# Episode 14 - GenZ Series: Abdel

- Podcast: GenX Adulting Podcast
- Published: 2025-01-07T01:00:00.000Z
- Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2398379/episodes/16393459-episode-14-genz-series-abdel.mp3
- Page: https://genxadultingpodcast.com/transcripts/podcasts/genx-adulting-podcast/episodes/episode-14
- Source: https://genxadultingpodcast.com/episodes/genxadultingpodcastepisode14.html
- People: Brian Barker (host), Nicole Barker (host), Abdel (guest)
- Topics: GenZ

## Summary

In Episode 14 of the GenZ Series, Abdel discusses his unique experience as a Zillennial, bridging the gap between Gen Z and Millennials. He shares insights on growing up with and without technology, the impact of social media on youth, and his journey in the baseball industry, including his current role with the Milwaukee Brewers.

## Key takeaways

- Abdel identifies as a Zillennial, born in 1997, experiencing both a tech-free childhood and a tech-savvy adolescence.
- He emphasizes the privilege of growing up without social media, which helped reduce feelings of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).
- Abdel's journey in baseball began with internships, leading to his current role with the Milwaukee Brewers.
- He highlights the importance of hard work and persistence in achieving career goals, especially in a competitive field like sports.
- Abdel discusses the significance of mental health resources for young athletes in professional sports.
- He notes the increasing international competition in baseball, particularly from players in the Dominican Republic.
- Abdel believes that humility and self-awareness are crucial traits for success in any career.

## FAQ

### What is a Zillennial?

A Zillennial is a micro-generation that falls between Gen Z and Millennials, typically born in the late 1990s. They experienced a childhood without technology and an adolescence with it.

### How has social media impacted youth today?

Social media has amplified feelings of FOMO among young people, making them acutely aware of what they might be missing out on in real-time, unlike previous generations.

### What is Abdel's role with the Milwaukee Brewers?

Abdel works as a tech assistant with the Milwaukee Brewers, focusing on game preparation, player development, and utilizing technology to enhance player performance.

### What advice does Abdel give for pursuing a career in sports?

He emphasizes the importance of hard work, persistence, and being proactive in seeking opportunities, as well as maintaining humility and self-awareness.

### How do major league teams support young international players?

Teams invest in developing young international players by providing resources for their growth, including language training, cultural assimilation, and mental health support.


## Referenced links

- [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EOI9GDNWAQ)
- [Listen on Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-14-genz-series-abdel/id1764838823?i=1000682948339)
- [Listen on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/3N6v5GDITXgDzh7HOBpX5q)
- [Listen on Buzzsprout](https://www.buzzsprout.com/2398379/episodes/16393459-episode-14-genz-series-abdel)

## Transcript

[Music]
Welcome to GenX Adulting and
today we have Abdel with us.
And I'm trying to figure out what
generation you're
representing. What year were you born?
I think I've been trying to figure that
out as well. I'm 97 and I think that's
great at the cutoff.
Okay, so yeah, you are the last Gen Z,
but you're part of a micro
generation called Zillennials.
So Zillennials are a small group that's
in between Gen Z and Millennial, even
though you're officially a Gen Z.
But you guys had a very unique experience
of having a good part of your childhood
without technology, without a phone,
without social media.
And then the second part of your
childhood, I'm guessing
probably early high school.
The floodgates just opened.
Snapchat, phones,
MySpace I think, or Facebook.
MySpace was a little before my time.
Right, that's more Millennial.
Facebook I didn't have.
Facebook, and you guys used Facebook.
And that was like, that's where everyone
knew what was going on.
Right, that was like, so
you guys had both experiences.
Sure.
You had that traditional
childhood of no technology.
And then you have experienced technology
before you became an adult.
Right.
And then there's other just unique
experiences to this little micro
generation that you guys
can all relate to each other.
So even to kids and their adults in their
early 20s, you guys probably don't
totally relate to a lot of
what they've gone through.
But then people in their mid 30s, you
guys aren't totally like there yet.
So you're just that kind of in between
kind of in limbo, kind of in limbo.
You're the Zillennials.
So but you are Gen Z, but you're
literally the last ones.
Well, that's good that
there's some kind of term for that.
I did have that thought before where it's
like, what makes that cut off?
You know, like, yeah, can it be relative
to because I am technically born in 97.
But I feel like, like you said, I share
some experiences from before.
And, you know, yeah, I think I think
there's things you can
probably relate to a 22 year old with.
But there's probably some things you can
relate to a 32 year old.
Exactly. So you are you kind of have the
best of both worlds, I
think, for the Gen Z generation.
I think you guys got, like I said, the
best of both worlds.
Whereas somebody who's 12, 13, 14.
Why do you say that they
got the best of both worlds?
Because they had the privilege.
I think it's a privilege.
There's a Gen Xer. We had no technology
zero. Millennials had my space.
Landlines.
I mean, you know what I mean.
But Millennials had my space.
So they had some technology. Right.
And I mean, we had
computers, we had Atari and all that.
But I'm talking about social media.
Yeah. Cell phones.
I think that's a privilege to grow up
without that because you're not as a
child because you didn't have an iPad in
your face at five or two or two.
And you didn't you went through got
through middle school without anything
you ever did getting posted somewhere.
No doubt.
You didn't know if somebody had to sleep
over and didn't invite
you when you were 12.
There was no FOMO.
There was no FOMO that
was created immediately.
Now, maybe when you got to school on
Monday and heard you had some FOMO, but
it already happened.
So it's whatever.
Whereas somebody who's 12, 13, 14, 15,
their entire childhood.
Is that a new concept then that FOMO is a
new concept because of social media?
Or I guess it's existed before, but now
it's really amplified out there.
Yeah.
It's a FOMO is a huge, huge concept and
experience, especially for
young Gen Z and for Gen Alpha.
They only know FOMO instantly.
Like they know immediately if they were
left out of something.
They know.
In fact, with Snapchat,
you share your location.
Typically, kids do so they can go on and
see where all of their friends are.
So let's say most of your friends are at
someone's house and you're not there.
You just see all the
little cartoons in one location.
You see all the little people.
And then you know you weren't invited.
And that sucks.
Right.
So that affects us as a child growing and
your brain's growing,
your confidence is growing.
I thought it was just the parents
overreacting and feeding into something
more so than what you're describing is
the little cartoons in the Snapchat.
You're not there.
And it's like this shit is real.
Yeah.
They're but mojis, right?
That sounds right.
I think they're but mojis.
So so when you're growing and you're
building yourself a seam and middle
schools, I think is the
worst time of child's life.
And then so those kids on top of just the
normal crap that you go through as a
twelve thirteen fourteen year old.
Now you have
technology shoving in your face.
Well, guess what?
You missed out on right away.
So for the millennials, they had the
privilege of going through their toddler
years, their elementary years, their
middle school years without that.
And even as like the technology boom, so
to speak, kind of happened, I remember
growing up, we only had one TV
and it was in the living room.
We only had one computer and it was
designated to be wherever it was.
And I never had a TV
in my room growing up.
I didn't have my first
phone until like eighth grade.
So looking back, I think that did kind of
help me just kind of come into my own.
But you can't really escape it once it's
all kind of out there.
You know, you do get
inundated once it's out.
You can't put it back in the can.
Right. You know, it's funny now that you
say that when Nathan was growing up and
even Kaya, we had the
one TV in the living room.
They didn't have TVs in their rooms.
We had the one computer, like you're
saying, was designated.
And it was in like a public
community spot in the house.
Right.
And then but now with Dylan, it's like
he's got an Xbox in his room.
He's got a big TV.
He's got a phone, everything.
So to your point, I guess that is
somewhat of a privilege that
you didn't have that noise.
Right. Yes.
That noise.
So they didn't hit them until you're
saying like eighth
grade, you got your phone.
And I feel like Nathan, I remember
mentioning to me, I think he feels like
Snapchat really became more part of his
life, maybe as a sophomore.
In high school.
In high school. Yeah.
So that's where that little micro
generation, I think you guys kind of had
the best of both worlds because then by
the time technology was the social media,
I should say, was really in your life.
It's when you were old enough to probably
process a lot of it.
There was a lot of personal personal
development that had already
gone on up until that point.
Yeah.
You know, it was beneficial in the sense
that it didn't really
kind of adversely affect me.
Now, don't get me wrong.
Like there'll be times where you're just
aimlessly on your phone and you kind of
got to snap out of it.
Like what am I doing here?
Yeah. And there's just that false sense
of a dopamine rush every time you get a
notification on anything.
Totally.
It's true. And it's there's that
chronically online concept, you know,
where you realize, OK, I need to get out
into some real life to get perspective
because what I'm thinking right now, only
people that are on TikTok right now are
talking about this, but no one else is.
So I need to get some balance.
Right. Yeah. So I think I think that it's
great for your generation.
So you're born in
1997. Where were you born?
I was born in New Jersey. So where?
Jersey, a small town
called Neptune. Yeah.
To near Bradley Beach. Didn't live there
much, but I was born there because my mom
was doing her pediatric residency up at
Jersey Shore Medical Center.
OK. And that just kind of so happened to
be, you know, where where I was born and
spent a lot of time with my dad during
those like first few months and year
while she was at the hospital
for various parts of the day.
And that's kind of how I learned how to
speak Spanish because
that's all I spoke with him.
So are so what is your dad? He's
Dominican. And is your
mom Dominican? She is.
My mom moved to New York when she was an
adolescent, went to high school, college
up in New York as well.
And she went back to the Dominican for
medical school. And that's
how they ended up meeting.
So she met your dad in the Dominican.
Correct. And then he came over with her
back after I was born shortly after.
So you so after you were born in Jersey
is when he moved officially. Correct. OK.
So did they get married here or got
married in the Dominican? OK. Funny
enough, exactly a year before I was born.
So their anniversary is my birthday. Oh,
my gosh. That's so funny.
That is so cool. Yeah. OK.
So then how long would you say you guys
were in Jersey? Say
about two and a half years.
We spent some time in New York City as
well with my grandma
for about a year or so.
And story just goes that my
dad just got tired of the cold.
Like listen, we got to we got to get the
hell out of here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
We eventually did settle down here in
Florida. But just to kind of touch on
just the dynamic real quick, too.
It's like it's something that I do want
to ask my parents, like why I've only
ever spoken Spanish with my dad in
English with my mom.
And they both speak both languages well
beyond well, I would say.
But that's just always kind of been the
case. And therefore, I never really
remembered learning.
I just always had it
kind of in my back pocket.
I mean, when you say you don't remember
learning, you mean
Spanish or English both.
So it just did you think they did that on
purpose so that you would be comfortable
with both languages and
they made a conscious decision?
You only speak Spanish to him. I'll only
speak English and then
he will be bilingual.
It's a good idea. Hindsight. Yeah.
I don't know if that's the
intentionality that was behind it.
I think probably looking back at the
time, my dad was, you know, recently had
moved over to this country.
So he was more comfortable speaking
Spanish at that time, especially. Yeah.
There were moments where where I would be
in preschool and they would pull my
parents aside and like, hey, you got to
start speaking English to this kid.
Oh, because you were
mainly speaking Spanish, right.
Spending more time with your dad,
especially those early years.
So that makes sense. So then, well, did
he know any English?
Yeah, he he sells himself short, frankly.
He's he's gotten much better, you know,
25 plus years later.
Yeah. But, you know, with her growing up
in New York as well, you know, her
English was further developed.
Right. His was right. Right. Right.
And to this day, I'll go back home and,
you know, all three of us will be in the
kitchen and I'm just having a bilingual
conversation in real time.
No way. Yeah. So what a trip.
So she still mainly
speaks English to you.
I would say 100 percent of the time.
And he's speaking
Spanish. 100 percent of the time.
So your brain is just
constantly translating.
Just moving. And I
wouldn't even say translating.
I think it's just to the
point where it's so innate.
But yeah. And and getting those reps as I
grew up helped too, because I as I
eventually went to
high school and college,
I wasn't really speaking
that much Spanish. Yeah.
Just in my personal life. Right.
And then I kind of got into
the career that I'm into now.
I did have to pull out that Spanish.
Right. Right. Right.
And there was not that there was a
learning curve, but, you know, you do get
a little rusty. Yeah.
So the grandma in New York,
was that your mom's mom? Yes.
So they came over from
the Dominican. Mm hmm.
Were they first generation? Yes.
So my grandma, my mom and my grandma came
over when my mom was 12 to New York.
And OK. Kind of settled there.
And she went to Stony
Brook out in Long Island. OK.
It just kind of made sense to further her
education in the Dominican.
Medical school wise, just cheaper. She
had a place to live.
And it just kind of made the most sense.
So did your grandma speak Spanish only in
the home to your mom?
Do you know? Yes. Yes.
Did your grandma ever learn English?
I mean, she can get by. OK.
But that was the manage to everyone.
Well, there's there's a
large Dominican population.
Very unity up in Long Island. Right.
Long Island, Manhattan. Yeah. Yeah.
You don't need to speak
English, probably. Sure.
You can make the argument.
You need to speak English in South
Florida anymore, too. But yeah.
But in your mom's line of work, she
needed English. Absolutely.
And even in her current her
current patient population,
and she's a pediatrician, but a lot of
those patients are from Spanish
speaking countries as well.
But of course, like growing
up and going through schooling.
You know, I've had this
conversation with her.
It's like, how was it like, you know,
coming to a new country at 12, 13?
Yeah. Kind of like in that.
Talk about middle
school years. Exactly. Geez.
It must have been
difficult. And I'm sure it was. Yeah.
But she was always someone
who was very. She still is
kind of headstrong and she knows, you
know, what she wants to accomplish.
So she kind of always kept her head on
her swivel and she made it work.
That's awesome. Have you
ever talked to her about that?
Like the challenges of
coming over here like that?
Yeah. And she was always more reserved
from what she told me
during those those years.
But yeah, it was that first
year she told me was really tough
because she didn't know anything. Yeah.
And middle school is hard
for girls in general. Sure.
And then when you're a
new girl walking in. Yeah.
I'm sure. Yeah. No, I'm
sure there's some trauma there.
Yeah. Yeah. That she that she's buried,
you know, as a lot of girls do.
So, yeah, props to her on that one.
Yeah. No, she's sure she's
one of my heroes, frankly.
Like she's always kind of not really led
me in one direction or another.
Just really encouraged
me to think for myself.
Yeah. I would love to have a more
in-depth conversation of how that was.
Like, yeah. Yeah. Not
really knowing anything
and not really being
able to relate to anything.
I'm sure there were, you
know, classmates or contemporaries
that were kind of also in her same spot,
especially in New York City at the time.
Melting about it. Yeah. Sure.
OK, so you guys did you move down to
South Florida right away?
Yeah. So Palm Beach
County, West West Boyton area.
And then you have a sister, right?
I have a younger sister,
five years younger than I.
So she was born here. Yes.
And did she have the same experience of
bilingual being brought up bilingual?
You know, we kind of give her shit for
this, too, where it's like she's not as
she's probably listen to this eventually,
but I'm sure she's coddled.
Yeah, I would say she's a girl.
I would say she's fluent.
But I think there's something to be said
about, you know, really hammering
that second language
simultaneously at such a young age.
Yeah. And even, you know,
when I was one, two, three,
I would take summer trips to the
Dominican Republic to
see my grandparents.
And it wouldn't be like a week trip.
Like, I would be
there from June to August.
Wow. So your whole summer. Correct.
And by the time I got back home, it was
like, OK, like, yeah, relearn English.
Yeah, I feel yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
So she speaks Spanish very well.
Same deal like Spanish with my dad,
English with my mom.
And it's honestly something that she kind
of took some pride in
as as she kind of got
older and kind of honed it in.
So, yeah, we're we're all bilingual.
Our dogs are. Are they really?
Oh, that's true. Sit on command.
English, Spanish. Oh,
that's that's so cool.
OK, so did your sister not spend any of
the summers in the
Dominican like you did?
Not as frequently.
We made a few trips when she was younger.
But once my grandma started spending less
time over there and more time
in Florida and New York, as
she frankly had more grandkids.
Yeah, I think that's what kind of curbed
some of those longer trips.
Yeah. But my dad's side of the family is
still out there as well.
So we make it a point to
go as frequently as we can.
But yeah, I'd say it's been a while since
we had a full summer out there.
OK, so probably around
the time I was 10 or 11.
OK, so so you pretty
much your elementary years.
All that was down here then, right?
Yeah, I preschool or pre-K. OK.
All your memories are down here.
Did you play any sports?
Yeah, so I've always loved sports like
baseball, basketball.
I wanted to sign up
for water polo one time.
I saw like a flyer for it.
So I've always been interested in
everything that the whole little league,
shebang, and it's funny, my
mom and other family members
that would come see me play this was like
very young, like six or seven.
All the kids, you know, little league,
they're aimlessly playing with their gum
or like the grass and and I'm just like
locked into the game.
Yeah, trying whatever to win that game.
And it's just some wrecking.
So they would always sound like, hey,
like you don't have a contract.
Like it's not that serious.
And I'm like, well, it
kind of is to me. Right.
So, yeah, that that
passion was always there.
And I was always kind of
forward thinking in a way where.
Frankly, around like
early teens, I was like, OK,
I'm not going to be a
major baseball player.
Not only is it really difficult, but I
was pretty cognizant
of like where I was at
with my own skill set.
Well, did you play travel?
Did they have travel back then?
They do. Like now it's crazy.
Yeah, I'm sure now it's
just way more amplified.
But there was some more
organized leagues where, you know,
things would be taken a
bit more seriously. Yeah.
But I think even when I was growing up
there, there wasn't as big of an emphasis
on just playing one sport
the entirety of the year. Yeah.
So you kind of did have your fingerprints
on different activities.
And yeah, and I honestly loved it.
I don't know when that shift happened,
because when we were growing up,
you played seasonally,
you played basketball,
you played basketball season, you played
for girls, softball
during softball season.
You went through that growing up in New
Jersey where sports were seasonally.
Right. Yeah. It's it's also a phenomenon,
I think, here in Florida
in anywhere north of
probably North Carolina.
You play three sports
because you have seasons.
You play, you know,
football or soccer in the fall.
Basketball or swimming or
wrestling in the winter.
And then baseball or softball or other
sports track and field,
maybe in the in the spring and in
Florida, it's year round.
People start to
specialize at a young age.
And if you want to have fun and compete,
you're forced into specializing
because travel baseball players will play
in little league baseball and they just
start dominating. Exactly.
And if you play rec lacrosse,
the travel lacrosse kids
play rec and they dominate.
So it's not as much fun. Right.
So it's that seasonality takes a lot of
fun out of it, I think.
But you're saying that you
did experience some seasonality
with your sports growing up. Absolutely.
Down here in Florida. Right.
And I think like there's
also a point to be made.
And you guys can probably speak on this
with having a son who currently plays
lacrosse. It's like there
seems to be a hyper fixation
like on the parents side of
like getting that scholarship.
Oh, yeah. Getting to point A or point B.
And whereas the kid might
not even love the sport.
And I saw a lot of that myself.
And again, to bring it back to like my
parents, there was never like
a force feeding of like, this is what you
got to do to do this.
I like to get here.
Just if you love it, great.
Go have fun. And, you know, the chips may
fall wherever they may.
Yeah. But I think now more than ever,
there's this heightened pressure
that's put on these kids. 100 percent.
Whereas like the parents are almost
trying to live through them.
Yes. The parents live
vicariously through the kids.
And it's totally unhealthy. Right.
Yeah. Puts a lot of pressure on the kids
and it takes away a lot of the fun.
Right. And then like if the kid is
talented enough to, you know,
get a scholarship or, you know, become a
professional player,
you might get to the point where he
starts to hate the game before,
you know, he even has a chance to make a
career for himself because his entire
life, this is all he's known.
And, you know, it kind of
gets associated with, you know,
negative experiences as
well. Yes. You are so right.
We have been involved with
travel heavily with Dylan
and have seen
everything you're talking about.
And one thing I've always found so
interesting is because
having Dylan in
travel, it's so expensive.
It's so expensive.
Not just the travel, but just your
registration fees, your gear.
Every you've spent thousands, tens of
thousands of dollars.
And it almost is like you probably are
spending more than what the scholarship
should be. You know what I mean?
Like if you're going for the scholarship
and you're not even going to break even,
I think, by the time you get there.
So it's interesting you
brought that up because Dylan was
and is still heavily
involved in lacrosse.
But he did hit a point about a year ago
where he would he came to us
and said, I love lacrosse, but I don't
want to play it in college.
Sure. I am definitely not.
Don't want to do one. And that's OK.
And yeah, and I was so grateful that he
felt comfortable coming to us
because we had been involved in this
small, intense community.
And that that's not normal to say to your
parents in this community. Right.
And it was right around the time where it
was starting to be discussed
that your kids should be sent to prep
school if they really want
to get into a D1 program.
And we knew right away we're not sending
our kid anywhere as a high school
or I'm keeping him as long as I can.
There's no way we're
sending him 2000 miles away.
Yeah, we had him for a
reason. Yeah, exactly.
So and nothing against people who do
that, but that's not
didn't work for our family.
And that's when he said, look, he said, I
want to be in a frat like Nathan.
And I if I play, maybe I'll play club,
you know, for a college
he goes, I want to have a
girlfriend. I want to have fun.
I don't want lacrosse to be everything I
do in college. Right.
I was so grateful he said
that because then we could honor
where his head was out with lacrosse and
adjust and say, OK,
you don't have to play
travel to the same level you've been
playing. We can back off.
And it changed his whole perspective.
Absolutely. And all of those things can
exist simultaneously.
Right. Where he can still have that love
for the game, but still
have a healthy balance
to continue growing as an individual and
not having that be the end all be all.
Yeah, yes. Sun up to sundown. Yes.
And there are kids he has played with and
still plays with that are hyper focus.
Sure. They know what they want.
They've known what they wanted, probably
since they were 10. Right.
And they're going for it. And wonderful.
God bless them. That's
driven by those kids, though.
Absolutely. Not by their I mean, their
parents are definitely there, but it has.
It reaches a point. And Brian, you always
tell me it'll get to a point
where it has to come from
the kid. It's just obvious.
Parents can only be
involved so much, you know.
I mean, as parents, we can facilitate
driving kids to
practice, encouraging them to go
when they don't want to go giving them a
good diet, buying all
the right equipment.
But if it's not coming
from them, it's not happening.
And it's something parents don't realize.
Yeah, it is just not going to happen if
it's not self motivated.
It's going to stop.
And Nathan and Kai have both had friends
in high school who had played the sport.
And then when they got to senior year,
they're like, I don't
want to play in college.
And their parents were shocked. Yeah.
You know, it's because you have all
you've put all your
dreams into this one thing.
Right. And then your kids
like, I don't want to, you know.
And so it's a whole adjustment. So and
similar to the parents, there
there were some coaches in rec as well
who are very just kind
of rigid and thinking.
And this is how you do things.
And this is how you're going to succeed.
And I remember vividly,
I'm like nine, 10 years old.
Like you're telling me what you think I
need to become the next Alex Rodriguez.
It's like, I don't even
want to be Alex Rodriguez.
Right. I want to be making the decisions.
Right. Right. Right.
And that's something that I've, you know,
almost thought about a lot.
Like, how did I have that foresight at
such a young age
where it's like most kids,
you know, they they want to be on the
court, not to say that I didn't.
I just I knew that, you know, it just
wasn't in the cards for me.
When did that shift happen for you?
Were you where you came
to that full realization?
OK, I don't I don't want to play
professionally, but I still want to be
involved in this sport.
So early, like before
high school, even. Oh, wow.
Do you do was there an event that got you
there because baseball is in your blood.
Right. It's a huge thing in
the Dominican Republic. Right.
But also in your family.
You had an uncle who played
professional baseball. Sure.
How did you come to that
realization at such a young age?
It's kind of a pretty mature decision to
land that that early.
I think, you know, having the perspective
of of having someone close in the game
and kind of having access to certain
areas and being around a
clubhouse and, you know,
taking in games, you start to see the
other machinations that are
behind the scenes of the game.
And over time, you start realizing, OK,
like, who's this guy?
He's got a quarter zip on.
He's part of the team,
but he's not a player.
But he seems semi important.
Like, maybe it's kind
of cool what he's doing.
Let me look into that. Right.
And that kind of just very interesting
started a dovetail of
me just researching,
you know, what opportunities
that I can kind of infiltrate.
Like, and it's such a never growing game
where, you know, there's more technology
involved now than there was when I was
kind of having these first thoughts.
But yeah, I think being in that
environment and kind of
having access to things
that otherwise I wouldn't have
definitely very grateful for.
But it did allow me to kind of see things
from a different side
where like, you know,
if you watch a game on TV, you're not
going to see, you know,
what goes into the preparation
of a game or the decision making of
personnel and stuff like that.
So I always knew it existed.
But to kind of see that firsthand really
motivated me to see, you know, what I
needed to do to get there myself.
Sorry.
Did you have anyone in your ear kind of
saying, hey, there's more to baseball
than just playing the game.
There is the operational side or the
recruiting side or the scouting side.
Was anyone there pointing that out or you
just being around it?
You're like, this is this
other stuff interests me.
I'd say more so the latter.
I mean, a lot of it was self discovery.
Like, of course, like my dad and I would
have conversations about it.
You know, you could be a trainer, you
could be a team doctor.
Like there are other things.
And especially with them being in the
medical field, I started to
think maybe that's how I would
kind of be involved.
But again, like they never really kind of
made it known that that's
what they wanted me to do.
It was always like, you
know, you figure it out.
I vividly remember like my first semester
at FSU, I called my mom and I
was like, hey, mom, like this
med school things is not for me and it's
not going to happen.
She was like, hey, that's that's awesome.
I'm glad you told me now
versus, you know, junior year.
Yeah, yeah.
Kind of like in too deep and now you're
going to waste some time just to kind of
get, you know, the degree you want.
Right, right.
But she was like, yeah, you
know, I knew that to be sure.
I just wanted you to kind of come to that
realization yourself.
She knew.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's such a testament to the
relationship you have with your parents
and with your mom that you
could make that phone call and be
completely honest with her.
And you knew that she would be receptive
to whatever you were going to tell her.
No doubt.
So that, I mean, kudos to your parents
for creating that relationship with you,
because especially they're
two very successful positions and you do
have this family connection to
professional baseball.
So in other families that could have just
created so much pressure
to do one or the other.
And they instead took the route of we're
going to let him
figure out his own dreams.
I mean, that's that's really amazing
because you're talking about people who
are very successful, very driven, but
then to be able to pull that back and
allow you to find your own path.
That's that's great parenting.
No, it's something I'm
definitely very grateful for.
And like you said, there was always like
an openness to communicate.
I never really felt that I needed to like
go behind their back
with anything like as a kid.
Yeah.
You know, just having that relationship
with them like, hey,
like this is what I'm up to.
Hey, I'm going to go here.
Hey, I'm going to do this.
And even in high school, frankly, I was
more concerned with the score of the
Miami Heat basketball game than what
was going on Friday night.
And that's just kind
of who I am personally.
Right.
Never really a.
And going out kind of guy in high school.
You know, I I say that to say that, you
know, my parents were always receptive of
that and they always kind of allowed me
again to just make my own path.
Find your way.
Correct.
So the exposure you received from having
the privilege of having family in the
professional baseball world.
So that exposure combined with the
acceptance by your parents to find your
own way led you to figure out kind of
what you want to do.
But did you know so you went to OK, what
made you choose FSU before I go further
with that discussion?
I always knew I wanted to stay in Florida
again, just kind of having in-depth
conversations with my
mom about it at the time.
I was like, you know, you could go out of
state, but like the end of the day,
you're going to get your undergraduate
degree and pay way more.
And then.
Yeah, kind of in the
same spot as everyone else.
So I knew I wanted to stay in Florida.
Florida State was the
perfect distance away.
It was not too far, but, you know, wasn't
like in my backyard
anyway at the same time.
And I made a few visits.
I visited Florida and I
visited Florida State.
And again, this is only my personal
experience, but I did feel a little more
just rigidity up in Gainesville just with
everyone being so tunnel visioned.
I want to graduate as quick as I can.
I want to get in. I want to get out.
I want to do this and that like and just
very being hyper focused on one thing,
which if that's your thing, great.
I was looking for a more eclectic
experience where I could make friendships
and make relationships and connect and
kind of build my portfolio out.
And I just felt more
at home in Tallahassee.
Frankly, there was a very familial aspect
with just the whole tour.
And, you know, it just felt right.
And frankly, Florida State
wasn't on my radar at all.
I vividly remember I wrote an essay for
UCF and it was a great essay.
And I copy and pasted
the exact same essay.
And the only things I changed were the
three letters UCF and FSU verbatim.
And I just submitted it. I was like, you
know, I'll just apply.
Like, I'm probably not going to go here,
but let me just do my due diligence.
Yeah. And yeah, I'd say about I think
around May is when you had to decide like
where you were going,
if I remember correctly.
It was probably less than two weeks out.
I was like, OK, we're
going to Tallahassee.
So had you visited UCF, you have FSU?
Had you kind of done the traditional
Florida campus tour?
Yes. And was there something you felt
when you stepped when you saw the campus
of Florida State that was different?
You explained about Gainesville.
But was there something that immediate
because I know a lot of kids feel I mean,
I know I did with my college.
But when you get to that campus, you're
like, this is where I belong.
Yeah, you just know.
Like, did you have that feeling when you
got to FSU or were you still kind of
debating between maybe UCF, UF or FSU?
I'd say by the time I left, I knew now,
aesthetically speaking,
the campus is beautiful.
So that always helps. Yeah.
But I think, again, just kind of sitting
through their whole presentation and even
having conversations with other kids at
the time who were thinking about it.
And again, it was a very personalized
experience where it's like,
what are you interested in?
OK, like, let's get you
here, here, here and here.
And this is what we have to offer.
Right. It just felt more homey.
Yeah. Yeah. If that's even you know.
Yeah, it is definitely.
Well, when we we Nathan was
young, we did some family trip.
Software. He's a sophomore in high school
is when we went up there.
Yeah, we got there and I wanted him to
check out UF and you know, all three.
And we left FSU and he's like, I don't
even want to go to UF.
OK, just fell in love. Right.
This is the place. It was instant.
Yeah. So when you went first one to FSU,
you mentioned medical.
So is that what you started out with as
far as what you declared?
I have a question on
top of that, though. OK.
Did you have pressure to go medical or is
that so that's my added variable there?
I wouldn't say I had pressure.
I would just say it's all I knew. Yeah.
It's just what made sense at the time to
just follow in those footsteps.
Like I still wanted to kind of add that
sports wrinkle to it.
But in my mind, I was like, OK, I'll just
do the med school thing.
I'll become a physician and then I'll be
a team doctor or something.
Right. Right. Right.
But yeah, I was premed
bio the whole shebang.
And, you know, obviously rushing a
fraternity and trying to do bio
and chem and all the
sorts of. Oh, my God.
I can't imagine it was
tough. No, no, no, no.
So you after that first
semester is when you knew, though,
this isn't what I want to do. Yeah.
That's when you told your mom. Right.
I made the decision to, you know, kind of
finish what I started for that semester.
Frankly, a little bit of pettiness in me,
you know, those bigger like bio
chem classes where the professor kind of
gets up there the
first day and he's like,
all right, after week one, like half of
you guys won't be here.
And after the second week, like another
half a quarter, you guys won't be here.
Right. So I was like, I'll show you.
Right. Right. Right.
I'm going to finish
this class. Right. Right.
But, you know, with all the other stuff
going on, just my social life and then,
you know, rushing and pledging and kind
of just took up so much time.
Yeah. Where else? OK, I mean, it's
biology and chemistry.
Like I'm not in too deep yet.
We're like having these credits aren't
going to really adversely affect me
if I want to go somewhere else.
But I knew that, you know, I wasn't going
to start the spring semester
on that same track.
Did you know what you wanted to do, what
you were pivoting to?
Or were you kind of like, I need to
figure this out now?
Yeah, it was kind of the latter.
I mean, I I knew end
game where I wanted to be.
But like, you know, from a scholastic
perspective, it was like, OK,
like what major makes sense for me?
You know, where can I get the
most out of my experience here?
Like, where can I be
networked with the best?
And I ended up just kind of going to
sports management route.
And I did get good exposure to a fair
amount of like the sports programs
that were, you know, at FSU at the time.
You know, our basketball
program was great at the time.
Same with soccer and, you know, kind of
had my hands in a few
different things there.
But yeah, it was it was a good transition
to make at that time
because going in, I had a decent amount
of credits from high school.
I did the ACE program.
And, you know, there was a point where
it's like, OK, like I could
expedite this process.
But again, I I wanted to be
in college for four years.
Yeah, I don't want to just blink and be,
you know, 20 year old professional.
Like that just wasn't me. Right. Right.
Nathan did the same thing to us.
He had enough credits
to be done in two years.
Sounds like you're in the same boat, but
he went a full four years.
I think it's important, though, right, at
that full college experience.
Absolutely. I mean, even on the back end,
like my last semester at FSU,
I was taking like two classes.
It was the only two classes I need.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
You know, so much more time to not only
like spend time with people
that I knew I wasn't going
to be around for much longer,
but also just start to prepare what that
exit looked like and, you know,
entering the workforce look like and have
that portfolio ready. Yeah. Yeah.
So you ended up doing
declaring for sports medicine.
Did you minor? No, just
just the sports medicine.
Who is it? Sports medicine or sports
management? Management.
Sorry. Sorry. We got medicine out. Yeah.
Medicine out the window.
Medicine out the window.
I've got a question on that.
Sports management.
When you called your mom,
were you nervous at all?
Yeah. Hell yeah.
For sure. And I mean, at the end of the
day, I knew that, you know,
she would take it
well, right? She'd be fine.
But yeah, as with any call that, you
know, is kind of nerve wracking.
Right. Which it off, putting it off.
And it's like, all right, it's time to.
It sounds like she knew
and made it fine. Yes.
And it's cool that she
knew she knew you well enough.
And she knew me well enough.
She knew that that's
where I was at before.
Yeah, I even knew,
frankly, that's a mother.
But exactly.
But like she again wanted me to come to
that own conclusion.
Of course. And again,
that's that's what a mother does.
A good mother. A good mother. Yeah.
So did you have exposure
to the FSU baseball team?
My last semester, I did
a little bit with them.
We're on the just kind
of game plan side. OK.
Had some few internships with
our booster program as well.
Just to kind of be in the environment
with with this industry.
It's just get in your get your foot in
the door any way you can.
Right. Right. Right.
Whether that's selling tickets, whether
that's, you know, marketing,
whether that's doing something that not
necessarily may be involved
with the actual play on the field.
But, hell, it may get you
an ear shot of a conversation
with someone who is in that space. Right.
And that was my mindset.
It was like, I'm going to be
involved in any way that I can
and kind of continue building out that
portfolio for myself.
Yeah. You know, and obviously be
persistent and tenacious to a
to an extent where you're
not like being too overt,
but you're still showing that you are
passionate about this.
And, you know, that I never saw it as
like a fun summer camp
or like I always saw
it as a career. Right.
So it's just not like
I'm going to have fun.
I'm going to be around players.
It's going to be a little kumbaya.
And then, you know,
I'll move on the next year.
It's like, you know, this is kind of what
I want to sustain my life with.
You know, so Florida State gave you a
place where you could pursue that dream
and kind of gave you that foundation to
bounce off of professionally.
But I think it also gave you
a great experience socially, too, because
you ended up choosing a frat. Right.
That's right. Yeah.
Which frat did you choose?
Kappa Sig. And it was a huge group.
I remember like the first
week it was 90 plus of us. Wow.
And we ended up finishing
with with 49, I want to say. Wow.
So there would be times where, you know,
we'd lose a dozen kids
and we didn't know who six of them were.
Oh, that's wild. It was.
And I know you can't tell us why.
Yeah, no, that's all secret stuff. Sure.
But yeah, so you guys made
it. Yeah. Your group made it.
We made the cut. And I
mean, that that's where I made,
you know, friends that I still talk to to
this day, like right.
Nathan included. And we still have our
group chat with like 15, 20 people.
And it's not like a idol group chat.
Like, I'm sure when we're done recording
this, I'll look at my phone
and there'll be 200 notifications.
Like it's a constant cycle of just
communication, which is amazing.
How old is that?
Nathan told us that what's it like five
or six years old or is it even older?
Yeah, it's definitely pre-COVID.
OK, so it might be just right
when we all graduated. Yeah.
Yeah, I think Ben was
talking about that too.
Yeah, yeah. That I think I I'm I'm amazed
at the group you guys have
and how close you all are, how supportive
you all are of each other.
Yeah. I think it's priceless.
What came out of that frat?
Absolutely. Honestly.
And like we would all hang out with one
another and not like live
in the same building, per se, like they
would come over our apartment
as if it was just like one of our other
roommates before we moved into the house
that final year, which was an experience
that I would always do again.
Yes. Well, we OK, we have
to tell this about the pause.
Abdell and our son Nathan
shared a really large room
in the frat house their senior year.
And we spent hours cleaning it.
Right. We were scrubbing and
because you had a common area.
And then you and
Nathan each had a bedroom
or like a fake wall wall, then put up
cleaning is a relative turn.
I mean, when I was there, I was cleaning.
Yeah. But if you've watched the movie
Animal House, it truly is not a stretch.
Right. I mean, that place was old living.
Yeah. You know. Yeah.
So but I mean, I remember
scrubbing that refrigerator.
And so I was exhausted.
I went back to the hotel.
But Brian stayed and our daughter Kaya
stayed and our son Nathan.
And obviously you were
there and other frat brothers.
And who moved the couch?
I wasn't even there.
Oh, you weren't there.
I got a FaceTime from
Nate like I was right.
You weren't there when we were right.
So some of the couch you
moved the couch to clean.
Well, the couch, you had the couch.
So I moved the couch to clean.
But there was a a blanket the same color
as a possum and furry.
So when I moved the couch
and pulled the blanket up,
that little possum started moving.
Oh, my God.
There was a possum living there in the
frat house behind a couch.
And no one knows how long that possum was
going to bring up to.
It sounds like he was
rather comfortable there.
Oh, 100.
As if he had made it home for some time.
Yeah. And then whoever the frat brothers
that were living in that room before
probably didn't know he was living there.
Or he came in over
the summer or something.
Yeah, I don't know.
The logic makes sense.
Yeah. And then I think one of your frat
brothers from Georgia came in
and grabbed it by the
tail and just comfortable.
And a crate for it.
Just like it's a cat.
And I'll take care of this.
And yeah, right.
Experience.
Yeah. We're all freaking out.
Somebody think I had jumped up.
She jumped on Nathan's bed.
And then the kids
from Georgia rolled down.
Yeah. Picked the thing up like it was
like a little lizard.
Yeah, totally.
No big deal.
So that that was I was really happy that
Nathan waited till senior year
to live in the house.
But it was skeaved out
by the how dirty it was.
Well, I left there feeling, OK,
everything seems good.
And then to find out there
was a possum living there.
Well, even towards the end
of that year in semester,
I remember when we were all graduating,
my parents and family were in town.
Was that their first
time seeing your frat house?
From a distance.
I don't think they made it past the
stairs quite frankly.
Yeah. Because again, it was this was May.
So like the semester was wrapping up.
It was arguably more cluttered than what
it was when we moved in.
Yeah, true.
So, yeah, I was like, oh, this is this
the house from the exterior.
You know, you want to
see the foyer. Great.
Or the alumni room. Right. Right.
Was always nice. Exactly. You go in.
You make the hard left. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So kind of the facade, if you will.
Yeah. No, all jokes aside, it was it was
such a great experience.
Like I remember one of our first, you
know, nights as pledges
were all sitting there and you know,
you're all kind of getting nervous.
Like what's going to
happen? Like, do this, blah, blah.
Yeah. All right. Everyone get out your
phone and download LinkedIn.
It's like, what the hell is LinkedIn?
Downloading it and looking back, like,
yeah, I was building a connection.
Yeah. And the baseball
industry since like 2015.
It's brilliant. So like things like that
that I wouldn't have
thought of otherwise.
Right. Right. No, that's that's so
interesting that even in because, I mean,
we went to quite a
few parties at Capistek.
That was a fun frat house,
I will say. Great location.
The location is amazing. It was on
sorority row. Great location.
But you would think looking at it like
there's not, you know, it's like,
it's crazy. But the fact that you're
saying right from the start,
they were giving you direction. Right.
So with the direction was there, the
support was there looking out
for one another and like, you know,
propping one another up and, you know,
yeah, realizing that this was just a pit
stop for, you know, our
greater journey of life.
Yeah. Setting ourselves up
in the best way possible.
And you guys continue to do
that for each other. Absolutely.
And I think that's a
testament to, you know, people,
a lot of people look down on Greek life
on frats, but I think they're missing it.
They're missing the point is it does
create a brotherhood. No doubt.
And you need that,
especially through your twenties.
I call the twenties like the second
childhood because your twenties can be
just as confusing as the
adolescent years at times,
because you guys are
entering into adulthood,
but you're still shaking off college
years and some childhood.
And there's
expectations placed like, you know,
you should get a job and
you should start your life,
but you still are trying to figure out
who you are. No doubt.
And the frat, the brotherhood of from
your frat gives you that support system
as you're going through those trials and
tribulations of your twenties.
There's structure to there. Right. There
are so many, you know,
acquaintances that I met throughout
college where, you know, they go to class
and then it's just like, OK,
yeah. It's like, well, man,
I don't want to sit in my dorm room for
the rest of the day and then just kind of
marinate there and just
days go by and months go by.
And yeah, it definitely kind of gave me
something to look forward to each day.
Yeah. Whereas like, you know, looking
back at high school,
I probably keep up with
maybe one or two people.
And I kind of had that mindset even going
into college, like, all right,
like clean slate, like, you know, no one
knows who I am here.
I don't know who anyone
else is here. And I love that.
Yeah. And now it's time to kind of, you
know, make new connections.
And I didn't think that
they would be so long lasting,
but I knew relatively quickly that they
would be once they
started kind of manifesting.
So I have a question on that's an
interesting dynamic
because I did the same
where I grew up. The person I was in high
school and a kid got to college.
I reinvented myself became probably the
person I wanted to be.
Sure. Was there you
kind of touch on that.
How different was it for you, say, when
you when you left
Boynton to go to Tallahassee?
Mm hmm.
How much did that change
for you? What changed it?
Did you go from being like the athletic
kid to now I'm in the frat
and I'm focusing on something else? What
was the shift there?
Yeah, I think growing up in high school
was again, very just.
I was almost an old soul in the sense
where like I knew high school
was this little four year facade and like
I wasn't going to get too high.
I wasn't going to get too low.
Whereas with college again, like you
said, I really kind
of grew within myself,
knew what I wanted to do, knew who I was
as a person, not to say
that I didn't in high school,
but you know, you're you're 16, 17, your
mind's on other things.
So I think it was a great opportunity for
me to just be out there and like
rediscover myself and,
you know, not going home every day and
like figuring stuff out for myself,
whether it was just what I was eating or
like how I was going to stay in shape or,
you know, paying bills, like all those
things that kind of, you know, help you
grow an intuitive adult.
Yeah. And again, that's why I say
Tallahassee was the perfect distance.
I would come home for Thanksgiving,
Christmas and, you know,
not the most scenic drive,
but but you make it happen. Yeah.
But again, it wasn't like I didn't really
feel the pressure really that I would
have to be home every weekend,
if I was at F.A.U. or something, which
wouldn't have been the case
just knowing who my parents are,
but knowing who I am too as an empathetic
person, I would probably
have felt the need to kind of,
you know, be around more and maybe
substitute some of that, you know, social
life that I did have in Tallahassee.
So it was the perfect blend. Yeah.
Because you have that strong family,
which you're naturally
gravitating to. Right.
But now you're up, you know, 400 miles
away of room to breathe. Absolutely.
Well, if we were in the Northeast, you
would have been four or five states away.
Exactly. You know, the thing about
Florida, it's so big that you can go to
school in Florida and
still be far away from you.
And it doesn't feel like Florida,
especially North Florida.
Yeah. That's like Georgia. Yeah.
Tallahassee feels way
more like Georgia. Exactly.
Last question on the frat front. Do you
feel like looking back
that your experience,
the brotherhood that was created at Kappa
Sig, do you think that that
was similar to other frats?
Like, do you feel that or do you think
that was very unique to Kappa Sig or do
you know people from other frats that
also still have that close connection?
Yeah, I think it's
unique to just our group. OK.
And I think that transcends Kappa Sig or
frat X, Y or Z. Right.
I know some friends who, you know, they
still have close friends with their frat
and kind of still keep in touch.
If I had a guess, not to this extent,
though. And I think that's just more of a
testament to the group that we have.
And we kind of I don't want to call it
luck because we're all our own persons
and we all kind of like grew together.
But I think it's very unique in that
sense, where even going back after we
graduated now, obviously,
I wasn't going to be familiar with
everyone that was there at the time as
you kind of get removed from everything.
But there was just such a unique
camaraderie between that group.
It's tough to describe, really, but it's
something that I always cherish.
And I think that, of course, it can get
replicated with the right people.
But I think that's what it
ultimately comes down to.
Everyone just kind of being on the same
page and looking out for one another.
And as with anything, it's it's all
starts with people. Right. Yeah.
Good people, good results.
It's amazing that you guys all found each
other there. It really is.
Yeah. So have you gone back into the
house since you graduated?
I think once. And this would have been
years ago now, maybe like 2021 or 2022.
It just felt different, right? Where it's
like everyone looks
younger now, especially now.
I feel like even when I was in high
school, I feel like the senior football
players were like big, strong guys.
And yeah. And now I look around, they all
look kind of like
kids. I don't know. Right.
So just kind of being
in that environment.
Obviously, we're not going out to the
same bars that we went out as students.
You know, yeah. Going to
more, you know, upscale. Yeah.
With working toilets.
I didn't like tequila until I graduated
college. I couldn't even sniff it.
And then I was like, wait a second. This
good tequila is actually good.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, not three dollar.
Well, yes. Yes. Yes. Oh, that's so funny.
It is funny.
OK, so you graduated. And then what was
your first step out of school?
Yes. So just looking for internships
anywhere I could find them, I
was able to get an internship
with the complex up in West Palm Beach in
a more stadium operations capacity.
And I was painting walls. I was power
washing sidewalks like nothing involved
with what I'm doing now.
But I knew that I had to start somewhere
and I had to kind of get my
foot in the door somewhere.
And you know, at the time, like you go
through ebbs and flows and
it's a little discouraging
when everyone's so motivated to get out
of college and, you
know, I got this going on.
I got this sale and this and that I'm
making this much. I'm like, oh, shit, I'm
not making that much.
Yeah. You know, I always kind of had the
mindset that, you know,
that stuff would take care of
itself as you continue to have that
upward mobility. So that was
kind of my first experience
in the game, if you want to say. But
Covid through wrench and all that.
That was a crazy time.
You guys all know. And how did how did
Covid affect that time in your life?
What how did it change the trajectory of
your life at that point?
Yeah. So for starters,
baseball just was on pause. Right.
So, you know, I had a few things lined up
after spring training of that year.
And that's kind of when everything went
sideways. And, you know, it was one of
those where it's like,
we'll be in touch, but there's nothing we
can do kind of thing. And
I kind of had to go back to
the drawing board where, you know, I'm
twenty two fresh out of college, like I
don't want to be just
sitting at home doing nothing. Like I
know this is a very unique
time right now in the world,
but like I'm still very motivated to to
learn stuff to, you know, get out there.
So I ended up pivoting to the mortgage
industry, funny enough. And for the time
being, it was great.
I mean, interest rates were on the
ground. Everyone was
refinancing. And, you know,
I always knew it was a stopgap, though,
where it's like I would look
around and some people on my
team had had been there for X amount of
years. And that's great if that's your
thing. It just wasn't
mine. But again, for the time being, like
it was an asset that, you
know, people really cared about
their homes, their biggest asset. So it
was fulfilling in that
sense where I really felt
like I was helping people out by helping
them save some money and
in turn kind of making some
money for myself. Yeah. But again, at the
end of the day, it was I
always try to stay involved
as much as I could with baseball, just
keeping up with what was going on and,
you know, seeing the new initiatives and
the new technologies
being incorporated. And
yeah, around 20 end of 2021, I decided to
just kind of take a leap
and dedicate all my time to
the job cycle of of 2022. And and that
was a little interesting in a sense,
because there was about a
eight week period where I had left the
mortgage job, but I hadn't
landed the baseball job yet.
I'm just like, and make the right
decision. What's going on
here? But ultimately, like I
came to the conclusion that if this was
really what I wanted to
do, and it always was that,
you know, I had to just take that bet on
myself and take that leap.
So you went for your dream.
Exactly. And I mean, it's a perfect time
if you took people in
their 20s, especially if you,
especially if you aren't married or have
children. Sure. Go for it. Because it's
really only affecting
you. Right. So you can if it fails, you
just have to take care of yourself
without you don't have a
family that's depending on you. So if
you're going to take those risks, that's
the perfect time to do
it. And, you know, kudos to you for
continuing to chase that dream. I have a
question on that. How
did you do that? So it's COVID we're in
lockdown. You want to still
pursue the baseball avenue
baseball shut down. How did you where did
you go? What did you do? How
did you stay in touch with the
technology that was going to be there on
the other side? Because a
lot of people might sit idle,
and that doesn't lay in your next gig. So
during that downtime, you
continue to develop yourself
in that sense or learn and progress. How
did you do that in that
outside of the game, I guess,
in a sense? Sure. And even like to this
day, I'm someone who can't
be sedentary for too long.
Like when the offseason comes around, I
still have to find some
stuff to do if it's planning
for next year or if it's, you know, kind
of recapping what what
happened the year prior.
To go back to your example, during COVID,
it was just using all the publicly
information that was
available, just reading articles and
reading up on projections
and statistics and, you know,
kind of building out my own thought
processes. I think that's what was
important for me to kind of
land the next gig and the gig after that
was leaving no doubt in
someone's mind of how I
thought about certain parts of the game.
And honestly, like
separating the fandom aspect
of it and thinking at things objectively.
Now, don't get me wrong,
when it's Florida State
football or Miami Heat basketball, I'm
still that lunatic like
anyone else just, you know,
cheering and screaming. But with
baseball, that was a really
good time for me to kind of
push that all to the side, like realize,
hey, like, if this is what
your career is going to be,
let's look at it through that lens. And
obviously, like, you
know, you can still appreciate
talent and, you know, appreciate a good
player, a good team, a good
story. But again, just putting
that to the side of like, okay, we're
going to build now, and we're going to
really try and think
objectively and try and get to that goal
of, you know, winning a
World Series, for example.
Now, did you was that self discovery to
go that path for years for
yourself, or just talking to
uncle who's in the game and other
contacts you met, or is just your in your
own head in a sense,
I would definitely pick his brain on
things just kind of how
to navigate that world.
From his perspective as a player, like,
you know, how would you
want someone who's giving you
information to kind of approach that,
especially at the Major League level,
where these guys are
very in tune with what they need to get
ready to compete. So
it's almost kind of like,
here are the necessary resources, you go
ahead and get ready the
way you need to. There is
obviously some player development still
involved at that level,
especially with a younger group.
But yeah, I definitely picked his brain
on like, what areas should I
infiltrate? What areas do you
think are kind of more on the cutting
edge side of things? That way,
you know, when, if and when I
did get an opportunity to interview
anywhere, you know, those
things would come out. Yeah.
And did you get an opportunity? You must
have gotten an
opportunity to interview somewhere.
Yeah. So yeah, that eight week period,
were you setting up
interviews? Were you applying? Like,
what, what, what did that look like? So I
interviewed with a few teams that year,
that would have been the winter of 2021
into 2022. And I remember I
interviewed with the Tampa Bay
Rays back in like October, November. And
I didn't hear back to like
the new year. So I thought that
was just not a thing. Like, you know,
it's not gonna happen. Whatever. Go back
to the drawing board.
And I just randomly got an email or call
to kind of set up like a
secondary interview. And
yeah, I was fortunate enough to land an
internship with them.
And you know, I still have
good relationships with those people over
there, too. What were you
doing in the internship? So
that was my first kind of baseball
operations side of things internship. So
setting up cameras, like
doing all the video stuff. And that was
out of the complex. So I
was working with a very young
player population, which I love, you
know, and that's kind of
still my, my love today is just
kind of helping those minor league guys
who are trying to get to
that, you know, next level.
So that first year was really just kind
of inundating myself
with, you know, proprietary
information, information that you can't
just Google, and it really
allowed you to kind of see
things through a different lens. And, you
know, a lot of it was learning on the
fly, too, because at
the end of the day, I did want to do my
job to the best of my
ability. But I definitely took
advantage of just kind of the resources
that were at hand to to kind
of learn new things on, you
know, the game plan side or on the coding
side, even just things that
I weren't exposed to at all
before. And that was with the Tampa Bay
Rays, right? Correct. Yep.
And how long were you with them?
So I was just with them for for a season.
And it's funny enough, like,
again, I keep in touch with
my boss at the time. And I always kind of
am grateful for him for
even taking a chance on me
when I didn't really have much experience
before that. But it was
always one of those where, you
know, all the feedback was positive,
you're doing great, keep doing what
you're doing. You know,
and I'm building confidence along the
year as well. So my mindset
was, okay, I'm in a pretty
good spot here. You know, the season kind
of comes and goes and you
start putting some feelers out
what's available, what may not be
available. And there was a
full time role that kind of got
presented to me. And it's more of an
administrative kind of role. And I I knew
it's not exactly what
I wanted to do. But hell, I had I gotten
it, I would have taken it.
Yeah. And I think that kind
of showed through the interview process
hindsight, but just kind of
one of those were there's a
finite amount of teams, there's a finite
amount of roles, right? And
just kind of didn't work out.
And, you know, they went another
direction. And, and I was tough, frankly,
just kind of knowing
that I did such a good job and still
didn't get that result that
I wanted at the time. Yeah.
Yeah. And that was there was some
reflection there of what I could have
done differently. And,
you know, it's it's tough when they say,
no, like, you did everything the right
the right way, right?
Right. Kind of didn't bounce in your
favor. You kind of have the
rug pulled out from under you.
Exactly. Wait, why? So it's frustrating.
Yeah, like, yeah, you're
telling me I shouldn't have
done anything differently than, like,
right. How am I going to improve? Right.
So, yeah, from there,
it was just back to the drawing board,
just putting my name back
out there again. And did
you stay in Tampa or did you come back
home during when they didn't
read, like, hire you? I guess,
right. I was back home. So that was the
winter of 2022 from like
November through through the end of
that year. Okay. And I remember one of
our friends, Ali, we had a birthday trip
planned to San Diego.
You know, I'm obviously trying to be
present in that moment and enjoy every
moment there. But in
the back of my mind, I'm like, shit,
like, I need to get back to
this quick and like, right,
get a job, essentially. Yeah. So, yeah,
that was just, again, just putting
feelers out there and
making it known that, hey, I'm very open
to kind of running the same
internship back, if you will.
But I don't want it to come off as, you
know, this kid's just kind of going
through the motions.
Right. Like, again, I see this as a
career for myself, not as
just like a fun summer to do a
video internship every year and just kind
of hop from team to team.
So, you know, I made that known
throughout the interview processes with
certain teams and the Brewers
were very receptive of that.
I remember vividly they told me, hey,
like, we're going to give
you all the resources you need.
It's just about you, you know, taking
advantage of them. So, yeah, that
following year, 2023,
I was in North Carolina with one of our
minor league affiliates.
And you were working with a
minor league affiliate of the Brewers?
Correct. Okay. So they hired
you on to work with the minor
league affiliate. Right. Okay. Similar
role that I had in Tampa. It
just was with a minor league
team that traveled essentially. So there
was a higher level of
player. And then for me,
personally, it was the day to day stuff
was second nature at that point. I knew
exactly what I needed
to get the job done. Then it became about
how am I going to use
my time efficiently to
start working on things on the side,
start building out a
portfolio for myself, start
separating myself so that when, you know,
the season came to an end that go around,
there was no doubt in the decision makers
minds that, hey, not only
is this kid a good fit and
we like the job he's done, but if we let
him walk and he goes to
another team, will this come back
to bite us in the ass? And that's kind of
like the way I saw it. A
question on that. Just on the
business side of the baseball. So, and
I'm rewinding a bit to your with Tampa
and you're under contract
season comes to an end. Is that is the
contract structured timing
wise starts at the season start
and ends when the season ends for a say,
a certain group of folks on
the team. And then there's
probably the year round, right? Is that
sort of how baseball structured words
you've got the seasonal
contracts and then more of the, the
continuous group of folks.
Right. So, so the internships are
definitely seasonal where it's like you
go in, say January one or through spring
training through the
season and that'll probably run until
November one. And then you're, you're a
free agent, if you will,
you're back at it. Full-time rules are
kind of similar structure. It's just,
it's just a contract.
It's just like a year contract, two year
deal, whatever the case may
be. Now, obviously there's
more security there where like you may
have a one year contract, but you're
already talking about
years to come with, with your bosses. So
you know, you're in a good
spot that that can still get a
little interesting or like, okay, like
what's this contract
negotiation going to look like for the
next year? But, but a lot of it is, is
year by year. Have you seen
so far where because baseball,
all sports, right? You've got the
ownership and then they hire the
operations guy, maybe
someone above the GM, right? To help
manage their portfolio of investments.
But then you've got the
GM and the operations guys. As you get
into this, as they change, do you, just
the whole thing below
them change as well? Is it kind of
vertically integrated like that? Or do
you think in, is there
level within the organization that stays
consistent? So just for some context,
this, this past year,
we had three new assistant general
managers. So there was a lot of like
internal movement and
that does kind of trickle down like
throughout the entire department. And
baseball is such a small
network of people where, you know, a move
on one team could affect
another team. Because if you
get hired for a higher up role, you're
going to bring a few guys
with you. And that's going to
open some spots somewhere else. And
again, that was just from my
perspective, like leaving no
doubt in, in their mind that if, you
know, just the way the ball
didn't bounce in my direction
with Tampa, if somehow circumstance went
in my favor, this next go
around, then there would be
kind of no, no doubt in their mind that
this guy is perfect for this
role, if you will. So there's
definitely upward mobility there. And
that's, that's something that I enjoy
about just kind of being
dependent on. Yeah, so I forget a couple of pages for this I
read recently about though.
Knee story. So, so that's a really technical, diagnose our
management management and it's meets our Aj systems. So your, yeah,
just the payroll, right? No one's going to match the Yankees or Dodgers payroll. Sure. But then there's also that trickle down
within the org of the operational side,
they'll have bigger teams. So the payroll
is not just the players, but it's the
whole organizational
structure of the staff.
It's the infrastructure, it's the
investments on technology, it's the
investments on the biomechanics side. You
know, we got this pitching machine this
past year and it was our first time
getting it and come to find out the
Yankees have like seven of these things.
Oh, no kidding. And they're like, they're
expensive machines to the point where
like you don't buy them outright, you
lease them for a few years and it's a
pretty penny. So just examples like that
of they have more built out because they
do have more resources. I can only speak
to my experience, but it's pretty damn
fulfilling when you win at a
disadvantage. If you will, a little guy,
correct? Yeah. The little guy doing big
things. Yeah. Does every team feel like
the little guy compared to the Yankees
and the Dodgers? I think there's
something to be said about that. Like
again, that's it's not even close, just
the amount of resources that they have
just monetarily speaking. Yeah. Now
again, if in my the way
I see it, if you invest
in good people and good scouts and good
coaches, you're gonna get the best out
of your players. Yeah. And the way Major
League Baseball is structured, there is
some competitive balance there where, you
know, say if you lose a free agent to,
you know, a team, you're gonna get
compensated with an
extra draft pick. Yeah.
So there are ways to kind of supplement
that. But yeah, winning is
addicting at that level, frankly, just
like a random game in June. It's
euphoric, really. Right, right. No, that
makes sense. So then at the end of
your time with the minor league Carolina
Mudcats, Carolina Mudcats, you had set
yourself up hoping to be retained by
them. Sure. Right. So what happened? So
that was that was an interesting winter
because I was essentially talking to the
Brewers three different ways, like for
three different perspective roles and
three different departments. So I wanted
to make sure that I wasn't necessarily
getting anything out with the
conversation I may have
with you and then go to
someone else and talk about another role.
Now I knew at the end of the day, back
channel conversations were being had. But
that was kind of an interesting piece to
navigate. And I remember the first role
that essentially gave me a call, hey,
we're gonna go to another direction.
Frankly speaking, it
was kind of the lowest
leverage of the three roles that I was
kind of gunning for. Yeah. So in my mind,
I was like, well, if I didn't get that
surely it's because something else was in
the works. Right. So I had a feeling I
was in a good spot.
But then again, I had a
feeling I wasn't in a good spot the year
before, too. So until
you get that clarity,
it's it's tough. Yeah, there's there's an
unknown there. So yeah, it kind of went
through the interview process there. And
the role that I ended up getting I didn't
even know existed until the morning that
it was offered to me.
Oh, interesting. So I
remember I was watching a movie. It was
towards the end of the night. I was
sipping on a glass of wine just talking
to my mom. Then I get
a phone call from like
one of our directors and he's like, hey,
are you gonna be free to hop on a call
tomorrow? Me and one of our AGM's and you
know, the ball starting to roll down the
hill. He used like a cryptic term like
that where I was like, what the hell does
this mean? Like surely can't be bad.
Right. Like we're in a good spot. Right.
So yeah, next day I hop on the call and
they offered me to be
full time, just kind
of like a tech assistant with the major
league group who was part of the
traveling party. And it was frankly
something I just I couldn't say no to
like I I always kind of had my sights set
on, you know, long term goals, medium
term goals. But this gave me a
perspective to be in a clubhouse and be
around coaches and be around players at
the highest level and provide them with
information. So yeah, it was it was
surreal. I didn't really expect to kind
of be a part of the major league group so
soon. Like with that being my first
full time role, really. Right. Because
how old were you when that was 26?
I would have been 26. That's amazing.
Yeah. That's amazing. And again, it's
just something that I didn't expect. It
was one of those where, you know, we had
some some movement from one team to
another. Some higher ups went elsewhere.
They took some other people with them.
Some people went elsewhere and it kind
of opened up a void. Now, granted, like I
do acknowledge that circumstance was
involved. But at the same time, I do
acknowledge that I put myself in that
position to where it was a no brainer for
them to even look elsewhere. So it was it
was a whirlwind, really.
So what do you do? Like, what's your job?
He doesn't know.
It's one of those jobs
where it's hard to explain.
So I can explain it. It
might take a little bit.
Or can sum it up for.
Yeah. Yeah. So so I work a lot with the
technology that's involved that our major
league team. So I'll be in the replay
room during the game.
So if there's like a
close play and, you know, the umpire says
one thing, we think it's the other thing.
We'll make the phone call down to the
dugout. Like, hey, we should go ahead and
challenge. OK. I'm talking more on the
collaborative side of
things, a lot of like
game plan preparation. So it's kind of
using the information from upstairs that
gets crunched and just kind of projecting
what our best match ups would be, how we
should attack a certain pitcher, hitter,
vice versa, and then kind of presenting
that information to
the coaches and players.
Now, again, at the big league level, a
lot of these guys
are, you know, they know
exactly what they need,
like I was saying earlier.
So you just kind of
like, here are the facts.
You do with it what you will.
There are times where it's
like, hey, we shouldn't do this.
And then the first thing they do that and
then hit a home run or down one
nothing. You're just like, what?
And at the end of the day, like you learn
that once the game
starts, you really have
no control. It's up to
the players to execute.
And it's all about the
players at the end of the day.
If there were no
players, I would be at a job.
No one would have a job. Right.
Right. So, yeah, a
little bit of everything.
I like to say that about 80 percent of my
day to day, I know what I'm going to get
myself into. And then there's kind of an
unknown there as well that that I love
because it does break
up some of the monotony.
I might be in the batting cage one day.
I might be in the bullpen
with pitchers the other day.
So are you are you helping with like
player development
with I think it was either
you told me one time when we were talking
or Nathan did that you're using like
technology to look at help a pitcher see
that their arm is dropped too low or it's
up to you high or it's right.
And then you help
them adjust that. Right.
Right. That kind of
part of what you're doing.
Absolutely. So I'd say even the inverse
of that is what I do
even more, which is look
at the opposition and
notice those differences.
OK, interesting.
Present that to our hitters and be like,
hey, you know, so and
so, like you said, their
their arm slot might be higher on a
fastball versus a curveball.
Their leg might kick out
this way versus that way.
They may show their grips from second
base tells if you will.
Crazy. That are very much legal if you're
relaying it without technology.
So if it's something that you see
beforehand, you know, you
can present that as much as
you want, as long as it's not being
relayed in real time, if you will.
That's fascinating.
And there's even biomechanical data
there, too, where it's
just a skeletal breakdown
of a pitcher and just any subtle
differences is picked up
on and, you know, kind of
relayed to players as well.
There's obviously a fine line that you
don't want to just kind
of inundate players with
information, especially we have we have a
very young group
that's just kind of breaking
out in Major League Baseball.
So it's just, you know,
present the information.
Let's not inundate them with it.
But there's a lot that goes into it.
And that's an interesting thing you
mentioned that the
coaches and players probably
already know what they
want to do for the game.
Right. You guys bring their data to them.
How is that say
communicated and received?
It's like, here's your report and and
they can do with it as they wish.
Or how's that kind of transpire?
Yeah. So so there's reports and like,
again, with a young
group, a lot of players will
just look at reports on their phone,
which I find fascinating.
I don't know how I would just look at
something so complex
just on a phone screen.
But we do a lot of visuals to like we'll
have certain proprietary
angles of pitchers from
behind home plate so they can kind of see
what that looks like
from the batter's box.
And that'll be running in the cage
throughout the day, as well
as just, again, what their
tendencies are, what
to look for simulator.
Right. And that goes back
to our pitching machine.
Glad you brought that up.
Like, it's fascinating.
So it's a pitching machine and there's a
projector on the ground
and it projects a visual of
the pitcher like firing the baseball.
Wow. And the release point will change
left, right, up, down,
depending on where, you know,
well, the pitcher you're facing that day
is who it is, right?
Correct. Yeah, that's a little easy.
So let's say you're in the
bullpen and we see you on Friday.
It's like, all right,
Brian Barker's back warming up.
And it's Sunday.
We can even bring that data from the at
bat that you had against them on Friday.
And you can essentially relive your at
bat before you go out and
see him again on Sunday.
Yeah, that is amazing.
You might have
answered a question I have.
I love baseball.
I've always been my favorite sport.
But it's when you watch the broadcast
now, maybe you're answering this.
Those guys know what the what the pitcher
just threw instantly.
They know they either threw a change up,
a curve, a slider,
fastball, two seam, three seam type.
How are they using this
technology you're talking about?
Are these guys just geniuses talking
about the broadcasters and broadcasters?
I think there's been such a movement in
just data and
recognizing pitches specifically
what they look like when they move.
What that profile looks like.
So I think once you get once you sit
through a baseball game or two, they're
very distinct shapes.
With a smart baseball person.
Sure. For sure.
And that goes without saying, I mean, I
don't blame anyone who's
doesn't really know much about baseball
and make them sit
through a three hour game.
Like I would get bored if I
didn't know what was going on.
Like I'll call a spade a spade.
But yeah, there's so much nuance and
intricacies with it
because the end of the day, it's
a hitter has split second
to react and make a decision.
Yeah. And it's such a reactionary action
because the pitcher
controls what he wants to throw
and where he wants to throw it.
And just kind of maximizing that time for
the hitter where it's
like if we can kind of
pick up on something before that pitch is
even fired and get you
in a better position,
even your own movements, right?
If we can kind of best sequence you to go
from your back half to
your front half and like
really be fluid with how
you swing a baseball bat.
It's another advantage.
And how far so so much of the game has
changed from being your
average country kid in the
U.S. trying to go into the big leagues.
There's a whole system now and much of it
does start offshore.
And so how far does the technology go
down to see into the
Dominican where you are, where
you're scouting kids,
not just scouting, right?
They're building there's whole complexes.
Yeah. And it's like they're growing kids,
developing kids and
then bringing them how far
down into the into that
process does all this technology go?
So, again, not not to bring up the
Yankees again, but they're at it.
They've got everything down there.
You know, we're we're slowly but surely
trying to build more
of an infrastructure.
We we just redid our
entire complex this past winter.
It's a beautiful facility.
And like you said, yeah,
guys are down in the Dominican.
And each team has one.
And it's, you know, more than just
developing them as
baseball players, but as as people
to what to look for.
You know, when they do get stateside, how
to handle your
finances, how to handle the
things like that to where, you know, they
aren't completely
shell shocked when they do.
Are they being taught English?
Yes. And again, there's only so much you
can do to kind of simulate that.
Yeah. Once you go from, you know, all
knowing a small town and in the D.R.
all your life. Yeah.
You know, now you're
in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Yeah. Yeah. What the hell is going on?
Right. So kind of just keeping them in
tune with who they are,
but also instilling value
careers where it's like, listen, you
know, this is a great
step that you've made to get
signed and be in this position.
But, you know, we think
your journey is just beginning.
So you can just continue to hone in on
that work and on that
dedication, then, you know,
because it's not going
to come instantaneously.
It's not going to come automatically.
Some guys think that they can just kind
of go through the motions
and year over year, they'll
just write, I'm a year older.
I'll be in double A now and I'll be in it
doesn't work like that,
especially this day and age
where, yeah, frankly, one of our best
players is he hasn't turned 21 yet.
Right. So, you know,
there's there's outliers.
And it's also recognizing that as a
player, you can have a
career in baseball that goes
beyond playing like, yeah, it's coaching
if it's being in the front
office and, you know, if it's
being involved with technology.
So kind of getting them up to speed with
all the resources that we
do have because the numbers
speak for themselves.
I mean, it's really tough to get signed
as an international
free agent at 16 and make
it to the big leagues.
The numbers aren't in your favor.
You know what that
that flow through rate is.
Is it like five percent?
I'd say it's less.
Yeah. OK. Close to three.
Yeah. And the reason for
that is there's just the sheer.
So each team has a minor
league roster of about 180 players.
So sheer volume alone.
And, you know, teams kind of do tend to
group players into
certain buckets, higher priority
guys, organizational
filler guys, depth guys.
So if you have a hitter who you value and
he's nineteen twenty and
double A, you know, you need
to round out a staff of other players to
kind of go through that season.
Now, mind you, that entire team may not
make the big leagues because
that's just kind of the way
the cookie crumbles really.
Right. But that doesn't mean that you
can't sustain a life for
yourself with a career after
baseball. Right. So it's kind of also
instilling that in them, too,
where, you know, this is where
you're at now and this is your passion
and this is your life now.
But there's life beyond baseball.
You're investing in them as people.
No doubt. So do you think that's unique
to the Brewers or are all
the teams major league teams
investing in them and
their people the same way?
I'd say it would
behoove each team to do that.
You guys certainly are.
We definitely do. And I mean, at the end
of the day, it's like
you're almost investing in an
investment because it is a
business at the end of the day.
Yeah. You are paying these guys.
You know, results do matter.
Production does matter.
But at the end of the day, like there is
definitely some value that that we take
joy in and just kind of
building these guys up as people as well.
It's hard being away from your family
and, you know, going completely for
culture and country and
especially if you're young.
And I assume that they probably bond
together, too, without a doubt, you know,
to support each other.
And do they assimilate pretty well,
though, into American
culture from what you've seen?
Yes and no. I mean, there's we sometimes
have to rely on our
nutrition departments a lot just to
kind of point them in certain directions
because a lot of these minor league
cities and towns, you know, by the time
the games are over, the only thing that's
open is like Wendy's.
So it's like, how do you kind of maintain
these guys in that regimen?
But, you know, I think with it being and
even just this newer generation, I feel
like kind of is more
like I've seen players who don't speak
English and players who
don't speak Spanish somehow
communicate fantastically and they make
it work and they're the
best of their friends.
So that's always awesome to see.
Now, obviously, you're going to have
like, you know, your English guys on one
side, your Spanish, like
that's kind of how the way it goes.
But, you know, we try our best to kind of
make them comfortable
in that environment.
But again, like it's it's a grind and
players aren't dumb.
They know, like once the summer rolls
around, the draft comes
around and more players get added
and the roster crunch, you know, gets
squeezed in a little bit.
So they start to press and they start to
get stressed a little bit
and just kind of keeping them
cognizant of hey, keep
keep doing what you're doing.
Let's let's not worry too much about the
stats you see on M-I-L-B dot com because
those aren't the stats
that we're using to make
decisions at the end of the day.
Do you have like a therapist or
psychologist on staff to kind of deal
with the mental health
aspect of it or are they
kind of assigned a mom?
You know what I mean?
Sure. Yeah. To help them
with some of that stuff.
So we have our own psychology department
built out like mental performance.
I think we have three minor league
psychologists on staff and we have one in
the big leagues as well.
So, yeah, they definitely have, you know,
a platform to kind of vent, if you will,
just talk about life.
And, you know, I don't know what goes on
in those conversations,
but just kind of from.
But it's there. It's the resources and,
you know, being familiar with some of
those people on staff.
I know they do a good job. So at the end
of the day, it's it's it's kind of a over
not almost overwhelming, but, you know,
it's so new for them.
So it's kind of just, you know, make them
aware that, hey, this is
just one step in your journey.
And like you may and
baseball's a sport of failure. Right.
100 percent. Yeah.
You can't get frustrated after, you know,
a strikeout or two
strikeouts or a week of bad play.
It's just always going
to ebb and flow. Yeah.
Do you find that even that for some that
maybe their baseball career ends, do they
stay here or do a lot
of them go back home?
Some of them like will have flights
arranged for them like to go back to
their respective countries and they just
won't show up to the flight.
They want to. And that. Yeah. So, yeah,
it's just kind of an unspoken thing that,
you know, they have family
somewhere and they're fine.
Yeah. But yeah, that part's a little it's
a little tough because it's like, you
know, where is this guy?
You want to make sure he's OK. Right.
But then at the end of the day, you you
kind of come to the conclusion that he
probably did what's best
for him and for his family.
You want to say so I'd say that's that's
a pretty big hit rate in minor league
baseball where guys get released and they
just don't go back home.
Yeah. Interesting. What do you what's
your perspective on American young men,
boys and young men and their potential to
still make it in the MLB?
Do you think it's still a viable dream?
How it was maybe when Gen Xers and
Boomers were growing up and, you know,
like Brian played baseball and if he
wanted to play in college, he could he
could have kept pursuing that.
Sure. But I feel like now.
The maybe the American young men and
boys, it's not quite the
same playing field, if I could.
Does that make sense?
Well, you're spot on.
And it's it's just because baseball's
it's an international game now.
Right. Of course. Back when I was a kid,
probably even maybe it became more
international as you were growing up, but
it was just an American sport.
Right. Right. Right.
Great players from Japan that are, you
know, all over the place.
It's international.
That ties into my question.
Yeah. 100 percent.
Yeah. So what what's your perspective on
that? Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, no doubt. I think the love of the
game is still there.
I think there's something to be said
about just kind of playing different
sports and just being
athletic in different ways.
I think five, 10 years ago, if you threw
90 miles per hour in high school, you
were getting signed.
No questions about it.
Now, everyone's
throwing ninety five plus.
There's just been more of
an accelerated timeline.
Yeah. But I think has has put an unfair
kind of view on uncertain players, like
unfair expectations is a better way of
putting it to where it's like if you're
15, 16, like you don't have to be that
developed as a player.
Like you are still very much green.
But I think there is a certain pressure
that you have to hit a certain benchmark
because, you know, you're seeing this kid
on TICTOK throw
ninety nine miles per hour.
So if I don't do that, then
I'm kind of shit out of luck.
I think it all comes down to
structure at the end of the day.
Like if you truly have a passion for the
game and you're truly talented, there
will be an eye or two on you.
Like you'll you're not going to get lost
in the shuffle if you're that good.
Now, I do think there's something also to
be said about, you know, having realistic
expectations for yourself, too.
Like I'm not saying that everyone should
be an eight year old like me and realize
they're not going to be in Major League
Baseball, but like find things that you
love, like find other
avenues to fulfill yourself.
And that's with baseball. Great.
If that's something else, even better, I
think it's equally as important to find
out what you don't want to do.
And I kind of went through that process.
Even in the workforce where it's like I
thought I wanted to be a scout, I thought
I wanted to travel and do this, that.
And I came to the conclusion where it's
like, well, I kind of pride myself on
having conversations and like building
relationships like I don't want to be on
the road by myself nine
months out of the year like that.
I didn't know that until I
saw what that life was like.
Exactly. So I think it's just getting out
there advocating for yourself as well.
Yeah. I think nowadays a lot of like
younger kids especially just want
everything so instantaneously.
And they think that, you know, if they
just kind of check a box, things will
just fall on their lap.
Like you got to go get
it at the end of the day.
Are you seeing that
with the younger Gen Z's?
Because they start at see Dylan's 14 and
it goes as 2012 is the youngest.
That'd be 12. So you're
looking at ages what, 12 to 17.
Are you seeing that the work ethic isn't
quite as strong as it has been?
So I've interviewed a
few intern candidates now.
They would be a little older than than
the age group you just mentioned.
But even with them and just having
conversations with them, it almost felt
like, you know, this
was a given for them.
Like I'm going to go
through the interview process.
I'm going to get a role because I
graduated school and this is how it is.
And it's like that would be
great if that was the reality.
But but it's not like it's a very highly
competitive environment and you do have
to separate yourself and and even just have a conversation.
Having conversations like
about what they want to do.
And there seems to be a
lack of substance almost.
And again, each person's different.
Each conversation is different.
But just speaking more generally, I feel
like there's some lost perspective
because there's a thought that if I do
this, then this is just
automatically going to happen.
And that's how the way that's how the way
the progression should be.
It's like, well, each
road is very different.
And you might catch luck here and you
might not see, you know, another
conversation for like months.
And that's fine. And that's just you have
to be persistent the way I see it.
Yeah. Was that
something you kind of learned?
Like so when you got into this, did you
think, OK, this I'm interested.
I've got a sports management
degree from a good university.
I should be able to land any gig.
And then it wasn't until see the the
raise experience of shit.
This is really isn't I
got to separate myself.
Or did you kind of know that going in?
I had an idea that it was going to be an
uphill battle and I wasn't going to be
able to just coast uphill, if you will,
like I had to put the work in.
I also never really wanted to pull the
you know, I have a family member who
plays a baseball card either now, you
know, organically, if that comes up in
conversation, then great.
And you get to know me, then great. But
same thing with the Spanish.
I was never the type to be like, hi, my
name is Abdel and I speak
Spanish like a great kid.
I mean, everyone speaks
Spanish here. Right. Right.
So, yeah, I knew that
again, there's only 30 teams.
There's only so many spots. Yeah.
It's just the way I saw it was continuing
to kind of push the envelope and, you
know, best best I can show people that
this is something I'm really passionate
about and really dedicated about.
And that's only going to help them in the
long run because I'm just trying to be
part of that bigger collective.
Yeah. But yeah, I mean, it took, say,
obviously, Covid, the re-wrenching of
things, but two years
before I even kind of got in.
And I mean, I still, you know, I'm very
far away from where I want to be.
But, you know, as long as I continue to
see that upward mobility and right now I
do, that's kind of all I can ask for.
And speaking then about the younger Gen
Z's, what you're seeing is they don't
necessarily see the
reality of of the uphill.
Sure. And I'm wondering if
is that a societal thing?
Is that from parents, you know, creating
entitlement or is that social media and
having that instant gratification from?
Yeah, I'm wondering, you know, because I
have seen other people say that the some
of the younger Gen Z's they're hiring are
just not cutting it.
Yeah. They're having they're struggling
with the grind. Right.
Whatever career they're choosing, they're
struggling with the grind.
So I'm I'm wondering,
like, where's that shift?
Yeah. What did that is it? Is it for I
mean, it's obvious some of
it is the way you're raised.
But I'm wondering how much individual.
I think what I'm listening, you know,
obviously I'm part of this conversation,
but you're you're laying out some huge
nuggets for any kid or even parents
advising their kids on just a career
progression and how to land a gig, how to
continue to improve
yourself to to separate yourself.
Those are all the things
that are critical. Right.
I mean, I'm I'm excited for you because
you're you're just doing
it and you're still young.
So those opportunities
haven't just landed yet.
You haven't had enough
time to go chase them all.
But it's exciting because I think you
could be a GM someday and whether you
want to go there or not, or some
equivalent, because I think you're doing
all the right things.
You're working your ass off. You're
working while people are sleeping.
You're paying attention. You're you're
student of the game.
The technology. Those are all the things
that as parents, you know, you have to
part on your kids to you can't be lazy.
Nothing's hand it to you in the world.
To the earlier point around baseball, not
baseball is not just
an international game.
The world's an international game. Sure.
If you get into tech, you're competing
with people in India and offshore.
If you get anything you do, it's the
world's just bigger. Right.
That we're no longer confined to our
borders. So it's. Yeah, I mean.
And I think to like once you do land the
gig, just kind of realize,
OK, now is when it starts.
Yeah, it's not like, all right,
complacency should set
in now that I got this.
And we're all by. Yeah, it's like now the
work really begins. Yeah.
And that's a mindset that I've always
tried to kind of keep close where it's
like, OK, I'm in a great position.
I'm not going to sit here and say that
I'm not. But the end of the day, you
know, I do want to continue
growing and learning new things
and eventually becoming a
decision maker with leverage.
And and that takes time
and that takes experience.
And that takes openness to to be wrong on
things and to fall on your face and to
realize what works and what doesn't.
And I think, again, just to go back to
that instant gratification point, like
there would be times where, you know,
some prospective candidates would reach
out saying, hey, like I applied to this
and the third and I
haven't heard back yet.
You know, what should I do? So when did
you apply? Oh, you know, three days ago.
Like, man, like it's a process. And you
have to understand that.
And there are going to be ups and downs.
And trust me, like I understand the
waiting game sucks, like not being in the
know of anything sucks.
I'm someone who's very intentional with
with how I feel and what I say.
And, you know, I don't really like ever
being in limbo with
anything. So I get that.
But at the end of the day, you know, you
have to trust your work and your grind
and, you know, everything
else will take care of itself.
Put yourself in that position is my mind.
I think you're also touching on humility.
Humility is so important. And that may be
a missing piece, too, with
some of the younger generation.
So humility, I think, is and
self-awareness. Right. Those are those
are two huge things
in my short experience.
Just being with the Major League Club, it
feels like everyone who is a part of it,
that wasn't their main
prerogative to get to the big leagues.
It was they're good people. They know
what they're doing. They
know how to work with players.
And that's just kind of how it all played
out. Yeah, it wasn't that like, oh, I'm
hell bent on on
getting to the big leagues.
And I feel like if that's the case and
you eventually do get there, then there's
going to be this kind of false sense of
of almost being let down.
I mean, don't get me wrong, like, you
know, it's it's awesome being a part of a
team and like day in, day
out going through the grind.
But I feel like there's also like this
misconception of
everything being so glamorous.
No, like we're putting in
work like hours after hours.
Like these players aren't showing up 30
minutes before the game.
Smelling nice, looking good, rolling out
out of bed, like 7 p.m. game.
They're getting to work
by like noon. Right. Right.
What we see on TV is like the final
production. Correct.
Well, it's funny because it's you're
touching on you never
want to meet your hero. Sure.
Because they'll always disappoint you.
But now you're in the big leagues.
It's doesn't sound like you're totally
disappointed, though.
Yeah, no doubt. No doubt.
And it doesn't feel like work, frankly,
which I think is that's amazing.
The best part of it. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. That's wonderful.
I recognize that it is my career.
But at the end of the day, I I look
forward to it every day.
And it doesn't feel like a
burden to get up and go to work.
That's wonderful. It's funny out.
My grandma will always give me a call and
be like, oh, like, where are you guys at?
What city are you guys in?
Oh, you know, we're traveling to this
place or that place.
And typical grandma kind of
feeling bad. Oh, poor thing.
You're always on the road.
It's like grandma, you know,
the bus is pulling up right
to the plane on the tarmac.
I'm sipping on some red wine.
Like, yeah, your grandson
is doing. Yeah, you're fine.
You know, with with that being said, the
so if a game starts at 705
on Eastern Standard Time, sure.
The players are out there by,
say, noon, right? Or one ish.
What when does your day start?
When does your day end?
Because you're behind the scenes getting
these guys ready. Right.
For what they're about to do.
And then analyzing what they just did so
they can prove upon the next one.
Right. Sure. So do you sleep?
The sometimes the way the
way we kind of go about it,
our manager likes to say twelve to three
is player development.
And then four to seven is when tonight,
where it's just you're hyper
focused on the game at hand.
Twelve to three as a player, you get all
your treatment done.
You take care of what you need to do
early work if you have it.
For me, you know, 7 p.m.
game, I'm I'm probably there
1030 or 11 a.m. if we're at home.
If we're on the road, I always take the
first bus to the fields,
probably closer to one
depending on what the day looks like.
But it's always an ever
constant thing because you're always kind
of looking ahead to the next series.
You can't just show up to the next series
and not have anything prepared.
So yeah, by the time
we're flying out of a city,
we have all of our documentation ready
for for the next series ahead.
I sleep in the offseason. I try to.
But frankly, like after a big
win or even after a big loss,
like you're you're so ready to get back
at it the next day. Yeah.
I try and just give myself the night to
like Salk in a bad loss.
And then the next day is
like, all right, here we go.
We've got a new game. And that's what I
love about baseball is just the sheer
number of games where you don't really
have the opportunity to just like
bask in a loss for a week. Like, no, you
have you have a game the next day.
You have to shift immediately. Right.
So are your days
averaging eight, 10 hour days?
Say 10. 10's a good number. Depends.
I mean, baseball's one of the one sport
that doesn't have a clock.
Yeah. We have a pitch clock now, which
kind of does accelerate things.
But, you know, you may have
a two and a half hour game.
You may have a four hour game. Right.
Game may go into extra innings.
You might have a night game getaway and
you're flying to another city
on the East Coast that same night and
then you turn around and you have a mat
and a game. So I think being
aware of the schedule is huge.
Just kind of not looking too far ahead,
but knowing kind of what the next two
weeks are going to look like.
So you're probably what?
Just trying to get at least
five hours a night if you can.
My mom would not like that, but try and
get at least six to six.
I don't want to expose you, but I'm
already doing the
math and then, you know,
every year not much. I mean, on flights,
I'll I'll sleep a good amount.
So you probably sleep when you can. Yes.
That's pretty much where
you're in like survival mode.
Right. I'm sure you try to
eat decently to keep yourself
healthy and level head.
That part's awesome.
Just kind of being in proximity to like
our our chefs and our nutrition staff.
Right. You know, not only eating well,
but like healthy as well.
Right. Right. Right.
Whereas, you know,
Tallahassee, it's just so what's oh, yeah.
What's next on the menu here?
Nothing compares to Tallahassee.
So as far as travel, because I noticed
you said you realized
you didn't want to be
one in the position where you were
traveling nine months out of the year.
But it feels like you do.
Sure. So are you in my mind?
I feel like you travel except for when
you come home
Thanksgiving through New Year's.
Yeah, that's right. But by travel, I
meant more so traveling
alone like as a scout.
Whereas I would kind of
be my own mission man.
OK. OK. Traveling with
the team is different.
We're like, you're kind of part of it.
And that camaraderie is there.
But also like, you know,
you can see your work being
directly affected almost
by a result of the game.
I'm not saying that I'm directly
affecting wins and losses, but
you're part of the team.
You're part of the team. OK, yeah.
So your life is travel.
We're on the move a lot. Yeah.
And this two months upcoming will be the
kind of the most time I'll ever have.
Just, you know, being in
one place for one location.
Are you going to be in
Milwaukee or in Arizona?
So I'll go out to Arizona later this
month and I'll be out there until.
Is that their spring training?
Yeah, it is. OK.
So I'll be out there until
the beginning of the season.
This offseason, they kind of
gave me some leeway to go home
as much as you want to this and that.
But I did kind of want to be present in a
way to up in Milwaukee, where
she got to get to work with some groups
that I wouldn't get to work with
during the season because everything, you
know, starts moving 100 miles per hour
once games start going.
But yeah, once once the season's going,
we're on we're on the bird a lot.
You're on the right. So Milwaukee.
But when I picture
Milwaukee at this point,
I think it's probably a pretty cool town,
like there's some cool areas.
Have you had a chance to even explore
Milwaukee very much?
Not up until these past few months when
the season ended. OK.
So during the season, it's just stadium
apartment apartment stadium.
Right. And, you know,
there's are so very few off days.
So the off days that you do have, that's
kind of when I get to sleep. Yeah.
Yeah. So now that, you know, we weren't
playing games and I was up there
for the better part of October and
November, I I did kind
of get to explore a lot.
And it's a great city. I
mean, the people are very nice.
A lot of Chicago kind of like filters up.
So there's a lot of influence there.
The lake is beautiful.
Summers are beautiful.
Seventy. I mean,
I would say I'm kind of spoiled in the
sense that, you know, during the season,
I'm eating very specific things.
When I come home, my my grandma wants to
feed me all the time. Right. Right.
So I wouldn't say it's as up
to par with what I know. Right.
But it does kind of force me to kind of
make food for myself and get out there.
That was kind of a point that I made this
past year was like, all right,
I I need to start like
cooking for myself. Right.
Just let me shadow you, grandma or mom.
Like, let me just be in the
kitchen and see what goes on.
Because it's easy to just come home tired
and you just order something good.
That right. Is she making like
traditional Dominican dishes? Oh, yeah.
How what does that compare to?
Because we're pretty spoiled down here.
Sure. With, you know, Cuban food or even
Mexican food or Argentinian food
and Brazilian food.
I'm not aware of a ton
of Dominican restaurants.
You had to point us to one. But are there
that we're missing out on?
There's a few that I know
there's one up in West Palm.
There's another one down
in the Coral Springs area.
I would say from at least like, you know,
when family makes a meal,
it's more so the preparation and like the
herbs and the spices and the seasoning
more so than the actual meal itself.
Like I could go to a Dominican restaurant
and order the same meal
that my grandma would make.
And I'll tell you right now, it's not
going to taste this good.
Made with love. Exactly.
And that's what she says.
I mean, there are there are meals that my
mom admits to this day
that she can't make as
good as my grandma does.
Grandma's love is in there. It's an
ingredient. Correct.
It's all definitely.
So do you even have your
place furnished in Milwaukee?
And or is it just really a landing pad to
sleep when you can and exist?
But your life is really
it's a work in progress.
I'd say now it's it's very much more
homey than what it was
when I first moved in.
Funny enough, I got my keys the same day
that we were headed out on a road trip.
So it was like, got my keys, dropped my
bags off and we're gone.
And then we're coming back
from that same road trip.
And some people are like, man, I can't
wait to get back home
and sleep in my own bed.
And I'm just like, no, it's Ritz Carlton
sounds much nicer than the air mattress.
I got waiting back for me.
But my sister graduated
from college this past May.
So I was like, hey,
I'll I'll fly you out.
But like, come help me furnish this
place. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So we're slowly but
surely putting it together.
You got a woman's touch
that exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
But it's you know, I try and kind of make
it as comfortable for myself
because the day I do want a comfortable
place to come back home to.
Yeah. But there was also a
fine line of like, all right,
I don't want to be paying an arm and a
leg each month for rent for a place
that's going to be sitting idle half the
time as well. Right.
So that was a good little balancing act.
But we're making it work.
So out of all the travel you've done, is
there a city that really stands out?
That you have fallen in love with?
I love San Diego.
I see a lot of parallels with South
Florida with like the the environment
and just kind of the people. And frankly,
that's something I need to be better
about this go round of just kind of
exploring the cities that,
you know, we go to.
Frankly, this past year, I was very just
kind of hyper focused
on on the task at hand.
And now that I think that, you know, I've
built some relationships
and I have some familiarity. I'm not
going to be as on
edge as I say that I was
this past year. Chicago is beautiful.
I like Boston a lot as well.
There's some exciting ones that we didn't
get to go to this year that will go to
next year, like I
haven't never been to Toronto.
I'm excited to go there.
I enjoyed Dallas. So what about what
about gone otherwise?
Yeah, what about stadiums?
You know, Fenway is obviously iconic.
Fenway was awesome just
because like all the history there.
You get the tour of the Green
Monster, you get to sign it.
And the same path that goes from the
clubhouse to the dugout
is the same tunnel that's been there for
like 100 plus years.
Amazing. The floor is always wet.
It's a little like soggy.
But like you think about just the names
and people that have
walked through there.
That was definitely surreal.
Wrigley as well.
I'm not going to speak too highly of
Wrigley on the Cubs
because they're one of our
rivals, but just the historical.
Stadium is cool. Exactly. Exactly.
And then San Francisco
Stadium was beautiful.
Just being right on the Bay and like
really tough to hit there
because everything the wind is just
swirling all over the place.
But that was a newer facility.
Mm hmm. Right. In baseball terms.
Yeah. Yeah. Relative to
the Fenways of the world.
We went to a game of candlestick years
and 30 years ago, I guess.
Nineteen ninety three.
Kind of sanitary innocence.
Yeah. But if you
candlestick the old stadium.
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah. Yeah. That was cool.
It was cool. Yeah. San
Francisco was an interesting one.
I remember one of the coaches and I, we
took a scooter to the Golden Gate Bridge
and it was really nice. And then we
decided to take one of those.
I'm not sure if you guys are familiar,
but they're called the Waymos.
They're essentially like
self driving Ubers. Yeah. Yeah.
So they crash every now and then. Yeah.
They they don't give a shit
about anyone else on the road.
Like if they're trying to make a right
turn, they're in the middle lane.
They're just they're going.
So we're in one of those headed over to
to dinner and we're stopped.
At a red light. And it just so happened
to be that, you know,
was a block that was kind of popping off
for lack of a better term.
There was a lot of interesting
individuals in San Francisco. Right.
So you couple that with, you know, a car
that's got no driver.
They start peeking in the window like,
what the hell is going on?
I'm looking at my buddy
like getting surrounded.
Let's have this light turn green and
let's get the San Francisco experience.
Absolutely. But the
travel aspect is awesome.
Just like I've always loved even just
traveling nationally,
like throughout the country. Like I've
always just known kind of the East Coast.
Yeah. So just to go to
different places has been awesome.
Now it's a great opportunity.
So where do you see
yourself in five years?
What's your five year goal?
Yeah, I think with what I'm doing now and
just kind of having the perspective
that I have now being down in the
clubhouse, being with
players and coaches,
I eventually do want to transition
upstairs to the front office
and kind of have more of a decision maker
type role where I can kind of continue
to be that liaison and, you know, relate
to the nerds that are crunching
the numbers and then also relate to the
players who are, you know,
executing what we want
them to do, so to speak.
I still have an
affinity for the minor leagues.
I think eventually get to a point where
where I can kind of lead that operation
and be a farm director
in some and some sorts.
It's funny because my
Carolina team in twenty three,
all kind of moved up together the
following year to like the next level.
So speaking of FOMO, there was a little
bit of FOMO there for me
because it was like, man,
I want to be a part of this group.
Those are my guys. Like
I'm seeing them get better.
So I try and keep up with our minor
league system as much as I
can and and just kind of,
you know, provide my perspective because,
frankly, not many people get to kind of
be with a group of
players day in and day out.
And now, like as an evaluator, you can
know who a player is,
what they're good at,
what they're not. But having that added
perspective of what makes them tick,
what they need to get to compete, you
know, what, you know,
they really what really
grinds their gears, I
think, is equally as valuable.
So just kind of trying to present that.
And ultimately, along the way, if we get
a World Series ring,
that would be awesome.
Definitely. The the minor leagues, too,
though, for a team
like the Brewers is huge.
Absolutely. That's how you guys build
your team without any
good guys like the Yankees
come in and pluck your best players and
share with these huge contracts.
You Brewers are not out on the free
market market in a big way, right?
Right. A lot of it's developed a lot of
our a lot of our
resources that we wouldn't use
to sign free agents. We would invest, you
know, into our scouts and to our player
personnel departments into finding those
players on the amateur circuit
so that once, you know, we sign them and
they're a part of our organization,
then there is an advantage there.
We definitely pride ourselves on, you
know, continuing that pipeline internally
because that's only going to create more
value, not only for the
player, but but for us,
if we can then go to the Yankees and be
like, hey, like, look
at these shiny prospects,
you know, kind of come to a deal.
If you work with the minors,
are you is it as much travel?
No, so most minor league.
So there's there's different leagues
within minor league baseball
that are much more close to one another.
So we're talking like one or two hours on
a bus versus like,
you know, cross country.
Now, if it was like a more of a
coordinator type role
where you would get to travel to each
minor league affiliate,
then that would definitely be baked in.
But as far as like day to day, no,
there's nothing really
compares to what you're doing
right now. You got to game in Baltimore,
then you got to game in Oakland.
Yeah, you got to game in
Dallas and you go to Miami.
So yeah, but it's the travel different to
where in the majors,
you might be at the Ritz minors, you're
at the Howard Johnson's or something.
No doubt. And and it's funny because the
more I've kind of was around players
and I don't want to out anyone and call
anyone a diva, but, you know,
as with anything, humans adapt, right?
And they get used to their environment
and they know what they like
and they know what they don't like.
And we'd be at like a
relatively nice hotel.
We're staying at hotel acts.
I'm like, man, I
thought this place was nice.
Yeah, perspective, perspective.
But I'm always the type of
person to where it's like,
you can put me in a gold penthouse and
I'll think it's awesome.
The first and second day.
And then by day
three, it's just my house.
Right. Right. Nothing.
That's how hotels are. Right. Yeah.
So I mean, you're at a great age to be
doing all this travel
and the wear and tear on
your body when you're young,
you can handle that a lot easier, I can
say, than for somebody our age.
But there are people that have been doing
this for 10, 20, 30, 40 years.
Have families married, have families.
Have you observed for the
people that have been in it,
how how they adapt to the
wear and tear of the travel
to being involved with their families
with all the traveling?
Have you have you been an audience to any
of that yet or been exposed to that?
Yeah, a little bit. It's
definitely a sacrifice. Right.
Like I'll I'll see coaches
who they might find like a five,
10 minute window while they're on the
field, like during batting practice
to like sneak in a call to their wife or
to their kids. Right.
I think it's equally as important that,
you know, the significant other
and the family is aware of
what that life kind of brings.
Doesn't make it any easier by any means.
Right. Right. Right.
But I think you just got to
pick and choose your spots
and really enjoy the
time that that you do have.
Now, it's good that there is an off
season and it's kind of built in that way
so that, you know, they can kind of go
back home and spend those
those few months with their family.
Again, I'm in a position where, you know,
I don't really have anything
kind of anchoring me
with your age. Yeah. Right.
So it's great. Yeah.
I felt that it was important for me to
like stay up in Milwaukee
and continue doing what I'm doing.
But yeah, I think it's just valuing the
present and, you know,
obviously it starts with
loving what you do. Right.
Knowing that there's an
ultimate goal to this. Right.
Now, from what I also saw, like once
summer kind of rolled around,
you know, people with like younger kids,
like they would kind of bring them around
and they would be a part of the team.
So they kind of travel their
spouse would travel. Right.
There would be family trips that were
designated and like, right.
The plane would be
like packed with kids. OK.
That's like in the middle of the season.
Yeah. Like June, July.
Cool. It's cool until you get the
sniffles from. Yeah.
Oh, it's like 40 kids. That's so true.
But so their home base
could really be anywhere
because their spouse
is traveling so much.
We have coaches from Texas.
We have coaches from Wisconsin, coaches
from Florida, California.
And then that's where
they'll spend their off season.
That's where they go home.
Right. OK. I see. I see. Yeah.
And as far as I guess the lack of sleep
and stuff as they get older,
they just adjust all that, right? Yeah.
That's that's something I I would like to
improve on personally.
But yeah, I think it's just
something you have to manage.
Part of it. Like especially during the
season, you have to
pick and choose your spots.
I mean, I grew up outside of New York, so
I know of four families,
two associated with the
Yankees and two at the Giants.
Coaches for the Giants.
Those guys didn't
sleep during the season.
They would be at the
facility till whenever. Right.
They'd come home. They'd be
gone before school started.
Right. So it was work
your ass off. Right.
And I know it is exactly.
And that's kind of what
our manager tells us to.
He's yeah, he essentially likens our
roles to those of like offensive linemen.
Like no one talks about the offensive
linemen until something goes wrong.
So you go up to the line
of scrimmage every play
and you create holes for
your star running back.
And the star running back in this case is
just our players. Right.
You put them in the best position and,
you know, he's
straight up with us about it.
And I agree, too. It's like you'll never
get any of the credit.
And that's fine. And
that's just the way it is.
And I don't want any of the credit.
You're behind the scenes. Exactly.
And I love it that way. Yeah. Yeah.
And then on the offseason, that's when
you really have to take advantage of that
downtime. Absolutely.
And that's something I've kind of
learned, you know, these past few weeks
and months where it's
like, OK, like I know
you're anxious to kind of get back at it
and, you know, start thinking about
twenty, twenty five and, you know,
how we want to attack the year, but also
acknowledging it's programmed
to have this downtime because this
downtime is so valuable.
Balance. Right.
Relative to what the
season brings. Right.
I don't know if that
would be my advice, though.
And I don't think you're taking that
advice for yourself.
And I say that because you're young.
Well, now is your chance to burn it.
And and it'll help you in the long term.
I'm not saying don't. Right. Yeah.
But and I don't think if I said don't,
you would listen to me by
any stretch of the imagination.
And I don't think you are because your
mind is constantly going.
Right. From what I'm hearing.
I think now is the time to do it because
then if you get into more of that
operational front office thing,
maybe you don't have to travel as much.
You may not like that, though.
That may not be your calling.
You know, this is where
you figure it out. Right.
And I think I would want to be able to be
in this role and travel now
versus 15, 20 years from now.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Like I said, I do end up getting a more
kind of homebody role where I can kind of
have more of a structure.
And that's great because that I would
assume at that point in my life.
And that's something that
I would need. Right. Right.
And again, I'm not saying to just like
lay low the entire off
season and not do anything.
I'm still very much at work.
But, you know, there are times where it's
like, you know, 3 p.m. on a Friday.
It's like, OK, let me go
lay out on the hammock for 20.
Yeah. Like, yeah, I deserve that.
You don't want to burn out. Right.
Yeah. And you want to
have that balance. So.
OK, so I have to say one of
my first impressions of you,
which you're going to probably think I
thought was bad, but it was
it was at our youngest son's communion
party, which he would
have been, I think, seven.
So that was seven years ago.
So you would have been what, 19 or were
you a freshman, maybe in college?
Probably like second or
third semester in college.
Yeah. And Nathan, our
older son, brought you home.
Well, you know, you
were down here at home.
He came over for the party. Yes.
And we had a great party.
It was so much fun. Yeah.
And we all drank a lot.
And it was it was a blast.
Let's not leave out that this was like
you guys had recently moved into this.
We had just moved in. Yes.
We had just moved in. And and as college
kids do, you guys enjoy yourself.
And not only did we indulge, we started
kind of mixing, which I think
was what led to my downfall.
Yes, we started. And I
think you're going there.
I think you blacked out at
a child's communion party.
Sure did. Drinking gin.
The beer was fine. The
tequila was once we turned to gin.
That's when things started. Yeah.
South. Yeah. You're like, holy crap.
This is your first impression.
I had already known a doll for years.
I think so because
I don't because you had gone up for those
dad, Kapisig, dad,
golf weekends and stuff.
Yeah. So I spent some time like at the
older house and I had been.
Briefly, right. I think this was my first
like hang out all day.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'd seen you like,
oh, it's good to see you.
Let's get to the impression part here.
So and then, you know, you you ended up,
you know, getting sick in the bath.
Right. And I'll defend
myself a little bit here.
I saw it coming. I felt it coming.
I was I was there on time.
And again, like we
talked about, I love it.
I just didn't execute. Right.
I the task was right there at hand.
And for some reason, the
physics just didn't work out.
It didn't work out. But and
it was in the guest bathroom.
And I had just bought new rugs
because we had just moved in.
Right. And so then we did it.
Nathan came and got me.
And so we we did a
cleanup and everything.
But the reason one of
the I already liked that.
But one of the things that
really sensed it for me was
before I even came out the next morning
out of our room, it was early.
I went into the bathroom and he had woken
up on the target, I think.
Sure did. And bought me brand new rugs.
Yeah. Yeah. And that would have been
before I even came out of my bedroom.
It was solved. It was it was solved
because we threw with the
way I was blacked out drunk.
And I said an alarm. You said an alarm.
Yeah, you said an alarm. I mean, I think
I mean, otherwise I wouldn't have
woken up at six in the morning.
Well, you never know. Sometimes when
you're drunk, you wake up
at like four in the morning.
Because your body.
But the integrity of that, you know, I
was so touched because I was not.
I was impressed. It was unnecessary.
You know that. And it was unexpected, but
I would never have
expected you to do that.
But it was just so it was so touching
that you just thought of that.
And it just showed how much you respected
us as a family, respected
me, that you understood.
Obviously, you you've been raised along a
sister and you're close with your mom.
You understand how women
might feel about things.
They decorate their house with, you know,
and that you took the time
to solve that so quickly.
Just meant so much to me. And that was my
first real impression of him.
And it was so positive.
And I think, too, like it wasn't even
like you said, I didn't necessarily feel
indebted to do that.
No, I hope not.
The respect that I had for you guys and
just the friendship that I valued with
Nate and, you know, yeah.
The funniest part for me was coming back
like subsequent times afterwards.
And the runs are there.
My decorations were still there.
Oh, I was right. I wasn't moving those.
I was like, those you could have picked
orange and you picked a great color.
You picked blue. But you could have been
like, they're there because
that it meant so much to me that
Abdell's rugs are staying. Nathan
wouldn't have even done that.
Let's be real. So I hope he would have
done it, though, if he did that at
someone else's house.
But no, it meant a lot.
So that's that's my friend.
And you've been a wonderful friend to our
son and a wonderful person
always to have in our home
and a wonderful friend to our daughter.
I think you were always your family.
Yeah, your family. But Nathan started
bringing Kaya to music festivals when she
was 15 before it was even legal.
She had to get a fake
ID saying she was 16.
And I think you and all the guys were
there and always helped
keep an eye out for her.
She quickly became just one of us.
Yeah. And I never felt
I felt she's protected.
Like if Nathan wasn't around, one of you
would watch out for her.
And you've always been so good to Dylan.
So, yeah, 100 percent part of the family.
So it's been a joy to, you know, watch
and experience and hear about your
success as you've chased your dream
and all these accomplishments, because
Nathan keeps us up to
date on what's going on.
I appreciate that.
It's been a joy to watch.
And you deserve all the good things that
come from it, because obviously you've
worked so hard as well.
No doubt. And, you know, I'm not down
here often, but, you know, when I do, I
always try and get
down here at least once,
because, yeah, you guys are
family and it feels that way.
And 100 percent.
It's been cool. Like I was telling you
guys earlier, this is the first time I've
like been in this room in the house.
Yeah. Now it's like a whole set up.
It's yeah. Yeah. No.
I would feel honored being on the pot.
Now, we love having you.
We love having hearing
your whole story and up.
And also it's now it's recorded for you.
Sure.
Something to look back on.
Right. Because we would love to have you
again, like in a year or two years and
see where you're at.
You breathe kind of a nice way to to keep
track of how far
you've come and right back.
And, you know, and maybe if you have
children down the line,
you can show them this, too.
You know, it's kind of cool.
Yeah, I'm always thinking like that.
I know. I was thinking the same thing.
It'll be cool to come back in a next
year, a couple of years,
five years, whatever it is.
And yeah. And even where you're at, see
like how you thought about things.
Yeah. Back then.
I think about things now. Yeah.
Oh, it's perspective
is ever changing, right?
Yeah. As your life changes, your
perspective changes.
And then there's things
that always stay the same.
But yeah, no. And to see,
wow, I really come so far.
I didn't think I came as far as I did.
But looking back, I have.
Yeah. And that's not as perspective, too,
that I try and be better at.
We're just like it's OK to kind of take a
step back and acknowledge the
accomplishments so far.
Now, don't get me wrong.
Like I'm still still seeing myself in the
very beginning stages of
like just life in general.
But I think it's also good to just take
some time to realize your accomplishments
along the way to 100 percent.
I mean, you're only twenty seven and
that's very young, even though, you know,
it's you've got you've gotten so far
since you graduated from Florida State,
but you still have so much ahead of you.
But you really are so far for your age.
Right. So you should be very I know your
parents are proud of you and
your sister and your grandma,
but you definitely should be proud of
yourself because you
especially going through covid.
I think that you guys graduated from FSU
or from all the kids that graduated from
college in like a year later,
we're on lockdown. Talk about throwing a
wrench into starting out your life.
Absolutely. And it can it
can affect mental health.
It can affect so many things.
And so for all of you to persevere the
way you did and then to
continue on and find success.
I mean, that was to come right out of
school and have that be your first
experience with real life.
It was tough. Sucks.
It was like a built in rut almost.
One hundred percent.
I mean, it was shocking for those of us
who've lived twice as long as you guys.
So to come out and be like,
I'm ready to start my life.
And then for the society to say, no, you
can't yet take a back seat.
I mean, the frustration that
would come from that alone.
So I commend you for, you know,
weathering that and still continuing on
with your goals and your dreams.
And it's been it's I can't wait to see
where you're at in five years.
Thank you. I'm excited for you.
I'm excited, too. And I always just kind
of try and obviously
acknowledge and enjoy the present
and just continue to have
an eye on on what's to come.
And it's exciting to kind of look ahead a
little bit and to kind of
keep growing and keep learning.
So yeah, I'm glad that you guys are
always kind of a
constant to come back to.
We always will be 100 percent.
And you have this wonderful family, your
family to ground you to.
I think that's so important. Absolutely.
So and we can't thank you enough for
coming on and sharing your story.
Oh, the pleasure is
mine. This has been awesome.
It's sometimes it's asking a lot of
people to tell us about your life.
So we appreciate you
taking the time to do that.
You guys letting me to do
that, because I mean, frankly,
obviously, you know what experiences you
go through and you have that.
But to have like a platform to kind of
speak on it and then as you speak on it,
almost start to realize,
wow, like that was kind of cool.
Yeah. Otherwise, I wouldn't have thought
about it as it's happening.
Yeah. It's awesome.
Yeah. Yeah. It's very cool.
So thank you to our listeners.
I hope you enjoyed this episode and we'll
visit with Adele again
in the near future and we can all
together hear where he's at
at that point in his life.
So we'll see you next time.
Thank you. All right. Bye.