popping stat line, but I thought he did a nice job. Uh Oakland's actually four and five in the horizon league. They're six and nineteen overall. So once league play is started, they've gotten a lot better. Um, but because the horizon league's only a five-team league, they're actually off until next their next uh midweek.

SPEAKER_03 19:48

So they have they got next.

SPEAKER_07 19:49

Uh, I want to say it's like Toledo and Rochester. Okay. I think in like eight, nine days from recording this. Got it. Got it.

SPEAKER_03 19:57

But they are you're but they're they're coming together, right?

SPEAKER_07 20:00

Like, yeah, but they but they basically have a bye week now.

SPEAKER_04 20:03

So um what I thought was funny, going back to you talking to the Oakland coach, I don't know why this made me laugh, but you were saying something like he told you if Brady's got all these opinions on the team, I'm only 12 feet away. Oh, yeah. You just come over here and tell me.

SPEAKER_03 20:18

He didn't say this, but I'll say it. Quit being a soft bitch, Brady. No, here's the thing.

SPEAKER_07 20:24

I don't like to bother coaching on game day. Like a lot of them have their routines, a lot of them, you know. I it's hard to interrupt because especially baseball. Baseball and volleyball are the two sports where I swear the the the pregame stuff is two hours long.

SPEAKER_03 20:40

And we're all superstitious. Yeah, we got our things. And the cool part about this, like, you guys are gonna see this. Nelson, when he comes on the show, he's the best freaking guy. His personality, like, we're gonna want to have him on three or four times if he doesn't punch Brady.

SPEAKER_04 20:56

Well, that might be cool too.

SPEAKER_07 20:58

Yeah, be good for ratings. All right. Um, to the Galiak, um, Grand Valley, they were playing Purdue Northwest. Purdue Northwest is bad at baseball. Grand Valley is good. Grand Valley swept Purdue Northwest, uh 3-0, 11-5, 5-2, and 10-2. Nothing uh really uh too surprising. Bradley Collin went eight innings, uh, gave up three hits, only one walk, six K's uh in his win. Uh he goes five and oh on the year, and his ERA is now.6. Jeez.

SPEAKER_03 21:26

Again, with metal bats, but like eight innings is super impressive in college baseball. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_07 21:33

Like Purdue Northwest isn't great, but they can put their pants on. Like they you still have to show up.

SPEAKER_03 21:38

I think they wear black pants.

SPEAKER_07 21:39

I mean, yeah, they're Purdue, they're like Purdue cold.

SPEAKER_03 21:42

Like, if you're wearing black pants, you better have a black jersey. I think they wear like gold. Yeah, like not a good look. If you're gonna go black pants, you gotta go all the way. By the way, did you know if you can see we got our Grand Valley jersey up in the studio?

SPEAKER_07 21:54

I do see that. Those are our boys, which by the way, I did I meant to say this earlier. If uh you want your program Represented, send Mike some stuff and we'll put it up here so we don't have to put some uh trophies from like 1986.

SPEAKER_03 22:06

Um every time I see 86, you know what I think of? What? I know you weren't born yet, but yes, yes, Jay. Bill Buckner.

SPEAKER_07 22:14

Yeah, I know it gets through Buckner. Yes, I I'm aware. I'm gonna do it.

SPEAKER_03 22:17

He had like 2,800 career hits, by the way.

SPEAKER_07 22:19

Yes, I know he was a very good player.

SPEAKER_03 22:21

Yeah, yeah. Good sweeper, too.

SPEAKER_07 22:23

He just he just he just used a very uh loose glove and it and it cost him anyway. Um going on with Grand Valley, uh Evan Morrison, Javon Gill, and Caleb Estrada all had three hits in game two. Morrison and Estrada had a bomb. Javon Gill had two in that one. So, I mean, when you score 11 runs, that was a lot of their production. Avery Owen had a six-inning outing where he didn't give up a run, one walk, uh six case, or I should say an earned run in game three.

SPEAKER_03 22:50

Owen Avery. Yeah. Do you know who his dad is?

SPEAKER_07 22:53

Steve Avery?

SPEAKER_03 22:54

Yes. Pretty cool. Do you remember? You don't know that trade he quit being so freaking young. Taylor. Steve Avery was on those Atlanta Braves teams with you know Glavin and Maddox and all those guys. Played Frasier?

SPEAKER_04 23:07

No, Taylor Kennedy.

SPEAKER_03 23:08

Taylor Kennedy? Pat Henkin was. Owen Avery is built like you, big fella, and just brings it. He whipped our ass at Comerica Park one year when he was at Divine Child. Oh, yeah. So I don't know if you remember this story about Owen. You were probably doing the game. It was a man on second and two outs, and Owen Avery already pissed on like three baseballs, put dents in the Comerica Park wall against Lutzky. And I intentionally walked him. And he looked at me, I'm on the bench, he looked at me like he was gonna whip my ass. And I go, I go, go to the goddamn ba. Like I looked at him like run to the frickin' bag. And his dad told me he goes, I love that. I go, I your son could beat me up. And I was like, I had the ground. Big coach energy, and I just told him, run to the frickin' base.

SPEAKER_07 23:54

Well, and there's enough foul ground where you could have gotten you had a nice head start.

SPEAKER_03 23:57

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 23:58

Um, by the way, in game three, uh, Gill had another home run, and uh Van Eckenvoort uh had a bomb as well. So uh that was game three, and then in the game four, again, Javon Gill had a hell of a weekend, four hits and another homer. He has six on the year, four of them came in this series, so he was seeing the ball well. Uh Estrada, Josh Fleming, Caden Thielen, and Aiden uh Van Ekenvoort all had multi-hit games as well. Another strong outing on the mound. Jackson Keys, five innings. Noah earned one walk, three Ks. He's now six and oh on the year. Do you have standings? Yeah, I'll get to that at the end. They're first in the Gleak because this was their first series. Got it. Because they had the bye week last week. They're four and oh, but they're gonna be playing Wayne State this coming week, which is a big one because Wayne State and Davenport split. Uh Wayne State took game one, Davenport game two and three, and then Wayne State actually was able to salvage the split in the uh Sunday double header. Uh in game one, they're actually down four to one going into the eighth, and Drew Hill had a double and a triple. Doug. Yeah, there you go. Oh boy. Dog's boy Drew.

SPEAKER_04 25:01

I would talk about him every week if I had the glare.

SPEAKER_03 25:03

You're going to. Yeah. Oh, I mean. You just did. So this is is this our third show? You just did. You said you would. You have talked about him every week.

SPEAKER_04 25:10

I don't know if I got him in week one, but two and three.

SPEAKER_07 25:13

You did. But yeah, he had a double, I think it was a double in the eighth and a triple in the ninth, or flipped uh to spark the comeback. Uh, then sticking with Wayne State in game four, Brady Blaquita.

SPEAKER_03 25:22

Uh, he went yard for Wayne State, had three RBIs in the uh his last name sounds like the home run chant from the guy on MLB Network. Blackita is his last name. Blackitah.

SPEAKER_07 25:33

Blackita?

SPEAKER_03 25:34

Yeah. Blackitah. Did you ever hear what's his name say it? Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Energy drinks are kicking in.

SPEAKER_07 25:40

I'm gonna say Mike hasn't taken his riddle in.

SPEAKER_03 25:42

No.

SPEAKER_07 25:42

Uh for Davenport in their two wins, uh, game two, it was Justin Johnson had two doubles and a bomb. Wyatt Apple and Dylan uh Polensky had two hits as well. Powensky had four RBIs in the win.

SPEAKER_03 25:53

Dylan Pawinski, I I want to say he's a Utica Ford kid. He went to Macomb, played for uh Caruso and Jelly. So that's good. That's good to hear.

SPEAKER_07 26:01

Yeah, there you go. Uh, by the way, I did check because uh as we're getting ready to record this, Nick Caruso was going to join us for the whole show. His game went a little long. They did win. Oh, they didn't win. They won 6'5. Yeah, 6'5, and they scored in the bottom of the sixth, so he would get here a little sooner.

SPEAKER_03 26:15

That's huge. They they they knocked out, I want to say they knocked out McComb last year in the playoffs.

SPEAKER_04 26:22

I was watching the end of it on Game Changer and there was this fucking guy. There was there was a guy in second and third with uh with two outs to finish it out. So who they play? Cuyahoga community college.

SPEAKER_03 26:36

Tommy Boy went there, I think, didn't he? Wasn't he from Cuyahoga Falls? I think so. Are you talking Tommy Boy from the movie? Yeah, pretty sure he did.

SPEAKER_07 26:45

Dude, the triceratops.

SPEAKER_03 26:47

Yeah, and and they're they were good. I went, I snuck a peek at them today. They look pretty good.

SPEAKER_07 26:51

Uh, anyway, real quick for uh uh Davenport. It was a pitcher's duel in game three. I feel bad. Remember Gavin Nash? I mentioned him last week because he had to follow up the no-hitter, and it was just kind of like, yeah, who cares? You didn't throw a no-hitter. He gets out dueled.

SPEAKER_03 27:06

Jay, can you get Jay more whiskey, please?

SPEAKER_07 27:09

Good lord. Bartender. We're fall, we're we're falling apart. Doug's checking Jane game changer. And again, Gavin Nash gets overshadowed by Jay's whiskey. Um poor guy. No wash. Nash went six innings, uh, gave up four hits, two earned, no walks, five K's, which wins you most games. But it was uh Easton Remick that went seven, two hits, one earned. Three walks, but seven strikeouts.

SPEAKER_03 27:32

Three walks beat the zero walks.

SPEAKER_07 27:33

Three walks beat the zero walks, and Mike uh Mike cried a little bit. So so those two split. Saginaw Valley split with Parkside. Uh Saginaw Valley took games two and three. Uh Buck Snapes, a three hit day including the bottom.

SPEAKER_03 27:47

Buck Snap, Jay. Pay attention. He's a stud. He's on Saginaw, too. Buck Snapes. He's he's Buck Snapes. He's a study.

SPEAKER_04 27:54

Parkside's not very good.

SPEAKER_03 27:56

I mean, no, they they uh they've been better. I get Parkside and Purdue Northwest mixed up. One of them made a huge run in the Gliak tournament a couple years ago. It was probably Parkside.

SPEAKER_07 28:06

Yeah, Purdue Northwest has been pretty bad. Yeah. Um, but a couple names. Uh Ryan Jarvis had four hits and a bomb in game three. Brady Carpenter had a four double day. He can hit. So he's been there for like 12 years now.

SPEAKER_03 28:20

He's a senior. He's only a senior.

SPEAKER_07 28:21

It feels like he's been there since like Obama was in office.

SPEAKER_03 28:25

He's a 2022 grad. Clarkston.

SPEAKER_06 28:29

Oxford.

SPEAKER_03 28:30

Oxford? Oxford. And he can hit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 28:32

2022 grad, and he's still there. High school dipshit. Oh, okay. I was like sitting here going, what?

SPEAKER_03 28:40

Yeah. No, yeah, he's a he's a fourth year. No, he's uh he can hit. Like he would get like little spot starts as a freshman, and every time it hit a double. And then the uh the Jarvis kid got his hundredth hit this this uh series, and I think he's a sophomore Jew. I think he's a sophomore.

SPEAKER_07 29:00

And then uh I did want to mention another reliever, Dan Wilcombe, had five innings of relief in the win, so Danny is a lefty and he's a Mike Rice recruit.

SPEAKER_03 29:10

Oh, is he? Really cool story. I'll be quick. I'm sorry, are you am I killing you today, Douggy?

SPEAKER_04 29:15

You're doing all right.

SPEAKER_03 29:16

We had a a camp up at Saginaw, and when Jackson Coach Jackson was there, I would help with their camps, and I just I watched a kid throw a bullpen and pulled him aside. Said, I know it's not my business, but you gotta take him on a tour. And he's been there. This is I think he's a senior, and he's he's an electric lefty that if he can throw strikes, he's very, very tough.

SPEAKER_07 29:37

Well, he was tough against the parkside. Five innings of relief in in the win. So good for him. Yeah, so they split with Parkside and the Gleak standings are gonna be very competitive. Grand Valley's four and oh again, they didn't play last series. Davenport is six and two. Wayne State and Saginaw Valley are five and three, but Wayne State has played two road series at Parkside Net Davenport. The big one this week, Wayne State and Grand Valley, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, uh three game set. And it's going to be a uh gonna be a big one.

SPEAKER_03 30:09

One thing I've learned about this show is like these guys are my friends. These coaches are my friends, so I get I say some shit and then I'm like, should I have said it? But I told you Davenport is gonna win this thing, and you watch.

SPEAKER_07 30:25

I'll bet you a beer right now on that. You still owe me one. I'm not gonna be able to do it from how long ago? I have tried to cash that in.

SPEAKER_03 30:32

Well, you could have Thursday.

SPEAKER_07 30:34

I could have.

SPEAKER_03 30:35

A guy shows up at my house drinking beer, doesn't even bring me a Guinness.

SPEAKER_07 30:39

Somebody owes me a whiskey. He had the rolling rock, though. Jay. Jay, did I not ask, hey, what do you need me to bring, Mike? Well, Mike said nothing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 30:48

Jay said charcuterie. Spell that shit. Spell it. No. Hold on, hold on a moment.

SPEAKER_04 30:59

We need time out here. We got a uh special delivery from good Lord.

SPEAKER_07 31:03

Jimmy Gwiz.

SPEAKER_04 31:03

Jimmy Gwiz. The man who makes all this possible.

SPEAKER_07 31:06

Oh, by the way, Davenport and Saginaw Valley are playing this week as well. That'll be fun. Where's that at? Uh, I didn't check. I'll Google it. Yeah, check real quick. Uh I'm gonna go over the GMAC real quick. Uh, Northwood split with Malone. They lost 14-3 and 5-3, and then were able to get a 6-1 and 16-6 win uh for Northwood. It was Lucas McKinney that went seven innings, three hits, one earned, walked three, struck out four in game three. Caden Duraya had two hits and three RBIs with a bomb as well in that game three win.

SPEAKER_03 31:36

I love Brad Baldwin, their head coach. He like, don't take this the wrong way, everybody out there, but he's gonna be like a high-level D1 guy one day, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_07 31:46

I mean, Northwood's been as consistent of a program as you can get.

SPEAKER_03 31:50

Yeah, it's interesting, right? Uh all the coaches that have been through there. What's the guy's name at uh Cincinnati? I don't even bring that up. That's gonna be probably. All of their coaches have kind of gone from Northwood to CMU to Cincinnati. It's been a kind of a cool, cool there it is. There's the word I'm looking for.

SPEAKER_07 32:11

Uh and then uh Duraya is hitting uh 374 this year. He's got seven bombs in just uh 26 games. Also, when I was looking through, not a stat, but uh they have a player named Brendan Hammer. Oh, that's that's a baseball in it. Jay, is that a good name or is that a great name for baseball? You better hit the ball hard. Um Hillsdale Shocker split with Ohio Dominican. Listen, they that's just what they do. I I would love for Hillsdale to go on a run, and then it can be a storyline. I hope they do. I hope they do.

SPEAKER_06 32:40

Jordan Bischell. Jordan Bischell. No, that's Bishel. No, Bishop. That's the guy you're thinking of.

SPEAKER_03 32:46

Yeah, so Reports. He's a good dude. He's stuh, I mean Jay Oltrawer reported.

SPEAKER_07 32:51

Reports. Um Hillsdale split with Ohio Dominican. Uh they took game one and game four. It was uh Jake Figman had three hits and three RBIs. Uh Brendan Smith went eight innings, two hits, three walks, four K's in uh the game one win. Um in the one loss, uh the game two in eight innings, they gave up two unearned runs to lose three to two. So those ones hurt. Yeah. Yeah. So they they split. Um and right now in the G Max standings, Hillsdale seven and five, Northwood is six and six. Finlay is nine and one who leads the North. The GMAX divided into two divisions, north and south. And for some reason, Finley uh put up a hyper specific tweet after a midweek. They played bowling green, and I don't know if there's bad blood between bowling green and Finley, but they like stomped them like 11 to 1. Bowling Green stomped bowling green. Finley stopped stomped bowling green. And yeah, uh, Tommy's gonna pull it up. They put up here, we are the premier orange university in Northwest Ohio. The Oilers. And it they quote tweeted Bowling Green's like field ceremony where they were celebrating the upgrades. Yeah, they have this nice tweet, and then just a giant Finlay flag on top of it.

SPEAKER_03 34:10

If we're if we're still on the air next year, which who freaking knows the way this thing's going, I'd like to see that score next year when they play each other.

SPEAKER_07 34:17

Yeah, I I I apparently there is some uh Finley bowling green beef. Bowling Green has a new field, or the renovated field, so they were almost out of business three years ago.

SPEAKER_03 34:27

Yeah, they got some donor, they're doing well again. They're doing well.

SPEAKER_07 34:30

So, anyway, that's not uh Michigan, so we don't care too much, but I just thought it was funny. It was very hyper-specific, and I I apparently there's some beef in Flag City.

SPEAKER_03 34:40

So, real quick, yes, Bishop was at Cincinnati, like that's a they're like kind of a powerhouse now. He started at Northwood, went from Northwood to CMU, CMU to Cincinnati, and the same thing's happening now. Sable, who is at CMU, started at Northwood. They're kind of like got that pipeline, and Baldwin is gonna be the next guy. And again, don't take that the wrong way. I'm just saying that's how good he is.

SPEAKER_07 35:06

So Mike's saying every other coach is not the next guy. All right, so D3. Let's go to D3.

SPEAKER_06 35:13

Um, let's go to Jay for D3. No, Doug. Doug's taking my D3 over.

SPEAKER_03 35:18

Wait, Jay, you didn't do anything? No.

SPEAKER_06 35:21

Can you give us anything? No, nothing. You guys told me I didn't have to do anything. Doug was doing it all. So here we are. And then you guys rip that all away from me, so I'm just here.

SPEAKER_03 35:30

So here's what happens. Here's exactly what happens. So now I'm just here. We give Jay D3, and he beats us up so bad for two weeks, and he won the battle.

SPEAKER_07 35:40

Because now Doug's because now Doug is. So you know what? A round of applause for everyone at D3 because now they will get accurate coverage. 100%.

SPEAKER_04 35:48

All right, uh somewhat accurate.

SPEAKER_07 35:50

All right, Doug, let's start with uh Alma, who actually took two or three from our friends at Adrian.

SPEAKER_04 35:55

Yeah, I mean, I I Mike got me numbers of those coaches as well, and it was uh, you know, the I think the uh Adrian coaches were a little shocked that uh that they took that they lost uh two or three to Alma, but Alma had a great weekend. Now I don't go through I I kind of to speed the process up. I actually took some kids, went through all their stats for the week.

SPEAKER_03 36:16

So he he what he's what you're doing is you're showing off and making fun of me all in the same breath.

SPEAKER_04 36:23

How did I make fun of you?

SPEAKER_03 36:24

Well, I I don't go through everything. I don't go through everything. That's you being in future, Mike. Is it yeah?

SPEAKER_04 36:28

I mean, but I have there's just more teams to go through than than the five you've got. So I'm just trying to go through this as fast as possible. I'd like to talk about more kids because if I could break it down game by game, there obviously are some kids that have better games, but overall for the week, maybe not as strong. Uh some kids that I wanted to point out from Alma were uh Cameron Bleasdale, he went seven for fourteen on the week. St.

SPEAKER_05 36:48

Clair with uh for sure with a double and a triple.

SPEAKER_04 36:52

Uh Cole Grunwall went six for twelve on the week with a double and a home run. And uh the best pitching performance I saw of the week was Josh Sonarole, seven innings, three runs, four K's. And with a caveat, when I'm looking up pitchers, I don't even look at walks.

SPEAKER_03 37:06

Isn't that funny? Like Doug is like I look at runs. You get like Doug and Jay and I, as you know, grew up together, like best of friends, like freaking family, but Doug and I are so opposite.

SPEAKER_07 37:16

Doug just cares if he gets the job done.

SPEAKER_04 37:19

Well, and in in fairness, I mean Mike knows uh you know a lot more about baseball than I do. So I I I probably keep it more simple than he does. I just do we give up more runs and do you get the win?

SPEAKER_03 37:30

No, you're right. But I just my problem is like when on the bench coaching, like you know I know, I know. Walks make you want to lose your shit. You know, walks equal runs typically.

SPEAKER_04 37:42

Yeah, no, I get it. I mean, but I coach younger kids. I mean, my kids are now 15U, so it's it's it's different. He was a high school coach, and and and I know the difference between the youth and the high school, but I mean, I don't know. I guess I just keep it simple and just look at the runs.

SPEAKER_07 37:54

All right, Albion did sweep Calvin. Uh they get the opening series sweep. Uh it was nine, three, eight, two, and eleven, nine. What do you got for that one?

SPEAKER_04 38:02

Um, you know, not a lot as far as hitting goes, um, because they seem to play a lot of different people in the field. And so they've got a lot of contributions from a bunch of different people. Um, it seems like their pitching's doing a pretty good job. Uh, as far as hitting goes, uh, I got Gavin White went nine for 19 with a triple and two home runs. And from pitching, I got Jack Renner, had seven innings, two runs, three Ks.

SPEAKER_03 38:24

LBN is nine and oh.

SPEAKER_06 38:26

Yes, on a nine-game winning streak. And let's give a shout out to this kid, freshman. First win in college, his name's Ty. While Wasolenski, he had to come in when they were down, and he he stopped the bleeding, went three scoreless innings and gave them the ability to you know come out on top in that game.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

What's the little note about Ty?

SPEAKER_06 38:48

Yeah, Ty is actually a friend of ours, a friend of the program. Friend of the program um had brought him up and said, Hey, this kid deserves a shout out. So and then Mike Mike called the coach and you're burying the lead, man.

SPEAKER_03 39:00

So I call so I call we we call the coach, Greg Kirk calls Jay, says, give this kid a shout-out, he's gonna be good. Yeah, I called Coach Tyson, and he throws right-handed and left-handed.

SPEAKER_07 39:12

Yeah. What's the word for that, Jay?

SPEAKER_03 39:15

Bisexual. Sorry.

SPEAKER_06 39:20

You can edit that out. No, you don't edit that out. First off. Pretty good. Yeah, what do you call that? Ambidextrous. Yes, come on. Okay, ambidextrous. So he so he not switch hitter.

SPEAKER_03 39:29

He pitched so far, he's only pitched left-handed. Um, he's thrown pens right handed, but he's like 85, 86 left-handed, so it's gonna be cool to follow the kid.

SPEAKER_04 39:38

Do they uh do they have like two mitts on the bench if he wants to change?

SPEAKER_07 39:41

Uh no, usually I because I I remember there was a kid, um, I can't remember where it was from, but in a high school game we were covering uh that there was an ambidextrous pitcher and it was just like a dual fitting.

SPEAKER_03 39:52

It had like three fingers and you just flip it.

SPEAKER_06 39:54

Yeah. Oh, that's crazy. So but if you start a batter out as left, you can't switch. I believe you have to declare finish.

SPEAKER_03 40:00

The pitcher has to declare first, correct? The hitter does not. The pitcher has to declare, but the hitter if the could every pitch go back and forth.

SPEAKER_07 40:08

Yes, but the pitcher has to declare.

SPEAKER_03 40:10

That's stupid. That's probably another thing.

SPEAKER_07 40:11

Well, no, because I think it was something in the minor leagues where there was a switch pitcher versus a switch hitter, and they literally for like two minutes just went nope, left hand.

SPEAKER_03 40:19

There's a guy, I want to say he's on a 40-man in MLB that goes both.

SPEAKER_07 40:24

I'm sure there's a few.

SPEAKER_03 40:26

Left-handed and right-handed pitching.

SPEAKER_07 40:28

Um, Olivet took the series against Hope. However, uh Hope outscored Olivet 36-15. There was a 22 to 1 game in there. So that's how that happened. So, Doug.

SPEAKER_04 40:39

Yeah, that's that's hard to do when you have that money run score.

SPEAKER_03 40:44

I bet you the I bet you the big the big boy pitched well for Olivet, right?

SPEAKER_04 40:48

So I'm just gonna go through my thing. EJ uh Sugget, three for nine, one double, one hunt run, five RBIs. Uh Brian Carney, seven innings, one run, nine K's. Uh I was talking to a buddy of mine who knows him, says he's sitting around 93, 94.

SPEAKER_06 41:04

Not a cousin?

SPEAKER_04 41:05

No. No. No.

SPEAKER_06 41:07

A friend of a friend of a friend.

SPEAKER_04 41:09

Uh Dawson Sherman went six innings, two runs, seven Ks. Logan Lewis got the win in both games versus hope. And uh the coach two wins?

SPEAKER_07 41:18

When he comes in and relieve both games?

SPEAKER_04 41:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 41:20

Ow.

SPEAKER_04 41:21

Uh, and the coach wanted me to shout out uh Nate Droste, Mario Richard, or Ricard, sorry, and Brody Parton uh as other names to look out for.

SPEAKER_03 41:30

Nice. Who got the win for all of that? Did it not say, or was it did I miss that?

SPEAKER_04 41:34

Logan Lewis.

SPEAKER_03 41:36

Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_07 41:37

Yeah, one of those was a 12-inning win, too. So I mean, nice nice series to open up uh conference play for them. And then Kalmazou, who might be the best team in the MIAA. Uh, they uh took the first game, uh first two against Trine, and then one uh as of recording today on Monday, 16 to 7. So uh what'd you have for the first two?

SPEAKER_04 41:58

19 and 2 overall. That's uh I I they played a lot of games last week, actually. So uh I just went through the last four games, not counting today. Uh Robert Newland went 12 for 21, two doubles, two home runs, eight RBIs.

SPEAKER_07 42:12

Wait, wait, how many home runs again?

SPEAKER_04 42:14

Two home runs.

SPEAKER_07 42:14

And he's 12 for 21 this week.

SPEAKER_04 42:17

That's just in the last four games. Uh Kate Pressing went eight for eighteen, two home runs, seven RBIs. Uh Robert Algren went three innings, zero runs, five K's. Um and when I talked to the coach, I'm like, hey, give me some uh give me some guys you want me to talk about. And he's like, no, I just want to let just mention the fact that we're really deep overall.

SPEAKER_03 42:35

Well, I'm who'd you talk to? I can't remember.

SPEAKER_04 42:38

You gave me so many numbers in the last week. I can't remember.

SPEAKER_03 42:40

That the head coach, Mike Ott, got his from Kalamazoo got his 300th win.

SPEAKER_07 42:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:45

So another milestone.

SPEAKER_07 42:46

Which um I'm sure a lot of the players are gonna go celebrate on Western's campus this week. Well, of course they would. Yeah, all right.

SPEAKER_03 42:52

I texted Mike and I just said, Congratulations, legend. He goes, Legend I am not, but thank you so much. And he's a good dude.

SPEAKER_07 43:00

All right. So next I had on the list, uh, you know, we'll skip the JUCO stuff until our guest uh gets here. So I'll go down to the whack real quick. We didn't talk about Adrian. Oh, sorry. Yes, go ahead. Oh my gosh. Well, we're first guests. We did there was Alma uh took two of the biggest.

SPEAKER_04 43:16

I just never mentioned any of their kitchen. Oh, I like it. So just from um Adrian, uh I had Gabe Jones went last week, went six for nineteen, two doubles, a home run, eight RBIs. Casey Finn went seven for fourteen, uh three doubles, one triple, one home run. And Ambrose Horweth went uh six injurings, one run, four K's. And uh from Calvin. Because I don't know, I don't think we talked about Calvin at all.

SPEAKER_03 43:42

Well, we I mentioned they got swept, yeah. Um and they gave you no feedback, Calvin, right? Or was that hope?

SPEAKER_04 43:48

Hope. No, but I think the hope coach has got some stuff going on. He was he he did reach back out, but he didn't.

SPEAKER_07 43:54

You were Mike trying to be inconspicuous. I never know where the mic is, it's a red box.

SPEAKER_04 44:00

It's not like you were opening up a Guinness.

SPEAKER_07 44:02

He looked like a kid that just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. As Jay's pounding whiskeys.

SPEAKER_03 44:09

I'm nervous to open up her.

SPEAKER_04 44:10

So for Calvin, I had Josh Wincoln went five for nine with a double and three runs. Peyton Ruthman went five for ten with five runs. And Noah, this is going to be a tough one. Etienne went six innings, one run, and six K's.

SPEAKER_06 44:24

Hey, Nick's calling you, actually, right? So's calling.

SPEAKER_03 44:27

Trey, answer it.

SPEAKER_06 44:28

Thanks, Jay. Hey, it's our guest. Good job. Go skippers.

SPEAKER_03 44:32

You want it? I don't know what I do here.

SPEAKER_06 44:34

Just answer it.

SPEAKER_07 44:35

Sure. Tell him he's on his way. Hey.

SPEAKER_03 44:38

Hey, where do I park for this, Shindig? You're on speaker on the podcast.

SPEAKER_07 44:44

All right. With the magic of editing, we now have uh Nick Caruso on head coach of McComb. But first, uh, want to tell you our show today is sponsored by Detroit Thread Company. Detroit Thread Company is the top servicing embroidery and uniform provider in the Metro Detroit area, delivering premier sports embroidery and uniforms for teams, schools, and organizations. They provide high-quality stitching, custom designs, and durable team apparel that stands out on and off the field. Call 866-382-4287 to get your team or organization geared up today. Again, thank you to Detroit Thread Company. As you know, uh Nick, you were uh you wanted to join for the whole show, but you had to, you know, coach your team, and you actually timed it up really well. We're getting ready to talk some JUCO baseball. Huge. So you got a couple of wins over Cuyahoga, is that how you pronounce it? I don't so you got a couple wins there. I guess we'll start. We always start with the East. Doug, you're repping your FC4 shirt, so let's uh let's talk about what happened in the East this past weekend. Start with Jacombe. Tacomb 2-0.

SPEAKER_04 45:48

2-0. Obviously, I don't have the stats from today's game. Um I I did happen to go to the game on Saturday. Um, and just as I'm walking up, maybe three two or three batters after I walk up, my all-name team and my new best friend, Vito Zito, hit a grand slam.

SPEAKER_07 46:03

Does he know you're his best friend?

SPEAKER_04 46:05

I think he has no idea. But it was kind of cool because I didn't realize his parents were standing right behind me when he hit this grand slam, and they were so excited, and it was really cool. So I taped, I text Mike, I'm like, hey, what does Vito's dad look like? Because I think he's behind me. I actually went up and introduced him. They were really nice.

SPEAKER_03 46:20

I said, What did I say? He looks really Italian. He does. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:23

He looked like he could bury me underneath the uh home plate if I if it happened.

SPEAKER_05 46:27

That reaction was really cool, though.

SPEAKER_04 46:28

Yeah, it was it was cool. It was a great hit. It was really well timed. It was funny to see, like you guys just went on a barrage right there. It was just everyone was barreling a ball, right one, one right after another. Um uh as far as last week's stats, uh a kid that I've been mentioning every week, Marwan Matthews, was eight for twelve, five stolen bases. My first time seeing him up close. That kid is fast.

SPEAKER_02 46:51

And Nick, we're gonna talk more about your guys. We're gonna run through scores, but like I would love to hear some feedback about some of these guys. It'll be cool.

SPEAKER_04 46:59

And another kid I saw pitch who looked really impressive was Greg Burns. He went six innings, one run, ten K's.

SPEAKER_03 47:04

See the north north bill. Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 47:07

No clue how many walks he had. I just know he fanned 10 and got the win.

SPEAKER_03 47:11

This is our thing. Like, I hate walks, and I like talking. Yeah, see? See, when you're sitting on that bench, like you hate it. And Doug doesn't, he won't report walks. Now, probably in spite of me, but like Yeah, I didn't even look at that one.

SPEAKER_02 47:24

He might be able to tell us. He had two.

SPEAKER_03 47:26

All right.

SPEAKER_07 47:26

So so all right, that's that's that's not bad. Um so McComb, 2-0. Uh they beat Jackson. Jackson went uh one and one. They followed it up with an 11-1 win over SC4.

SPEAKER_04 47:36

Uh Jackson, uh, a couple of kids I wanted to point out. Jack Grill went five or ten, one double, two home runs, six RBIs. Jack hit Hinding Hindenb went five for seven, two doubles, one triple, and uh Gavin Harold went five innings, one run, ten Ks.

SPEAKER_07 47:51

Well, that and that Jackson McComb game was the big one because McComb now the only undefeated team in the East.

SPEAKER_03 47:56

So did Big Fella pitch for Jackson, the kid from Ohio, that six foot six uh Gavin Harold.

SPEAKER_05 48:02

No, he pitched against SC4.

SPEAKER_03 48:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 48:04

So um as mentioned, uh Jackson got the split. Henry Ford uh went two and oh. They beat SC4 13-3 and Mott 14-4. So uh, you know, Henry Ford with a pretty strong one, and Doug loves their athletics website.

SPEAKER_04 48:18

I mean, they make me put in some work to try and get some stats. That's tough. And and I I don't want to throw anybody under the bus, but I have a you are going.

SPEAKER_05 48:30

I have a literally I don't want to throw anyone under the bus.

SPEAKER_04 48:33

I have a coach over there that might give me his number, and I'm sure he's a nice guy, but he never responds to me. And I'm just I'm just trying to promote your kids.

SPEAKER_03 48:40

Well, he's a good dude. He's a way sick guy, Jake. Does he call you back and if you talk to him? Uh I've never talked to him. All right. So I thought he was I was hoping he would say yes, he calls back all the time.

SPEAKER_05 48:54

I've only ever talked to him before the time we played on this show. That was the only time.

SPEAKER_03 48:57

Yeah, yeah, but I think he's like he's turning that around for lack of a better term, right? Like, I mean, they're they have some good they get some good players, but he just doesn't call Doug back.

SPEAKER_04 49:06

Well, they were doing good in the non-league, but I think they're two and three in the league at this point.

SPEAKER_07 49:10

Uh the they're three and two. They lat their their opening week, they uh you know stumbled a couple times, which I mean was was maybe a bit surprising with the non-league schedule, but you know, they get two big wins, and but yeah, their their website looks like it's straight out of 2003.

SPEAKER_04 49:25

I mean, the stats are from last year. Yeah. So they just must upload them at the end of the year.

SPEAKER_05 49:29

So if you go to their stats, it takes you to the NJCAA website. So change it to the current year.

SPEAKER_04 49:34

I have to uh I have to do a deep dive to try and find some kids to say something nice about uh Braylon Orsett went six for eleven with a double. Casey Robinson went five for nine with five RBIs, Ian Manis went six innings, zero run, six Ks.

SPEAKER_03 49:48

You remember Mark Gyaski from Notre Dame school? Juice? Yeah, Juice. His uh nephew is on that team, Gyeski. He's I think he pitches for them. He's a good big big boy. Still? I think he's gone. Oh, no, he's at Madonna now. Gosh darn it. Yeah, I just saw it. No, you're right. Yeah, he did play. Yeah, he was a catcher growing up and decided I'm just gonna come out and chuck. So good for him.

SPEAKER_07 50:11

Mott actually got their uh second win of the year. They beat uh Schoolcraft five to four, and then as I mentioned, Henry Ford got him 14-4. Doug, what do you got on Mott?

SPEAKER_04 50:19

Uh last week, Trenton Crewalt went six for seven, two doubles, one triple, one home run. Uh Brady Vacenzone went four for four with one triple, and their coach said he actually had the leadoff triple in the ninth, and then he ended up winning when they won by a hit by pitch walk-off.

SPEAKER_07 50:37

Celebrate We talked about Eastern had that last week. Did they celebrate like did the guy go like let's kill you when he gets hit by a game? Yes, you have to you have to celebrate it. More to come about celebrating later. Yes, because like I said, if you if they would have gotten out of it, you would be pissed at them for getting out of the way.

SPEAKER_04 50:56

Connor Sweeney went five innings, eight case.

SPEAKER_07 50:59

And then a hard, uh tough week for SC4 and Schoolcraft, as I mentioned. They they each went 0-2. SC4, a pair of 10-run losses to Henry Ford and Jackson. Schoolcraft, the the one-run loss to Mott, and then the 10-run loss to McComb. What do you got on those two?

SPEAKER_04 51:12

Uh schoolcraft, uh last week Shane Carnes went five for 14 with one double and one home run. Deshaun Eatman went six for fourteen, two doubles. Avery Hayes uh went two innings, zero runs, four K's. And uh their coach said Casey Settles was their top pitcher last week. Um SC4 was a little bit harder to find some stuff. Uh Mason Goldbach was uh great offensively and on the mound against Muskegon. Uh midweek win. Aidan Carrollden again, my center fielder's cousin, had literally no relation to Dump.

SPEAKER_06 51:50

I know it's his center fielder's cousin.

SPEAKER_04 51:54

Not my center fielder for four years.

SPEAKER_06 51:55

Seven degrees of relationship.

SPEAKER_04 51:58

At a four and three-fourths uh scoreless inning versus Henry Ford, and Will Wiegan hit a home run against Muskegon.

SPEAKER_03 52:05

All right, so real quick, I watched you guys again. Was that schoolcraft down at the corner? They had a guy bigger than Nick and you, like combined hunting for a hit.

SPEAKER_04 52:16

That was crazy. He laid down a great bunt, too.

SPEAKER_03 52:20

Yeah, but he put we're talking about kids here. I just thought like just it was it was the situation was a little weird.

SPEAKER_05 52:27

Because nobody's on base, but uh the umpires weren't great, so I think they were trying to do anything, and that's being nice, saying they weren't great. Uh I think they were what the the third baseman told Pat, our third co third base coach, that they were trying to do anything they could because we're getting like two balls off the off the plate that were called strikes consistently. Gotcha. Okay. And so they tried to bunt. Also, I'm never doing that. Yeah, I know. Like, I know. It was seven to one and they bunted, tried to bump for a hit.

SPEAKER_03 52:54

I thought I was sitting there with the Rochester coach Dylan Benson, and I was like, oh, I want to see this big boy. Like, let's see what he's like, he's the old like bunt for a hit thing. But that was rough. I did I can probably rip on the umpires more than you because you might have them up in the future here. But like, there was some rough calls that I saw for the half hour I was there, and it was like they were having like um almost like they were going into a booth. It's like, dude, you you're not watching video. What are you what are you reviewing? You made the call, and then they like overturned calls, but it was rough. But sorry to interrupt you.

SPEAKER_07 53:30

Oh no, you're fine. Macomb 5-0. And oh, one thing I do want to ask, is it weird not playing like series, like playing two different teams back to back?

SPEAKER_05 53:37

No, I'm used to it right now here, I guess. Um but it's it takes a lot. Like two years ago, uh, when Jelly was there, they went five and oh. That was the first time they went five and oh in history, and then last year we went three and two. It just shows like how important it is. Because you you could like last week we faced uh Jackson's number one and schoolcraft's number two. Right. So it's like you're basing it. You could just keep getting ace after ace because that you don't necessarily have a Friday guy, a Saturday guy, like yeah. So it's it's hit or miss with that, but we uh we've handled it pretty well.

SPEAKER_03 54:08

So what I would do strategically in that case, knowing that they're kind of loaded, I would not pitch my ace against them. I'd throw off, take the L, and I'm gonna go try to beat I'm gonna go try to beat those teams that I should beat with my our worst offensive numbers have been been against like very slow lefty. Everyone gets revved up to hit VLO, right? Then you start doing one of the oh, I hit my mic. Start breaking off some cards.

SPEAKER_07 54:32

We're used to it. All right, let's go to the north, Mike. Uh Grand Rapids, they swept Delta eight to one and eight to three. They they actually uh are in the middle of playing again. I'm guessing the fact that all these teams actually played this week, I'm impressed with because everything north of like West Branch has been under 10 feet of snow.

SPEAKER_03 54:50

Yeah, this is gonna be quick. Um I'm gonna talk a little bit about Grand Rapids and mid-Michigan.

SPEAKER_07 54:55

I called my mid-Michigan did take three or four from Alpina too.

SPEAKER_03 54:58

Yeah, and I called one of my favorite coaches of all time, Mike Eddington, the guy I've talked about him a couple times. Like, he's just an awesome dude, really great guy. And I asked him about a couple guys to highlight, and uh Peter Heinz was a guy to highlight. He's batting 432 with three bombs and nine 19 ribies, and he is also by the way, uh GRCC did take game one of the doubleheader over Delta. Yeah, I'm not even I'm looking at records and I'm finding out about players in the north because I want to see about uh I got a name guy for you that uh Coach Eddington talked about. Canon Paul. That's a good frickin' name. Shortstop baton 392 with uh Palmer and Seven R.

SPEAKER_07 55:46

Dude, how sweet.

SPEAKER_03 55:47

That name's that's a good name. That's way better. Canon, way better than Jet Buck.

SPEAKER_06 55:52

Well, yeah, but Canon.

SPEAKER_03 55:54

This poor kid in Nebraska doesn't. What happened to names like the guys talking shit about him?

SPEAKER_07 55:59

Yay. That's a crazy pull.

SPEAKER_03 56:01

We'll but we'll out. Yeah, it'll be fun. We'll see what happens if Jet Buck calls us out one day. So uh Kyle Kyle O'Hearn is a guy that's gonna be a guy. His ERA is up there right now, but that was one of the names to mention for your scouting report if you pay some. Kyle Kyle Kyle O'Hearn. Uh Mid-Michigan just kind of took a look at their their top guys. Uh Donovan Hugh, 457 average. Uh he's got eight bombs and 31 ribies for mid-Michigan. Pretty good. And I mid-Michigan, I used to have a relationship with our coach, so I used to know a little bit more about him, but I can't get them to call me back even for our showcase. They're only going to get a couple highlights here. Uh actually, they're getting two, and it's the same guy. Donovan Hugh, 313, ERA, uh, three and one uh on the bump. So their best hitter and their best pitcher is the same guy.

SPEAKER_05 56:52

Do you know what number he is?

SPEAKER_03 56:53

From what I can tell. I'll find out. Uh number six. Number six. Mark it down. There was another guy, Brennan Palmer.

SPEAKER_05 56:59

He didn't have too much. I just don't remember names in the Juco level.

SPEAKER_07 57:02

That's what I found with just coaches at all levels. Like, I'll ask a specific name, they'll go, oh, number 22.

SPEAKER_03 57:07

That's a good point. I even hear like the Division I levels, like you hear like Tom Iso, or you hear like Hurley talk about number two or number six.

SPEAKER_07 57:14

Well, because they watched just they all all they see is, you know, oh, there's number 14 again doing all this.

SPEAKER_03 57:20

So I always assumed it was like disrespectful, but I guess it just means they don't want to name the game.

SPEAKER_07 57:26

They're not watching the broadcast, so they're not hearing the name over and over again. They're just watching film, going, oh, this number four is an issue.

SPEAKER_03 57:32

Homework, jersey number for jet buck. That's what you got to come with. I can do it right now. Yeah, that's next week. Save it for next next week.

SPEAKER_07 57:41

Miskegan did sweep Bay College, including a 27-2 win.

SPEAKER_03 57:45

Yeah, I don't even yeah, that's fine. So Grand Rapids Community College is in first place.

SPEAKER_07 57:52

Yes, then Michigan's seven and one now.

SPEAKER_06 57:54

Is Jet 1T or two?

SPEAKER_03 57:56

Two. Um Miskegan is in third, so we'll start paying attention to them a little bit.

SPEAKER_07 58:01

You'll start paying attention. Yeah, well, you can't make fun of Jay for not doing homework. I'm not doing that one too.

SPEAKER_03 58:06

By the way, this is my hey, this is my third week in a row that I just completely winged it for the North. So we'll see. We'll see how the North goes.

SPEAKER_07 58:15

All right, let's go to the West. Uh Kellogg beat uh Ancyla, then Lake Michigan, a combined uh 30 uh or sorry, 29 to 6. Uh Jay, how did your boy do? I have no idea.

SPEAKER_03 58:30

That's Kacharski.

SPEAKER_06 58:32

Yeah, you guys told me don't do anything this week. Doug doing all my work. That's where we're at. I thought that would be a good one. But Jet Buck's number's 10. All right.

SPEAKER_03 58:41

I got that. So you're already done. You don't have anything. Done. No more homework for the week. Uh who has Kellogg? I had Kellogg.

SPEAKER_06 58:51

I don't anymore. No.

SPEAKER_04 58:52

I'm not doing all of those. I thought I would take over the MIA.

SPEAKER_06 58:56

You still have the West. So I still have to do something. Yes. Okay. Well now I know. Thank you. Last week all I heard was Doug's doing all your work for you now, Jay. He's going to give you the notes. Didn't give me any notes.

SPEAKER_03 59:10

Hey, real quick, real quick.

SPEAKER_06 59:12

Humiliating me the whole time. Jay, really quick.

SPEAKER_03 59:14

Did you put a six milligrams in it?

SPEAKER_06 59:16

No, not yet.

SPEAKER_03 59:17

Don't try. You've had like eight glasses on this eve. Do not do eight. I know, I'm kidding. But do not do a six milligram.

SPEAKER_07 59:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 59:26

What's the standings over there? Kellogg and Lance?

SPEAKER_07 59:28

I'm gonna get to it one second. Yeah, I'm gonna go through it. Um Lansing uh lost to Glenn Oaks 10 to 9 and a bit of a surprising uh upset. Then they crushed Ancyla 11 to nothing. We don't care, they're from Indiana.

SPEAKER_02 59:40

Hey, I watched I watched uh is is Ancilla?

SPEAKER_07 59:43

Yeah, yeah. Marion Ancilla.

SPEAKER_02 59:45

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 59:46

That's Brady Bedon could bet clean up and play first for that. But I did hear it's like 40 grand. Do you know anything about those guys? No. You wouldn't, they're in Lansing's. We've never played them. I know where they're at. Yeah. Yeah. So I went to I stopped by the Lansing game. I didn't realize how Lansing is like Lansing's field is like walking distance to Michigan State's field. So I was gonna I was heading over to watch Michigan State Purdue, and I see the blue uniforms get loose. It's like a mile less than a mile away. So anyway, I'm talking to Coach Cutter just to say how to Coach Cutter at Lansing. Great. I love the guy. I think he's an awesome, sharp dude. And I'm watching Ancilla warm up. And you know me. Like I'm trying to be respectful. And then I look at Coach, I go, what the fuck? What is this? What is going on? Like, I think I just said, like, what is this? And he, you know, he's he's a respect, he's a very respectful guy. And he said, Oh, they're they're uh forty thousand dollars a year to go to a junior college. I don't know the background of it, but there's some connection to another four-year where you have to be like Is it Notre Dame? We have to be like super smart or super rich to get in there, so they have they do have trouble finding kids. So I went from like getting ready to make fun of a team to Coach Cutter being who he is. He's like, Well, there's a reason that they are the way they are.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:03

So they were horrible. Yeah, they're not very good. Long story short, horrible. Yeah, uh Kalamazoo Valley went uh two and oh. They beat Lake Michigan and Glen Oaks both 10-1. Uh Lake Michigan obviously lost there and lost to Kalamazoo Valley and Kellogg, as I mentioned. And Glen Oaks, as I said, beat uh Lansing and lost to uh KVCC. Kellogg five and oh, Lansing and Kalamazoo Valley each three and two.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:27

So Nick knows this that we barely prepare for this show. So I'm gonna be asking you questions and I hope Well, I'm sorry, Brady and Brady and Doug work their ass off. So I'm gonna ask you questions. I hope it's I hope it makes sense. How did the playoffs work like with the three divisions? Like, how do you do you guys all yeah?

SPEAKER_05 1:01:46

They just changed it. So we our regionals break into the three Michigan divisions and then the Ohio division.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:53

So the So they do it like they do basketball for that, I'm guessing. Because that's how they do, yeah. You take like one from the East, so you don't run into the same team over and over the city.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:01

So if you're in first place, so the the first place in each division, so that's four of them, get ranked on power rankings for the one to four seeds. Second place automatically qualifies and they rank from five to eight. And then they just changed it this year that the two highest power rankings, it's called massy ratings, the two highest massy ratings. Uh third place teams also make it in. So now there's ten teams, and then it breaks it's kind of backwards. They break into a three-game series right away, so it should be how the super regional would should be. But the one plays the ten for a three-game series, two versus nine, and so on. So that's the winner, the five winners now then go to the whole regional, and it's a double elimination tournament at Jackson. So the five winners go? So who gets the buy? The highest the I don't know exactly. I didn't look at that, but there's one game on there's one game on Wednesday, and then the rest of it is played Thursday this morning.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:54

But that's why today's games were important. Today's games were huge for Massie Rated.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:58

Yeah, can I just ask why they just didn't make it eight a nice even? It was eight last year. So what was the need to add to ten and make it utterly more confusing?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:06

Everybody wins, dude. Everyone gets a trophy. I mean, if you're top two in the conference, right?

SPEAKER_07 1:03:10

Like we can have an average year and still make it, right? But still, like if top two in the conference sounds pretty fair to go on to the district regional setup, but anyway.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:20

I think it should be broken into two like five-team pools, and then you play your own little regional, and then the winner of that play a three-game series for a super regional. Almost like pool play in the like a normal 2001.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:33

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:34

I don't I don't know. Well, we'll talk about conference tournaments because things like the uh the Gleak conference tournament is the most convoluted thing I've ever met. I've ever seen where you can win round one and you're playing a team that lost round one.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:47

We're gonna be there. It's at uh Jimmy uh what's our UWN. UW M.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:52

UWN. You caught yourself. I already made the adjustment. You gotta hurry up. Yeah, yeah. I gotta do it. Sometimes when I'm talking to somebody that doesn't really know about it, I still say Jimmy Johns because I know they'll know that. It's just easier.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:01

Thanks. Thanks for being on the uh call today with the staff.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:04

Yeah, I haven't been in about 10 weeks.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:06

We just talk shit about you though. You should on the USB. We have a weekly Monday call for USPBL. We just make fun of Nick the whole time. Yep.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:13

Sounds right. So uh all right, uh, let me go through the NAIA and the WAC. It wasn't a great uh week, especially for the top teams. Aquinas got swept by Northwestern Ohio. Uh they were seven and one in league, and now they're tied for third. They were help help me.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:28

Is that is that Uno? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I just know them as Uno, and then there's like a northern Ohio or something, too. But they're okay, so they're north Uno is Uno is Northwestern Ohio, and I think it's the only one.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:39

Is North is Uno now Northwestern Ohio? Because I think it's always better.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:44

No, because there's northwestern Ohio and then there's University of Northern Ohio.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:48

Maybe that's what I mean. Uno's the guys. Those are the guys that have like the lat the Latin middle infielders all the time, and they they always are pretty darn good.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:56

Um anyway, uh yeah, so yes, okay. Yes, it is. Uh oh, sorry, I'm thinking of Ohio Northern University. I know. That's what you're thinking of. And then there's Northwest University of Northwestern Ohio. Um, but Aquinas got swept. Uh, that was a pretty bad sweep for them to take. Uh, and yeah, now they're seven and five in league play after starting seven and one. And now they're gonna have now they're chasing and they don't even get a chance at the team leading.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:24

Believe it or not, even at that level, there's books. You get books on players, right? Oh, yeah. Coach Caruso. I keep I'm I'm just calling you Nick. Is that okay? I'm trying to be like professional coach Caruso. This is my boy.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:34

I none of my players call me coaches.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:35

But these guys, I know. Are you like a fur are you a first name coach guy?

SPEAKER_05 1:05:38

No, I like uh either Caruso or Russo.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:41

Yeah, either way. But these guys get books on people, and that's what happens even at the NAI level. You can go five and oh at the beginning, and they they're these guys call each other, they look at different stats and they're spinning curveballs if you can't hit it. And so that's when you realize if they're gonna be really good if that second time through the case.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:58

Uh Cleary uh Um split a midweek with Rio Grande and then took three or four from Defiance. They they've put up double digit runs in every game in the series. Brennan Simon learned where we go.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:12

You should have heard Jay with that last name last week.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:13

No, that was me that the Jay.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:17

Yeah. He had uh ten hits, eight RBIs on the weekend. He had a big one. Uh Joey Paronello, seven hits, including a bomb. Bryce Wesley, a couple of high school teammates had former Detroit prospect, Bryce Wesley. Yeah, I'm sure love him. Yeah, they I mean they each had seven hits. Uh Cleary last week scored seven or more runs in all six games.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:35

Saman might be a US PBL guy. Is he still two-way or no? Yeah. Yeah, it's the weirdest thing. Like, I love the kid, I know him well, and he's a little guy, but he throws like freaking 92. Does he? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:49

He was good when we played him, but uh our McComb team was not very good at the time. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:54

But he he can play. Like he's uh you know, he might not look the part, he's not gonna walk into a building like when Caruso walks in and like, man, that guy he's handsome and he can he looks big, right? He's that Saman's a handsome kid, but he's like my size, but he can play at the professional level, is my point.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:10

All right, so that they did get the split clear. He's still battling near the top-ish of the league. Uh Madonna dropped three of four to Indiana Tech. Text the other team, that's pretty solid there.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:20

They can get out. They're not from Michigan.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:21

Yeah, no, they're not from Michigan. Amir Mitchell did hit three more bombs on the weekend. We have like five monarchs at Indiana Tech.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:27

So Oh, really? Okay, all right. So maybe we change it up a little bit.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:30

No, no, they can be successful individually. We'll root for those guys. Yeah, no, but the great weekend, Indiana Tech. Good job. Yep, yeah, there you go. But Madonna, uh Amir Mitchell, three more bombs. I think he's up to 15 on the year now. Um, Donovan Thompson had three hits and four RBIs in uh the Game Four loss when they lost 20 to 16.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:48

I tried calling Heward today and he big league me. He gave me the old text, can't talk right now. So forget it. We're not talking about it.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:54

It's okay, you do that to me all the time. So uh Luke Spicer, three hits and an RBI in uh game in game three, and then the game before he had three hits and four RBI. So, you know, some offense coming from Madonna, but Indiana Tech pretty solid. Uh Lawrence Tech split with Sienna Heights. Uh they won 10-6 and 5-1, then lost 5-3 and 14-5. Ethan Hawkendone went seven innings, two hits, one earned, five walks, but sixteen strikeouts. In seven innings.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:23

Oh, is that that big the that's the big boy, I think.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:26

For for Lawrence Tech?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:27

Yeah. I mean, do you have a pitch count on that?

SPEAKER_07 1:08:29

Because that's crazy. Uh I can look that up um in a second. But yeah, 16K's in seven innings. Two hits.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:36

Hey, you know, if you can walk five if you strike out 16.

unknown 1:08:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:40

Um Garrett Smith picked up uh six innings of relief in the win. I'm I'm assuming Sienna Heights used an opener in that one because he took innings two through seven.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:50

Sienna Heights is the one going. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, they're in hospice. Yeah, got it. Yeah, got it.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:55

Um, and then I'm gonna apologize to this one. I think it's Joseph Del Rosario, three hits and four RBIs. Uh, and and Mason Mitchell had three hits for Sienna Heights as well in their win. So uh Cornerstone split with Lords. Uh Drew Goodman had two hits, uh, four RBIs. Andrew Many, four hits and three RBIs. Nick Jackson, three hits, three RBIs, and uh Corbin Westenkamp had two hits and four RBIs all in game four in their 15-5 win. So a couple of big days there.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:25

Great field, great field. Is that what everyone says? Well, yeah, there's a lot of money at West. A lot of money. You know what that's a lottery to do.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:32

Yeah, it's not they can't, not players don't stay in the dorm.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:34

Yeah, it's a lottery to stay in those dorms.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:36

You lost me on that. Like I wouldn't go there because that that's gotta be a tough sell as a coach.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:41

So we went to, I don't think this is gonna be bad, but we went, Tommy, my son, went on his first visit there. And it was the first one, right? Like it was like, oh sweet, we're going, we're committing, dude. Like you go, you go on your first visit, and they they're and we went to Catholic school. I sell you you did too, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I went to Catholic school, I coached there, all my kids did. I forget how many hours it was at Cornerstone, but they they have mandatory of like 80 hours a month of church. And even Tommy Rice was like side eye side eyeing me like that's gotta be tough as a coach.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:16

Yeah, that's a tough sell. When I heard it was a lottery, I was a little bit mind blown. Yeah, right? Because like, why would you build something that nice to not give it to your like at least athletes, right? Right, yeah. So, and now as a co they lose a lot of uh a lot of foul balls on that roof, too. Head coach, I think about that now. Yeah, you do money, money.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:33

Six bucks, eight bucks, what is it, nine bucks a ball?

SPEAKER_05 1:10:36

I should I uh but I think I got 40 dozen game balls for a couple grand. Maybe more. I can get you a deal. Well, it's they're diamond game balls, they're not great. Yeah, it's pretty good. I buy the blemish ones. You guys use diamonds? Yeah, Juco balls are diamond game balls. They uh scuff up in about a couple pitches.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:52

Yeah, I think we have a diamond in here. I brought one in.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:55

It's already scuffed, brand new. It's already scuffed. Oh, well, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:58

That's a practice one.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:59

Yeah, yeah. No, I get the Rawlings uh blemish balls for practice. Those are nice.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:04

All right, as we finish this up, uh Rochester uh split the first two with uh U of M Dearborn three to one and 13-10. Uh and then yeah, they only uh played two. I believe they were finishing up today as well. Um and then right now in the WAC, uh Clear and Aquinas are the the best teams from Michigan at seven and five. They're three games back of Northwestern Ohio. So it might be enough.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:28

Well they just lost three of four.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:30

Yeah, there's there's six and five in league play.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:33

Pick it up, Drew.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:34

Get your take three of four. So uh all right, as we finish up the scores, I do want to tell everyone that the show is produced by Hunch Free Studios, a full-service digital media company specializing in video productions, comprehensive digital marketing solutions, software development, and for full service website design. They've done a great job making us look good.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:55

Unbelievable job if they can make us idiots look halfway decent. Thank you, everyone at Hunch Free.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:01

Thank you, thank you very much. So do you need to go? Uh no, I got a relief picture to go take care of him.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:10

Doug doesn't want shit talked about him. Keep this in Tommy.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:14

We thought we were gonna lose Doug and he pawned his kid off on someone else.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:20

But like, fuck man, if he would have left, it would have been so good.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:25

I gotta be here to just kill him to get to be here to defend myself.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:28

So, all right. Well, let's let's talk to uh Caruso now that you know we've gone through all the scores, and he's been kind enough to join us in person, which is always fun. So uh let's just start with you know, you you're taking over a program uh at McComb, one that you know Jelly took Taylor Jelenkowski uh was the coach before you and he kind of got that program back up and running. What has that been like coaching with him and now taking the reins over of that program?

SPEAKER_05 1:12:52

Uh our story is kind of funny because I met him like basically through my phone in like 2020 when he was still playing minor league ball. And he was kind of a part of we were both catchers and he was a part of like the whole transition to one knee, and uh he basically was my coach via text.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:08

That's like a whole nother episode too, like the one knee catching thing. I would love to be a part of that. All day.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:14

But uh he uh so we got really close during that and then ended up playing two years of Pro Bowl for him, and we were just got close to that. And then once the McComb job originally opened up after the previous head coach Cliff How Cliff Howe, who I played for, um I texted Jelly and said, Are you interested in this? And he was like, I don't know. I told him to apply, and he ended up getting we were actually like two of the top. I applied as well, but I don't I don't think I was ready for it. Yeah, I just applied for the experience, and uh they asked me in my second interview and go, Would you consider being an assistant if you weren't hired? I said, Yes, hire Jelly right now. Oh, that's nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:48

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:49

So he uh we came in, our first team wasn't very good. Uh but I've been there for so long, right? So it's like my transition was really easy. Um, he's a great recruiter, a great coach, you know, brought in a really changed the culture. Um, I was more of the ass coach, is what he would call me. I was associate head coach, ass coach. He's big teddy bear, kind of put your arm around you. I was I was more stern with guys like that. You had to be bad cop. Yeah, I was bad cop for sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:12

That's how it isn't even off the field with those two. Like Jelly is I think I've said this before, but like he's like a sweet man. Like he's just good to be very nice. And Caruso will tell you how it is, and he won't apologize.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:25

I don't beat around the bush for anything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:27

He doesn't mean anything by it, but he'll just tell you how it is.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:29

I've I've got on our team, we're 25 games in now. I think I've got on our team a decent amount from January until now, but now we're on a nine nine-game win streak. So it all pays off. I'm not doing it just to I don't like to be that guy, but uh like like we punished our our players in Florida on our on our off day. We had them run at 7 a.m. Oh it's tough to right. I don't want we don't want to do that. Yeah, but it was something that's you would rather not be up at 7 a.m. yelling at shit. Absolutely not, man. So on our off day, but you know it's uh it's just something that my dad was uh an army guy, stern guy, always wanted stuff the way he liked it, and it it turned me around and created my character, and I think he's doing pretty well. And if I know when I overstep and I'll I'll call myself out on it. But it's been uh it's been a smooth transition, man. Me and I actually talked to Jelly on the way phone on the on the phone on the way over here, so we talk all the time.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:19

Um I love that relationship you guys have. Like I think it's a really cool thing. I got a funny uh Jelly and Caruso story.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:27

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:27

Oh no, so no, you'll you'll crack up with this. So Tommy was a freshman or sophomore at Saginaw Valley, and it was fallball, so he's playing. So of course my wife goes to that game because she doesn't go to any baseball games unless her kids are playing. She doesn't even go to Trent or Daniel's game. She's like, I don't do that. So we go there, Tommy's uh catching, and I was telling her how I know the coaches, and I call them the good dudes. Caruso's coach in third, and I said, Oh, you know, they got a new coach. It was probably around the time uh That was our first fall. Yeah, so Jelly just took over. I'm like, yeah, they got a new coach, those are my boys, you know, blah blah blah. And she's like, Oh my god, he's handsome. Who is that? It's fucking Caruso, and I go, What? That guy? I go, gosh dang it. So now we have this running joke where my wife loves Nick Caruso.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:19

Mike makes the joke more than me, but oh yeah. Oh yeah, I like to joke about it. It is what it is. Yeah. Tommy actually uh hit a double over our center fielder that game, but we did beat Seg Belly 19 to 5. You did? Yes, yeah. That was cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:33

Something happened at the end of that. And then we won 12 games. Didn't you have like a position player pitch or something?

SPEAKER_05 1:16:37

We had a position uh we had a pitcher hit. And you think he walked on to the bigger.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:40

Yeah, it was what's his name, our boy, Dematron.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:42

He's at Indiana Tech. Oh, he is? So he's one of the monarchs at Indiana Tech. Yes, great guy.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:47

So I know when um when talking to Jelly, when he took over, he's like, We have so much talent within 20 miles of our our field. I don't need to go super far. I mean, is that what you found? Obviously, you I mean, you're from around here, so you kind of know that as well. I mean, is it easier now to get the kids now that you've had the success and just go and get you know Mac Red kids, OAA kids, Catholic League kids?

SPEAKER_05 1:17:09

Yeah, it's way easier now that our program's turned around, turned around. And then the last two years, we've had 30 sophomores and they all moved on to a four-year. So that's kind of the biggest selling point there. And Jelly was a fiend. The guy never put his phone down, like ever. So trying to take some some tips from him, but like there's like you said, there's so much good baseball around here, and we just didn't recruit it well enough. And so now our our our number one goal is to dominate the recruiting here. It's in the area, and there's so many guys that are overlooked. And a big one with JUCO is you just find guys that struggled with grades.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:38

Right. And I looked it up one day. McComb County has the second most number of Class A baseball teams in the state of Michigan, and Oakland is the number one. So you have two counties right next to each other that have I mean, listen, you can find good kids at smaller schools too, but just you know, by sheer numbers, you're gonna probably find more players out of class A schools. So between those two counties, they lead to the city. Yeah, he's not recruiting up an Escanaba.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:04

Yeah, it's a little bit of an advantage.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:06

There's a lot of kids with bad grades.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:08

Yeah, here they're all Voltrowers. Here's the deal with McComb, and Jay and I lived it. So like 95-96, it was kind of like a proud thing to go to McComb. Like we they were good, they were they were ranked, and they were it was a good baseball program. And then again, these guys are our friends, so it's hard for me to I don't want to like bad mouth anything, but between then and like Jelly, it was almost like you didn't want to say you were going. It was it almost felt like it was a failure for lack of a better term, if you ended up at Maccombe.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:42

Oh, he'll he's just gonna end up at Macomb.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:44

And now, and trust me, you know, I'm I'm involved in the recruiting game with high school kids. Like, you're not just going to Macomb, like you gotta be a guy to go to Macomb. When it used to be like, sweet, you can go to Macomb. Go to Macomb and see what happens. Now you gotta be a guy, and that is a testament to jelly and then Caruso keeping that thing rolling. You can't just go to Macomb.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:04

I took a uh I went to a practice with Macomb when I was still in high school, and the assistant coach came up to me, Joe Small, who's at Dakota now. I love him. Yeah, he's great, and I'm happy I went there. But he came up to me and he's like, You thought so you're thinking about going here? And I said, Yes, but in my head, I was like, No. No. And then I didn't get like any offers that I like I really wanted to take out of high school, and I was like, I'm just gonna take a chance myself, and it worked out.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:27

Part of it is winning, and the other part is like you said, where are they going after the two years? And I've kind of want to lead into that with you. Like, I I knew of you, but now I know you really well. Like, you tell us a little bit about that part. Like, you played at D LaSalle, you went to where'd you what'd you do at high cell?

SPEAKER_05 1:19:46

It was 2015 grabbed from D LaSalle. I was a public school guy from elementary and middle school and then went to D La Cell. I can tell high school. Yeah, it's better that way.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:55

Um had a couple offers out of there. Uh I had a division two in New Jersey. I had an offer to Northwood back when Bishop was still there. Um Second mention. Yeah. We talked about Bishop earlier. Bishop's a great, great coach, yeah. But um took my chance at McComb, played two years there. Uh fun fact at McComb is our my freshman year, our we had three catchers, the other two got hurt, so I caught 42 straight games. I caught I caught the first game of doubleheader, warmed up the pitcher for the second game, and then caught the third there's there wasn't someone else that could at least have the pads on it. We had three, no. Not that you would trust, but I was young. I was 18. I was. Yeah, that's when you're like, yeah, let me do it.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:34

Yeah, let me impress my coach.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:36

Yeah. So we missed regionals that year, uh, came back my sophomore year. I caught most games that year. I also pitched 13 innings. You did. I don't know if you knew that. Yeah, I threw in the fall.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:46

That's why you can't throw BP anymore. Yeah. It's blown out.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:49

Yeah, it definitely probably is the first cause of it. But I threw, I was the captain of our fall world series team my sophomore year, and we I guess we're in a close situation, and I my pitching coach never let me pitch all fall. But I I always my best asset was my arm growing up. And I uh decided to get on the mound and I was 88 to 90 in the intersquad.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:07

This must be nice.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:08

And our pitching coach goes, All right, we'll start working on it on Monday. Who was it? Was it Wakes? Wakes. Was it really? I love Wakes. God rest his soul. What a life. Rest in peace. He's in. I I hated him. Oh, everyone did. He came out. My first year, I think I struck out and he said, Do you want to come learn how to be a good hitter? And I was like, Why is my pitching coach telling me this? And once I got over that, we literally I I like I took a lot of pride in calling my own pitches the rest of my career, and like it was all because of him.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:33

Yeah, he is he uh he was a good guy. Another you're bringing up so many like cool things. I I brought Tommy to go hit with him when he was 12. Yeah we went up to McComb, and first thing he says is don't listen to one goddamn word your dad says. He sucked at baseball. Listen to me, listen to me. And like and he was being dead serious too. He was dead serious, and Tommy was looking at him like, what the heck? And I was like, He's he's kind of right. Yeah, he is.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:58

He was a my way or the highway type of guy. Yeah. But once you like looked through it a little bit, he was like, there was a lot, a lot of knowledge there. Um made regionals our second year, and that's where Youngstown State uh saw me catch. So I actually ended up going there. Started my junior year, uh, hit below the Mendoza, not great. Under two buttered boys. Changed my walk-up song, fixed it.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:19

What was your walk-up song?

SPEAKER_05 1:22:20

Uh Desperado by Rihanna that year. I thought it was a great one, and then I didn't hit that well, so I changed it. Came back the next year. We played it, we opened up Mississippi State. It was the first games they played in their $51 million stadium. Awesome. We started the first game. We were up 3-0 in the seventh. Place was there was 10,000 people, place was quiet. Uh we lost 14 to 3. Ooh, couple touchdowns. They hit some, yeah, they hit some home runs.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:43

There's some like crazy that's probably the big difference, too. Like, all you guys can hit, all those horizon league kids, all those MAC kids, but like middle relief and pitching. Once you get past that, like that's the big I think that's the big difference.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:58

Our starters were very good, and we were just starting to turn, like, turn the program around too. Um, I took six at bats and then I medical redshirted for mono.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:05

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:06

I had mono for a month and a half. Kissing. Lost 20 20 pounds in a week. You were talking about how handsome he was. Yeah. I know. What year was this? That was 2019 back in the day. But I uh I had to like prove my numbers because mono is a very gray area for a medical redshirt. My fastball went from like 88 to 90 down to 81 to 85. My 60 went from a 7 flat to a 7.5.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:29

Oh my god. Yeah, that's pretty maybe I have mono. It was like it was bad.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:32

And our trainer told me it was like the it was like the worst she ever seen. I actually flew with the team to Florida State the second weekend, didn't leave my hotel room.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:39

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:40

Well, I actually went to the first game and our coach comes up to me. I'm like dying. And our coach comes up to me and said, Hey, emergency, can you catch? And I'm like, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:48

There's a training table in the back of our dugout at Florida State. I slept on it for nine innings. Holy cow. People made peanut butter and jellies at my feet. I had no idea.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:55

No, I I had that uh my I think my first spring ball playing, and I remember like just going through warm-ups, like just like the dynamic warmups, and I'm like, oh, I'm like, I it felt like shit. And you're going, like, am I that out of shape? That's bad. And then and then they go and check, and you're like, oh yeah, your lymph nodes are four times the size they should be.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:14

That was that was horrible. I came home for a month, literally didn't leave my bed. My parents tried to get away from the ball. That was your junior year or something. That was my that was my first senior year. My second senior year. So that year, so we had like four of our key players medical redshirt in 2019. Youngstown went 13 and 41. So good year in red shirt. That's it. Yeah. Yeah, except for the next year that you're supposed to play. Yeah, we all came back, we played 14 games, COVID. So then I go back for a sixth year. Um and we just your third senior year. Yeah, my third senior year, and we just had great experience coming back. Our like I could we've got a couple guys in Pro Bowl still from that. One's about to might crack into the big leagues this year. Uh, we went 32 and 24. Wow. So we really turned it around there. Um, and Youngstown has dipped down since then. Where did you a lot of people go to school for six years?

SPEAKER_04 1:25:03

Yeah, they're called doctors.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:04

I probably could have got a seventh year. Not for Ruby. Seriously. Well, I took my medical redshirt year, and then my medical redshirt year would have been COVID. Yeah. So I didn't technically use a full season. So with how everything, with how the NCAA works now, I probably could have got like two more years somehow.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:18

How'd the pro ball come about? Was it like what happened? So I think that's when I met you in your first or second year playing.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:24

By this point on the mound, I was 91 and 93. And that was where you weren't even catching? No, I did catch. I didn't pitch. I should have. Okay. Because I I ended up catching 50 games, so I just never really got it. And then when I went back for my sixth year, that's when I origin I got hurt in January. So I played that whole year hurt. And just I I didn't throw Monday to Thursday, and then I played Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And then uh I went to the doctor after that year, got a couple MRIs, it was clean, so we didn't know where the pain was coming from, and that's where Jelly gave me the opportunity. And then got surgery that year, like the end of that Pro Ball season, rehabbed it, came back. It was horrible still. So I just at the end of that year I just decided to hang it up. You still played, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:26:03

I mean, you know, yeah, I played that whole year. Like I remember you playing.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:06

I played that whole year until my my last injury when I took a foul ball to my right testicle.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:11

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:12

Under my cuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:13

But you guys, this was one of those, you know, everyone gets hit. I think I remember that. Everyone gets hit in the dick, and that's when you laugh. Like this was one you laugh, and then you're like, no, oh wait, or this is real.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:21

Like, well, so I got hit. We've all been hit there. It's like, okay, this pain's gonna go. It was the ninth inning. Yeah, we got Kyle Bish off on the mound, he's 92-95. The might throw a change jumper slider in the dirt. I'm he's he's Joe Burke hit a foul ball, and I'm in my one-neach stance and it bounced under my cup. So I had a cup on, and I just I knew it was like ball on ball contact. And uh so it was the ninth inning, there was one out. I called 11 more, I stayed in the game, I called 11 more pitches, 10 fastballs, because I was afraid about Jim. Yeah, and I caught with my hand over my cup because I would now want him to break my hand before I got hit.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:52

Yeah, then you start then he started like marketing.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:55

Yeah, actually, shout out to Nutty Buddy. Uh Nutty Buddy. I'm partnered with Nutty Buddy, uh, Code Caruso. If you guys need a cup, uh it's I if I had this cup on, I wouldn't have got hit. So uh I reached out to him, told him the story. They go actually, not to make fun of you, but this is a perfect story for us. But yeah, that night I went I went into surgery at 2 a.m. and got home at 6. Oh, fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:14

This is Nick Caruso. I'm actually sitting on my balls right now. This is how bad it is.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:19

Nutty buddy, that's a cup that goes under the side. Yes, hugs, hugs good.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:22

It's like the old banana ones that as well.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:25

It's a fantastic cup. Yeah, so I came back that I was out for about a month and a half with that too. Came back, uh, I caught one more game and then I DH'd. And I I wasn't a big enough hitter to be a DH. So at the end of the going into next year, I got offered the coaching job and I decided it's not worth it to play through pain anymore.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:41

So I think we're gonna talk about your last professional at bat.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:45

I think that was your was that your last I I played then so in 2023, I actually played twice as a player coach, technically. Oh, I remember our for opening day we had six guys make the NAI World Series. Yeah. So I needed that we I was like, I can still hit. Trained to play and then decided to hang it up in March, and they let me get my physical. I played. You know that I played one more time after that.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:07

You know that Skip Cocky asked me about maybe playing one game at second when they were doing that real fun stuff. That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:14

They asked Jelly to play too. Jelly's gonna be a good one.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:16

Yeah, Jelly played it triple. Well, Jelly might still hit a home running 20 years younger. I rode the bench at Macomb and I'm 50. I'm like, what are you doing? What are you gonna make me break dance? I can still do that. I can still break dance.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:26

So do you want to transition to the did you see that shit stuff? I think we should.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:30

I want to hear a little bit more about his program after if we have time, but let's go to let's go to the did you did you?

SPEAKER_04 1:28:36

You know, he doesn't know. I'm also a supporter of Macomb.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:39

I can't tell. That's true.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:42

But I do have a shirt underneath for you. You're gonna just free it.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:45

I appreciate it. Yeah. Is that what you're gonna wear to our next game? So if we win, we can just take that off.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:50

Well, you know, it's funny. When I went to the game, I was trying to. I didn't think that I would beat kids there. Biased watching him and schoolcraft by. And all of a sudden, like Vito hits that grand slam.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:03

I'm like, I love this team.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:05

I'm like, man, I'm I'm getting behind it. Pluto's the best. And you gotta remember his cousins. Vito Zito is a great game.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:10

I did want to mention I had a teammate at Youngstown that was on the foul pole sports top 50 names, Padrig O'Shaughnessy. That's good name. That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:18

See, you know what I said about like Vito Zito and you you need someone to make up an Italian name? That's if you needed to make up an Irish name.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:24

Right. That's that's true.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:25

Plus, I'm a big Ben Wilkins with Ben.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:28

Yeah, we love Ben. We love Ben. He's a good dude. So let's do that. I want to I want to debate.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:32

Did you see this shit? We can start with um let's start with the uh LSU bat flip because uh uh this spark this there's a continuation from the Tennessee one where the dude pimped the the 27th out.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:44

But do we have the Tennessee?

SPEAKER_07 1:29:46

No, I just have the LSU one because this is the first one.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:48

LSU did it now too? Oh this is for this password.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:51

We can pull this one up. This is more than a bat flip. But this was it actually went out, but he uh launched it into the stratosphere.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:01

It's getting worse, guys.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:02

It's 40 feet in the air.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:04

And I know Nick's probably That should be an ejection. I think it was.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:08

So here is the bat flip. I mean, this is a uh nuke that I mean it lands 50 feet past. Did you see? No, I didn't swing. Oh, watch this. So what would what would the conversation be?

SPEAKER_06 1:30:23

Was it a walk-off at first base?

SPEAKER_07 1:30:26

That was not a walk-off. So I know you had originally said um that you wouldn't have been upset with the Tennessee one as much. What do you think about this one and talk about the Tennessee one too? That I don't know. Did he get ejected for that? I I know they had a conversation. I think he did.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:44

It's like an automatic ejection nowadays. If you if if you if something goes into like a certain I don't know what the stipulations are. Let's watch where this one lands. It almost lands by the okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:54

Here's another thing you guys gotta watch.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:55

Is he still flying, flying, flying?

SPEAKER_03 1:30:58

Yeah, like I hate this, but watch him right here. Watch him look at it, make sure it doesn't hit him in the head. Like, that's not cool, right? If you do a bad flip, you don't want to make it.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:05

I'm too. I'm a big believer in. I know if you show the video, it's not gonna make it seem like this, but I'm a big believer in like just celebrating with your own dugout and like just toss the bat. Like you can do a little bit of a flip, but like right there, I guarantee he's probably ejected.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:18

Can you repeat that again? You can just do a little bit of a flip. Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_05 1:31:22

Just a little bit. All right, let's go. That's a lot of it. That's a helicopter.

SPEAKER_07 1:31:25

Like, let's so Tommy, do you have the video that the the file he sent? I know Mike didn't. Have you ever had a kid do anything close to that?

SPEAKER_05 1:31:35

No, only against us. We've had uh last year we played Georgia Highlands, uh kid hit a mammoth tank when the game was getting chippy, and he did that, not as high, got ejected. Um, and then we had uh a kid from Mott last year bat flip and got ejected. Mott. Yeah, and I just tell our players, it's like, yeah, like just like toss it sideways, do something, just don't do enough where you're gonna hurt your team and get ejected.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:57

I consider Nick as like a new school, yeah. He's the cool guy, right? Like, but I can't believe he just said he doesn't really like the bat flip.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:07

I love real baseball, man. I'm not about the okay, well, let's let's watch this. Okay. This is different. Can you preface it?

SPEAKER_07 1:32:12

I will I will this the the US PBL championship game, correct? It was the quarterfinal. Okay, so it's a playoff game.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:20

Was it really? Yeah, it was a quarter final.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:21

It was a playoff game. Okay. So Mike oversold. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, playoff game.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:25

What's the score at this point? It was three to two. Uh Hoppers were beating the Mammoth uh bottom top six.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:31

All right, and then and pitching change, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:32:34

Did we just so No, that inning. That was his first inning. Okay. All right, so uh Caruso's up to bat. Can I can I start? Can I start this? Uh yeah, please narrate it. They uh well don't play it just yet. So they brought in uh still doing else. They brought in Carson Ferry, who had the most elite, probably one of the most elite fastballs in independent Pro Bowl. Yeah. 92, 95, 2500 spin. Lefty. Lefty, right? But he couldn't locate uh a slider. So I came up to the or curve ball, whatever he threw. I came up to play it with bases loaded, and he went fastball, foul off, fastball, and I think I might have swung and missed. So I'm 0-2, it's three to two, top six. In my head, actually, I'm like, okay, I might have just lost this game because if they get us out of this bases loaded, we don't score. We're gonna lose all momentum. It's just I didn't really have a lot of faith. And then here we go.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:22

Even before this, hold on, don't play it yet.

SPEAKER_07 1:33:24

Even before this at bat, I'm sorry, how much more run-up do we need?

SPEAKER_03 1:33:29

Well, because there's a lot to this. I'm on the bench for the hoppers, I'm on the other side here, and our head coach was out with COVID. So he's texting us shit to do. And he says, put Ferry in. And I tell Diesel, do not put Fairy in. He's a lefty that throws a hundred and kind of at this point has no idea where it goes. So I know he's smart, and he's coming up to the plate. Eventually he's coming up to plate. So this is what happens when Fairy comes in and non-bat flip head coach Nick Russo is playing professional. Can I play it now? Yeah, please. Finally.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:07

And come on.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:09

It's coming, it's coming. Maybe.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:13

It's slow-mo.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:16

That's common. Hits the bomb. Get that shit out of here. That's not a flip, that's a throwdown.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:21

It's a spike. It's the Tennessee. It's the Tennessee spike.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:24

Yes, but his went out. I didn't care about the spike with Tennessee. I cared that he was wrong.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:30

Okay. Okay, now say the guy from they played Georgia, right? Yeah. Say the Georgia guy doesn't catch it. Where's the ball go? Right in front of him? Oh, it was over the fence.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:38

Yeah, that was the first one.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:39

So he was he was pimping a home run.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:41

Yeah, that's why that one was That's why I wasn't so mad at that one. Because I was like, it would have been better if it was like 30 feet short of the fence. But the thing is But he robbed a home run.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:51

I talked to Nick the day after, and Jay had this exact same thing.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:54

But again, it's not I I don't care about getting excited. I like that. You just have to be right. Yeah. Like I'm not gonna be mad at you for showing emotion. Just you just all right, you're wrong. Like, sorry. Like that, that's just life.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:05

Yeah, I think it it it's an it would it is what it is moment. Like he he but I do agree with if you're gonna bat flip like that, it better be a no-douer. Right? Like I might have hit that ball 380 feet, but I knew it was over the biggest.

SPEAKER_07 1:35:17

Yeah, but you hit it yeah, at a part where it's like 340 down the left field.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:21

Yeah, but I went left center, don't catch away from that the best at bat of your uh that that is the coolest moment of my my career.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:30

And then I when I was a player coach my second time, uh when I played for the mammoths again, I took Esposito off the scoreboard. That might have been my best swing. This is I didn't train all offseason. And you just it was my raw dog. It was 90 lefty night. I don't maybe it's just lefties that throw hard. It was a one-two count, and I hit a home run off the scoreboard.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:50

Two complete opposite personalities, Esposito and uh Ferry.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:54

So my yeah, my last like in my last 10 at bats in Pro Bowl, I think I hit four home runs. And I didn't I hit three home runs in college. That's sweet.

SPEAKER_07 1:36:02

Yeah, all right. Let's go to speaking of we'll stick with baseball, um, CB Buckner uh getting he had a rough day. Yeah now I'll I'll just ask you, I are you pro or against the automatic automatic strike zone. I think it's great. Yes, okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:18

Do you? I was wondering like with catcher, are you a professional catcher?

SPEAKER_05 1:36:21

Like I was wondering, like catchers are the best strike. It takes it takes away from the catchers a little bit, but right, it's only two challenges. You can lose on offense real fast.

SPEAKER_07 1:36:30

Yeah, so all right, if you want to play this real quick and just we'll just let it run. Um yeah. So if you just want to play this and let it run, so Eugenio Suarez is batting one, two, gets rung up and he says no no and gets uh CB Buckner's raspy voice. Did you see this, Nick? No, I I've seen the number. He's got like two minutes. No, watch the sequence. So he goes, Nope, and it's off the plate, and Suarez new. And so it would have been an ending-ending uh strikeout with the bases loaded. He's off, so uh gets it back. And the crowd is going nuts. Like if you guys um find the clip up with the audio, it they're going nuts. C.B. Buckner is the new Angel Hernandez. Yeah. Well, I mean, he was just another one of them. Yeah, just because Angel Hernandez was overshadowed by it. And then the very next pitch misses away. Buckner goes to ring him up again. Suarez says, nope. And spoiler alert, it was off the plate away again. So that's a that's a rough.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:33

Yeah, Buffett just wanted to ring him up at that point.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:35

I think ABS and pitch clock are maybe the two greatest improvements in any sport in the last pitch since the three-point line.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:44

I mean it takes away umpires that try to insert themselves in the games too much.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:50

And that's what this guy I I love the pitch clock, but it's tough for us because there's no visual.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:57

Yeah. So at the lower levels, and it doesn't get called as much when there's no visual, is there?

SPEAKER_05 1:38:02

No, because they don't really I don't think they actually know when to start it.

SPEAKER_07 1:38:04

Right. And also it's like, all right, well, it was kind of close. You don't, and I'm guessing most don't want to insert themselves, but yeah. So CB Buckner had a bad one. Uh we'll save Mike's tweet for the end. Do you want to uh so you guys saw the uh Yukon shot, right? Against um Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:22

I was actually watching that with my wife.

SPEAKER_07 1:38:25

Yeah, so so Mike and his infinite and so much fun goes, well, actually, uh this is a travel because his left foot comes up a millimeter.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:36

I'm sick and tired of this stuff.

SPEAKER_07 1:38:37

This isn't like an NBA Giannis taking six steps to the rim.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:41

Dude, it's like St. Isaac Jogues in eighth grade when I played basketball. We learned about the pivot foot. Watch his left foot. Left foot's the pivot foot.

SPEAKER_07 1:38:48

No, it is a gavage step.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:50

I mean, what it came up a millimeter. Dude, I'm telling you, like, I guess in slow-mo, it's way worse looking. But what a great shot, though. Uh, it was electric. Like, even for Sherry, my wife, to go crazy when this happened.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:05

Did you see Hurley's celebration? Yes. When he went forehead to the road?

SPEAKER_07 1:39:09

That's Tommy, that's the other one we have on the on the thing where he headbutts the official.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:14

Are we agreed? That's a travel. No. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:39:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:17

I think it's another young guy.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:19

If you're going by the rule book, it is. If you're going by how they refuse.

SPEAKER_07 1:39:23

Gather step here. Left foot foot. Uh the big thing. Did the pivot foot even come up? It came up. If it was, it was That's all it takes. Millimeters. You're not going to see that in real time.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:35

No, you you're right.

SPEAKER_07 1:39:36

After you I don't think you're calling anything in that moment. No, you're right.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:39

After you texted me the real time, I watched it in regular and I was like, you can't see it.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:43

And then the uh Dan Hurley butts the as a dad and that whole play to be kind of a soft dad. Man, I felt bad for that Duke kid. Like he was just trying to throw it in a few. No, that's a horrible thing. I'm telling you, I felt bad for the kid. He was trying to throw it away, get stolen, and they end up losing the game for it. And I'm just thinking about like what it's like to be that kid who was just trying to get rid of the ball, could have done anything else.

SPEAKER_07 1:40:07

Too bad, Duke. If that happens at Cardinal Mooney High School, I feel bad for the kid. The kid's at Duke probably making more money than my life is worth right now.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:16

And we're talking about Carlos Boozer's game.

SPEAKER_07 1:40:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:19

That was Little Boozer, right? Yeah. So all right.

SPEAKER_07 1:40:25

And then the final one is uh Mike pissed off half of the uh baseball Twitter world. Did you see this? I fully agree. Oh, so you saw this? Yeah. No, I think we all agree. Yes. The tweet had over a million views on it, and it it said uh it's a picture of a player with admittedly too short of pants and just generic white basketball socks, like gym socks. And they're quitters. And he said, Coaches, can we please put a stop to this? It's all over the place in high school, and I'm starting to see it in college baseball. It objectively looks terrible. Now, Mike, explain exactly what was wrong because it wasn't the pant length, because people thought you were making fun of fun of poor kids that can't get new pants that grew.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:09

Yeah, it's it's the white tube socks. Like I think at Macomb, don't you get do you give them blue socks or no?

SPEAKER_05 1:41:17

But I do say no white socks and no ankle socks.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:20

Yeah, so people know that. Like when you play base, like people that were ripping on me, and I'm pretty sure Doug's probably gonna read some, but like if you know baseball, you knew what I meant there. Like it's the it's the white tube sock look that just makes me No, it looks bad.

SPEAKER_07 1:41:34

But that wasn't the best part, it was all the reactions, and I know Doug has a lot of you've got to start off with the best one.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:40

I do, but man, I feel like we're gonna have to edit this one. No. So this is our talk about the mayonnaise. So you gotta go back. So Mike sends out this thing, and he's like basically, man, this thing is kind of blowing up. So I go on it and I never do this. I start looking at the comments every day.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:01

Whenever somebody says I never do this, I know he does it all the time.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:06

Watching people poop on Mike is like my my second hobby. And so I I was love you couldn't wipe the smile off my face with some of these. So, all right, what's the best one? Well, the best one was really early on, and it said, Why do mayonnaise-looking sons of bitches get all worked up over baseball uniforms? It looks terrible. How about you just watch the fucking game and quit bitching about traditional baseball uniforms like a bunch of upright pansy ass bitches?

SPEAKER_07 1:42:38

Yeah, that's good. Mayonnaise-looking motherfuckers, dude.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:41

That's mayonnaise-looking motherfuckers. So, so honestly, at the beginning of this, I did start feeling like nervous, like, oh no, I'm getting killed. But then I started kind of thinking about like the mean tweets you guys are making fun of me.

SPEAKER_06 1:42:54

Embrace.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:55

I don't know why this thing went so crazy.

SPEAKER_07 1:42:57

I don't know what I think because it resonated with a lot of people. Resonated.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:00

It was really for guys like my buddies that are coaches. Like, let's agree with me. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 1:43:06

I know you're gonna agree. Definitely far more people that were supporting you than weren't, but it's fun to make fun of you. The ones that weren't.

SPEAKER_07 1:43:14

Here's another one. Uh, this is the most stupid post I've seen about baseball. These poor kids are all having growth spurts, which usually mean their waistline is smaller than their inseam. Makes it hard when a kid wears a 30, 36 to find something to fit. And Mike just responded, I'm not referring to the pant length, ma'am. Ma'am.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:32

That lady was like somewhere in. Yeah, somebody called it.

SPEAKER_07 1:43:35

Mike was saying uh he hates poor kids, is basically what I was a poor.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:39

I was the guy that had to like steal a pair of yellow socks because I played for the Roseville Junior Sports A's, but I still would not walk out with white socks.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:46

All right, what else you got, Doug? What other relax? It's a kid playing baseball, F and Dork.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:54

By the way, do you know this is uh one of my players?

SPEAKER_07 1:43:58

No, it's not.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:58

Swear to God.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:59

That's funny.

SPEAKER_05 1:44:00

I was gonna ask.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:01

He's not. This is him not on my team. He went on to play college baseball. This is a picture of him from when he was playing college baseball.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:11

Shut up, old man.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:13

Oh, you mean you mean that now, or are you just reading that?

SPEAKER_04 1:44:16

No boomer. Oh, I'm trying to find. Can we talk? The irony here, of course, is that you're giving this dweeb exactly what he wanted. They all voraciously crave to be insta-famous. They're obsessed with it. You cannot shame them. Social media is at times a disease.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:33

Hey, that was actually the best tweet because I went, I think I called you guys and go, how do I put the podcast on here? So I am a dweeb, and it that's what we did.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:42

Do you turn 50 and just start getting mad at shit like this? Which is really funny because you're almost 50. I think that was the last one that I actually screened.

SPEAKER_07 1:44:51

There was a grown-ass man complaining about a kid's sock showing crazy.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:55

Yeah, I mean it's I am complaining about, yeah. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:58

I mean, it's called a uniform. You know what we did not talk about? I mean, I did hear him get called Dweeb a couple times. That was pretty good because I haven't heard that word in a long time.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:05

It's funny that Doug loves it.

SPEAKER_07 1:45:07

No, was it mayonnaise looking sons of bitches? That was good. That's by far the best.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:11

Yeah, can we get that guy on the show? Real quick, we did not talk about how this even came about by having Nick on the show. We really didn't, with you wearing that. No. So the first the first episode, I think the first episode, we were going through our stats, we're learning how to do this shit. And so Doug just starts talking about SC4, SC4, SC4. He's learning about your fullest.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:37

I made one comment. I said, Wow, what a good story. Yes.

SPEAKER_07 1:45:44

I think he's the most impressive story was SC4. I don't have they've won three games in the Bush administration, and they've won five games.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:52

I was using some hyperbole, right? So I get a text that whenever it came out from Nick, and he goes, Who like something like, Who is this Doug? I'm coming coming on your damn show because we're good this year, or something like that. It was kind of funny. But we appreciate you coming out, and that's that's why we did this shirt, and I thought it was freaking hilarious.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:12

Well we made him make two shirts so that yeah, just in case you tackled me before we got on here.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:18

One quick thing about uh college and coaching that I always wonder, like what I know it's both both of these are important to you, but like winning or getting these kids to move on to colleges, it's like a hard thing to juggle. Like what do you what's your thought process?

SPEAKER_05 1:46:35

This might sound like a cliche answer, but like the my most important thing is just making them better people because if I can sell a good person to any school, right? And I told them we we had a a rough start, but there was just little stuff that was like not picking up trash in the bus or doing like not picking up after practice, little things like that, and that's like where most of my punishments came in. And I said, I don't care, we were I don't know, we did we had a losing record at the time. This was like eight games in. I said, If we I don't I don't care if we win another game, if you guys leave as the same humans like people that you are acting as right now, I didn't do you I didn't do a good service. Right. So um that's why I get so hard on those guys. But the wins I think if we do everything right, the wins come and then the wins help us move on. Right. Yeah. But I tell them I I'm not gonna I'm not gonna sell if you're not a good teammate, you're not a hard worker, I'm not gonna sell you to another coach. I can't put my reputation or my other coach's reputations on the line just to try and get you to another school. Right. So that kind of helps them turn around a little bit, and we've made huge strides from game one to game twenty five just in terms of character and culture and everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:38

So you guys are in game twenty-five already, fifteen and ten, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:41

I think it's gotta be a tough position to be in as a coach, in a way, just because you are you are not necessarily their final stop. You know, you go to Michigan, I mean obviously with transfer portal that stuff, but theoretically they're gonna play four years there. You know you're getting two years, and so you do have to balance hey, listen, I need to win games. At some point it does matter, but at the same time, I'm trying to get my kids opportunities to to continue their career. So that's gotta be kind of a well the reality position too.

SPEAKER_05 1:48:11

Which is kind of tough too, is like when I'm trying to recruit kids to come in at the same point, and I'm 29 years old and my coaching career I don't know where I'm gonna be. Right. Right. I can't I can't sit here and promise guys that I'm gonna be around for the next five years, like at McComb. So it's like you're gonna you're trying to get guys to trust you that you can move them on when anything could change at this point.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:33

You can Lane Kiffin doesn't, and then just leave.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:35

But have having a good staff helps too, right? Like kind of like what Jelly did, right? Like had an opportunity at Michigan State, he has his guy. I imagine you're developing somebody to all help out.

SPEAKER_05 1:48:46

I got faith in all my four assistants.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:49

Yeah, I'm a I'm a huge fan of uh Pat Adams, right? Yeah, Pat's awesome. He uh might need to get a little better at a coach in third based on what I saw the other day. A couple bad sends, but it's fine.

SPEAKER_05 1:49:00

I'm just kidding. Just the only thing, the biggest learning point. I went to I coached at Ball State in 2023, 2024, and like I kind of went in there as a complete rookie, not knowing what that lifestyle was like. And I uh I learned a lot, and it's changed me a ton just in the logistical standpoint of coaching. Right. I've learned so much in like my itineraries are to a T. Yeah. Like little stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:20

I've watched you grow, I've been around you, I've seen you grow.

SPEAKER_05 1:49:22

Like my claim to fame is like we went to Texas Roadhouse with 40 guys, and we could have left within 20 minutes with everybody eating, right? It's like that's like the kind of stuff that I focus a lot on now. Trying to give these guys an experience. I don't want to go sit somewhere for two hours.

SPEAKER_07 1:49:36

I'm gonna say, how much of that though is you now understanding, like, oh, this is why my coach was so in order, that's why they did this. You're going like, oh, or you you'll say something and you're like, Oh my god, I sound like this coach.

SPEAKER_05 1:49:46

I have every coach I've had, I've I probably resemble a little bit. I had a coach at Youngstown that literally separated good and bad baseballs, and I'm like, This is the craziest thing ever. Yeah. You're looking at him like you're saying. I do that a couple times a week. Yeah. Because it's The hardest thing ever for an 18 year old to keep good baseballs on one side and bad for whatever reason. But it's like it's it's weird, it's crazy. It's it's cool to kind of see the changes. But yeah, it's uh it's like every time too, it's like it's uh this coaching career is a grind. It's like I'm my dad owns a successful business, so it's like I could just leave and do this, but then you get to the end of the year, and all of our kids from Macomb last year are like, Oh, I wish Macomb was a four-year, you're getting these responses from kids, and it's like, holy crap, you're making a really big impact. Yeah, right. So it's like it's a very rewarding career, and just hopefully it it pays off.

SPEAKER_07 1:50:31

Yeah, well, hopefully it's uh another successful season, and hopefully we're talking about you a lot as the uh season goes on, and you're one of the last teams we're talking about. We got a we got a great team, so we got a lot of depth. Yeah, yep. Awesome. So we appreciate it, Mike. You got anything else?

SPEAKER_03 1:50:44

I got 800 things, but we gotta go. We've been we've been going for a while. We appreciate you taking the time too.

SPEAKER_07 1:50:50

I'll come back on to talk more about our team next time. Do it. Sounds good. So uh Crusoe, thanks for coming on. Always appreciate it. And uh yeah, so we'll talk to everyone next week. And uh I I think we're gonna have another another fun guest next week. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:03

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:51:04

Are you gonna are you gonna uh badger Nelson to come on and uh put me in the hot seat instead of Doug? Brian Nelson? Yeah, tell him to text me back. I will do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:13

We'll do it. Hey, if you're Brian, if you're listening, text Coach Caruso back, please.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:18

I haven't gotten a response from many coaches, but he's busy.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:21

He's he's yeah, yeah. Hey, to be to be clear too, Coach Caruso, as we talked about this, showed up in his uniform tonight. That's how much he wanted to be on this uh show. I had to come in for the full experience.

SPEAKER_07 1:51:34

Yeah, absolutely. So so straight after the game, but we appreciate that. And well, if uh coach Nelson texts Mike back, he might be on next week. So thanks everyone. Listen and talk to you next time.