Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hey, parents and coaches, are your kids using the right glove? The most important skill for youth athletes to learn is how to play proper catch. The problem is most youth gloves are made with bad leather and are too big for small hands. They actually make it harder to play catch. That's why former Major League Baseball shortstop Kevin Smith created Cali Gloves. Cali gloves are crafted from 100% Japanese kip leather and are the perfect size for kids.
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[00:01:10] Speaker B: welcome to this week's edition of in the Clubhouse with EMD Baseball. I'm Andy Kiri Kutis joined by my Wonderful Co host, Mr. Keith Glasser. How we doing, sir?
[00:01:18] Speaker C: Great, how are you?
[00:01:19] Speaker B: I notice you're wearing your buffalo sabre shirt. I know that it's not by accident.
[00:01:24] Speaker C: No. We got game seven tonight.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: So, you know, big game firmly on the Sabers bandwagon. And I learned shrimp. All right.
[00:01:35] Speaker C: I went to the, I went to the Lightning Sabers game when there was 8, 7 and like 47, 000 fights. It was awesome. Hockey is, I've said this for a very long time. Hockey. I love baseball.
I don't really know much about hockey other than like, you know, I know what they're doing, but it's, I think it's the best sport to watch, the best professional sport to watch live. Like it. I think you lose the speed of the game on TV versus the other ones, if that makes sense.
[00:02:02] Speaker B: No, I agree with you. I've. I've only been to a couple of them live, but I've gotten a chance to sit pretty close to the ice one time and it's a, it's, it's like an out of body experience when you can hear the, the skates and the puck hit and the sticks and the speed of it all and the physicality. I mean, it's just, it's a, it's an awesome sport. So after you get done watching for your listeners watching the Sabers game, what you really need to do is you need to start turning on the television because this is prime college baseball viewing season. We've got I think every day for the next week, there is scheduled Division 1 baseball.
The Division 3 tournament is in the Super Regional phase, the Division 2 tournament is in the Super Regional phase, and Division 1 will start the regional phase, what, a week from this Thursday?
[00:03:00] Speaker C: So, yes.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: What, what day is that, Coach?
[00:03:04] Speaker C: Class sound like the 27th, maybe around there?
So, no, it would be the 28th. 27th is the Wednesday.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: So 28th, 28th is when we'll, we'll kick off the Division 1 Regional Round Conference tournament play.
If you miss the regionals for Division 2 and Division 3.
Sorry.
It was pretty electric. There was some, some really quality baseball being played, but it's, it's that time of year and you got to find a watch, find a way to watch it, not just the Division 1 stuff. And I think that that's what's really important is that you have an opportunity to see some of these Division 3 games, some of these Division 2 games, and it paints a really good picture of the quality of play across the levels right now. I mean, but there's a kid from Claremont McKenna West Coast School, California, the lead academic institution, who was Division 3 school, who was up to 96 the other day.
Yes, I think it kind of, you know, and you go watch Denison and, you know, you go look at the arms and the velocities and the physicality of some of these teams. I think it's. I think it'll be eye opening for the average, the average follower of college baseball to see what's going on at those levels right now.
[00:04:26] Speaker C: Yeah, no, like, the, the, the regionals were really good.
I actually tuned into a handful of games. Not as much as I would have liked to.
We actually had a pretty busy weekend, so I didn't really get to watch as much as I would have liked. But of the games I did tune into, I thought that, you know, it was obviously baseball being played at a high level.
Actually, a couple of our former clients were playing in the regionals, and one of the dads texted me, was like, whoever they were playing was good. And I was like, this is the obvious statement of the year. Like, at this point in the year, everyone is good. Like, you know, but it is, like, I think that it was eye opening to him. His son's a freshman. And, you know, it was more like, wow, like there's all of these teams in this regional are super strong and really tough baseball teams. So, you know, I thought that, you know, the D3 regionals played out. I haven't watched much of Division 2 yet. But there are some, some historic or traditional, I guess, traditionally strong teams that are squaring off in the supers at the Division 2 level, which I think will be an awesome watch. And then we have conference tournament play starting for SEC, Big 12, Big 10 tomorrow, we're recording on Monday. So they start tomorrow. And then pretty much everyone else is fired up their conference tournament by Wednesday.
And lest we forget, the Patriot League started today.
[00:05:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And Yale already punched their ticket.
[00:05:51] Speaker C: Yale punched their ticket. And the Patriot League played today. The Bucknell. The Bucknell Holy Cross three game set for the Patriot League championship. So we are took down game one. So you're in it.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: Hopefully that'll be a three game match and, you know, figure out who comes out of the Patriot League. But it's just, it's, it's an awesome time of year. As a college baseball fan. Right. We've all, I think it, I think this is kind of cool and it's a little pat on the back for both of us here, but we've both played in these games and we've both coached in these games and there's, you know, whether it's conference tournament or whether it's NCAA tournament, like we've both played in it, we've both coached in it. It's a, it's a unique atmosphere. It's a heightened level of competitiveness.
There's an edge to it, there's an urgency to it.
It's a little bit of a different brand.
I've always likened college baseball to kind of a playoff style for Major League Baseball because it's condensed. But when you get into these windows where it's double elimination, you know, regional player, double elimination, conference tournament time, it, you know, you do different stuff. Guys throw on short rest and you call on guys to do different things in, you know, pinch hit in certain spots and you're shuffling lineups for matchups. It's, it's a pretty cool time of year. And I think from like a parent or a high school player's perspective, it's an opportunity to get a pretty good understanding of the level of play at these different schools. And I think what a lot of people will come away with is that the Division 3 is probably a lot better than people think.
And then I think some people are going to be blown away at how good some of the Division 2 teams are.
I think that's kind of the hidden, like the hidden gem in college baseball is, especially when you get to the top tier, Division 2, and how big and how physical and how talented and how good the baseball is that's going to be played here this upcoming week in the Supers. And you've seen that as a coach at the Division 2 level, it's big boy baseball.
[00:08:09] Speaker D: If you're the parent of a high school baseball player with college aspirations, you already know the recruiting process can feel overwhelming. Endless showcases, non stop emails and big promises with very little clarity.
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[00:09:03] Speaker C: is the place to be.
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[00:09:11] Speaker C: yeah, I mean you got Millersville. I know Millersville and Westchester are playing which just that series alone.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: Yeah, they just beat the snot out of each other to try to get to the College World Series.
[00:09:24] Speaker C: Yeah, that series alone is going to be really good. But Division 2 baseball is really good. You know, I know we've talked about this before, but I mean it, I think you're right. It is kind of the, for lack of a better term, the red headed stepchild of college baseball.
But it's, there's, there's a lot of really good baseball being played at that level. Westchester is really good. Millersville is really good.
You know, it's really tough I think to be good at that level and sustain this. I think it's tough to be good at any level but to sustain the success that these programs have been able to sustain over the last couple of years. That's why it's fun to watch like you know, and Millersville and Westchester. No, you know, they're not.
They play each other a lot.
You know, Central Missouri, Bentley punched their ticket into the supers. They're playing Malloy.
Uindy has been good the last couple years. They're playing Grand Valley State, Tampa. West Florida is probably going to be a really, really good matchup.
West Florida actually is, is jumping to the Division 1 level in the next couple years.
You know, so there's, there's a lot of really good games being played at the super regional level.
[00:10:44] Speaker B: For,
[00:10:47] Speaker C: excuse me, at the Division 2 level. So it should be fun.
[00:10:51] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I don't know if anybody follows this on Twitter, but I know Central Missouri runs out a bunch of high octane arms and they've got Augustana from South Dakota. That is traditionally been a pretty good program. Yeah, I mean there's some blue bloods for sure. Tampa and West Florida Indies won a national championship.
Bentley's on the rise. Pretty cool turnaround in that program in a couple years. That coaches staff's done a fantastic job to, to get them to where they are. And then, you know, Central Missouri is a blue blood and it seems like Millersville or Westchester, Seaton Hill or you know, Bloomsburg or Shippensburg. One of those teams out of the PSAC is going to make some noise in the College World Series and the table set for that to happen again too. So that should be a good one. And then what do we, what's the full D3 bracket here? Real quick, we'll give the listeners a
[00:11:45] Speaker C: quick Denison Piedmont
[00:11:50] Speaker B: denison with a 42 game winning streak right now.
[00:11:53] Speaker C: Yeah, it's absurd.
And I think they walked off all three games of the regional.
[00:12:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
Assist their pitching coach on the podcast.
[00:12:04] Speaker C: Yep. East Texas Baptist, Lynchburg, Claremont Mud Scripts and Hopkins Salisbury U Chicago.
And then we have Endicott Salovey, Adrian Bethany Lutheran, I believe is is who Adrian is is matched up with Rowan Randolph Macon and Messiah Baldwin Wallace.
[00:12:29] Speaker B: Interesting.
Claremont Hopkins. It's the battle of the brains right there.
East coast, west coast battle of all the smart kids. That should be a.
Oh yeah, east
[00:12:41] Speaker A: coast, west coast battle of who's the
[00:12:42] Speaker C: smartest and who's the best at baseball.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: I love it.
[00:12:47] Speaker E: Parents, if you've ever felt overwhelmed trying to navigate youth sports, there's a new resource designed just for you. TeamMatch. TeamMatch is an online platform built to streamline how families find the right youth sports teams by location, sport and skill
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[00:13:15] Speaker E: Less searching, less stress, more confidence in the process.
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[00:13:29] Speaker B: love everything about it.
But I think for, you know, for those of you guys who are listening, this is just such an awesome opportunity to go and watch some of this stuff and it's, it's not hard to track it down these days and I cannot recommend enough that you go out and, and take a look at what some of these programs at the Division 3 and at the Division 2 level offer. And then obviously you've got the, the rat race of Division 1 beginning here with the conference tournament play starting Tuesday for the broad portion of it. And then you've got the. Yale's already punched their ticket and we got Bucknell and Holy Cross teeing off. So,
[00:14:05] Speaker C: you know, it's, it's, it's, this
[00:14:07] Speaker D: is like Christmas time for college baseball.
[00:14:09] Speaker C: It's just, it's on all the time and it's awesome. Like you're going to be able to stack games tomorrow. What time are we, what time's the first bolt at Hoover?
[00:14:20] Speaker B: 9:00am It's 9 or 10:00am like, and
[00:14:24] Speaker C: they're just gonna stack until 11:30, 12:00 clock at night? Yeah, you can flip over. You can you watch and rally when they're playing the ACC tournament, Big Ten tournament's gonna kick off.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: Like, it's almost guaranteed to have a lightning delay or some sort of a storm.
[00:14:40] Speaker C: Oh, Hoover's gonna have tornado and lightning delays. Yeah, you're, it's going to be, it's going to be a nightmare. Rally's going to have rain. You're going to, it's going to be, you're going to be watching college baseball till 12:30, one o' clock in the morning.
[00:14:52] Speaker B: Oh, and if with these new tournament settings that they got with the single elimination stuff that they've gone to instead of these little round robins at the beginning of the tournament, if you're one of those bottom seeds in the SEC or the SEC who's trying to win the tournament, they're going to, there's some, there's some guys who are going to play big roles that have barely played at all this year. You know, you're going to see the 15th and 16th guy on a, you know, in the, on the pitching staff, we're going to have to get meaningful outs at some point during the conference tournament because if you're Vanderbilt and you're trying to get into this tournament, I think they got to win five games and I think it's five games in five days.
[00:15:31] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:15:33] Speaker B: So, yeah, it'll be, it'll be fun to watch. So get out there, check it out and we'll tune in and we'll talk to you guys next week. Thanks everybody.
Thank you for listening this week. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead
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