June 14, 2025 • 30 mins
We all love great comeback stories. This is one but not like you think …but not in the way you think.
Matt Antonelli was the 17th pick in the first round of the 2006 MLB draft by the San Diego . By the 2008 season, he was a top-50 prospect in baseball. But he only played 21 games in the MLB and by 2013 his professional baseball career was over. Matt says “ I’ve been called a bust so many times, I stopped caring a long time ago.” He is now a coach and business owner.
His hardest moment was the year he made my big league debut. He was a top prospect in the Padres’ organization going into the 2008 season. Matt began the season in Triple A and, for the first time in his life, he was horrible. He forgot how to hit and had no idea how to fix it.
We discussed:
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Matt Antonelli was the 17th pick in the first round of the 2006 MLB draft by the San Diego . By the 2008 season, he was a top-50 prospect in baseball. But he only played 21 games in the MLB and by 2013 his professional baseball career was over. Matt says “ I’ve been called a bust so many times, I stopped caring a long time ago.” He is now a coach and business owner.
His hardest moment was the year he made my big league debut. He was a top prospect in the Padres’ organization going into the 2008 season. Matt began the season in Triple A and, for the first time in his life, he was horrible. He forgot how to hit and had no idea how to fix it.
We discussed:
- His first big league hit against Greg Maddux.
- What the hard moments teach you and what the easy ones never could.
- Your identity must be bigger than your achievements. Why so many business owners think they are their business.
- Sometimes the greatest growth comes after letting go.
- What feels like a loss can actually be relief in disguise.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Getting ready for all the craziness of small business. It's
exactly that craziness that makes it exciting and totally unbelievable.
Small Business Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Is now on the air with your host, Barry Moultz.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Well, thanks for joining this week's radio show. Remember this
is the final word in small business. For those keeping track,
this is amazingly show number eight hundred and thirty five. Well,
we all love a great comeback story. This is one,
but not the way you think. Matt Antonelli was a
(00:37):
seventeenth pick in the first round of the two thousand
and six Major League Baseball Draft by the San Diego Padres.
By the two thousand and eight season, he was a
top fifty prospecting baseball, but he only played twenty one
games in the MLB, and by twenty thirteen, his professional
baseball career was over. Matt says, quote, I've been called
(00:58):
bust many times, carrying a long time ago. He's now
a coach and a business owner. Matt, take us. Matt,
welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Thank you. I appreciate it.
Speaker 5 (01:09):
I guess here, I.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Guess that takes so many different meetings. Welcome to the show,
because I guess that's what they used when you come
up the major.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Leagues, right, you're right?
Speaker 5 (01:17):
Or is that just or is that just in bull Durham?
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Oh No, that's real life too.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Well, So take us through this part of your life
and why you decide to talk about this and write
about it.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Yeah. Sure.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
So I think a YouTube channel that I've kind of
documented my career as a player and now as a coach,
and people always seem fascinated with this idea of a
bust being a bust, and so I've talked about it
a lot, and people seem to.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
They seem to enjoy.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
My transparency because you know, it's not easy sometimes to
talk about your failures. A lot of people talk about
their that's just so much.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
But I feel when I.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Thought into coaching, a lot of what I teach my players,
and I think what they get the most out of
is not just hearing about how well I did things
throughout my career, but you know how much I actually failed,
because baseball is a game of failure, and I think
that's a huge part of learning as a player. So
I think being able to just learn from my mistakes
(02:21):
throughout my career, you know, I had I loved playing baseball,
I learned so much from it. People think that it's
it's you know, sunshine and rainbows and all this great stuff,
which it is, but there's.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
A lot of tough times that go into it. So
I learned a lot about it.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I've been able to help a lot of people going
through my career, and so that's why I decided to
talk more about it with the athletic So talk.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Let's let's talk about the highlights first, right, because sometimes
when you talk about the bust, you forget about the
good times, right, tell us about some of the good times.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Yeah, So baseball has given me an awful lot.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
I was able to go to Wake Forest and play
baseball there and get a great education, and get a
scholarship and meet great people and.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Learn so much. And a lot of what I what
I learned there.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I've taken with me throughout my my playing career and
my my professional career now is owning a business and
being a coach and a dad and all that, and so, yeah,
I had a great opportunity to go there. Was was
fortunate enough to get drafted in the first round, something
that I had really worked for my entire life ever
since I was probably you know, probably fifteen, I decided
(03:32):
I wanted to play major League baseball. And even before
then when I was I was a kid, you know,
when I was eight, nine, ten years old and people said,
what do you want to do when you grew grow up?
I said, I want to you know, play Major League
baseball or I want to play in the NHL. Those
were like my two goals. And I was lucky enough,
even though it wasn't a super long career, I was
lucky enough to fulfill, you know, my dream that I.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Had as a little kid, right.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
And get that far exactly, And so you know, I
had an eight year professional career, and you know, I
was lucky I got I got drafted high and you know,
financially that really you know.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Helped set up myself for the future as well. So
you know, the hard work paid off in that regard.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
But just being able to spend those eight years of
playing professional baseball and learning so much. I love the
game of baseball. It's what I'm going to do for
the rest of my life now that I'm in coaching, and.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
So I learned so much.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I had great coaches, met great people, made a lot
of great friends, and fulfilled my dream.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Of playing major League baseball. I'll never forget the you know,
playing in my first game and would have felt like
to play in front of a big league crowd, and.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Was fortunate enough to have my first hit, my first
step bat against Greg Maddocks as a Hall of Famer,
So at least I got that to uh to brag about.
There was a lot of great things that came from it.
And and I do baseball every day. I got into
college coaching when I got out of playing, and now
I run my own travel pro.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
And I just love it.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
I love I love every day waking up and being
able to help people and be around the game. And
so there was a ton of good things that came
from baseball. My life has literally revolved around it since
I was young, and I hope that it continues to
revolve around it all the way until you know, I'm
eyighte ninety years old, until I can't do it anymore.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
Well, well, I do have a Greg Maddox story.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
So in the nineteen eighties, when I worked for IBM
in Chicago, IBM had a box, right and you know,
we used to invite customers to it and it's kind
of as a perk to the customers, we will invite
a player up to the box afterwards, you know, to
sign autographs and things like that. And so in his
first year, we paid Greg Max five hundred dollars to
(05:44):
come and meet the customers later, right, and he brought it.
We had rookie cards and he signed them. I started
dating this woman named Sarah, who now I've been married
to for thirty four years. He signed the rookie card
and I thought, I'm going to give it to her,
you know, kind of impress her. Right, she put on
a refrigerator and then months later I realized she threw
it away because she didn't know who Greg Mannix was.
So I had a Greg Mannix rookie card sign but
(06:07):
you know, no longer, no longer. So you know, it's
obviously so hard to you know, play baseball, play the
miners get called up the major League. When my younger,
when my sons played baseball in grade school, there was
a kid that was so much better than everybody else.
His father played in the minor leagues. He was back
(06:28):
up for Brooks Robinson never got called up because Brooke
wasn't going anywhere. And we thought this kid, he's definitely
going to the major leagues.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
And I'm like, no, this is really hard.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
He goes to Michigan, plays all four years and never
even gets drafted.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
So this is how hard this is.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
And this kid was like ten times better than any
other kid out there on the field.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Yeah, yeah, it is. It is incredibly hard.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
One thing I will say is that you never you
never really know who's going to make it.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
It's funny, you know, I coach ages.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
I coached eight year olds all the way up into
you know, guys that played professionally, and people try to
label players at all crazy ages. I hear, you know,
twelve year old parents talking to me and they'll say,
you know, you think he has what it takes to
make the major leagues, and you know, one it's it's amazing.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
And one story that sticks with me when I got drafted.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
They asked my thirteen year old coach about me and said,
you know, did you see this back then? You know,
would you have seen him getting drafted? And and he
was very honest and he said, honestly, if I had
to pick a player that was gonna, you know, get
drafted and play in the major leagues, it would not
it would not have been made. No, wouldn't have been made. So,
(07:42):
you know, there's so much. There's so much that goes
into it. Obviously, there is a level of talent that
you have to have, but you have to have a
work ethic that you know, I had to work extremely,
extremely hard at it. And there's a lot of players
that dedicate their lives and work extremely hard at it,
and you know, they might only play high school ball.
So you do have to have a great work ethic.
(08:06):
There's a lot of.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Luck that goes into it as well.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
You know, I think of so many different decisions I
had to make from you know, which college I attended.
I chose Wake Forest and everything worked great for me.
I stepped in and I had a starting role from
the beginning and it just worked out. And if I
had chosen a different school, maybe I get stuck behind
a player and I don't develop the same way, and
you know, the story is different. I got drafted out
(08:30):
of high school and I chose not to sign with
the Dodgers. If I had signed with them, my career
could have gone totally different.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
You have injuries.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
There's so many things that that happened to players, and
so you know, all I know is that you've got
to you've got to have some talent, you've got to
have a really great work ethic. It doesn't guarantee anything,
but at least it gives you. It gives you a shot.
And I was just fortunate enough that, you know, it
worked out for me. But you know, I always in
(08:58):
the major leagues. I envisioned that I was going to
have like a ten to fifteen year career there and
then and then it went the other way. So you
never really know what's going to happen.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
So in the article I read about you in the
New York Times Athletic, you talk about some of the
lessons that you kind of learned, you know, along the way,
and you say the hard moments teach you that what
the easy ones never could tell us about. When you
got called, when you got finally into triple A.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
What was that like?
Speaker 3 (09:22):
You said that you got to triple A in the
first time in your life. You were horrible.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Yeah, yeah, So I had never struggled my entire life.
I don't want to say everything came easy, because I
did work hard, but everything just always kind of worked out.
I always, you know, I hit well and all the
way through high school, and you know, I went to
college and I started right away, and you know, I
(09:48):
won a bunch of awards and got drafted high and
then I get to the minor leagues and I just
kind of fly through the system. I hit well at
every level, and I get promoted. You know, within my
second year, I'm already at Triple A. I'm a top prospect.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
And then it's actually still hard to.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Kind of pinpoint exactly what happened, but I, you know,
I guess, to put it bluntly, I just forgot how
to hit.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
I something happened with my swing.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Then your confidence starts to get eroded a little bit.
And you know, before I knew it. In the article,
I said I was the worst, you know, worst player
in Triple A. And I'm pretty sure I was. I
was hitting one's fifty, I think.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
And so you go from basically at this point, I
think I was twenty I just turned twenty three. So
for the prior, you know, fifteen years of my career,
I was always pretty much, you know, one of the
best players on my team.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
And now I'm I'm the worst player in the league.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
And that takes a toll on you mentally, and you
have to I think you learn a lot about yourself
when when you struggle, you got to figure out, you know, uh,
you got to take a nice heart, look in the
mirror and and and try to find out what it
is that's that's stopping you from being successful. And you
go through a whole bunch of different emotions. You know,
I was frustrated and angry, but that.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Didn't really help me. And and then you get you know,
you're humbled.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
You learn about mental toughness and kind of having to
grind through that and try to figure out, really, you know,
what do I have to do to be successful? And
so I had to kind of go back to the
drawing board for the first time and and pretty much
my entire life, and I had to learn more about,
you know, myself and my swing. And I started to
study the game of baseball and hitting mechanics really for
(11:39):
the first time.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
I'd always just kind.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Of grabbed the bat and swung, and you know, other
than the advice that like my dad gave me when
I was young, it just, you know, seemed like anytime
I swung, I did well.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
And until I did it, and so I.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Learned I learned more about hitting mechanics, which has really
actually helped me a ton in my my next profession
as a coach. And yeah, I think dealing with failure
is the big thing. It takes a mental toll on you.
I talked about in the article. And I don't think
a lot of people realize this, that there's a lot
of pressure around players and we a lot. You know,
you get it from the outside, but you also put
(12:12):
on yourself because you know, you really are dedicating, you know,
a majority of your life to try to get to
the major leagues and when things aren't going well like
that crushes most players mentally, at least it did for me.
I struggled a lot with that and I had to
learn how to kind of deal with that.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
And I think.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Learning how to do that now that I've gotten older,
like when things are hard or you know, I don't
you know, maybe don't get a job I want, or
something goes against me and just doesn't go my way,
I've already kind of dealt with that and learned how
to deal with it and learned how to battle through it,
and you know, so it definitely helped, but it was
not easy. I'll say that a lot of sometimes. You know,
(12:51):
when I talk about in the article, it sounds like
it was very.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
Easy, but it was. It was hard.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
It was it took a toll on me. And you know,
I had my I was with my wife at the time,
and she helped me get through it too. So I
think it's important to have people around you. I can
kind of help you as well.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
But so that's some people listen to this will say
they don't really understand. You've been hitting the ball for
fifteen years, right, how do you all of a sudden forget?
I mean, I know that I interviewed someone a while back,
was one of the Olympics team, and they were talking
about they get the yips, you know, all of a
sudden they can't do something that they've been doing their
entire life. In retrospect or as you teach other kids.
(13:25):
How does that happen?
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Yeah, so that's a great question, and.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I've thought about that for a really, really long time.
I think it happened slowly, and I honestly can't really.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Tell you exactly how it did happen.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
I'll say this, I think when you're really good at
something and it comes natural to you, you don't know
why you're good at it. And so when I was hitting, well,
if somebody said to me, you know, why were your
first round pick, how are you hitting three hundred and
how are you hitting all these home runs and everything,
all I could tell you was, oh, I just I
(14:07):
literally I swing the back natural natural, It's just natural.
I see the ball, I hit the ball. That's why sometimes,
like the best players are not they make the worst coaches,
because you know, when they when someone asked you, you know,
how do you do that? You don't know how you
do it?
Speaker 4 (14:22):
You just do it.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
And so that's where it was difficult, because when I
struggled and everybody said, well, Matt, just go back to
doing what you did before, and I always would say,
I don't know what I was doing before, Like.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
I just did it.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
And so that's what makes it really, really tough. And
I think that's why I said, that's why it made
me a better coach, because then I actually had to say, Okay,
I have I have no idea why this is happening.
I have to figure it out. And so we looked
into the mental side of things. I mean, they they
sent me to everybody, they sent me to every coach
(14:59):
they had. They sent me to you know, I was,
I was talking to a psychologists. I was, I was
doing everything and so and I really started to look
at the swing for the first time. I got lucky
and had a It was actually a former teammate of
mine that I had in the lower miners. He was
an older player, and so he saw me when I
(15:21):
was at my best and when I got the Triple
A and was struggling. He had been I think he
signed with another team, but we randomly traded for him,
like halfway through my Triple A season when I was
playing horribly.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
And he he was the first one that came up
to me and he said, what did you do to
your swing?
Speaker 2 (15:37):
And I said I don't know, and he said, I need,
I need to help you because you look totally different.
He was the first person that really we broke down swing.
We became roommates. We broke down my swing. He showed
me my he was looking at my old swing, my
new swing. He was showing me what like the best
players in the league were doing. He taught me things
I'd never ever heard before. And and I owe a
(16:01):
lot to him because I got called up that year.
I was having the worst year of my career. In
the last month, he got something to click for me
and I hit I think three hundred and I hit
you know, I think I doubled my home run total
just in that one month, and I got called up
because of it. So he taught me a ton and
I wish I could say that, you know, it was
(16:22):
going to stick with me and carry on. But the
hard thing about baseball is like it can come and
go very quickly. As good as I felt that month,
you know, you start making a few tweaks and things
here and there, and now you kind of lose it again.
And the last thing I'll say on this, and this
is something I've actually talked to Major league teams about,
is that one thing in my career is you have
(16:43):
sometimes you have so many coaches and so many people
that want to help that they're all telling you these things,
and you can kind of get lost. You know, you
have one coach tell you, you know, try this, this
worked for me, I think this will work for you,
And then another coach comes over to you and says, well,
try this. I mean, I think I think this would
for you, And so you end up trying all these
things and before you know it, you kind of forget
(17:05):
like how you were doing anything. And that happened to
me a little bit as well. So that's I've given
that advice to a lot of players. It's like, you
got to really learn what works for you. You have to
know yourself and sometimes you have to You can't listen
to everybody. You got to find out like who can
really help you and who can't, and kind of filter
that out. And that's something I had to learn as
(17:26):
I got older too.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
And but but you did get called up and you
got your first hit off of Greg Maddox. When that happened,
you must have felt, this is it after all these
years I've arrived.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yes, it felt you know, it was a little bit cheating.
I got my hit off Greg Maddux when you was
probably like almost forty years old. So like you know,
at that point in your career, it still counts. I
won't I know, I don't tell I try not to
tell anyone that.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
But that's your first hit. Like you got your first hit.
It doesn't matter really who's off of, right, So you
got your first hit in the.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Majors, first hit.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
I mean, I I've said I got to first base
and I said, man, this, you know, this isn't hard.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
This is I'm gonna get.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
You know, three thousand of these things like this is
I'm twenty three years hits.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
That's what I That's what I felt like.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
And then I, honestly, I think it was over twenty
three I went after that. So you know, you can
go from feeling like on top of the world to
them not wanting to go to the ballpark because you
can't buy a hit. That's how quickly it can go.
And you know, I feel for a lot of players.
I watched so many players now, and you know, one
(18:35):
second they'll say this, this guy is the next greatest thing,
and then all of a sudden, a month later, they're
hitting you know, a buck eighty and they'll say, well,
this player is horrible. I mean, it's just like a
roller coaster for so many players.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
It's such a.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Hard it's such a hard game that even the best
players we see they go into over twenty oh for
thirty slumps. But you know, they're able to stick with it.
They're good enough to be able to battle their way
through it and get back to doing the things that
made them six.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
You know, being a Chicago foot Cubs fan. You know,
we're talking about Pete crow Armstrong like that now, right,
like he's the guy, he's the guy. But we'll see
if it, you know, lasts, you know, more than you know,
a third of a season. I thought it was interesting
in the article you said that when you're drafted in
the first round, people label you as top prospect, the
next star, the future of the organizations.
Speaker 5 (19:19):
It's easy to let these labels define you.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Whoever, when the results don't match the height, it leaves
you questioning yourself. And I think that a lot of
small business owners they do tie their identity to how
successful they are, their achievements, how successful their business is.
How do you not do that, because I think it
hurts a lot of small business owners.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Yeah, that's a that is a great question. I did
learn that to try to separate what I do as
a baseball player with who I am.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
As a person off the field. You know. I mentioned
in there that.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
When I used to meet people while I was playing,
you know, and I would I'd be introduced to a lot
of people as the baseball player. Like that was kind
of like me for most of my life, or you know,
my parents would introduce me to someone and they think, oh,
he's the baseball player, and so you know, it can
be really easy to just kind of get labeled with
what you do or you know, like you said, you know,
(20:18):
the first hole, he's the first round pick, and or
he's the major you know, the next major league allster
all this stuff.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
And so.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Because because Matt, it's aspirational for most of us. Most
of us always have the dreams of being a first
round pick. So actually meeting someone that is it actually
helps us. Does that make sense, like like you're aspirational
for us?
Speaker 4 (20:39):
Absolutely? Absolutely, so I I totally get that.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
And I think, you know, I think for me, like
because I was called that so much and then you know, wasn't.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
That I learned and kind of dealt with that at
a young age.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
I was probably you know, twenty three, twenty four when
I was struggling, and so you know, I learned the
heart way to try to separate the baseball me from
the every other part of life me. And and it's
the same thing and for me now as like as
a business owner, as a coach, you know, I coached,
(21:14):
I coached college, and I've coached high school for a
long time, and you know, you have good seasons, you
have bad seasons.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
You know what.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
We've had seasons where we were amazing and everyone said
I was, you know, I'm such a great coach, and
then we've had tougher seasons where people say, you know,
you're you're a.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
Terrible coach and so like, but I'm I'm the same coach.
You know I'm not.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
So I've tried to learn that, you know, good things
will happen, bad things will happen.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
The same thing with my business.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
With Antonoi Baseball, We'll have players that will go on
and you know play. We've had players drafted and signed
for millions of dollars and people say like, wow, you're amazing,
and then the next day we can have a player that's,
you know, thirteen years old and struggling and their parents
tell me I'm terrible and that I don't know what
I'm doing. So you're always kind of dealing with it.
I try to live in the middle and try to
(22:04):
not be on the roller coaster, like the highs and
the lows. That's one thing I think baseball teachers as well,
is to try to just be be consistent and kind
of worry about you know, the process and not so
much the results. And like, am I am I giving
my best effort to the players? Am I doing everything
I can to help them succeed?
Speaker 4 (22:22):
You know that?
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Again, that's kind of my business with baseball and coaching
is just you know, am I giving everything I can
to all of our players to help them? And it
doesn't mean they're all going to be successful because it's
a hard game, and you know business is hard as well.
But if I'm doing my best, then you know, that's
all I can really control. And so I try to
like ignore all the outside stuff and the labels and
(22:45):
all that. And I guess I kind of you know,
I learned that as a player, and I just kind
of take it in to, you know, the next part
of my life.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Now, Matt, you talk about an important part of this
whole thing is letting go, and that's really important in
business because so many times we just kind of fester
on the stuff, We have pity parties, we just can't
get past it. And you say that failure taught me
that success isn't always linear and it's not always fair.
Speaker 5 (23:08):
What does that mean to you?
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (23:11):
So again, you can work it, You can do everything right,
and you can still lose. Like I, you know, I
dedicated so much time as a player.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
And like everything that went into my day was dedicated
to being successful.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
So you know, when you're a and I don't think
everyone realizes this as well, Like when you're a player,
Like from the time you wake up, at least for me,
from the time I woke up to the time I
went to bed, I'm constantly thinking about, Okay, what do
I do next to make me better? What do I
you know, I get the right amount of sleep, I
make sure that I eat and drink the proper foods
to be ready for the game. I get to the ballpark,
(23:49):
you know, hours before people realize that. I take care
of my body. I go through my routine, I get
my practice, and I watch my video and then you know,
you do all of this stuff as well as you
possibly can, and then you go over four with three strikeouts,
and and so it I guess it teaches you that
just because you do.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
Do everything right and.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
You know you're working as hard as you can and
you have a plan all these things, it doesn't mean
that you're going to be successful.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
And that's why I meant it.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
You know, it's not linear, and like you think you're
gonna do all this and it's going to help you out,
and you're gonna you're gonna do.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Great and sometimes it works.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Sometimes you do all that stuff and you have a
great day at the office, and sometimes you have a
terrible day. So I guess that's why I feel like
I always kind of come back to like, if you
do those things, I feel like more often than not,
it will help you. Whether it's going to help you
the next day, I don't know, but I do think
it will help you at some point down the road,
(24:49):
whether it's a week.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
A month, a year later.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
You know, you don't know exactly when the when the
success will happen, or the lessons you learn from like
all those things will will eventually, you know, be fulfilled.
But I just think that all the things that I
did as a player, following the process and those habits
that I developed, I think those are the things that
kind of will help you out at some point in
(25:12):
your life.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
Again, I don't know when it will.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Have when it will help you out, but eventually it will,
And so I feel like it has for men.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
You know, It's interesting because I think that sometimes quitting
is the hardest part, or knowing when to quit. There's
this whole express that says, when you find yourself in
a hole, the first thing you have to do is
stop digging.
Speaker 5 (25:31):
How did you know it was time to quit? You know? Baseball?
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Yeah? That well, I got a little bit.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Lucky that I that that I was going to coach
one day, Like I like baseball was what I really
really loved. And that's one thing I did learn throughout
this process as well, is that I really do love
the game, and I of you know, I love coaching
and helping other players, and you know, I helped players
(26:06):
navigate the process of being a player. I love the
things that baseball kind of teaches you as a person,
and you know, the work ethic and discipline and teamwork,
and you know how to deal with failure and having
mental toughness and how to be coached. But all these
like lessons that you learn. I've always enjoyed helping others
(26:29):
and teaching others, So I knew I was going to
be a coach even when I was a player. So
it probably made it a little bit easier for me
at the end to say, you know, there is another
kind of chapter in my life that I know that
I'm at least I think I'm going to really enjoy
and I've gotten lucky and I have loved doing it.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
So that did help me.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
But as much as I say that, I mean I
tried to hang on and I did try.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
To keep playing.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
I went through multiple surgeries. I had three risk surgeries,
a hand surgery. You know, I was really banged up,
and I kept trying to get myself good enough to play,
and I guess I just came down to the point
where I realized that I couldn't play at the level
that that I needed to to play at the major leagues,
and and so you know, it was it was difficult,
(27:21):
but I just knew that it was time to move
on to the next part of my life, which was coaching,
and I had kind of been preparing for that.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
I could kind of tell the last few years of
my career, I wasn't playing as well.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
I wasn't really the player I was earlier. I wasn't
super old. I was only kind of my high twenty.
But you know, when you get injured a lot, not
only does the injury kind of affect you, but the
lack of you know, when you're in a in a
cast for you know, six to eight weeks at a time,
you just lose development. You're not you know, you're not
able to do what everyone else is continuing to get better,
(27:58):
and you're kind of you can't really do And that
happened to me multiple years in a row. And so
I just kind of, I guess self, reflected on all
that and said, I am not the I'm not the
player I once was, and that probably made it a
little bit easier too. And you know, I decided to
move on and get into coaching and I've loved it.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Well, man, I really appreciate you being on the show.
Tell me where people can catch up with you if
you want to learn more about your journey.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
Yeah. Sure.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
So the biggest thing is probably on our YouTube channel,
So antonel A Baseball I've documented I started doing this
a while ago.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
I've documented basically.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
My entire journey through the minor leagues, through the major leagues,
through coaching. So anyone that's interested in like learning more
about like not just my story, but the lessons that
I've learned.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
And you know, I've.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Really tried to document as much as possible to help
people out so our Antlie Baseball YouTube channel is a
good spot and then they can also email me Matt
at Antonia Baseball dot com if they have questions about anything.
I'm always trying to help people.
Speaker 5 (29:03):
I'm waiting for the book to come out.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
So I actually when I got drafted, a couple.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Of people approached me about my book, which wouldn't have
been actually a very good book because it would have
just been about all the all the successful.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
All the great stuff, right, yeah, all the great stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
So I think now maybe a book would be better now.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
But we'll see.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
I'm not the best writer in the world, but maybe
one day I will write something.
Speaker 5 (29:29):
Well, there's always AI and chat GPT, so you.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
Know that is true.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Thanks for joining us, and I want to thank everyone
for joining this week's radio show, our incredible staff, our
booking producer Sarah scheffern Our Sounded, or Ethan Moltz. If
your serious, I'll be more successful in twenty twenty five.
Give me a call up, set up a private line
seven seven three eight three seven eight two five zero,
or email me at barri at Moltz dot com. Remember
love everyone, trust a few, and pal your own canoe
(29:57):
have a profitable and passionate week.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
You can find Barrymltz on the web at Barrymoltz dot com,
or more episodes of Small Business Radio at Small Business
Radio Show dot com.
Getting ready for all the craziness of small business. It's
exactly that craziness that makes it exciting and totally unbelievable.
Small Business Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Is now on the air with your host, Barry Moultz.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Well, thanks for joining this week's radio show. Remember this
is the final word in small business. For those keeping track,
this is amazingly show number eight hundred and thirty five. Well,
we all love a great comeback story. This is one,
but not the way you think. Matt Antonelli was a
(00:37):
seventeenth pick in the first round of the two thousand
and six Major League Baseball Draft by the San Diego Padres.
By the two thousand and eight season, he was a
top fifty prospecting baseball, but he only played twenty one
games in the MLB, and by twenty thirteen, his professional
baseball career was over. Matt says, quote, I've been called
(00:58):
bust many times, carrying a long time ago. He's now
a coach and a business owner. Matt, take us. Matt,
welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Thank you. I appreciate it.
Speaker 5 (01:09):
I guess here, I.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Guess that takes so many different meetings. Welcome to the show,
because I guess that's what they used when you come
up the major.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Leagues, right, you're right?
Speaker 5 (01:17):
Or is that just or is that just in bull Durham?
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Oh No, that's real life too.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Well, So take us through this part of your life
and why you decide to talk about this and write
about it.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Yeah. Sure.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
So I think a YouTube channel that I've kind of
documented my career as a player and now as a coach,
and people always seem fascinated with this idea of a
bust being a bust, and so I've talked about it
a lot, and people seem to.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
They seem to enjoy.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
My transparency because you know, it's not easy sometimes to
talk about your failures. A lot of people talk about
their that's just so much.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
But I feel when I.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Thought into coaching, a lot of what I teach my players,
and I think what they get the most out of
is not just hearing about how well I did things
throughout my career, but you know how much I actually failed,
because baseball is a game of failure, and I think
that's a huge part of learning as a player. So
I think being able to just learn from my mistakes
(02:21):
throughout my career, you know, I had I loved playing baseball,
I learned so much from it. People think that it's
it's you know, sunshine and rainbows and all this great stuff,
which it is, but there's.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
A lot of tough times that go into it. So
I learned a lot about it.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I've been able to help a lot of people going
through my career, and so that's why I decided to
talk more about it with the athletic So talk.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Let's let's talk about the highlights first, right, because sometimes
when you talk about the bust, you forget about the
good times, right, tell us about some of the good times.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Yeah, So baseball has given me an awful lot.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
I was able to go to Wake Forest and play
baseball there and get a great education, and get a
scholarship and meet great people and.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Learn so much. And a lot of what I what
I learned there.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I've taken with me throughout my my playing career and
my my professional career now is owning a business and
being a coach and a dad and all that, and so, yeah,
I had a great opportunity to go there. Was was
fortunate enough to get drafted in the first round, something
that I had really worked for my entire life ever
since I was probably you know, probably fifteen, I decided
(03:32):
I wanted to play major League baseball. And even before
then when I was I was a kid, you know,
when I was eight, nine, ten years old and people said,
what do you want to do when you grew grow up?
I said, I want to you know, play Major League
baseball or I want to play in the NHL. Those
were like my two goals. And I was lucky enough,
even though it wasn't a super long career, I was
lucky enough to fulfill, you know, my dream that I.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Had as a little kid, right.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
And get that far exactly, And so you know, I
had an eight year professional career, and you know, I
was lucky I got I got drafted high and you know,
financially that really you know.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Helped set up myself for the future as well. So
you know, the hard work paid off in that regard.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
But just being able to spend those eight years of
playing professional baseball and learning so much. I love the
game of baseball. It's what I'm going to do for
the rest of my life now that I'm in coaching, and.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
So I learned so much.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
I had great coaches, met great people, made a lot
of great friends, and fulfilled my dream.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Of playing major League baseball. I'll never forget the you know,
playing in my first game and would have felt like
to play in front of a big league crowd, and.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Was fortunate enough to have my first hit, my first
step bat against Greg Maddocks as a Hall of Famer,
So at least I got that to uh to brag about.
There was a lot of great things that came from it.
And and I do baseball every day. I got into
college coaching when I got out of playing, and now
I run my own travel pro.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
And I just love it.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
I love I love every day waking up and being
able to help people and be around the game. And
so there was a ton of good things that came
from baseball. My life has literally revolved around it since
I was young, and I hope that it continues to
revolve around it all the way until you know, I'm
eyighte ninety years old, until I can't do it anymore.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
Well, well, I do have a Greg Maddox story.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
So in the nineteen eighties, when I worked for IBM
in Chicago, IBM had a box, right and you know,
we used to invite customers to it and it's kind
of as a perk to the customers, we will invite
a player up to the box afterwards, you know, to
sign autographs and things like that. And so in his
first year, we paid Greg Max five hundred dollars to
(05:44):
come and meet the customers later, right, and he brought it.
We had rookie cards and he signed them. I started
dating this woman named Sarah, who now I've been married
to for thirty four years. He signed the rookie card
and I thought, I'm going to give it to her,
you know, kind of impress her. Right, she put on
a refrigerator and then months later I realized she threw
it away because she didn't know who Greg Mannix was.
So I had a Greg Mannix rookie card sign but
(06:07):
you know, no longer, no longer. So you know, it's
obviously so hard to you know, play baseball, play the
miners get called up the major League. When my younger,
when my sons played baseball in grade school, there was
a kid that was so much better than everybody else.
His father played in the minor leagues. He was back
(06:28):
up for Brooks Robinson never got called up because Brooke
wasn't going anywhere. And we thought this kid, he's definitely
going to the major leagues.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
And I'm like, no, this is really hard.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
He goes to Michigan, plays all four years and never
even gets drafted.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
So this is how hard this is.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
And this kid was like ten times better than any
other kid out there on the field.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Yeah, yeah, it is. It is incredibly hard.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
One thing I will say is that you never you
never really know who's going to make it.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
It's funny, you know, I coach ages.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
I coached eight year olds all the way up into
you know, guys that played professionally, and people try to
label players at all crazy ages. I hear, you know,
twelve year old parents talking to me and they'll say,
you know, you think he has what it takes to
make the major leagues, and you know, one it's it's amazing.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
And one story that sticks with me when I got drafted.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
They asked my thirteen year old coach about me and said,
you know, did you see this back then? You know,
would you have seen him getting drafted? And and he
was very honest and he said, honestly, if I had
to pick a player that was gonna, you know, get
drafted and play in the major leagues, it would not
it would not have been made. No, wouldn't have been made. So,
(07:42):
you know, there's so much. There's so much that goes
into it. Obviously, there is a level of talent that
you have to have, but you have to have a
work ethic that you know, I had to work extremely,
extremely hard at it. And there's a lot of players
that dedicate their lives and work extremely hard at it,
and you know, they might only play high school ball.
So you do have to have a great work ethic.
(08:06):
There's a lot of.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Luck that goes into it as well.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
You know, I think of so many different decisions I
had to make from you know, which college I attended.
I chose Wake Forest and everything worked great for me.
I stepped in and I had a starting role from
the beginning and it just worked out. And if I
had chosen a different school, maybe I get stuck behind
a player and I don't develop the same way, and
you know, the story is different. I got drafted out
(08:30):
of high school and I chose not to sign with
the Dodgers. If I had signed with them, my career
could have gone totally different.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
You have injuries.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
There's so many things that that happened to players, and
so you know, all I know is that you've got
to you've got to have some talent, you've got to
have a really great work ethic. It doesn't guarantee anything,
but at least it gives you. It gives you a shot.
And I was just fortunate enough that, you know, it
worked out for me. But you know, I always in
(08:58):
the major leagues. I envisioned that I was going to
have like a ten to fifteen year career there and
then and then it went the other way. So you
never really know what's going to happen.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
So in the article I read about you in the
New York Times Athletic, you talk about some of the
lessons that you kind of learned, you know, along the way,
and you say the hard moments teach you that what
the easy ones never could tell us about. When you
got called, when you got finally into triple A.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
What was that like?
Speaker 3 (09:22):
You said that you got to triple A in the
first time in your life. You were horrible.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Yeah, yeah, So I had never struggled my entire life.
I don't want to say everything came easy, because I
did work hard, but everything just always kind of worked out.
I always, you know, I hit well and all the
way through high school, and you know, I went to
college and I started right away, and you know, I
(09:48):
won a bunch of awards and got drafted high and
then I get to the minor leagues and I just
kind of fly through the system. I hit well at
every level, and I get promoted. You know, within my
second year, I'm already at Triple A. I'm a top prospect.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
And then it's actually still hard to.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Kind of pinpoint exactly what happened, but I, you know,
I guess, to put it bluntly, I just forgot how
to hit.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
I something happened with my swing.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Then your confidence starts to get eroded a little bit.
And you know, before I knew it. In the article,
I said I was the worst, you know, worst player
in Triple A. And I'm pretty sure I was. I
was hitting one's fifty, I think.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
And so you go from basically at this point, I
think I was twenty I just turned twenty three. So
for the prior, you know, fifteen years of my career,
I was always pretty much, you know, one of the
best players on my team.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
And now I'm I'm the worst player in the league.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
And that takes a toll on you mentally, and you
have to I think you learn a lot about yourself
when when you struggle, you got to figure out, you know, uh,
you got to take a nice heart, look in the
mirror and and and try to find out what it
is that's that's stopping you from being successful. And you
go through a whole bunch of different emotions. You know,
I was frustrated and angry, but that.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Didn't really help me. And and then you get you know,
you're humbled.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
You learn about mental toughness and kind of having to
grind through that and try to figure out, really, you know,
what do I have to do to be successful? And
so I had to kind of go back to the
drawing board for the first time and and pretty much
my entire life, and I had to learn more about,
you know, myself and my swing. And I started to
study the game of baseball and hitting mechanics really for
(11:39):
the first time.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
I'd always just kind.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Of grabbed the bat and swung, and you know, other
than the advice that like my dad gave me when
I was young, it just, you know, seemed like anytime
I swung, I did well.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
And until I did it, and so I.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Learned I learned more about hitting mechanics, which has really
actually helped me a ton in my my next profession
as a coach. And yeah, I think dealing with failure
is the big thing. It takes a mental toll on you.
I talked about in the article. And I don't think
a lot of people realize this, that there's a lot
of pressure around players and we a lot. You know,
you get it from the outside, but you also put
(12:12):
on yourself because you know, you really are dedicating, you know,
a majority of your life to try to get to
the major leagues and when things aren't going well like
that crushes most players mentally, at least it did for me.
I struggled a lot with that and I had to
learn how to kind of deal with that.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
And I think.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Learning how to do that now that I've gotten older,
like when things are hard or you know, I don't
you know, maybe don't get a job I want, or
something goes against me and just doesn't go my way,
I've already kind of dealt with that and learned how
to deal with it and learned how to battle through it,
and you know, so it definitely helped, but it was
not easy. I'll say that a lot of sometimes. You know,
(12:51):
when I talk about in the article, it sounds like
it was very.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
Easy, but it was. It was hard.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
It was it took a toll on me. And you know,
I had my I was with my wife at the time,
and she helped me get through it too. So I
think it's important to have people around you. I can
kind of help you as well.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
But so that's some people listen to this will say
they don't really understand. You've been hitting the ball for
fifteen years, right, how do you all of a sudden forget?
I mean, I know that I interviewed someone a while back,
was one of the Olympics team, and they were talking
about they get the yips, you know, all of a
sudden they can't do something that they've been doing their
entire life. In retrospect or as you teach other kids.
(13:25):
How does that happen?
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Yeah, so that's a great question, and.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I've thought about that for a really, really long time.
I think it happened slowly, and I honestly can't really.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Tell you exactly how it did happen.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
I'll say this, I think when you're really good at
something and it comes natural to you, you don't know
why you're good at it. And so when I was hitting, well,
if somebody said to me, you know, why were your
first round pick, how are you hitting three hundred and
how are you hitting all these home runs and everything,
all I could tell you was, oh, I just I
(14:07):
literally I swing the back natural natural, It's just natural.
I see the ball, I hit the ball. That's why sometimes,
like the best players are not they make the worst coaches,
because you know, when they when someone asked you, you know,
how do you do that? You don't know how you
do it?
Speaker 4 (14:22):
You just do it.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
And so that's where it was difficult, because when I
struggled and everybody said, well, Matt, just go back to
doing what you did before, and I always would say,
I don't know what I was doing before, Like.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
I just did it.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
And so that's what makes it really, really tough. And
I think that's why I said, that's why it made
me a better coach, because then I actually had to say, Okay,
I have I have no idea why this is happening.
I have to figure it out. And so we looked
into the mental side of things. I mean, they they
sent me to everybody, they sent me to every coach
(14:59):
they had. They sent me to you know, I was,
I was talking to a psychologists. I was, I was
doing everything and so and I really started to look
at the swing for the first time. I got lucky
and had a It was actually a former teammate of
mine that I had in the lower miners. He was
an older player, and so he saw me when I
(15:21):
was at my best and when I got the Triple
A and was struggling. He had been I think he
signed with another team, but we randomly traded for him,
like halfway through my Triple A season when I was
playing horribly.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
And he he was the first one that came up
to me and he said, what did you do to
your swing?
Speaker 2 (15:37):
And I said I don't know, and he said, I need,
I need to help you because you look totally different.
He was the first person that really we broke down swing.
We became roommates. We broke down my swing. He showed
me my he was looking at my old swing, my
new swing. He was showing me what like the best
players in the league were doing. He taught me things
I'd never ever heard before. And and I owe a
(16:01):
lot to him because I got called up that year.
I was having the worst year of my career. In
the last month, he got something to click for me
and I hit I think three hundred and I hit
you know, I think I doubled my home run total
just in that one month, and I got called up
because of it. So he taught me a ton and
I wish I could say that, you know, it was
(16:22):
going to stick with me and carry on. But the
hard thing about baseball is like it can come and
go very quickly. As good as I felt that month,
you know, you start making a few tweaks and things
here and there, and now you kind of lose it again.
And the last thing I'll say on this, and this
is something I've actually talked to Major league teams about,
is that one thing in my career is you have
(16:43):
sometimes you have so many coaches and so many people
that want to help that they're all telling you these things,
and you can kind of get lost. You know, you
have one coach tell you, you know, try this, this
worked for me, I think this will work for you,
And then another coach comes over to you and says, well,
try this. I mean, I think I think this would
for you, And so you end up trying all these
things and before you know it, you kind of forget
(17:05):
like how you were doing anything. And that happened to
me a little bit as well. So that's I've given
that advice to a lot of players. It's like, you
got to really learn what works for you. You have to
know yourself and sometimes you have to You can't listen
to everybody. You got to find out like who can
really help you and who can't, and kind of filter
that out. And that's something I had to learn as
(17:26):
I got older too.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
And but but you did get called up and you
got your first hit off of Greg Maddox. When that happened,
you must have felt, this is it after all these
years I've arrived.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yes, it felt you know, it was a little bit cheating.
I got my hit off Greg Maddux when you was
probably like almost forty years old. So like you know,
at that point in your career, it still counts. I
won't I know, I don't tell I try not to
tell anyone that.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
But that's your first hit. Like you got your first hit.
It doesn't matter really who's off of, right, So you
got your first hit in the.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Majors, first hit.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
I mean, I I've said I got to first base
and I said, man, this, you know, this isn't hard.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
This is I'm gonna get.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
You know, three thousand of these things like this is
I'm twenty three years hits.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
That's what I That's what I felt like.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
And then I, honestly, I think it was over twenty
three I went after that. So you know, you can
go from feeling like on top of the world to
them not wanting to go to the ballpark because you
can't buy a hit. That's how quickly it can go.
And you know, I feel for a lot of players.
I watched so many players now, and you know, one
(18:35):
second they'll say this, this guy is the next greatest thing,
and then all of a sudden, a month later, they're
hitting you know, a buck eighty and they'll say, well,
this player is horrible. I mean, it's just like a
roller coaster for so many players.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
It's such a.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Hard it's such a hard game that even the best
players we see they go into over twenty oh for
thirty slumps. But you know, they're able to stick with it.
They're good enough to be able to battle their way
through it and get back to doing the things that
made them six.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
You know, being a Chicago foot Cubs fan. You know,
we're talking about Pete crow Armstrong like that now, right,
like he's the guy, he's the guy. But we'll see
if it, you know, lasts, you know, more than you know,
a third of a season. I thought it was interesting
in the article you said that when you're drafted in
the first round, people label you as top prospect, the
next star, the future of the organizations.
Speaker 5 (19:19):
It's easy to let these labels define you.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Whoever, when the results don't match the height, it leaves
you questioning yourself. And I think that a lot of
small business owners they do tie their identity to how
successful they are, their achievements, how successful their business is.
How do you not do that, because I think it
hurts a lot of small business owners.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Yeah, that's a that is a great question. I did
learn that to try to separate what I do as
a baseball player with who I am.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
As a person off the field. You know. I mentioned
in there that.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
When I used to meet people while I was playing,
you know, and I would I'd be introduced to a lot
of people as the baseball player. Like that was kind
of like me for most of my life, or you know,
my parents would introduce me to someone and they think, oh,
he's the baseball player, and so you know, it can
be really easy to just kind of get labeled with
what you do or you know, like you said, you know,
(20:18):
the first hole, he's the first round pick, and or
he's the major you know, the next major league allster
all this stuff.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
And so.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Because because Matt, it's aspirational for most of us. Most
of us always have the dreams of being a first
round pick. So actually meeting someone that is it actually
helps us. Does that make sense, like like you're aspirational
for us?
Speaker 4 (20:39):
Absolutely? Absolutely, so I I totally get that.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
And I think, you know, I think for me, like
because I was called that so much and then you know, wasn't.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
That I learned and kind of dealt with that at
a young age.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
I was probably you know, twenty three, twenty four when
I was struggling, and so you know, I learned the
heart way to try to separate the baseball me from
the every other part of life me. And and it's
the same thing and for me now as like as
a business owner, as a coach, you know, I coached,
(21:14):
I coached college, and I've coached high school for a
long time, and you know, you have good seasons, you
have bad seasons.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
You know what.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
We've had seasons where we were amazing and everyone said
I was, you know, I'm such a great coach, and
then we've had tougher seasons where people say, you know,
you're you're a.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
Terrible coach and so like, but I'm I'm the same coach.
You know I'm not.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
So I've tried to learn that, you know, good things
will happen, bad things will happen.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
The same thing with my business.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
With Antonoi Baseball, We'll have players that will go on
and you know play. We've had players drafted and signed
for millions of dollars and people say like, wow, you're amazing,
and then the next day we can have a player that's,
you know, thirteen years old and struggling and their parents
tell me I'm terrible and that I don't know what
I'm doing. So you're always kind of dealing with it.
I try to live in the middle and try to
(22:04):
not be on the roller coaster, like the highs and
the lows. That's one thing I think baseball teachers as well,
is to try to just be be consistent and kind
of worry about you know, the process and not so
much the results. And like, am I am I giving
my best effort to the players? Am I doing everything
I can to help them succeed?
Speaker 4 (22:22):
You know that?
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Again, that's kind of my business with baseball and coaching
is just you know, am I giving everything I can
to all of our players to help them? And it
doesn't mean they're all going to be successful because it's
a hard game, and you know business is hard as well.
But if I'm doing my best, then you know, that's
all I can really control. And so I try to
like ignore all the outside stuff and the labels and
(22:45):
all that. And I guess I kind of you know,
I learned that as a player, and I just kind
of take it in to, you know, the next part
of my life.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Now, Matt, you talk about an important part of this
whole thing is letting go, and that's really important in
business because so many times we just kind of fester
on the stuff, We have pity parties, we just can't
get past it. And you say that failure taught me
that success isn't always linear and it's not always fair.
Speaker 5 (23:08):
What does that mean to you?
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (23:11):
So again, you can work it, You can do everything right,
and you can still lose. Like I, you know, I
dedicated so much time as a player.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
And like everything that went into my day was dedicated
to being successful.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
So you know, when you're a and I don't think
everyone realizes this as well, Like when you're a player,
Like from the time you wake up, at least for me,
from the time I woke up to the time I
went to bed, I'm constantly thinking about, Okay, what do
I do next to make me better? What do I
you know, I get the right amount of sleep, I
make sure that I eat and drink the proper foods
to be ready for the game. I get to the ballpark,
(23:49):
you know, hours before people realize that. I take care
of my body. I go through my routine, I get
my practice, and I watch my video and then you know,
you do all of this stuff as well as you
possibly can, and then you go over four with three strikeouts,
and and so it I guess it teaches you that
just because you do.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
Do everything right and.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
You know you're working as hard as you can and
you have a plan all these things, it doesn't mean
that you're going to be successful.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
And that's why I meant it.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
You know, it's not linear, and like you think you're
gonna do all this and it's going to help you out,
and you're gonna you're gonna do.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Great and sometimes it works.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Sometimes you do all that stuff and you have a
great day at the office, and sometimes you have a
terrible day. So I guess that's why I feel like
I always kind of come back to like, if you
do those things, I feel like more often than not,
it will help you. Whether it's going to help you
the next day, I don't know, but I do think
it will help you at some point down the road,
(24:49):
whether it's a week.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
A month, a year later.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
You know, you don't know exactly when the when the
success will happen, or the lessons you learn from like
all those things will will eventually, you know, be fulfilled.
But I just think that all the things that I
did as a player, following the process and those habits
that I developed, I think those are the things that
kind of will help you out at some point in
(25:12):
your life.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
Again, I don't know when it will.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Have when it will help you out, but eventually it will,
And so I feel like it has for men.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
You know, It's interesting because I think that sometimes quitting
is the hardest part, or knowing when to quit. There's
this whole express that says, when you find yourself in
a hole, the first thing you have to do is
stop digging.
Speaker 5 (25:31):
How did you know it was time to quit? You know? Baseball?
Speaker 4 (25:38):
Yeah? That well, I got a little bit.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Lucky that I that that I was going to coach
one day, Like I like baseball was what I really
really loved. And that's one thing I did learn throughout
this process as well, is that I really do love
the game, and I of you know, I love coaching
and helping other players, and you know, I helped players
(26:06):
navigate the process of being a player. I love the
things that baseball kind of teaches you as a person,
and you know, the work ethic and discipline and teamwork,
and you know how to deal with failure and having
mental toughness and how to be coached. But all these
like lessons that you learn. I've always enjoyed helping others
(26:29):
and teaching others, So I knew I was going to
be a coach even when I was a player. So
it probably made it a little bit easier for me
at the end to say, you know, there is another
kind of chapter in my life that I know that
I'm at least I think I'm going to really enjoy
and I've gotten lucky and I have loved doing it.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
So that did help me.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
But as much as I say that, I mean I
tried to hang on and I did try.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
To keep playing.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
I went through multiple surgeries. I had three risk surgeries,
a hand surgery. You know, I was really banged up,
and I kept trying to get myself good enough to play,
and I guess I just came down to the point
where I realized that I couldn't play at the level
that that I needed to to play at the major leagues,
and and so you know, it was it was difficult,
(27:21):
but I just knew that it was time to move
on to the next part of my life, which was coaching,
and I had kind of been preparing for that.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
I could kind of tell the last few years of
my career, I wasn't playing as well.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
I wasn't really the player I was earlier. I wasn't
super old. I was only kind of my high twenty.
But you know, when you get injured a lot, not
only does the injury kind of affect you, but the
lack of you know, when you're in a in a
cast for you know, six to eight weeks at a time,
you just lose development. You're not you know, you're not
able to do what everyone else is continuing to get better,
(27:58):
and you're kind of you can't really do And that
happened to me multiple years in a row. And so
I just kind of, I guess self, reflected on all
that and said, I am not the I'm not the
player I once was, and that probably made it a
little bit easier too. And you know, I decided to
move on and get into coaching and I've loved it.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Well, man, I really appreciate you being on the show.
Tell me where people can catch up with you if
you want to learn more about your journey.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
Yeah. Sure.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
So the biggest thing is probably on our YouTube channel,
So antonel A Baseball I've documented I started doing this
a while ago.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
I've documented basically.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
My entire journey through the minor leagues, through the major leagues,
through coaching. So anyone that's interested in like learning more
about like not just my story, but the lessons that
I've learned.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
And you know, I've.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Really tried to document as much as possible to help
people out so our Antlie Baseball YouTube channel is a
good spot and then they can also email me Matt
at Antonia Baseball dot com if they have questions about anything.
I'm always trying to help people.
Speaker 5 (29:03):
I'm waiting for the book to come out.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
So I actually when I got drafted, a couple.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Of people approached me about my book, which wouldn't have
been actually a very good book because it would have
just been about all the all the successful.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
All the great stuff, right, yeah, all the great stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
So I think now maybe a book would be better now.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
But we'll see.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
I'm not the best writer in the world, but maybe
one day I will write something.
Speaker 5 (29:29):
Well, there's always AI and chat GPT, so you.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
Know that is true.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Thanks for joining us, and I want to thank everyone
for joining this week's radio show, our incredible staff, our
booking producer Sarah scheffern Our Sounded, or Ethan Moltz. If
your serious, I'll be more successful in twenty twenty five.
Give me a call up, set up a private line
seven seven three eight three seven eight two five zero,
or email me at barri at Moltz dot com. Remember
love everyone, trust a few, and pal your own canoe
(29:57):
have a profitable and passionate week.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
You can find Barrymltz on the web at Barrymoltz dot com,
or more episodes of Small Business Radio at Small Business
Radio Show dot com.
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