USA Baseball Comes to Omaha

USA Baseball Comes to Omaha

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Somebody that can help us out as somebody knows this
place very very well. His name is Eric Campbell. He
is the general manager for USA Baseball. And Eric, thank
you so much for being a part of our show today.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Every so glad to be with you.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
All right. So for anybody who is not sure about
Eric Campbell that may sound familiar, let's talk about just
your background and how you came from Omaha all the
way up to being the guy that's helping build the
rosters for Team USA.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah. Hey, it's like a blast from my past with
being on KFAB. So grew up, moved from Des Moines
in nineteen sixty nine to Omaha. So I spent most
of my formative years in Omaha with the Burke High School.
You know, just just was enthralled with the game of

(00:46):
baseball and to have the College World Series in Omaha
during my youth, you know, it's still in my system
and I'm so lucky to be in such a great
baseball area that to grow up. I played at Creighton,
played briefly in the White Sox organization, and then worked
at Creighton, and then in nineteen ninety I actually moved

(01:10):
away from Omaha. I went to the Air Force Academy
for ten years and did a lot of contract work
with USA Baseball with Bill and starting in nineteen ninety four,
was lucky enough in two thousand to go full time
at USA Baseball. And you still the clocks still ticking today.

(01:31):
So what a dream for someone in the game of
baseball to be in baseball. My life is pretty special.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, we're talking to you about this and you're joining
the show not just because you're a legend in baseball,
especially around here, Eric, but there's also some really great
things involving USA Baseball in Omaha here coming up in
just a few days. Can you talk about what exactly
your job is and what Omaha's role is to play
this year in helping team USA.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, well, I specifically oversee the collegiate national team programming
and our professional team programming. So I'll be watching you know,
all the you know, specifically to to your Omaha listeners,
I'll be watching all the players that create and talking
to Ed Service about his players, watching the players at Nebraska,

(02:21):
talking to Rob Childress about you know, the players there,
and then you know greater regional you know, k u
K State. We're already watching players there, So we'll be
watching players from San Diego to Seattle, to to Boston,
mass to Miami, Florida for our collegian national team programming

(02:42):
this summer. And and then just most recently on our
on our pro teams, we had Dan Altavilla, who's you know,
was was the closer for the for the A team
in Omaha, was on our professional national team just competed
in a world championship. Cam Devaney, the short stop for
that Omaha team, was one of our position players on

(03:05):
this this team that just want a bronze medal. It's
a it's a World Baseball Softball Confederation P twelve championship.
We were in Mexico and then we played in the
finals in Japan, so certainly we wanted to play for gold,
but international baseball is played at a high level and
we just, you know, we just we just dropped the game.
That didn't let us play in the gold medal game.

(03:26):
So it was still a great finish for all those players,
but really the next you know, the identification never stops.
And so Saturday, our Midwest Regional director Rich Janner, he'll
have an event in Omaha, the first time that he's
had an event in Omaha in the last seventeen years.

(03:46):
But really we don't you know, if you look at
the history of our teams, yeah, you know, eighteen U
Collegiate National Team. There's there's a lot of players from California,
from Texas, from Florida, but there's there's no reason why
there's the reason why we shouldn't have players from Omaha,
Nebraska as well. Omaha's a great, great baseball address and

(04:08):
rich with the team he's assembled to help on the
field Saturday, they'll be they'll be identifying players from the
ages of eleven to sixteen, and those you know, many
of those players may have a chance to come out
to carry North Carolina our home where I sit today,
to our national training complex and Kerrie the regional directors

(04:29):
bring teams in at the end of August, and those
those players are vying for spots on twenty twenty six
trials rosters for our various national teams, whether it be
the twelve U National Team, fifteen U National Team, eighteen
U National team. Players players of Saturday will have a

(04:50):
chance to identify themselves. So who is who's the next
Alex Forrdon, Who's the next Cole Stoby you know, and
that or the next Greg Olsen in that group that
have you know, all warn their nation's uniform while growing
up and playing great baseball in Omaha, Nebraska. So cool.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
We're speaking with Eric Campbell. He is the USA Baseball
General Manager n AS. He mentioned that there is going
to be for a lot of youth an opportunity for
them to play. Is this an invitation situation here, Eric,
when it comes to.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
Well, no, any anybody can can go on to the
the www. Stella Olsen Foundation dot org website and they
can register to be a part of that event. So
really we don't want, you know, we want we want
people to identify themselves in the game of baseball, and
that's what our regional directors do through a program called

(05:41):
National Team Identification Series n TIS. Players, you know, players
can do a one day event and and have a
chance to go to the Trials the next you know,
for the next calendar year in twenty twenty six. So
it's it's it's exciting, and we know, you know, we

(06:01):
want people to believe in themselves no matter what their
economic background is. If a player is a baseball player
and he's and he's an inner City, Omaha, or he's
out West Omaha or in Council Bluss or in the region.
We want him to come and identify him, identify himself
to USA Baseball.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
Yeah, we'll talk more about the Celle Olson in just
a bit, But while I have Eric on, I just
want to kind of nerd out a little bit, Eric,
because I'm a huge baseball guy, and I stayed up
late to watch some of the World Baseball Classic qualifying
games that were happening in Taiwan over the last few days,
and I know next week they're going to be more
in Arizona, involving more teams, and I got to be

(06:43):
honest with you, to see that tournament grow into what
has become really a World Cup for baseball, and the
kind of talent and the attention that it has gotten,
in the energy in the games. I mean, even just
these qualifiers in Taiwan were just something else to watch.
How do you best describe international baseball in the flavor
it is versus some of the stuff that we just watch,

(07:03):
you know, whether it's the Stormchasers or even a Major
League game here in America.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
Well, we're coming off we're coming off the twenty twenty
three World Baseball Classic and everybody, everybody remembers, you know,
Trout versus Otani. You know, that was like a historic
at bat. But it's more than that. It's it's the
excellence of baseball in Japan. They beat us that day.
And if it doesn't, if someone doesn't believe that doesn't

(07:27):
still burn burn into the bottom of our hearts at
USA Baseball, you know, And it was, it was, it
was great TV, it was it was great international exposure.
But if you go to our team, if you if
you dig deep into our team that year, all thirty
one players on our roster opted into that roster. So
we didn't ask we didn't ask anybody to play. They

(07:49):
all they all signed up, you know, Trout as the
leader and everybody else said I'm playing on that team,
and we didn't ask anybody. I think that's a great sign.
We need more players to do it. We need more
pitchers to do it next time, to opt in and
to get out there. And you know, it's not just
going to be USA versus Japan. I mean there was huge,

(08:13):
huge baseball fights, you know against just in the Americas.
To get out of our pools where there's Dominican or
Puerto Rico or Venezuela, those are those are huge, huge
contests that are that are never easy. But then you
get into playing Korea or you're playing Taiwan, who just
won the P twelve tournament last last November, and is

(08:37):
then a huge dog fight, as you know, in their
regional right now in Taiwan to qualify for the next Classic.
So there's a lot of parody in the world, but
Japan leads the world in points and we want to
try to change that. At USA Baseball. Everything we do
eighteen U, the collegian national team, our fifteen U program,
our twelve U program, our women's national team, everything we

(09:00):
do on a national team level, we want to be
the number one ranked federation of the world. That we're
not there right now just because of a couple events
that they got away from us.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
We're speaking with Eric Campbell, Omaha guy through and Through
who happens to also be the general manager for USA Baseball.
And I could go on for this for hours, but
I guess my next question, my only will follow up
to that is I hear a lot of people who
are fans of teams or even teams themselves. Remember Jazz Chisholm,
for instance, who's a star player now for the Yankees.

(09:35):
He was going to play for Great Britain in the
last World Baseball Classic, but he was currently on the Marlins.
The Marlins I think told him that they don't want
him to play in that. And you talked about pitchers
not wanting to opt into this, and we know how
careful people are with pitchers arms, especially how expensive they are.
Has there been any kind of pushback from colleges or
from you know, bigger programs like Major League Baseball when

(09:56):
you're looking at trying to get some athletes because they
want to protect their investments.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
Well, you know, I can start at the collegiate level.
I think in two thousand, in two thousand and eleven
and twelve, we started moving towards a certain director of it.
Really in twenty thirteen we started moving to a pitching thing. Internally,

(10:25):
no one told us we had to do it, and
we just kind of tried to get inside the mines,
like I said, Like of Rob Childress of ED Service,
ED was on the It was on that staff in
twenty thirteen that went to Japan. Rob Childress was on
the staff in twenty fourteen that went to Cuba, went

(10:45):
to the Netherlands. We started stacked, starting our pictures. So
I think for the most part, there's a lot of
stories where if we ask a pictuer to play for
his country at the collegiate level through with with the
kind of safety nets we're putting on it, we're we're
getting just about every one of those guys, unless he's

(11:06):
injured or there's some kind of extraneous factor. Uh, now
we we pivot to the professional level. Uh. This the
World Baseball Classic is actually a partnership with the Major
League Baseball Players Association and Major League Baseball and the
World Baseball's Softball Confederation. So really, at any any player

(11:26):
can play. But I'd be it'd be a little bit
unrealistic to think that there aren't some undercurrents and that,
you know, every once in a while a player may
feel like, you know, I really want to play in this,
but but you know, but my manager really wants me
to stay here and be be in spring training for
for every minute. And maybe I'm not at a place

(11:48):
where I can step away right now, so maybe he
maybe that individual player feels a little bit of that
individual individual pressure just to stay put and maybe not
opt in, you know. But and and that was that
I was pretty consistent with Mike Trout. Mike Trout played
as a twenty year old on a minor league team
that we had, we took to Puerto Rico in twenty ten,

(12:10):
and then he came back, you know, thirteen years later,
he came back and played on the World Baseball Classic
team when he felt like he could say, you know
what I'm doing this, you know, for all of baseball
and development of baseball around the world. I'm at a
place where where I can do this. So we just
hope that more and more players feel that way, like
like Mike did twenty three.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
Well, it's really awesome what you guys are doing. And
it's been such an honor to talk to you, Eric,
and I really appreciate the time today, and we can't wait.
Hopefully we get a chance to chat a little bit
later down the line as we get closer to the
next World Baseball Classic a year from now.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
Any time anytime you need me, you got my number.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
Love it, Thank you so much to really appreciate it.
That is Eric Campbell. He is a general manager for
Team USA.