Episode Transcript
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[00:01:10] Speaker B: welcome to this week's edition of in the Clubhouse with EMD Baseball.
[00:01:14] Speaker C: I'm Andy Kirakutis, joined by my Wonderful Co host, Mr. Keith Glasser. How we doing, sir?
[00:01:18] Speaker A: Great.
[00:01:19] Speaker D: How are you?
[00:01:20] Speaker C: Good. Hopefully we got our technical difficulties sorted out ahead of this recording.
Me and you've been on the road last couple weeks pretty consistently out watching guys play. And today's topic is we wanted to talk about some of the recent parent behavior we've seen and, and kind of double down on a conversation that we've had in the past around how it can negatively impact not only your son's performance, but potentially his recruiting process.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: So
[00:01:55] Speaker C: I'm gonna give a. A story from a recent, recent game that I was at to kind of, kind of frame up some of the stuff that we're talking about. But young man was throwing pretty talented little kid, 20, 28, and he's, you know, kind of struggling a little bit, a couple errors behind him and.
But, you know, for the most part, throwing pretty well.
And kid bunts a ball, he comes off the mound, makes a really nice play, tags the runner down the first baseline because he came off the mound pretty hard and spins to throw behind the runner who is on second base, which was actually pretty high IQ play. Kid was wheeling and if the throw had been on the money, it would have been a close play, you know, potentially would have got the guy out. But he kind of dumped the throw, threw it up the line a little bit and, you know, tried to make a really tough play and didn't work out. And immediately upon the ball kind of hitting the fence a little bit of a Scramble ensued.
The father of this young man yelled loud enough for me, probably 50ft away from him to hear, just get him
[00:03:11] Speaker E: out of the game.
[00:03:13] Speaker C: And in that moment I said, you know what, we're going to need to talk about this on the podcast because seeing some stuff in recent weeks where, you know, that, that one sticks out, but parents talking really negative about umpires and being a little bit too conversive on some stuff that I think that just kind of needs to be. Be put to bed here and a little bit disappointing to see some adults handle themselves the way that I've seen them handle themselves in, in recent weeks here.
What I will caveat this with is that it is a small percentage of parents, I wouldn't say this is rampant in terms of all types of parents are acting crazy, but there seems to be, there seems to be at least one at every game that catches my eye. And I think to myself, man, if they could just enjoy their kid playing.
I think I come at this from two different angles. One is just doing something that puts your son in a bad spot in terms of coaches are there and they see you act and do something that, that was irresponsible.
I think that's a bad look. But I think the other thing too is I think these kids see and hear a lot more than we think.
And it's hard enough to go out and perform, especially when, you know, there's potentially pressure to, to play well, to get recruited and to, to know that mom or dad could be down the left field line acting crazy. You know, I don't think that that helps the kid's situation and gives them the ability to go out there and compete and, and just kind of enjoy themselves in the moment.
So that's where, that's where my head's at at this is, is I think that parents need to be very mindful of how they behave and doesn't mean that you don't cheer, it doesn't mean that, you know, you're not emotionally involved in the game. But I think trying to keep it positive and, and certainly lay off the umpires, don't need to get in it with the other parents or the other team, which I've seen happen too, and just try to be there for your son or your daughter. You know, this goes across all types of sports and be there, be supportive and let them go out and play and be a fan instead of a crazy parent.
[00:05:38] Speaker E: Yeah. What do you think those car rides are like?
[00:05:46] Speaker C: Probably. Probably not at all. Probably all that, not all that enjoyable for for the young men who are sitting in the passenger seat, or maybe, maybe they get relegated to the backseat if they don't play well, but I can't imagine that those are all that enjoyable.
[00:06:00] Speaker E: Some of the behavior, right, like, man, like, you're going to walk now. You know, I, I think that it needs to be said that in these types of scenarios and situations, you know, your, you have to keep in mind as a parent that you're being recruited, you know, not as heavily as your son or your daughter, but, you know, if you're, if there's red flags from a mom and dad standpoint, that's.
That can be a detriment to your son's recruiting process at certain schools.
You know, I think one of the things that my wife, my wife likes to use the saying is, you know, is the juice, juice worth the squeeze?
And coaches are going to ask themselves that when it comes to our mom and dad going to be an issue, especially in, you know, 2026, where, you know, if people who think they know everything there is to know about baseball and, you know, if I'm a coach and trust me, this happened when I was coaching, you know, these scenarios play out in my head of like, okay, I've seen, you know, this parent be demonstrative towards umpires, towards his child, towards, you know, the coach, things like that. Like, that's not something I want to deal with because the reality is when you show up on campus, the likelihood of you being a guy who's going to start right away is not that high.
There's going to be a developmental gap between you as a freshman and freshman, or, you know, other sophomores, junior seniors on that team.
You know, this isn't to say that, that freshmen don't play. They do. Like, we talk about it all the time, you know, but the higher likelihood is that there's some semblance of a development gap for you to be able to get in the lineup right as, right away as a freshman. And then are you going to be emailing my boss every day, tell him that I don't know what I'm doing and your son should be playing and you've seen enough baseball when you know, this is my career and you've never coached baseball, so you don't have any idea? You know, I don't want to deal with that. I want to coach my team.
I want to be surrounded by kids who want to be there and parents that are going to support their kids along their baseball career. I don't want to deal with parents that are going to be emailing my boss because, you know, they think their son should be in the lineup over someone else.
And then it breeds negativity in your program, right? Like you're probably telling your son that your son's gonna, you know, they're drinking the Kool Aid. Then like now they're miserable, they don't want to be there. Like I'm probably gonna tell you halfway through the year, just give me your uniform and take a hike, we'll see you later. Because it's not worth being around.
And those things have happened plenty of times over the course of recruiting. It doesn't matter if it's baseball or softball or lacrosse or football. Doesn't matter. Right.
You know, and the reality is in the recruiting process with where we're at nowadays, you know, you can find a similar player that doesn't have any red flags from a parent or guardian standpoint.
I'll take that kid.
And that's a reality. And like, it might be a hard pill for you to swallow and realize, but like that's the truth that somebody, you know, we do this, you know, we, we have our own clients that we work with and you know, one of the first things that, you know, we, we kind of do the same thing, right? But like one of the first questions that college coaches ask after we get through the, like, can he play for us? And we get into the character piece, like, how's mom and dad?
Are they supportive? Are they going to be an issue? Like what are those? Like that question gets asked all the time. It is a actual question that college coaches are interested in the answer. Because if the answer is I think dad's going to be an issue, like we're probably going to pass on this one.
And that's true, you know, so it's something, you know, and it's, it's so unbecoming.
The.
You're yelling at an umpire over balls and strikes. Like, if you're that good at it, then you take up a part time job as being an umpire and get on the field to make some extra bucks if you're that good at it.
What are we doing?
We're in pool play in the middle of July yelling at home plate umpires like, what, what, what world are we living in that that is a normal behavior that we're going to do. And like, you probably think that the umpire is screwing your son out of an opportunity to be able to be recruited by a college coach when the reality is college coaches pay attention and know all of these Things.
We know that the zone is tight. We know that the zone is huge. We know that that ball that he struck out on was six feet outside. I want to see what his reaction is. We talk about it on this podcast all the time. What does your body language look like when, when, when things are going bad?
That's when I can figure out who you are as a kid.
I know it. I can see it with my own eyes. This is what I do for a living. I know that ball you can't hit.
I get it. But now you've probably just crossed your son off the list because you lost your mind because you thought that it was the umpire's fault.
And generally speaking, it now gives the kid the freedom to start going back at the umpire, which, like, yo, I don't want that either.
So you just crossed yourself off the list because you were mad about a strike three call. Not having the real, the self awareness to know that we all knew it was a ball.
We knew it in the first inning when we were watching the balls and strikes being called. Like, yeah, this zone is going to be pretty wide today. And this is a pretty big zone on these kids. We know it, Sulee.
[00:11:44] Speaker A: Just.
[00:11:45] Speaker E: Just take it. Yeah, you probably don't like it, but you know what? We know what's going on. I'd rather see your son strike out on a pitch that he can't hit and go back to the dugout and get prepared to go back out on the field and turn the page onto the next step at. Not yell at the umpire. Listen to you yell at the umpire. Like, yeah, man, I'm done. We'll see you never.
Like, and that's a reality that happens all the time and you might not realize it. And then you're going to get to the, you know, you're going to get to August, September and be like, I don't know why no one wants to recruit my son. Like, I have a pretty good idea.
Have you seen your act outside the fence? Like, it's is egregious to watch.
Like, no one wants to deal with that.
There's plenty of players out there that are good enough that have parents that are not going to act that way.
[00:12:34] Speaker C: No way. It helps the kid performing.
[00:12:37] Speaker E: No, and it doesn't help the kid perform. Like, at what point? Again, like, to my original question, like, what do you think those car rides are? Like, you know, at some point, though,
[00:12:47] Speaker C: like,
[00:12:50] Speaker E: and this is, this is where I think. I don't even want to say there's a disconnect but at some point there's, you know, there has to be some semblance of coaching going on. The.
You're not gonna, I'm not gonna say you're not gonna learn it from your parents, but like, this is where the coaching of the team you're on has to. There has to be some something there of like, hey, this is what really matters. These are the things that you need to do in order to improve all of the noise outside the fence.
It's a detriment to what you're doing on the field.
So we need to figure out something to work for you. But no, it's not going to help the kid. Like, you know, this is a pressure packed process to begin with, you know, and we're just adding more and more pressure to it and then probably at the end not being aware enough to say, like, I'm part of the problem, right? Like, I'm, I'm adding more pressure to this than there needs to be because I'm acting like a buffoon outside the fence, yelling at anyone that'll listen.
And no, it's not going to teach accountability. It's not going to teach, you know, toughness and fighting through adversity.
This game is hard enough. And I think we've been at this for over 300 plus episodes. And it bothers me because the.
It. They're kids and they have to learn something through the game. And if there's anything like, this game is about failure. You're gonna fail in life. It is hard.
Even the best in the world.
And it's cliche. I mean, not nowadays because everyone hits like 240, but like, the best in the world. You're hitting three. You know, you, you're failing seven out of ten times.
And people are like, that guy's pretty good. Look at him again. I used to say this to you guys at RPI. Like, you knock down a 30 on a math test, no one's walking in to be like, hey, Andy, I saw you get that 30 on the math test. You think you could sit down and teach me your ways? Like, no, no one's doing that. You go out there and hit 350 for the season, people, and be like, yo, dude, can we talk hitting? Like, it's pretty good. Like, how do you do that?
It's completely backwards to anything that we think from a success standpoint. But in order to get to be that good, you have to, you have to go through the, like, you have to be bad, you have to fail. You have to figure out how to pull yourself up, you have to figure out how to work. There's a lot of things that you have to do in order to find success in it. And we're, we negate it immediately when we start blaming everyone else for the problem, whether it's the umpire or the coach or the other players on the team or whatever the hell it is. I don't know, but I've seen enough of this over the years where it's just like, you know, at what point can we look in the mirror and be like, you know what? Maybe I'm part of the problem here.
The lack of self awareness there. And then we wonder why some young men that we recruit that show up on campuses don't have any self awareness to why they're not playing.
Because you haven't had any, you know, you haven't been taught self awareness. You haven't taught that this is hard. You haven't been taught that, like, you're gonna have to work.
And, you know, I think it snowballs. And I'm probably making gross generalizations on everything that I'm saying right now, but I've seen it enough over 20 years of being involved in college baseball that it's, it happens a little bit more than you think, you know, So I, it's, you know, I just think that there's, there's better ways to go about doing it and being a, an advocate for your son in the process and, you know, by, by not, you know, being demonstrated outside and, you know, bringing the, the wrath of God on your son in the car ride on the way home. And, you know, I get it, it's expensive, man. Like, it is. I, I understand that side of things, but at the same time, like, no one's going to be able to play well if we're getting pressure from ourselves, from our parents, from our coaches, like at some point we just got to go out and play. And adding all of the other stuff into it, I think is a powder keg for disaster.
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[00:18:57] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't, I don't have much more to add to that. Just be a parent. Just be supportive and show up and enjoy watching your kid play. For vast majority of parents who are watching their kids play at 14, 15, 16, you, whatever it is, I mean the reality is most those kids aren't going to play in college. Like just enjoy watching them play and enjoy watching them have fun playing baseball. Like I always come back to this and I watch this, I watch this play out with guys who ended up making it close to the top of this game.
And as soon as it isn't fun, it's over.
And that goes for young kids. If your son is 15 or 16, you and it's not fun for him to show up.
The dream of college is gone. Like eventually they're just not going to want to do it. And a really quick way to make it not fun is to be the, the parent who embarrasses their kid or is loud and obnoxious at a game and isn't there just to support them and make sure that they have what they need and they're there on time and that they're out there with their teammates and they're enjoying the fun part of it. Like, I promise you will get a better result from your son or daughter if that's an approach you take.
Because they'll have the freedom to go and play without worrying about exactly what you talked about. Keith, all the noise and all the BS that's going on. They can just play and they can just enjoy it. And I'm as competitive as anybody else out there.
Winning is important.
You should compete your butt off to win.
But kids need to have fun and enjoy showing up first and then they can go and compete when the ball gets thrown or when the whistle gets blown or whatever sports you're in. Right? But they have to enjoy putting on that uniform. They have to enjoy showing up. As soon as it's not fun, the dream's over.
[00:21:03] Speaker E: Yeah, I mean, I think it's just, it's true and we talk about it on here all the time and we'll probably do this again in another future podcast very soon. But 92 to 93% of people aren't going to play college baseball.
Like, you know, enjoy watching your kid play at the highest level that they could possibly play at. And if it ends up being high end travel league baseball, then awesome. If it ends up in Division 3 baseball, great juco, Division 1 doesn't matter. But you know, the reality is it's, you know, if 7 to 8% of people are going to go do it, it's already difficult.
And then you got to figure out how to get in front of these guys and then you got to figure out, you know, navigate what school is going to be the fit. Like this is already a super pressure packed and tough process to begin with on your own.
What school fits me? What type? What do I want to major in? What's the coaching staff like? Do I fit in with the kids?
You know, there's a whole hell of a lot of questions that you got to figure out through this process. And if it's, you know, you're getting a ton of noise in the car and from outside the fence on the, when you're there, like it's not going to make it enjoyable to where it's like, yeah, I don't want to continue to do this or it's just going to make it exponentially more difficult because, you know, you don't really know what you want.
And then on the flip side, it's going to make it more hard because the coaches that are, you know, are recruiting, you have a giant red flag next to your name about whether or not they even want to go down that road.
And that's, it's probably, you know, there's probably some people, and I hope there are some people who are listening to this who have some self reflection and say, like, I wonder.
But it's the reality. You and I have seen it and we're not the only ones. There's plenty of coaches out there that have seen this and I would hate to, I'd hate to be the father that was A detriment to my son's recruitment because of how I acted in a game that I'm not playing in, nor has any real consequences on anything that goes on in my life.
Like most games that you're going to watch your son play, they have zero consequences to anything that happens in your life.
[00:23:18] Speaker C: It makes me sad, Keith, and I don't want to be sad. So if you're one of the parents who listens to this and have that moment of reflection, do it.
[00:23:26] Speaker E: I mean, do it for me.
[00:23:27] Speaker C: I don't want to be sad.
[00:23:29] Speaker A: No.
[00:23:29] Speaker E: Grab yourself a nice little arctic tumbler here. You know, maybe throw something in there.
You know, not saying do anything crazy,
[00:23:41] Speaker C: but, hey, just relax and have fun
[00:23:44] Speaker E: and maybe grab a hot dog at the turn.
You know, chill.
[00:23:51] Speaker C: Just enjoy it.
Do it for the right reasons. And don't be. Don't try not to be that parent.
Everybody will thank you for it, including us. Preemptive thank you on making changes.
[00:24:05] Speaker E: A bunch of parents will want to talk to you afterwards.
[00:24:07] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:24:09] Speaker E: And maybe even invite you out for a.
An adult beverage.
Applebee's, was it?
[00:24:15] Speaker C: What are the new deals that happened? Two for 22.
[00:24:18] Speaker E: I don't know. I haven't been doing Applebee's in a year.
[00:24:21] Speaker C: Just get yourself some Applebee's snack and tizers, whatever they call them these days.
[00:24:26] Speaker E: But I'd like to think at 40, I. I'm a little bit more
[00:24:31] Speaker C: cultured, if you will.
Hi.
I'll resist the urge.
All right, well, thank you for listening, everybody. Hopefully that was at least thought provoking
[00:24:45] Speaker B: for some of the folks who are listening.
We'll talk to you next week. Thanks, everybody.
[00:24:50] Speaker C: Thank you for listening this week.
[00:24:51] Speaker B: If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and smash that like button for us. Check us out on Apple Podcasts, Google podcasts, as well as Spotify. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram MD Baseball. If you want to find out what me and Keith do to help families and players navigate the recruiting process, go ahead and check us out on emdbaseball.com take a few minutes to to check out our new online academy. I promise you'll get some good information out of that. Thanks again for listening. Check in with you next week.
