TFTS E28 : Get Motivated with Connor Walsh

Get motivated with a fresh perspective on youth and high school sports with former MLB pitcher Connor Walsh.  

On this episode of storytellers, Connor's views and motivation isn't just for sports, his fresh perspective on being mentally tough applies to life in general.  Wow!  What a great episode!

Check out Connor's story on this episode of Tales from the Script.


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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
All right, Brett Pat Tomorty yeara little pre pod banter. I'm going
to the Memorial on Saturday, allright, right now, it stands June
sixth Thursday. I didn't know Ihad a friend that had that type of
lifestyle. I got Hospitality ten ticketstoo for news. Yeah, that'll be
fun anyway. But my point iswe're blessed to have the Memorial in Columbus

(00:25):
every year. Right, it's acouple hour drive. And I started thinking
about all the sporting events that happeneither on an annual basis or sometimes you
get a once in a blue moonbasis, within just a couple of hour
drive of here. Right, You'vegot the PGA Championship was in Louisville at

(00:45):
Valhalla in May. Right, theMemorials every year, the NFL combines in
Indie, the first four of theNCAA tournaments always in Dayton. You got
the Indy five hundred, You've gotthe Kentucky Derby. There is so much
that is just like epic sporting eventswithin just a couple hours drive US Cincinnati.

(01:07):
What's your favorite? What do youguys like? You do any of
them annually? Or if you don'thave if you've never been to the Indy
five hundred, you're nuts. LikeMarty, that was that was gonna be
my that was gonna be my selection. For a while there, I went
like four or five years in arow. So I had a college college
buddy mine that we we coached UHin Indiana State together. We were both

(01:29):
grand assistants together. He's from theIndianapolis area, and I think at one
point he had a streak of likethirty three straight Indy five hundreds. So
yeah, he started inviting me up, and I took my son Keen up
with me a couple of times,and we got like, when you're from
Indianapolis, you know the way ofthe land, and so they had basically

(01:51):
the way it works up there isif you know a policeman on the on
the IPD, you can throw themcash and they will give you a police
escort right up to the to thetrail, fires finest taxi kit. We'd

(02:12):
all meet. We don't meet itlike a shopping mall. We pile into
a suburban and and this cop wouldcome by types of if you're into that
sort of thing though too. Withina half hour of Cincinnati, the Lawrenceburg
Speedway. They have the n hR A stuff like they have sprint cars.

(02:35):
I mean, it's legit. Thereare some really cool stuff that happens
at the Lawrenceburg Speedway and at Edgewater. If you're if you're really want to
be a motorhead and you know,put it on a tank top and go
drinks and natural lights. That's africking place to be too. Okay,
So so let's look at it thisway. Which events have you guys attended?
First of all, I want toask you, this is the Combine

(02:55):
open to the public. You gotby tickets, but you can go to
by tickets, but you can goto the Combine absolutely. Let's see.
Never been to the Memorial, beento the PGA, never been to Edgewater,
never been to any racing event.I have been on the Spara campus
down there at the racetrack campus.God, there's another one. I feel

(03:19):
like a waste. I feel likehere Indy. Indy hosts so many cool
events, but every year they've gotthe Big Ten championship for both football and
basketball in India. I have donethat. I've done the date thing.
I've done the date in basketball afew times. I've been to the Kentucky
Derby once. I've been to theATP and Mason. I mean, that's

(03:44):
an unbelievable event. There's so muchcool stuff round here. But you know,
like here's some annual stuff that thatdoesn't happen every year. But like
the NBA All Star Game this yearwas in February. That was in Indianapolis.
That was an Indian The MLU AllStar Game was in Columbus this year.
That's coming up in July. Youknow, NCAA tournament games are typically

(04:09):
always in the Midwest somewhere. Lastyear they were in Columbus, right.
I've never been to an NCUBA tournamentgame. I've never been to Rock I've
never been in UK. Oh,that's that's you need to go experience a
game at ROP even if you're nota UK fan. It's an event.
I mean, twenty three thousand peoplein there for every home game. So

(04:30):
the events I've been to, Isaid, uh, I've only been to
two NCUBA tournament games, and Pat, you'll appreciate this one. Nineteen ninety
Xavier Musketeers Kansas State Wildcats. Ohmy gosh, yes, at the Hoosier

(04:50):
Dome in Indianapolis. Hold on andthen followed up, followed up a few
days later on Sunday afternoon when theMusketeers look down the Georgia. The Georgias.
Yes, and that was with Scottsfordingand I went. We went back

(05:11):
on Sunday. The original crew thatwent was myself, Steve Sabers, Steve
Goldschmid, and Ryan Rothering. Wewent the uh the the first, you
know, on that Friday, becauseI think it was like I don't know
if it was Easter weekend or Idon't know, but we were off school
on Friday, and so somehow wewent. We got either we drove up

(05:31):
there, we bought tickets, orwe got tickets. I think somebody had
gotten tickets because we still had ticketsfor the next day there for for that
that Sunday game. When you rememberwhat we had, do you remember what
we had that night on that Sunday? Uh? Probably was it South Basketball
Banquet? Yes, the South BasketballBank when they do, that's why,
That's why. And so come back, No, I didn't play that year.

(05:55):
I didn't play my junior year,so I was able to go up
and and is he and I enjoyat the game, but looking at other
events, Martin I've been to games, rup have not been to the memorial.
However, However, my two children, Hannah s neighbor and King Snever
they will be on grounds with youon Saturday. They will both They're both

(06:16):
going. My kids. I thinkMartin needs to get them in the hospitality
tent. That's what I'm saying,Martin. But how about my kids living
their best life. This is theirsecond PGA Tour event of the year.
They went out with the same collegegroup that they're going this weekend. They
went out to the waste management openout in Scottsdale back in Super Bowl weekends

(06:40):
right now. And that's and that'sa little bit like like some of this
is this natural, right, You'vegot kids that are really busy. I
just got done with four of them. I'm partially done. I've got high
school kids still, but like it'sit's a lot of work that now that
I'm now that I'm past that timeof thirty basketball, football, baseball games

(07:01):
weekend, I might be able todo some of this ship we need,
we need to start doing it,like we're not getting any younger. Do
you think we can get media passesfor tfs? Plus absolutely, Plus the
fact the fact that like we've gotsome hookups and like if we wanted to
go to like a Purdue game,a UK game, Notre Dame or Ohio

(07:23):
State, like we can get wecan get sideline back. Like honestly,
like if we want to go alegit Saturday afternoon freaking football game. We're
at that stage where we've I think, yeah, we gotta start doing more
of that stuff. But to makesure it's solid, I'll end. I'll
end the pre pod banter on thisas a true West Sider, if you've

(07:45):
never been to Cleaves to watch gravelRama, is it? Do you guys
know what this is? A lotof people, yes, I know exactly
what it is. I've never beenthere. There's a place in Cleaves called
gravel Rama. Go to their website, right, and they have us some
and some events during the summer duringthe year, right seasonal. But in
the fall, all they do isthey put this freaking mountain made of sand

(08:07):
and gravel. It's the size oflike freaking skyscraper, and Yahoo's bringing the
fucking trucks and jeeps out there andjust try to drive it up this hill
and they race up to the topof it. It's called gravel Rama.
It's the biggest redneck stuff you've everseen in your life, and it's the
funniest, the best. Check itout you've been believe that that's the event
that you gotta put it in yourback. That's the mic drop gravel rama.

(08:28):
Marvel this year. What's the datethis year? I'll look it up.
They go to their website, justlook up gravel ramas typically like August
or September. Martin, I'll tellyou what if that's gonna be the pinnacle
of your year, that's fine.I just found out last night. I'm
going to Sunday Night football in October, the Bengals playing at Betlife Stadium in
the Meadowlands. You're gonna be there. I'm gonna be there. I'm gonna

(08:50):
one uping you guys on that one. I know it's not within your fifty
mile radius or one hundred mile radius, but I cannot wait. Bengals Giant
Sunday night football in the midis nice. Welcome to Tales from the Script,
a bad app Cincinnati high school sportspodcast that features local coaches and athletes.

(09:13):
Here are your hosts, Brett Schneeber, Pat O'Connor, and Martin Eisley my

(09:33):
buddy friends. I think I'm excited. I'm really excited to introduce her next
time. And I think this isground breaking shit right here. So this
is like podcast number twenty eight andand I don't know if you know this,
but we've got reviews. We've gotsome reviews out there, We've got

(09:54):
some solid reviews out there, andI think we've got some five we've got
five stars. But this is groundbreakingshit. And the fact that this is
our first, our first professional athlete. And he'll let you know about it
too, He'll talk about it allthe time. And so this is gonna
be a really really fun podcast.You can't you can't laugh mystery guests yet.
So a little bit of his biofrom Wayne Pennsylvania. He is a

(10:16):
UC Bearcat twenty twelve twenty fourteen.Pitched drafted in the twelfth round of the
Major League Draft in twenty fourteen.You know who it is yet, but
who drafts? I think by theChicago White Sox. Was head coached by
ty Neil was triple a minor leagueAll Star. After his playing career,

(10:46):
went into coaching, was UC's directorof player Development, and then for recently
was Nku's pitching coach. Now heis starting his business career and it now
works at Sentas. I am soexcited, uh to bring on the Tails
from the Script podcast. Connor Walsh, Connor Welsh, welcome, buddy.
How you doing. I'm doing awesome. What an unbelievable intro that was.

(11:11):
I appreciate that makes awesome. That'swhat you get, man, that's what
you get when you join the podcast. A professional athlete. I think it
has to be, I would think. So. I'm also loving the fact
that I'm still considered a professional athleteon this podcast. I will take that
in a heartbeat too. Well.You got to think we've had some some

(11:31):
stellar guests on here, but Idon't think that they ranked and got to
the level of professional. Right.We've had a lot of coaches on here,
a lot of high school coaches,but never the professional player. So
it's just quite an honor, right. I mean it's a big get.
I mean I only had to payyou five hundred dollars appearance there, but
it was worth it. It's worthit. So yeah, you said that

(11:52):
was supposed to be in my countof month ago, so I'll just keep
waiting. So he's lot as checkstubs. He hasn't seen it yet,
absolutely, so, you said,Pat, you had mentioned that Connor was
kind of your sort of professional world. Now you're working at Sentas, are
you still involved in baseball, Like, are you doing anything with the sport?

(12:13):
Yeah, a little bit, SoI'm super passionate. This is just
what impacted my career the most,is like the mental side of baseball.
I think that baseball teaches you life'slessons at an expedited rate. I think
that I found every single way tofail in the game of baseball, and
I think there's a lot of powerin that. Sure. Obviously with a

(12:37):
heaping serving a failure comes a lotof learning. So for me, I
always had a good arm, Ialways had a good work ethic, but
it really boiled down to my abilityto respond to failure that allowed me to
achieve peak performance. So currently,how I kind of still keep my toes
in the water at baseball as I'mhelping out a few individuals just with the

(13:00):
mental side of things, well,try to try my best at least to
teach different coping mechanisms, how todeal with pressure, how to have the
correct perspective, and really just toput it in simple terms, how to
fail. You can have all thetalent in the world, and this transcends
just baseball. You can have allthe talent in the world. But like

(13:20):
I told when I was at MKU, I used to tell the team all
the time, the best in theworld can suck better than you can.
And it's ironic, but there's sometruth to the fact that no matter what
you want to be good at,like, you have to suck at it
at one point in order to begood. And some people nowadays, they
start to suck and then they startto think to themselves, well, maybe

(13:41):
this isn't for me, which isnormal. We're human beings. Like once
we hit a little bit of failure, a little bit bit of adversity,
of course those thoughts come into ourmind, but it's how we respond to
that that really dictates a who youare as an individual and b where you
go and whatever you decide to do. So I'm huge failure, I'm huge
unresponding to it. I'm not alwaysthe best at it. But I think

(14:05):
that's also the cool part of baseballand failure in general, is it's a
moving target. It looks different,the stresses feel different, and having just
little, tiny processes in place Ithink make a big impact on not only
just your your mental makeup and youknow, your response to things, but
really just done your life in general. So Martin, we could used him

(14:26):
on our golf trip last week.Yeah, no doubt, because there was
a lot of sucking going on ongolf trip with twelve guys up and up
in Howard, Ohio last week.I mean there was a yeah, I
throw the club once, I threwmy pitching wedge once. You didn't break
it like last year though it's stillup in that oak tree. True,

(14:48):
true, Connor, Like we hada high school coach and I'll never forget
like the same coach. We allthree had one thing that he said that
it is stuck with me. I'mfifty fifty one years old. To be
fifty one, life is ninety percenthow react how you react to the ten
percent that happens to you. Soyour life is going to be ten percent

(15:09):
what happens to you, But ninetypercent of your life is how you react
to that ten percent. And itcan either you can either react poorly or
suck it up and man up andreact well to something. Right, But
where you are in your position thatyou're in right now is based on ninety

(15:31):
percent of that as how you reactto what had already happened to you.
Right So that was like life changingfor me at that time. I still
carry that stuff with me for sure. So not only do I love that,
but I think it's also important toknow, like everyone, it's so
easy to give in to that reactivespace when something happens to you, and

(15:52):
like you can look at the mostpoised, stoic individual in the world that
responds to failure like it was nothingand think to yourself, like, man,
I wish I could be like thatperson, Like why can't I be
like that? And the funny thingis that person feels the same way,
the same emotions that everyone else feels. They just have a lid on it.
You know, they have their processesin place when it hits them.

(16:12):
So, and you guys mentioned golfand failure in golf, I had my
processes in play for baseball. I'min a constant work in progress, and
you know, adversity in life golfis one that I haven't figured out yet
either. So if you guys havea process that's working for you, you
let me know, because I needit. And I tell you what,

(16:33):
I loved what you said about theones that suck better, right, I
think that that's the language that youused. They're better at sucking than you
and uh and so I'm kind ofimagining, like you know, for this
podcast is you know, you're takingyour kids to a showcase and they kind
of want to hear some knowledge abouthow to improve their mental aspect of things.

(16:56):
I think, I mean, there'sso much to be said for how
to handle adversity. I mean,you're gonna fail seventy percent of the time
and be a Hall of Fame playersas a hitter in the Major League Baseball
and for those people that are throwingtheir helmets and in ten U, eleven
U, twelve U and realizing thatthat's part of the game and that's part
of the challenge and that's part ofthe opportunity and part of the fun.

(17:18):
I think that's God's you said itreally well there. I love what you
said, this suck better than you? So when did you start learning that?
Connor as far in baseball because yousaid you didn't figure it out in
golf, but like in baseball,right, so I started learning that,
I mean as early as I canremember, my dad was big on making

(17:42):
sure that regardless of what happens,you win with class, you lose with
class. So I've always had thatbone in my body. Now, mind
you, like, I'm from theNortheast and people will tell you like,
I absolutely have a temper. Iam not perfect by any means. But
there's a difference between one of sothat I'll kind of pivot to this.

(18:02):
There's a difference between wanting to win, because everybody wants to win, like
every single person that sets out forsomething wants to win. But there's a
difference between wanting to win and knowinghow to win. And once I started
putting those two buckets on kind ofboth sides of whatever fence that I was
trying to climb, I started learningtruths about success that I didn't know before.

(18:25):
So, for instance, failure hits. You have two buckets, Right,
I want to win. Okay,I throw a pitch, goes over
the fence. Maybe I executed mypitch, maybe I didn't, somebody dropped
it behind me, right, butI want to win. So now I'm
face with the choice, right myreaction to this event. I can either
choose to give in to my emotionsin my mind. I have this saying

(18:48):
that I learned from Harvey Dorfman,who was an incredible psychologist in baseball sports
psychologists in baseball. He wrote theMental ABC's of Pitching, and he used
to say, emotions feed the monsterand thought starves it. So adversity hits.
I have two ways of reacting tothis. One. I can give
into my emotions. I can letthe floodgates open. I can let everyone
in the crowd know that's not myfault. Or I can control what I

(19:15):
can control. I can keep thelid on it. I can get the
task at hand done. I cando my job, and then once my
job is done, I can goto my own space, my own locker,
whatever it is, and I cando what I need to do.
But the most important thing, ifI actually do care about turning around whatever's
happening and being a good teammate,you better dig your cleats in the dirt

(19:38):
and find a way to accomplish thetask at hand, Because if you're thinking
about anything else, like the umpiresqueezing you, or a guy dropping a
ball behind you, or even justyour inability to accomplish a task, if
you're thinking about that and letting thatstuff come into your mind, then you
have less headspace to think about whatneeds to be done. So I started
thinking about logical versus momotional. Istarted challenging myself on a daily basis.

(20:03):
Hey, when adversity hits, thinklogical, logical, logical, logical.
Allow yourself a couple of minutes tobe emotional when the time is right.
But if you show that emotion atthe wrong time, you're weak and you
won't accomplish the task at hand.It's not gonna help anything. It still
happens. I'm not perfect. It'sso hard to do. So it's so

(20:26):
hard to do. It's so hardto do. I have a young son
now, I love them to death. But like, that's another learning curve
that I'm going through too. Islike it's it's the emotional versati logical reaction
to things. And that's why Isaid earlier, baseball teaches you life's lessons
at an expedited rate, because likefailure and stress feels the same, it

(20:47):
just has so many different faces.So if you learn your processes and you
work on it and it is aconstant work in progress, and you're able
to kind of disassociate the emotional andfocus on the logical. In my opinion,
doesn't guarantee success, but it givesyou a better chance to success.
And every day when I wake up, I want to put myself in the
best chance for success because I knowit ain't certain that I'm going to succeed,

(21:11):
but at least I want to beable to look back and say,
you know what, I put mybest foot forward in every aspect of the
way. Connory, As you're explainingthis stuff, it really started clicking something
in my brain. And I'm afootball guy. And when Urban Meyer came
to Ohio State, you know,twelve years ago or whatever, and he

(21:33):
really kind of changed how they wentabout the approach to their preparation and preparing
their athletes and all that. AndI started thinking, and it sounds very
similar. But the the E plusR equals zero, which is event plus
response equals outcome. And I knowhe brought in Brian Kite, who's a

(21:55):
kind of one of the mental coaches, and all that is that what you're
explaining is is that like along thesame pathway. I mean, is that
something that you worked in your backgroundthat you were taught because event plus response
equals outcome and everything you know thatyou just described in the last three minutes
sounds very very similar to that.Yeah, I would first of all,

(22:18):
I love that, and that's areally bright mind. That's saying that.
I think baseball has taught me onething. And like, whenever I hear
the term result, like a redflag shoots up of my head. Results
are are so desirable and something thatI used to focus on too much,

(22:40):
and we're just a product of ourexperiences. At the end of the day,
I have essentially and maybe to mybenefit or to my detriment, I
have categorized the result as the thesum of micro habits. So I don't
even want to focus on the result. And it's cool to think about.
Like in sales, right, Likemy goal every day that I wake up

(23:04):
is to is to get sentas andas many businesses as I can, because
I know that we can make animpact. But if all I'm focusing on
is making sure that I everybody buystoilet paper from Synas, I'm not focusing
on the needs of the customer.I'm not focusing on, you know,
making sure that I'm on a goodschedule and taking care of what I need

(23:26):
to take care of on a dailybasis. So result, yeah, absolutely,
I mean I think it's important.I just the only the only part
that I think of think differently aboutin that equation is I don't even want
to think about the result. Iwant to put my head down, focus
on my first couple steps, andthen let the result take care of itself.

(23:48):
I think everyone's wired differently and hasa different approach to things. That's
just something that I know about myselfthat the moment I start reaching for that
result, that's the moment I getaway from my process, and that's the
moment that ultimately I don't set myselfup for success. Yeah. And to
add to that, I think whatmakes the whole sporting experience just so complicated

(24:11):
and possible to wrap your head aroundis you've got athletes and people that really
have done all the work, thatdo all the things they can, and
then you have a play like BillBuckner, Let's the ball go through his
legs, right, There's no reasonfor stuff like that to happen. There
was the one backup tight end forthe Cowboys in the Super Bowl that's in
the end zone and the ball justbounces off as freaking chest plate. Those

(24:33):
people make that play one hundred outof one hundred times, and then when
the brightest lights are on, forwhatever freaking reason, stuff like that happens
and there's no explanation for it,and then you've got to deal with it
as a human, as a personthat that might happen to. And I
could be talking about an eighth gradermissing a free throw, same thing,

(24:55):
like you know that kid's made thatfree throw a thousand times, but when
all the pressure's on, they clankit. And how you react to that
and how you just become how youcan take that experience and learn from it
as a human is really what themagic is in all of this. It's
like understanding the mental part of sports. There are so many life lessons that

(25:18):
can be learned from failure that itjust you can't wrap your head around all
these scenarios and how many people that'saffected and how many times humans have reacted
incorrectly to it and let that spiraland make that a poison in their mind
instead of something that they can learnfrom and grow from. Does that make

(25:38):
sense? Like, yeah, yousay to a kid that missed that free
throw, so I'm so happy youbrought this up because this is this is
real. I mean, yeah,like I can remember being in high school
and whether I'm at the free throwline, whether I'm on the mound.
I played football for like a coupleof years, and I was like one
hundred and twenty pounds soak and wet, so that didn't last too long.

(26:00):
I can't speak too much to thefootball side of things because I was the
tackling dummy most of the time.But like as a as a kid,
I mean, that is one ofthe biggest moments of your life up to
that point at least. That's That'show a lot of kids think about that.
It's like the team is relying onme. I have to get a

(26:21):
hit here, I have to makethis foul shot to win the game.
And that's that's good to go through. I'll start there. That's really good
to go through because if you don'tgo through that, if you don't feel
that stress and you don't you don'thave that opportunity to respond to like a
heavy situation, then what's going tohappen when something real in life happens to

(26:48):
you. So I'll pivot to sayingthis. A lot of kids think that
if they don't get the big hit, they aren't going to be liked by
their peers, they aren't going toget a scholarship. I can go down
the list of things that that kidsthink about, and quite frankly, it's
not just kids. If I gointo a situation to where I have to
I have to present sentas in away that's appealing to somebody else. There

(27:12):
are times where I think to myself, like, if I don't get this
sale, my life's over. Likeit happens, that happens to everybody,
so right now. But if Icould say one thing to a kid that
ever has that thought, the firstthing I'd say is, hey man,
that's normal, we all think thatway. The second thing I'd say is

(27:34):
you are not your results. Youare not the foul shot that you make
or miss. You are not theuh the inning that you get out or
don't get outs in. You're notthe at bat that you get a hit
or don't get a hit in.Your results don't define who you are as
an individual. Who you are asan individuals, how you treat people,
and how you impact others. Inmy opinion, so for the kid,

(27:57):
and this is how, this ishow I really started gaining ground in baseball
because I hit this this loll inprofessional baseball where I just didn't even want
to go to the field. Iwas, I was just I was a
zombie. I was like waiting tobe called out, waiting to be released,
waiting for baseball to be done.I was just walking to the field

(28:18):
this way. And finally I startedrealizing I'm so much more than a baseball
player. I'm a son, I'ma brother, I'm an uncle, I'm
all of these things. So Idid this activity to where I made a
pie chart, and it's important tomake it a pie chart because you only
have one hundred percent to give.So I listed all of these different things

(28:40):
that I wanted to be in mylife, Like I mentioned brother, uncle,
baseball player, son, husband,all these things, father now,
and I gave it percentages of whatI'm aiming for. So, for instance,
after everything broke down, I sawthat in my professional career, as
I'm playing baseball, eighteen percent ofme wanted to be a baseball player.

(29:03):
So I have all this these thoughtson this paper. I'm looking down,
I'm like, wow, I'm lettingeighteen percent of my life ruin the other
eighty two percent of my life.So as I see this and I'm on
the mound and I start to getnervous to execute a pitch, my last
thought before I release the ball is, so what if this pitch hits this
guy? So what if this guyhits this pitch? To Mars, I'm

(29:26):
still a brother, I'm still ason. I still have all these other
things in life that I have todo to be who I want to be.
So and now I've actually done thisdrill with some kids before, and
you'd be really surprised at the resultsthat you see. Some kids are forty

(29:47):
fifty percent baseball players or forty fiftypercent athletes, whatever the case is,
and that's their world. They're notwrong for saying that that's just is what
it is. If anything, itbrings to light how important that moment is
for him. But if I couldchallenge them to just think, like,
Hey, what's the worst case scenariohere? If you don't get a hit,
what's the worst case if you don'tget a scholarship, if you don't

(30:08):
do this and that, are youstill going to have two arms and two
legs? Are you still going tohave parents that support you? Or you're
still going to have a friend groupthat has your back. Is that really
the last opportunity that you're ever goingto have in your life to make an
impact in sport, And a lotof times, if you can take yourself
down that path before adversity hits andthink to yourself, man like I am

(30:30):
again going back to emotional verse logical, I'm telling myself all these lies because
there's a little bit of fear failurein me. And what we learn about
fear is fear tells lies. Soin the moment you're scared of failure,
but catch yourself and don't lie toyourself. If you don't make the foul
shot, you're gonna be just fine. You'll get another opportunity at some point.

(30:51):
If you don't get the hit,you're gonna be just fine. And
sometimes it's that realization of like,Okay, maybe this moment isn't as important
as I'm making it out to be. Maybe this foul shot isn't the do
or die for my career. Wetalked about setting yourself up for success.
I want a guy on the foulline, on the mound, at the
plate, playing football, whatever thecase is, snapping the ball. I

(31:11):
want a guy that's loose and trusthis instincts versus a guy that's questioning what
he's doing and is really tight.Was fourteen your number growing up? Connor?
You know what, I never hada number growing up. I just
kind of I don't. I thinkthey doing research. I saw you see
fourteen. I saw some fourteen's onthere, So what they gave them?
Yeah? I think I was fourteenbecause I was like one hundred and sixty

(31:33):
pounds coming into college, and thelower numbers are for the skinny, small
bitch, So I think fourteen wasjust what was left. So were you
did you? Coach? It ain'tku with number fourteen on your back?
No, No, I think Iwas like number fifty five, double nickels.
That's so weird to me. It'sso weird to me that baseball coaches

(31:55):
have to wear that you keep thatget you that? Yeah, it is
weird. It is weird here thebaseball coach square uniforms. It's still like
agreed, I had a DP topon most of the time. But so
j on like spring training and beinga Reds fan, it seems like the
pitchers that are like in spring training, that are fighting for a spot,

(32:19):
they always have numbers like eighty oneninety seven, Like don't they get the
hot Like are they just getting scraps? Yeah? Absolutely, they're getting what
number was the bat boy last year? All right, let's give that to
Walls and cal Uh. But Connor, it was kind of fun to watch
NK you pop off this year getinto the uh the College World World Series.

(32:43):
Yeah they were so they won theHorizon League for the first time uh
in the Division one era. Andif I could say anything about that program,
I would say the coaching staff isunmatched, uh mixed with the kids
like they they're all fighting for oneand our Steve Vinaman, the recruiting coordinator,
Dizzy Payton Hunter Lowe's camp. CamBrandt, who's a West Side guy.

(33:07):
That's my guy. Hold up,hold up, cam Brandt. He
is a graduate of the sixth BellSophomore Biology class through four twenty five from
mister Schneeber. That's my guy rightthere. Personal last name is two syllables,
cam Brant. I like him.That's my guy, man. I
can tell you the exactly the exactseat he and his brother Juice sat him.

(33:31):
They both sat in the same seatin my classroom. I love those
guys. And the pitching coach Andrew, like this coaching staff like they are.
They are just incredibly selfless. Theypulled for the kids, and they
are so culture oriented and mental gameoriented that And again I'm biased, I

(33:53):
just coached there, but I dobelieve, like in regards to peak performance,
I mean, of course that's important, but I believe deeply that these
coaches and the kids too, thekids are teaching one another as well,
like they're teaching themselves more than justhow to react to adversity in baseball.

(34:15):
They're preparing young men for the future. And if you have everybody on the
same page in that regard, youcan do some really cool things on the
field, of course, but moreimportantly, I mean, you're making a
massive impact for more than just baseball. So I was very, very privileged
and lucky to be on that coachingstaff, and I know that that program

(34:37):
has nothing but a bright future movingforward. Connor, you mentioned or Pat
mentioned in your introduction that you knoweventually you pitch for U. See,
let's take us take us back,take us back through step by step progression
of your career. How you wentfor Wayne Pennsylvania, which I'm sure is

(34:57):
a booming Metropolis. Never been there. I'm sure it'll be on my bucket
list someday to I'm sure there's finefine wines and find restaurants in Wayne,
Pennsylvania. But Hone, Pennsylvania.How did you get from from there to
U see? And kind of takeus on the progression of your career.
Yeah, it's kind of a funnystory actually, and I don't I haven't

(35:19):
told this story too many people.So I was playing Legion baseball as a
was it. I was a juniorin high school. I didn't know really
like I was any good at sports. I just knew I like to play.
I really liked basketball. Tell whoyou played with growing up? And

(35:42):
you played with some Villanova and likego that and Jalen. I lived near
Villanova, so like, oh,I played with Yeah, Jay Wright's son,
Taylor, Taylor's h I grew upwith Taylor. That's a great family.
Jay Rights obviously a stud, kiddinghis whole family is our stud.
The only guy it's better dressed thanhim is Martin Eisley. That's yes.

(36:04):
Well, and Pat O'Connor, ofcourse. Well yeah, but uh,
I'll try to keep it as shortas I can. Anyway, he found
at school. It doesn't fuck theyhave lost CentOS and I'm putting on ties
and socks and it works. SoI I, uh, I went to

(36:25):
this like legion tryout that I endedup finding out I was not invited to.
I don't. I don't even knowhow that happened, but like,
I drove an hour and a halfto this tryout that my buddy was invited
to when I wasn't. So whenI got to the front thest to sign
in and this woman was like,yeah, I don't. I don't have
a Connor Walls on the list.And I'm like, oh God, like

(36:49):
super embarrassed. And she's like,but what we can do is this was
like a tryout for like an allstar team. She was like, what
we can do is whatever position doesn'tshow up, you can try out for.
I was like, okay, great, Well a pitcher didn't show up,
so I got on the mound andagain, this was a long time
ago, so velocities have definitely changed. But I threw eighty seven miles an

(37:10):
hour at the showcase. Well,I thought nothing about it. I left,
I got in the car, mydad and I went down to the
Jersey Shore for vacation. And Iwas at the beach and my dad calls
me. This is a couple ofdays later, and he's like, hey,
you got a second. I'm like, yeah, what's up. He's
like, you just got a letterfrom I think it was Ohio University and

(37:32):
Ducane for baseball. I was like, okay. He was like, that's
Division One. I was like,is it really like? I had no
idea. I was like, ohwow. So he immediately called around and
found a pitching coach that could giveme some pitching lessons, and I went
to All Star Baseball Academy Mark Freedgave me this one lesson, and then

(37:55):
he disappeared from the lesson for asecond and came back down and he's like,
hey, by the way, uh, I just talked to the owner
of this place, Mike Manning,and he wants to have you on his
travel team. And my dad andI were like, what is going on.
I'm like, all right, cool, So now now hold on.
Had you been a pitcher up tothis point, I had, but like
I would say, I didn't knowif you were like a right fielder.

(38:16):
And all of a sudden, they'relike, oh, well the picture so
I'm gonna go in and start throwing. No, I had pitched, but
again I was more of a thrower. I didn't know where the ball was
going. It's like our golf game. So I I end up playing with
this travel team and before I knewit, I started getting like calls from

(38:37):
Division One. I was a Iwas a junior. So this was like
the end of my junior year inhigh school. Yeah, going into my
senior year. So I started visitingschools, and truth be told, like
I didn't want to go visit theUniversity of Cincinnati at all, like I

(38:57):
wanted to. I was getting recruitedby some local school rules and you know,
but my dad was like adamant.He's like, hey, if somebody's
showing interest in inviting you out,we're gonna go. I'll drive you just
sit there. I was like,all right, So I went. I
met the coaching staff at the time, it was Brian Cleary, J.
D. Hileman. I mean itwas truthy. Tota was awesome. I
had an unbelievable time. Greg Mamulawas hitting coach there, and I just

(39:22):
fell in love with the coaching staff. So what's that You were a junior
in high school, did you goto Top Cats because that's typically where all
the juniors in Cincinnati go get served. If I note about that at the
time, I might have mos youknow. Now. So actually I fell

(39:43):
in love with the coaching staff,and uh my mom called me and my
dad was in the car and they'relike, uh, what do you want
to do here? And I wasconvinced, Like my mom told me before
I left, like hey, whenyou know, you know, like,
don't worry about waiting, don't worryabout you know, doing all these things
like playing the business game and tryingwhen you know you know. So I

(40:05):
walked on campus. I met allthe coaches, loved them, loved the
campus. It was a little bitfrom home, but at the same time,
it kind of matched what I waslooking for. Like I created like
a filter of what I wanted ina school and it kind of checked all
the boxes. So I committed onthe way home. I didn't wait.
It was the best decision I couldhave made, because not only did I
get to play baseball there, butlike I met my wife there, which

(40:25):
is way more important than all thatthat five ounce ball that took me to
break into the edge a bunch oftimes. And so I mean that's such
a cool path and I don't thinkI mean we've known each other for a
bit, like I'd never heard thatstory. Like that's a freaking great story
to sit there and say, hey, you know what, you know,

(40:47):
take advantage of the opportunities that youhave, which kind of brings me to
the next point. And this couldbe either talking about it as a player,
Connor, or as a coach.I'm sure that there's a lot of
dads in the cars that are listeningto this, trying to get their kids
to the next level, whether thatbe football or baseball. And maybe you
could just speak at a very highlevel to that parent or to that kid

(41:09):
about like what do colleges look at? Like what did they look at?
What are you know? And becauseyou could have a day that sit there
and say, well, my sonsand then you compare apples to another kid
or whatever. Just if you couldjust speak very like what what's what's going
on there? Yeah, So that'sthat's a very It's a hard question to

(41:30):
answer because all I can speak onis what I looked at. And I'll
try my best to speak in inbroad terms as best as I can.
I'll tread lightly, but you knowcolleges. In my experience, there's a
threshold of talent that needs to behad. Like I could sit here all

(41:52):
day and say, hey, aslong as you're a good kid, you're
gonna get a scholarship. Like ifI say that, I think everyone listening
to this would say, this guy'sfull of And you said I could curse,
So this guy's full of shit.Yes, yeah, totally full of
shit. So there obviously is athreshold of metrics. Now, I think

(42:12):
the most powerful thing that you cando as a high school athlete is know
your strengths and know your weaknesses.Whatever your weaknesses are, have a trusted
advisor kind of guide you through whatyou can improve on, and then hit
the ground running. I know atNKU when I'm plugging NKU because again it's
what I know. But more importantly, we did this. If any kid

(42:36):
asked us why he wasn't getting anoffer from US, Coach Denneman was really
good at wording it in a wayto where like, hey, this is
kind of what I recruit. Thisis where you are now, this is
your area for improvement, and Ithink that's extremely important. Now you have
to be careful because there's a lotof people that have opinions on who you

(42:59):
are as an athlete. So that'swhy I use a phrase trusted advisor,
So whether it be hey could beyour dad, right. But a lot
of times in I don't know thisyet, but just from giving lessons and
kind of being around I kind ofunderstand this. Kids don't always want to
listen to their dads, and Iknow my son Nico is not going to
want to listen to me about pitching, which is fine. I think I

(43:22):
know enough people that know enough aboutpitching to where I won't have to say
anything. But it's important to havesomebody say, hey, listen Mike in
a very numerical, logical way,like, hey, this is where you
are right now, this is whereyou need to be, This is the
division X threshold, this is theplan and place to get there, and
then you work like hell to getthere. And the shitty part about this

(43:45):
is, let's say you're throwing seventyfive miles an hour and you need to
be throwing eighty seven to pitch adivision on baseball, just throwing random numbers
out there. That's not always thecase, but just for this example,
let's start there. Understood, Let'ssay you get to eighty seven. That
still doesn't guarantee you're going to playDivision one baseball. Let's say you throw

(44:07):
harder again, still doesn't guarantee you'regoing to play Division X baseball. It
doesn't even matter what the vision oryou, you know, whatever the case
is. So you really, asa as a as a parent, the
best thing that you can be iskind of the guardrails. Maybe not like
tell them exactly what they need todo, but be there for support and

(44:29):
make sure that you're obviously, youknow, just guiding them. And I
don't even really know what that meansbecause I'm my son is two months old,
but that will be my goal isjust to kind of put up the
guardrails and say, listen, I'mgoing to tell you exactly what you need
to do, but like I'm goingto infer, like you know, maybe
maybe include some some examples like hey, this is what this person did and

(44:52):
this is what happened. You know, this is how this person did it,
and this is what happened. Soand it doesn't guarantee that it's going
to happen, but like let's puta planet place and see what happens,
you know, so because at worstyou're gonna get a good work work ethic.
So it starts with metrics, right, whether it be V low,
whether it be speed, whether itbe you know, and and so I
think that that's I think everybody whohas got a brain can understand that.

(45:17):
On the baseball side of things,does height play any part of that in
baseball? I think it depends onwho you ask, It depends on the
school's needs. And I know,I'm I'm I feel like I'm answering this
like a doctor. Like I feellike like you ask a doctor. So
well it could, but we're not. It's like it's hard to see.

(45:37):
But I want you to answer forevery dibut, your answer for every division
on college coach that that that weknow. So this is what you have
to do. You have to youhave to go really broad here. So
like height, like you mentioned metrics, I'll elaborate a little bit on that.
Like height, No, I meanif you throw a ninety five and
you're five to four, Like ifI was an n K on your right,

(45:58):
I'm taking you. I think that, like there are metrics football,
Well, that's what we're going tocome back to that. But I was
kind of making just with in baseball. That's why I said it does.
Is there anything like as far aslike just your physical height playing the recruitment?
It can Yeah, a six toeight pitcher that's got a good downhill

(46:22):
angle on his fastball or some sabermetric outlier that for whatever reason, the
hitters can't pick up on. Ofcourse, so that would be yeah,
correct, But in metrics like vLow sure, but like at one point
at NKU, like I'm looking fora local guy that pours strikes over the
plate and can get out. Ithink that's important too. So it really

(46:43):
depends on what the team's needs areas well. Pat you take it to
the next level. Uh, youtalk about height. I sit here and
I watch the Dodgers, and Iknow we're talking major League Baseball, but
I watched the Dodgers, and thoseguys came into the Dodgers organization at some
point. But you look at them, and those guys are six three,

(47:06):
six, four sixty five, Andthen you watch then you watch the Astros
and they got Altuve out at secondbase, like somebody had to take a
chance on a guy who's five footfive. So somewhere the metric was broken.
And I once again it goes backto what is your recruiting philosophy of

(47:30):
do you want guys who can pourit over the plate and throw strikes or
does it have to be we're goingto recruit as many six, three,
two and ten pound guys who canthrow ninety five, and we'll recruit as
many of them as we can,and we'll take the ones that the cream
rises to the top, and therest of them they can go in the
transfer portal. I think that's there'sjust different philosophies of it. Would you

(47:53):
agree with that? Connor Absolutely?And like the first person I think of
I'm trying to think of like footballsamples, but like Jason Kelsey is not
a massive dude, but but he'sawesome in his position. He's that guy
that there's a there's a task athand to accomplished, and he gets it
done more times than not. AndI think that height is always going to

(48:14):
play a part of its size isalways going to play a part regardless of
height. I always tell kids,especially in high school kids hit the weight
room, get big, because thatis get big functionally speaking, whether you
know, if you're a pitcher.He obviously don't want to come out with
traps like looking like the Rock.But in football, that's going to help
you. So depends on your sport, but weight room, work ethic,

(48:35):
all of those things are going toimpact in a positive way for those that
are undersized. I mean, there'sjust too many stories to count of individuals
that were undersized, like inn AlTuve that have exceeded expectations, and the
cool thing is that's very pig isanother example in the Astros organization. I

(48:58):
mean Billy Bates. Look at Billy. He's hit a great career for the
Reds. Come on career, hehad played four games. Hey, he
scored the winning running game three game. To your point though, Jason Kelsey,
I mean that that's kind of whyhe ended up at UCS because he
is undersized. I mean he was. He didn't go to Ohio State and
get trapped in the first round.Same with a guy like Ivan Pace.

(49:19):
You know, he's playing for theVikings right now, and like, I've
never seen a better high school footballplayer in his position, but he was
no better than a MAC division ieguy. And if you talk to anybody,
I'm like, dude, I wouldtake him over any of the recruits
going in freaking Ohio state locally,Are you kidding me? Tom? Tom
Bolden, friend of the pod.We asked him last year, it was

(49:39):
right around this time last year.We asked him, who's the most the
best high school player you've ever coached? And he said, Ivan Pace,
He dominated the game on both sidesof the ball. Yeah, And Power
five colleges were like, no chance, way too small, Like uh yeah,

(50:00):
yeah, really he's started as arookie for the freaking like it nuts,
It's crazy. Connor, there wasone thing I just want to expound
upon that you were talking about havinga I think you said a qualified advisor
or whatever the term it was youused. Years ago. This was probably

(50:20):
two ninety nine, two thousand.I went to a coach's clinic and there
was a head coach at Mount CarmelHigh School, head football coach at Mount
Carmelal High School in Chicago, aguy named Frank Lenny. And a line
that I've never forgotten from there thenuntil now is that he said that parents
are not emotionally qualified to evaluate theirown their own children's talent. And I

(50:46):
thought that was a great line andit remains true because you know, a
parent comes approaches a coach and hesays, why isn't my son playing?
And he can do this, this, this is this. The are not
emotionally qualified because they're they're the fatheror the mother of that child. And

(51:06):
I think that goes back to whatyou were saying. I think it's a
perfect matchup for it. Yeah.I couldn't agree that more. And it's
the perspective, like, I've neverhad that happen to me. I've never
had a parent when I was neverhad someone say my son should be starting
this game. What do you whatare you doing out there? Walsh?
I guess I got extremely lucky withthe parents, but I never had that

(51:30):
happen. But if it were tohappen to me, I would understand the
space where it was coming from intwo different ways. One, I'd understand,
well, yeah, of course that'syour son. You want the best
for your son, Like you comingup to me. It's like a head
coach arguing with an umpire. Likesome people see that and it's like,
oh, this guy's a hot head. But like people don't realize the players
of the dugouts see their head coachfighting for their guy and they're like,

(51:52):
yeah, yeah, this guy's gotour back. So now again there's always
a balance. If you're the parentthat's the he wheel that's always complaining.
And I was like, oh yeah, of course, like we get you
know, the place that it's comingfrom, but like it doesn't have to
be constant like that. But youknow, I'm the same breath. Like

(52:13):
I also see it from a sideof where if the parent is is too
involved, like you know, maybemaybe it's maybe it's up to the kid
to go up and say something becauseI know as a coach, like when
I was coaching at Aku, thatmeant the world to me. When a
player opened up and was like,hey, Connor, I'm not happy with
where I'm at, I'm like,great, I'm so happy you came to

(52:34):
me because I got a plan inplace, and it's your choice whether you
want to abide by it, whetheryou want to take the steps to get
to where you want to be,or whether you want to say I'm the
worst pitching coach in the world.And again I don't I don't know why.
I just got very lucky. Everykid that I challenged in that front
always took it as that it wasn'tlike this personal attack. It was like,

(52:55):
hey, man, I understand you'renot happy. I love the fact
that you want to get back onthe field, you want more action.
I love that. I want everyone of my pictures on my staff to
be to want to be the Fridaynight guy. Because if you come in
to me and say, hey,I'm good with throwing five innings a year,
no worries. I don't want youin my program. I want I
want wow. Exactly, yeah,exactly, Like I want the last dude

(53:16):
on the on the roster to comeup to me and say, why am
I not the Friday guy? Becauseif I got that type of competitive environment
and I got everyone pushing one another, it's a really good place to be.
Hell yeah. So we talked alittle bit about parents, and I
love what you said they're bred about, like parents are not emotionally able to
kind of get emotionally qualified, emotionallyqualified. So Connor, in your best

(53:40):
opinion as a coach, as aplayer, imagine that you're giving some advice,
someone advice, someone's driving their sonto the Prospect camp right now.
What advice would you give to aparent to make their kids better? The
question, Yeah, fuck up,tell your kids you love them, Yeah,

(54:00):
I don't want I don't want to. I don't want to lead him,
don't want to lead them. Ijust want Connor to just spit.
Just spit, dude, just spWell. I'll answer that question with a
question. I think the first questionyou should ask yourself is is what I'm
going to say going to be heard? Is it going to be taken?
Seriously? You know, if myson doesn't hit well that day and I'm

(54:24):
gonna tell him that he needs tohit better, is the response going to
be? I know, I know, because if that's the case, then
what's the point in saying it?But like, there's shock value in looking
at your son after a terrible appearanceand saying, hey, you know what,
it's gonna be all good, nowords, no words. I know
that you know what it takes tobe the best version of yourself. I

(54:45):
know that you know you didn't hityour best, But guess what we all
have those days. How are yougoing to react? How are you going
to respond? And if you putthe ball in their court, I think
there's a better chance for your son, or your daughter, or your whatever
athlete that you're talking to, there'sa better chance for them to take responsibility

(55:06):
for what just happened and want tostep up and want to get creative and
find a solution to the problem.And I think that's important for kids to
be able to do, is copewith adversity on their own mind. You
they have to be equipped to doit, but to understand that, like,

(55:27):
hey, you know, that's that'snot me, that's not my best.
That's fine. Nobody performs at theirpeak all the time. But what
are you going to do about it? How are you going to respond to
it? Who is your trust advisor? I had? I was I was
just very fortunate. I had awhole lot. I had a lot of
people that I put a lot oftrust in. And I mean I could

(55:52):
go down the list from you know, ranging from like my my legion coaches
in uh in middle school to myhigh school baseball coach to Mike Manning at
All Star Baseball Academy. I meanjust spitting names out of a cannon,
like Bob Benz was my my legiingcoach. Bob Bentz was the first dude

(56:13):
that actually taught me like the gameof baseball. My dad obviously, my
dad was always there for me.John mcgillion, my high school baseball coach
was awesome, Mike Manning was awesome. Then you get to college J.
D. Hilman, Brian Clear,like all these guys, you know,
Greg Manula, and then getting intoprofessional like there's there's so many names that

(56:37):
you know, what they said wasgold and I really did. And to
my fault, sometimes I do thisto myself, but you know, I
take so much ownership in what happenedbecause I really want to make sure that
the next time I go through thatevent, I'm better equipped. So like,
no matter what it was, andPat, I've done this with you
too at Syntas, Like there aretimes where something doesn't go my way and

(57:00):
the first call I make is toyou know, to you when I was
at nine thirty five, saying,hey, Pat, this is what happened,
Like what's my next move here?Yeap? And like my ears are
wide open because I take the perspectiveof I'm a clean slate. I know
that if I trust you and you'rean advisor of mine, like I know

(57:22):
you've been through what I've been through, so hey, help me shorten the
learning curve because I want to notonly produce for you, but like I
also want to make an impact soonerrather than later. And I don't just
want to be the pissy guy that'shanging his head saying, oh, I
don't know why no one's buying toiletpaper from me. Like I'm doing everything,
but like at the same time,like some people like I learned this

(57:43):
that you see and nobody wants yourshit. Nobody wants your shit in business,
So how are you going to connectwith people? How are you going
to put it in a way towhere And that's where you come in.
That's where Noel came in. That'swhere Court and Kay and all these people
that you know, Chad, allthese people that are like just have this
this awesome experience at Sintas and theyhave experience in the field mcdonnald before.

(58:04):
That's where you guys come into playswhere it's like, hey, I failed
today. I know you guys havefailed too, but it's also but it's
also a lot of you because youvalue that learning experience. You value that
and it's not always the case witheverybody. So that's I mean, when
you're fifteen sixteen, like you said, you're the blank slate, and you
got a lot of notes on thatslate over the years and So that's that's
pretty powerful for you, is that. Like there's a famous saying, if

(58:29):
you're the smartest guy in the room, you're in the wrong room, right,
And I think that you've always valuedHey, I want to be always
learning. Put me in the nextroom. People put me in the next
room. And so a kudos toyou too. So Brett, and I
think I cut you off there,but no, I'm just gonna say that's
why nobody's buy buying your toilet paper. Nobody wants your shit. Nice nice,

(58:52):
But but Connor, I know thatwe've kept you for a long time
and you've got some diapers to changeand everything else like that. But part
of our podcast asked us that we'vegot to we've got some some some cannon
fodder for you, just some stufffor you to get ready for. It's
called a nine for ninety, andthese things are right off the hip,
bro, So you better be readyto go. And Brett's bright. Brett's

(59:15):
got these nine questions for you tokind of uh get to know you,
right, I mean, just openup that that heart and see what's going
on. Right, So Brett's gonnabe doing our nine for ninety Brett Connor
you can be anyone you want fora day, dead or alive. Who
are you going to be? Ohman, I got so many names bounce

(59:44):
into my head right now, butI know I gotta be quick with it.
I want to be Justin Timberlake fora day. Love justin tim a
late people in the world that arealive. He's a handsome son of a

(01:00:06):
gun. That dude walks into anyroom, commands Eddy's talented. Put me
in JT's shoes for just one ofthat. Love it, love it.
Connor Connor Walls, who was themost dominant picture of all time, Nolan
Ryan, Boom, thank you,thank you yet lifetime, I the people

(01:00:30):
that we've actually had, Like youcan go back to the olden days and
talk about guys like Christy Matthew sentor Satchel Page. Sure, but we
didn't see him like in our likemodern era. Here was an absolute animal.
Here's the thing, and Connor,you can speak of this and we're
gonna probably side Barker for a minute. Nolan Ryan was throwing triple digits when

(01:00:51):
every one of them they caught caughtthe the v low at the plate.
Everybody now is catching Vello and it'sreleasing their hand right. So you guys
can probably remember, like when wewere watching games, like, oh my
god, this guy's throws so hard. He throws ninety four, and now
everyone's doing any four because they catchingthe velo coming right out of their their

(01:01:13):
fingertips. No one Ryan was throwingone hundred, one hundred and one hundred
and two crossing the plate. SoConnor like, I mean, that is
just it's what's the difference between thatthe velo coming from your fingers versus the
plate? What is there is there? Like scientific like that there's five miles

(01:01:34):
an hour there. You can youcan get really granular and say different parts
of the strike zone. There's somethingcalled perceived velocity. So like an up
and in fastball looks faster than likea down and away fastball, which leads
me to why Nolan Ryan's fastball wasdifferent than anyone else's. Nolan Ryan used

(01:01:54):
his fastball as a statement, Imean, it wasn't just a pitch,
it was it was oh yeah,I mean that fastball spoke if you were
too close to the plate, ifyou were doing something he didn't like,
like he lets you know real quick, that's my plate, that is my
box. It might be the Ribsexactly. It was the mis for sure.

(01:02:19):
Okay, here we go question three. For an entire season, you
could manage Babe Ruth, Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, or Travis Kelcey.
Which one are you choosing? Iwant to know. I want to get
inside the mind of Pete Rose,a guy that's seemingly not the most physically

(01:02:45):
gifted individual, but man, didhe know how to get it done?
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, competecompete yea, who's besides JT? Who
is your childhood crush? I don'tassuming this is a female, right,
you're gonna do j T? Who? Like? Yes? Like it was

(01:03:10):
a Spears, I mean the guyI means Britney Spears. Now, what's
so? I mean Spears was offthere? Like I'm not going to sit
here, you know, on twolegs. Let's say she wasn't in the
mix. He was absolutely so.There was a movie called Summer Catch when
I was real young with Jessicaill JailJimmy found Jessica Bill. That was that

(01:03:36):
was setting the kid cod league,right, Oh yeah, yeah, what
a great movie. You would tothrow hard to get people out? Wasn't
that the brothers dressed the advisor.He went hard and then he got to
the big and who took him?Who took him to the yard At the
end of the movie, I don'tknow Kan Garovy Junior and the old the
old beat up the w Yeah,Kan gar Vy Jr. Took it,
took him yard and summer at theend of the summer. Catch. I

(01:03:59):
need to watch that movie again.That's a good one. Okay, here
we go. Pat's going to giveyou one ticket to go back in time
to any sports event. What areyou going back to watch in person?
All right? So I just I'mobsessed with the story of miracle and what's

(01:04:24):
what's messed up is I couldn't eventell you it was again again? Was
it eighty six? I don't know. Okay, So just a story of
that, Like, are you kiddingme? I mean, talk about David
versus Goliath and you want to talkabout the metal game like that. That's
a great call. I would loveto be a fly on the wall,

(01:04:48):
or be a player, or beHerb's assistant whatever it was, Like,
I just want to be in thatmoment because I don't I don't know if
there's there's a I mean, there'sgotta be. But that's, in my
opinion, one of the most historicunderdog victories that I can think of.

(01:05:10):
So here's the thing. It wasn'tthe finals. It was only the semifinals.
Didn't they beat They still had towin the next The goal that you're
exactly all right, Michael Ruzione.I got a great story about Michael ROUZIONI.
We'll say it for another pod.Gotcha, uh, beer wine or
bourbon. I'm gonna keep my mancard and say bourbon. Got a boy

(01:05:36):
number seven, Yes, number seven. The favorite ball park you ever played
in? Hey, this this couldbe anything. It doesn't have to be
professional baseball. This could be anything. Your favorite ballpark you ever played in,

(01:05:56):
the legion ball, high school,collegeers, whatever. I came in
and blew a save at Miller Parkthat was pretty sweet. In an exhibition
game before the season started against Brewers. That was fun. That was my
only taste of a big league situation. But honestly, there is a park

(01:06:19):
right at my house called Ardorissio Park, and I would ride my bike to
baseball practice. And as I gotlike more and more ingrained in professional baseball
and all that fun stuff, like, I always missed the times to where
like I had this black Nike batbag that I had on my shoulders as

(01:06:40):
I was riding my bike to practiceafter school. Like I missed those days.
And note Racio Park didn't even havea fence. It had like a
hill going up in the woods andleft and then in right. It was
just an absolute drop off into someone'sbackyard. So I would say that was
probably my favorite part because that's whenbaseball, in my opinion, that's when
it was most fun. You're playingbaseball with your best friends. You know,

(01:07:03):
you're getting hot dogs and pizza andlemonade after the games, like I
think I was, you know,sixth seventh, eighth grade, Like that
was those are the times, Uh, that I cherished and miss the most.
Love it love it sounds like,yes, Martin, I was going
to say the same things. Soundslike Hobblerfield. Uh, the best and

(01:07:24):
the worst car you've ever owned?I don't even I don't think the first
car I owned had a name.It was given to me by my grandmother.
And when I pulled it into mydriveway in my house, the hood
started smoking and the car was totalLike I didn't even get to ride it
after that. It didn't even itdidn't have Literally, if you're looking at

(01:07:47):
the back of it, like ifyou're tailgating me and looking at the back
of it, there is no titlelabel of car. It was a car
car. So that had one ridethat was probably the worst, even though
it was, you know, agood story, the best one. But
when I had the most memories intwenty ten, Dodge of Venger, the

(01:08:11):
Silver Bullet. A lot of memoriesin that thing. Love it. Okay,
here we go, last one.We'll get you off the hot seat.
The best and worst city in theminor leagues? Oh man, all
right, So the worst city inthe minor leagues was Greensboro, North Carolina,

(01:08:38):
because I gave up a Actually Icame in for a save and the
crowd was awesome in the worst way, and they, let me hear it,
they rattle. They totally got undermy skin. I walked the bases
loaded. As I'm leaving the moumwith my tail between my legs, my
buddy comes in and gives up agrand slam to lose. Yeah. Yeah,

(01:09:01):
best minor league city that I playedin. God, I mean I
I had I had my first yearI was in Montana, so I played
in Like Grand Junction, Colorado.I played in like Ogden, Utah.
I played in I'm gonna say,I'm gonna say this and uh my buddies

(01:09:24):
heard me say, they say giggletoo. But Great Falls, Montana I
played for the Great Falls Voyagers myfirst year of pro ball, and we
were all displaced because Great Falls Montana. There's nothing but the Great Falls Voyagers.
And there's an Applebee's there too,which was awesome. But it was
the people in that city, man, the people or that I shouldn't say

(01:09:45):
the city in that area. Thepeople were awesome, the fans were awesome.
I would say Great Falls Montana hasgot to be up there with one
of my favorites. Rack them,Rack Them. Connor, for your special
guest star appearance, being the firstprofessional athlete on the podcast, you do
do win a twenty dollars gift cardto apple Lea's. Just remember this is
your friendly neighborhood bar and grill whereeverybody knows your name. So, Connor,

(01:10:13):
I think it's in the mail thatin that five hundred dollars check on
you you so uh dude, youjust absolutely rocked it out of the park.
Frecking loved every minute of this andand uh man, and I know
you as a friend and just thankyou for being a part of it.
So loved it, dude. Yeah, I could appreciate you guys anymore.
I get a little carried away talkingabout this stuff. So thanks for hearing

(01:10:34):
me out, but thanks for havingme on. Loved it, man,
loved it. Great job, Patrick, Ryan O'Connor. What a great get.
We talked. You talk about afresh perspective on on athletics and general
high school athletics and even projecting.We covered all the gamuts tonight, projecting

(01:10:59):
into recruiting and college athletics and eventhe mindset of professional athletes and college athletes.
Great job tonight. My favorite part, My favorite part of working is
I like to get there forty fiveminutes to an hour early. And Connor
lived in Fairfield, and in orderto beat the traffic, he would sometimes

(01:11:19):
get down there early and we wouldsit there for a half hour forty minutes
and we would just talk about sports. We would talk about ideology, on
leadership, and it was I lovedit. I loved it. Natural fit.
Yeah, what we do. Yeah, I could see you you were
salivating. You've been wanting to getthis for a long time. I'm sure.

(01:11:42):
And you're like, we got tofit him in, We got a
fit him in, Like and andyou know what I honestly thought of.
And I honestly thought of that parentthat was driving to their their son to
a baseball game. Yeah, that'swhat I thought of. I was like,
just that perspective, what advice youknow, could they be? So?
Yeah? And yeah to that.To that end, a lot of

(01:12:06):
athletes dread dread the car ride homewith their parents after a sports performance because
of the wrong approach, Right,does that make sense? Yeah? So
I really enjoyed the perspective of youknow, it's a very very small percentage

(01:12:28):
of the human population have the athleticability to play Division one sports, and
a much smaller to even play professionally. Right. So yeah, a lot
of parents just have this conception intheir head that that their kids going to
be a Division one athlete or Ineed to push them harder, I need

(01:12:48):
to be more of a d toget him to like understand what he has
to do or what she has todo to be the best. It's like,
no, that's not what it's about. Man, Like you're talking,
especially when you're talking about kids ina very very influential age in their lives
junior high to sophomore that age range, you can really mess a human up

(01:13:11):
by being just having the wrong approachto what you think their potential is.
It's like sports. Just relax,Martin. I I think it goes back
to what I said earlier, isthat parents are not emotionally qualified to comment
and evaluate their own children's talents.They're just not like, the best thing

(01:13:32):
you can say to a kid ifyou're a parent, in my opinion,
is man, I really enjoyed watchingyou play today exactly, and whether you
succeeded or not, if you failed, you're going to have to learn from
that. And you know you're takingthat lesson and the things that you saw
on the field and what happened today, you know, those are life lessons

(01:13:53):
that you have to learn from tobecome a better person. And if you
had success, be thankful for it, but understand you're not always going to
have it. But regardless, asa parent, I really enjoyed watching you
grow and watching you play. Ithink the things I and this is just
me speaking, but when I dropmy kids off the school, I would

(01:14:14):
tell them work hard, work hardtoday and when you pick them up,
did you get better today? Didyou give everything you had? And if
they can honestly answer that to you, then that's awesome. And you know,
no matter where you are, there'sgoing to be somebody who's better than
you, there's going to be somebodywho's worse than you. And if your

(01:14:36):
child gave a maximum effort, that'sall you can ask for. Yeah,
it truly is why as a coachand as a parent, you're always like,
you know, you're school first,Like school first? What are you
doing in the classroom first? Andthen you know this sports thing is a

(01:14:58):
besides that, Right, that's asideshow sideshows? Right? It is it?
Truly? Is it? Truly isgood podcast? Thanks for the gut.
We are on Twitter, TikTok,Insta, and YouTube. Find us
on Twitter at t f t SUnderscore podcast that stands for Tails from the
Script Underscore Podcast. Same with TikTok, TFTs Underscore Podcast, same with Insta,

(01:15:24):
TFTs Underscore podcast, and on YouTubeTales from the Script seven ats gmail
dot com. While we're at it, we want to take this opportunity to
thank our executive producer, Joe Streckerwith Joe Strecker Productions, pushing buttons,
recording, editing, and making usthree idiots sound like we know what we

(01:15:44):
are doing. No doubt, he'sthe best in the business. Also want
to thank our awesome marketing department ededup by Vice President of Marketing Liz McMahon.
She does a great job of makingsure that everything looks great for