Tag: Youth Baseball

Allie Lacey – For the Love of the Game

Allie grew up in La Crescenta, California where she started her ball career at the age of 3. Following that passion to Crescenta Valley High playing 4 seasons of Varsity softball to Pasadena City College finishing off at Cal State Northridge where she capped off her playing career with a 2015 Big West Championship. She was also able to earn a bachelors in Physical Education. She later returned to PCC to coach fastpitch for 3 seasons before pursuing and completing her Master’s Degree in Sports Management from Louisiana State University.

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Brandon Puffer – From the Bullpen to the State Pen

Brandon’s story explains how he went from reaching great heights as an MLB World Series winner to falling to the very bottom, serving 3-1/2 years in prison. He has humbly watched as everything has gotten restored in his life, and he know feels as though he is here to help others learn from his expensive lessons and show that we don’t have to let our worst mistakes define us.

After a 15-year professional baseball career, four of which were spent in the Major Leagues, Brandon had fallen to great depths and has come out on the other side with important lessons to share with those who might find themselves facing tough obstacles or set-backs in their own lives.

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Dave Clark and Doug Cornfield – Pulling Each Other Along

Pulling Each Other Along is more than just a feel-good book, it is a movement where not only our own personal achievements are recognized, but also take the opportunity to pay it forward and to recognize the person, people, or beliefs that pulled each of us along to our own relative greatness. Without this driving energy during our moments of trepidation, we would have been unlikely to achieve success.

It is too easy to let a sense of self-doubt, fear, and lack of confidence take over, and having the person or team in your corner to pull, push, get out of the way, or even drag you through those moments is absolutely invaluable.

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Joe Barth – Teaching Life Lessons through the Game

Joe and I have known each other since the early 2000’s.  For over twenty years, we were competitors on the field and friends off of the field.  Joe and I share the same coaching philosophy of teaching life lessons through the game of baseball.

Joe coached MLB All-Star, Mike Trout from the time that he was 13 years old throughout his high school career.  He not only remembers the quality of player that Mike was and his incredible work ethic, but more importantly, he remembers the quality human beings that he and his family were.

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Isaac Wenrich – Bigger than Baseball

Isaac played for me in the Berkshire Baseball organization when he was 15 and 16 years old.  He spent a total of five years in the Berkshire organization and came back as a guest speaker at the Berkshire Baseball and Softball Awards banquet in 2017.

We talk about his experience in the Berkshire organization and the impact that the organization had on his life both on and off of the baseball field.

One of the best things that Sandy and I have been able to do on this journey is reconnect to old friends and family.  However, when those connections are with my former players, I must admit, they are extremely special for me.

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It Might not have been Heaven, but it was Magical

Anyone who knows me, knows that baseball is in my blood, so to get to visit the Field of Dreams site was pretty exciting for me to say the least.

Ever since I can remember, baseball has been a part of my life.  For me, it was always about more than just the game itself.  It was the entire experience.  From seeing a perfectly groomed field before the game begins, the smell of the fresh cut grass, the sight of the perfectly straight white lines which have been applied with mastery.  Those lines and their perfect 90-degree angles.  Their contrast on the brown infield dirt and bright green outfield grass.  It is truly about as perfect of a scene that a human could create.

The hustle and bustle of the crowd, the smell of the hot dogs, peanuts, and popcorn.  All of it combined makes it so much more than just a game for me.

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Jack Graham – An Attitude of Gratitude

Jack is now the General Manager of the Aberdeen Ironbirds minor league baseball team.

The Ironbirds are a division of Ripken Baseball.  Jack and I first met back in 2015 when he was fresh out of his professional baseball career and working in sales on the amateur side of Ripken Baseball.  His hard work and dedication moved him up through the ranks and he was promoted to General Manager of the Ironbirds in September of 2019.

Jack and I have stayed connected through social media.

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Rocky McCann – Reconnecting with another Silver Bullet

This was the last podcast that I was able to do while Sandy and I were at the BFA Nationals in Aberdeen, Maryland.  She puts the explanation point on the ten amazing women that I was able to sit down with and talk to at that event.

Rocky is the third former Colorado Silver Bullet as well as the third member of Evolution Girl’s Baseball that I was able to sit down and talk with.

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Beth Greenwood – Wisdom Beyond Her Years

Beth and I first met back in 2018 when she was on a road trip from New England to Pittsburgh with mutual friends of ours, Erin Pappas and Jacque Reynolds to participate in an women’s baseball event that the Pirates were sponsoring.  On the way through, they stopped by the sports complex that I was managing at the time just outside of Reading, Pennsylvania.

It was a great visit, and Beth and I, who would have been 18 at the time and just out of high school, connected on Facebook.  Since then, I have been able to follow her journey as she became one of only seven young women to be rostered on an NCAA baseball team this past spring.

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Jennifer Hammond – Baseball is in her Blood

Jennifer literally eats, sleeps, and breathes baseball. I’m pretty sure that if you took an X-Ray of her chest, you would see a baseball beating as her heart.  At one point in her life, she said that if she could live on a baseball field, she would.  Her dream was very close to coming true when we were able to connect and talk at the Baseball for All Nationals as she was juggling her coaching duties between both the DC Force Girl’s Baseball team and the Alexandria Aces of the Cal Ripken Collegiate Summer League.

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Denae Benites – Growing with the BFA Nationals

Denae is a member of the Evolution Girl’s Baseball 19-U program as well as a member of the US Women’s National Baseball team that won the gold medal in Mexico in 2019.

Still on location at the Baseball for All Nationals, Denae has been participating in the BFA National tournament since 2016 when she played in the 2nd annual event in San Francisco.  Even at a young age, Denae understands the importance of paving the way and helping to create more opportunities for the young girl’s that will be following behind her.

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