This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jacon Zalis on Fox Sports
fourteen fifteen powered by Nova Insurance Services Ensure your most Prized Possessions, katz R
two side and iHeart Radio Station And good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to I
on the Ball here on Fox Sports fourteen fifty I'm Steve Rivera, He's Jagon's
OZ. Got a guy jitsing it today. Yeah, fifteen minutes with open
full lines. If you'd like to call five two o four one, six,
seventy four forty. I'm gonna have an eclectic type of show today.
Different should be fun talking to um Teresa Strass, Teresa st league mom who's
written a book about being a little league mom. Yeah, well we'll rival
We'll rival that with your volleyball dad. Yeah I got stories, man,
Yeah, I'm sure she's got stories. Look, I had three kids,
played a lot of sports and been through you know, been through volleyball,
softball, baseball, soccer, um basketball, Um, I still and I've
been through soccer. I don't know if anything rivals the mean girls stuff,
but literally you can rival literally literally too well, yeah, and you know
you still you still see for some reason, and maybe it's because I watched
him. But you know, my various social media feed like Facebook and techtok,
I see a lot of videos of bad Little League parents. Oh yeah,
yeah, yeah, that's that's where it began. That's where, yeah,
you know, and and watching parents, you know, pushing umpires and
yeah, there's one where an umpire finally turns around to the parents and says,
that's it, I'm leaving. I remember. They're like, what the
hell? Right, enough already, you know, you know, fights,
coaches punching referees and umpires and all that stuff. Yeah, so we'll talk
to her about that. Teresa Strasser from California, her her son's team,
I think, is in town for one of the regionals and she wrote a
book. We'll talk about that. And then at the three three fifteen,
in about fifteen minutes, we have a jockey named mal Donado who's gonna be
first. No, he is, No, you made me switch it.
Uh, you know, you're right, You're right, she's first, and
he's at four fifteen fifteen. Maldonado, who's a jockey, had sent and
Delmar who and they opened this week. Yeah in Delmar, I've never had
a chance to talk to a jockey about what it's like to be a job.
Yeah, yeah, and how he got into it. No, it
should be fun. He's he's ridden for some Bafford horses. So we'll talk
about that, just to just to see because it's a big weekend. And
obviously two son goes to San Diego. Now, yes, if they haven't
already, Yeah, they're there. Yeah, they're I'm guessing a whole bunch
of them headed out last night during the storm we got we got you know,
I was telling Jason's we're walking into it. We got South America rain
here. Uh as the show ended, Yeah, I would outside. It
was it was like rainforest rain that we got here. I was talking.
We were just leaving in the cups where they're you know, the guards.
So when did this happens is yeah, it's it's happened about ten minutes ago.
And my wife was texting me during the show about how we were getting
battered on the east side. Um, a big giant mesquite tree in the
neighborhood went down, and um we got blasted with hail. Our umbrella got
knocked into the pool. Um, all kinds of stuff. Jason, if
this doesn't teach you be careful what you asked for. This is what we
want rain. We want rain. We're dying and then you're getting rain.
Any Fort Lole wrote was underwater, literally under which one fort Okay, right,
I go that way. I take Fort Lole out east and I pulled
out onto Fort Low. Right here, we're at four Loole and Oracle.
And the water was so high that it prevented my air conditioner from working.
Wow, you know my air condition it would keep blowing, but it's blowing
hot air. And then i'd come out of the water. It would come
back on to go back into it was underwater. I mean we're talking water,
you know, halfway up the wheels on cars, and you could had
to go very slow to get out of there. So I couldn't open the
window. So he was just steamy in my car because I got soaked on
the way into the car. Well, we'll find out if your mechanic agrees
with your No. I mean it's working fine, it's just been working fine,
Okay, whatever was happening, okay, Okay, so here we go.
Uh, some news will have breaking news about a Feway football Yeah,
right, just news. Not surprising. I thought they I thought they I
don't know if they missed on this because I don't know, you know what
you know in town. Right, So with Temac, Temac wasn't on the
list, right, he's on pre mention. That's yeah, he could have
made it. Maybe maybe they're gonna wait, wait another year. Look,
there's some great receivers. He may not be around another year. Wow,
that's true. We'll see, We'll see some great receivers in the league.
Yeah, I mean I noticed that the great quarterbacks, great receiver. I
mean, there's the PAC twelve is really good. And that's the narrative right
now about the PAC twelve. It's really really damn good this year. I
mean, we had you know, Ari Watserman was talking about that, we're
gonna have Yogi Roth on Thursday. I'm sure he's gonna come in here and
tell us it's been a long time since there have been this many teams this
good. And the thing of it is is and we're talking to Justin uh,
Justin Spears yesterday or no, it was it was. It was a
big game Boomer Witker yesterday saying that there's so many good teams that the PAC
twelve has probably doesn't have a very good shot to getting into ploff because all
gonna beat the hell out of each other. Yeah, I think it be
hard. There's not gonna be one team that's gonna come through unscathed, right
right, even even you see who, he's very gonna be very good.
I don't think he's the best team in the league. You don't. I
don't know who. I think it's Washington. Okay, I'll take some of
that, all right, we'll go. Okay, you come up with it.
You come up with it, all right, we'll go. You gotta
take a team, we take Washington. No, I'll take you, okay'll
tak you. Okay, let's say, okay, we'll bet who gets the
better bowl game. How is that gonna be? Uh well, you know
it's basically the conference champion, right, Okay, Okay, one of those
two have to be the conference champion. Okay, remember this. You're the
one that's gonna have to remember this because we won't really but like, let's
say, well, no, the conference champion is gonna go to well no
one of those just you know, we'll just say whoever finish is higher in
the standard, right, let's do let's do this. That'll be the better.
Yeah, because because UC probably has a better tougher schedule. I don't
know, okay, but okay, I'm just this week. You take Washington,
I got u USC, I'll take I'll take Washington. Okay, I'll
take the Huskies. Another dinner at Rustico. Yeah, yeah, it might
be Jason. You'll just have to know what day to show up. Okay.
So there's a lot of stuff going on with the PAC twelve and you
mentioned this, we don't have to wait till breaking news because it's not breaking
news, but the TV deal it's like, yeah, let's let's let's let's
go through that this. So now all the reporting is and it's reporting from
sources, but multiple media people have said there's no PAC twelve TVD. You're
gonna be announced this week. Um. I reading an article by The Athletic
and it was written by with the Athletic, um Storemandel and Max Alson at
the Athletic. The quote is from a from a person. Uh, I
guess at the PAC twelve, we've seen folks come to the table that we're
not at the table six months ago. The patients that the presidents and chancellors
are showing is paying off because wading is going to result in better deals than
the league would have gotten three six, nine months ago. So they basically
saying, but they said there's there's no timetable for an announcement just other than
it's in the near future. Is basically saying by not having gotten a deal
done, the deal is getting better. It's why they're trying to It's what
they're trying to spend, right, Sure, I'm waiting for a better looking
girlfriend. Well, well, there's been some good looking girlfriends showing up,
and we think there's some better looking ones still out there, so we're gonna
wait for them. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, tendant two and A
two attend or whatever whatever, what is it? A two A two attend
and a tenant to something like that? Yeah? Yeah, in fact,
something in uh in ESPN just PAC twelve media rights deal expected in near future.
This could have been written lecture this type of yeah. Well, and
the thing and the problem and one of the things I was mentioned in the
affect that a big problem with this is you you've had a d S and
commissioners saying the deal is imminent, it's next month, it's in a few
weeks, it's soon you know, sure, and and and and none of
this has come to fruition if they've not said anything, and now we're luck
when they say something. We get mad at them for not saying anything,
that they say something when we wrip them for saying but now they're saying if
you don't say anything, then people aren't going, what the hell? But
people have been saying stuff. Um, but uh, you know, it's
it's uh, there's just so much I don't know, it's like a giant
hooboo, right, it's just been smoking blown across the highway for months now,
and it's hard to see through it given that I'm going on my diet
tomorrow. If it's not tomorrow, will be a week. If it's not
in a week, will be in the month. But it's now again further
in further into this story, it's talking about how both you know, Colorado
and Arizona have been the most spoken about in terms of the Big twelve interest
in PAC twelve teams, that that those are the two schools that have you
know, have have been talked about the most. But the story says that
both Arizona President Robert Robbins in Colorado chance to fill the stefano I said their
schools won't make any decisions until you know what the pact. Of course,
of course, did you did you see the one from the ESPN story maybe
an hour or two ago or ten? Schools have been ridiculous, ridiculous see
patient. A source said, um, the patience is about to pay off.
Well, okay, so there you go. Somebody. They're still saying
it's gonna be a big deal. But the stefano said told the USA today
in April, we're not even going to think about going anywhere, none of
us until we see what kind of offer we get. And that's still being
wor sure, which makes all the sense. And that's why would you go
before you know? That's the storyline, And that's yeah, we can't have
the chicken of the eggs right before they got They gotta they gotta know what
the deal is before they try and go to the big twelve where sure you
know, because how would how would they feel if they if they left?
And then the rest of the school's got a great deal, So I mean
it makes sense that that they're at least gonna wait for that and if it's
not a deal, And then Roberts said that on our show, Steve,
he said, look, we're not going anywhere until we know who we got.
It makes no sense in the world. So if you got a nice
car and there may be another nice car out there, you're not gonna You're
not gonna throw that nice car into the ditch until you know you got the
other car right and the way to pay for it right, right. So
you know, I'm not unhappy about that. I'm just impatient. I continue
to be impatient about this. Yeah, but you'll be used off on the
more because Steve, I want, you know, I want the focus to
get onto the football. It will be, it will be, it will
be, And I think that the this year is gonna be the fact that
they're all gonna be a lot of teams is gonna be very good, will,
easier, easier pain, because it's gonna be. We just made the
bet. I'm taking you a ce picking in Washington. Washington really hasn't been
in the limelight since they went to the title, went to the playoffs in
twenty sixteen. I think it was okay. I think we should add caveat
to that. In order to win the bet, your team has to be
the champ okay, So that if Oregan wins it, right, okay,
or if Utah wins it, neither one of us should win the beat okay
this one. Okay. So you're picking USC as the packelve champion. I'm
picking Washington as the pack dwelve champ. And if neither team wins the championship,
no blood, no no good. Okay, that's like you like that,
right? Who's whose team you like better? Guess he's better? Yeah,
okay, but you remember you may leave the room at any time.
But he was picking Miami, Boston, all these people, so you know,
but I asked him, thank you. I agree different sports. USC
is the favorite and they should Yeah, it should be. They should be.
I'm gonna write the favorite, all right, chalk, Yeah, they
and they should be. I just think Washington is No, they're gonna be
good. They're gonna be there's a lot of hey, what's his name?
A big game? Boomer said he likes Oregon State as a sleeper team.
Come on, who who would the right mind would have said that? A
couple of years ago. I think Oregon State's gonna win six games and they
and you, if that's the case, you should bet the under one at
eight eight and a half. I said, that's that's a pretty good to
big number. Nine wins is a lot Oregon State, you better look at
the schedule. I would look at I will look at the schedule. But
you know we looked at Arizona schedule and we only really counted I like five
five five. Well, you mentioned what you just mentioned, what you just
talked about with the Big Game Boomer. Big Game Boomer posted today one school
that every team is secretly very are scared to play this season, and so
for ASU he put Arizona. But for Arizona he put Washington State, which
in our discussion the other day, we you and I said, you know
that Washington it's Washington State and Oregon State back to back at Washington State,
that they got to win one of those games. And then given what we
saw last year, uh with Dolora from Washington State really laid an egg,
right and he's got to go up there back, got to go back to
It's gonna be a tough situation, right right. That that No, that
I agree with him one hundred percent that that game scares me more than any
other game because it's the game. It's one of those games that fans are
gonna feel it's winnable, and they're gonna feel it's winnable. They're good.
Fans are gonna feel unless unless they completely you know, poop down their leg
in the first few games. I think fans are gonna feel Arizona should go
up and beat Washington State. And if they don't, you know, it's
gonna it's gonna set. It's gonna at least that's gonna be a bad week
after what that's like game seven something like that. That's that's deep into the
season. Um where where you already know how good you are? Why are
you good? You're gonna be yeah? Game seven, Game seven, Game
seven, and that's after Oregon State State. Okay, so if you lose
that game, you use that game, have to come back and you absolutely
have to come back and win, right, Yeah, So that that's it.
I'm in agreement with that that that's a game that Arizona fans are gonna
be scared enough. All let's check our first break. We're gonna come back,
We're gonna have Teresa stratsh, we're gonna talk Little League baseball, and
I don't know if we're gonna go into all the bad parents that are out
there, but just to her take on if she wrote a book called Making
It Home about being a little league mom and and all the things that go
on in a little league baseball. So we'll be right back. For more
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We'll put the work in for you. Steve Rivera and Jacob Solids they have
their eye on the ball on Tucson sports station Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. They
welcome back to our invall here Fox Sports fourteen fifteen. I'm Steve Rivera.
He's jakeles Awsome on the phone. We have Teresa Stressor a Little Deed mom
and author. How you doing Teresa so great? Thanks for having me.
The name of your book is Making it Home. But you're not home right
now. You're in Tucson. Tell us why that's right. I'm here for
the State All Star Tournament taking place at Purple Heart Park, and it is
very intense out there. I don't know if you guys have had a chance
to check it out, but there is plenty of drama on the sideline.
A little league you are perfect to talk about. There always is, Teresa.
We both got kids who played little league, so we've we've got stories.
I know you got stories. But tell us a little bit about this
story that that came about. Uh, it's a it's a season of baseball.
Season of little league baseball has to do with, you know, the
loss of some family members, and you're you're telling that story of that season.
Just tell us how this came about. So in twenty nineteen, my
dad and I became as with little league. My nine year old was in
the minors. Any little league parent knows the miners is ten. You so
nine year olds and ten year olds. And it was a couple of years
after my brother died. He died at age forty seven, he had a
rare form of final cancer, and my mom died exactly four months later.
So when this season came about, we just we became obsessed with our team.
We knew every kid's statting average. We were scouting opposing teams, and
for whatever reason, this became our grief group, and we were able to
talk about losing, and to talk about getting hit by wild pitches, and
to sort of relive my brother's little league days, all there on the sidelines
and seenix Arizona. It must have been a nice thing to hang out with
your dad to talk about baseball. Were you always this detailed into baseball or
big into baseball? That's a great question. Well, baseball was not my
mother tongue. I learned to speak it with my dad that season. And
you know, we hadn't been all that close for we were really grieving in
different ways. But something about that season, because as you know, when
you're a fan of a team, for example, I could be in an
airport and I'm from San Francisco. I could see another Golden State Warriors fan
in a hat, and that immediately we have common grounds. So my dad
and I just became a team of two and we got so close watching the
game. And you know what, I didn't know very much. I had
grown up watching my brother play, but I really learned sitting in my cops
co chair next to my dad. In fact, I remember when he said
he got a murderers row out here. I was like, wait, are
these kids killing people? That's funny? So okay, So what you just
said a minute ago about how you became obsessed with Little League and you were
doing everybody's batting average stuff from the outside and not knowing you at all,
That tells that's the classic Little League mom or dad that you go. Those
ones are the scary ones. So tell me how you to not be the
scary Little League parent by having but still having that obsession. Okay, I
want to give a shout out to all the Little League parents and grandparents who
are getting way too into it, because that was my dad and I we
were. If you saw our text chains on game day, we will be
text back and forth dozens of times. But because he had lost my brother
and we had so much grief, baseball gave us something to focus on,
like a sense of normalcy, a place to be. And when you look
out on diamond and you see all the little kids playing like you're happy,
you know if you played Little League. So if you guys played, it's
going to bring back those memories. In fact, today we're here in Tucson,
our whole teams year. Of course, it was brained olas last night,
so we're not playing for a couple of days. And one of the
little teammates he had to leave to go back to Phoenix for a couple of
days. You should have seen these these nine and ten year olds were hugging
that kid. He didn't want to leave. They were all hugging him.
He got into his car like they weren't going to see him for a decade,
even so they're seeing him on Yeah, that's funny. So so tell
us a little bit thin about how, you know, how this this loss,
in this grief that that you're you and your dad were going through,
how that became part of the picture of what was going on with the little
league season, You know what I'm saying. How did how did they tie
together? That's a great question. So making it Home is about that one
season. And my brother was a lefty. He played first base. My
son, who we were watching, islet he placed first base. They were
both born on September twenty fourth, and my brother. I remember my dad
looking out and he was watching my son's place first and I think he was
remembering my brother and if you've lost somebody to a disease like cancer. When
you lose that person, the visual that you have of them is from when
they were weak, when they were when they were scared. And Little League
help us to remember a version of my brother, who was tough, who
was a great player, who could hit any fastball. I remember my dad
looking out at first and he said, Morgan always knew how to play the
bounce. He never let the bounce play him. How um, how cathartic
was it? Oh my gosh, you I know you guys both have kids
who played. At the end of the game, we would be so wrung
out from a hit that my dad would have to go to his trailer park
and hit that Kirkland to Quilla just a little too ane for him. Bro
So so during during the course of the season, then there had to be
some moments that kind of stick out for you. A play that happened,
or something that was said, or a game or something that your son said
or did some of those moments that that that were in there? What what
were some of some of those Well, I suffered from disease called EMS pictures
mom syndrome. I don't know if you've heard of it. But if you
are a picture's mom or dad and you're just you're you're wired a little bit
nervous. Like there was one game my son Nate was mom's sound and again
he was nine. He still plays now, he's almost fourteen. He's five
foot ten, big lefty. He throws hard, he's got a slurve.
But at nine he was very raw. And I remember one game he hit
three batters in one inning and he had to be pulled because the Little League
of America deems you too dangerous to be on the mount if he hit three
kids and one thing. So he's told, But I remember during that I
was hiding behind the super bar. I was so nervous I could fairly watch.
And I feel like Making It Home is a memoir in many ways about
parenting, because there was nothing I could do to make my sons grow strong
and help him. He was all alone up there, and that's a lonely
place for a nine year old. But you know what, he just had
to go through guilty way. The only way through it was through it and
his mom. I could do nothing. I couldn't run out there and throw
straight for him. So you know what, now, she's a really great
picture. He's playing travel ball now and you know he worked out some of
the kinks that has wind up. But I'll never forget when the um had
to pull him and my husband was coaching that slow walk up to the mound
and he told Nate Son, you gotta go like the Little League of America
thinks you're two dangerous. And then this handing over the ball to his dad
and walking back like the out with his head down. It was just such
a hard, sad moment for me. And then there was, you know,
a moment that another moment that I loved every kid. You know,
his drat right is d and the last kid on our team to be drafted.
This kid just wasn't born to be an athlete. He cad didn't have
a good glove, he couldn't throw, he couldn't catch the slow he couldn't
hit. But at one point a ball came. He just put in an
important moment. He caught a pop and the teams just went nut a smile
on that its face. Something I'll ever forget. Well, it's good that
you're your son controlled the slurve. We didn't want him to be part of
murderer's role. And you know lost in this is you know the dads.
The dads you did the book. Obviously you're the mom, but how did
the dad deal with you? And you're and his father in law? I
guess through all this because I'm sure it wasn't easy. Okay. My husband
is the most analytical person you've ever met. He's basically the Little League equivalent
of Moneyball. When he went to his draft, he had algorithms, he
had calculations, he had fred Steeds. So he leaves nothing to dance.
And he's not emotional like he drafted the team. It's not your friends,
it's the next best kid who's good. And he approached every game like how
I put these kids in a position to win. So he was a very
good counterpoint to my dad and I because we were deep in our feelings and
he never well. Tell us a little bit because you say your dad was
such a big part of this, and read reading the press scot that you
sent us that you feel like your dad was the hero of this whole thing.
Tell us how did your relationship change during the course of the season from
start to finish? I mean, were you were you different together at the
end of this. When it started, I resented my dad because you know,
he was a nyre du well. He had been a mechanic, but
when he retired he had nothing. I had to buy a tailor. He
went bankrupt a couple of times. I had an evil stepmother. He had
separated my brother and I when we were kids because he got full, but
he gave me back to my mom. And then when my brother died,
things were very, very tense between us. At the beginning of the season,
we started sitting together, we started even watching practices. We were those
weirdos who were way too into it. And I think the best way to
answer that question is, I'm calling you from a room at Hotel Studson,
and four rooms down is my cat. He's also nice, and yeah that
that's amazing that, you know what I mean? In the end, doing
thing, that's what sports should be, even literally, and that's what the
book book brought him rather right. Yeah, yeah, so I'll tell us
you started this conversation about parents or drama going on to the park. We
liked that. What's happening. Okay, First of all, there was people
behind us, and they were not rooting for our team. They were not
rooting for the opposing team, so they were clearly scouting. I see they
were trying to see what our bullpened looks like, what our game plan is.
But don't think that my husband hasn't tracked down other people's game changers.
Do you guys know what game changer is? Yeah, that's that the scoring
thing, right. Oh yeah, So this is an app and they show
video, you know, live stream, so you can actually see other kids
on other teams what they look like. Oh yeah, there's always drama.
My older son played on State All Stars a few seasons and you know,
one point, I think one family last they didn't feel their son was getting
enough playing times. It's crazy. So so you've not you've not done any
coaching or anything. You've been a spectator the whole time. What how how
do you how do you deal with coaches? I guess is the way I'll
asked that in terms of how do you not become the parent that we all
hear about, we see on in videos and things like that while having this
obsession. It's weird what comes over you because it really is about the true
helplessness that you feel as a parent, because the reality is there are a
lot of things you aren't going to be able to help your I think that's
why I learned so much from my dad, because I was dressed about my
kid not throwing strikes that I helped. My father had his son having cancer
and like slowly dying, so he truly understood the reality that there's things you
just can't do for your kids. But yet, even though it's futile,
we try. In fact, last night, my son he pitched a couple
innings, and you know, I thought maybe he wasn't throwing his hardest because
he was kind of lobbing it in there. He wanted to make sure to
throw strikes, and so I was yelling from the sidelines, fire it,
baby, come on, bring me hate Like you can't hear me, you
know, Like, who am I talking to? Yeah? Well, well,
in your book you have a famous person involved. How did that happen?
Well, cal Ripkins Junior, who is possibly the greatest lifting baseball player.
He said, a record that I don't think can ever be broken.
He's such a hero and an icon. And after I wrote my book,
my publisher Penguin said, you have to reach out to famous people to see
they'll renew the book and say a few words we could put it on the
back cover. So I sat at my table, kitchen table, and I
thought, what one name would any baseball parents, or really anyone who's experienced
grief and would read this book, like, what name would they immediately recognize?
And I knew Cal ripkin Jo. And even if you've never watched an
inning of baseball, you will know the name Ca. So I literally google
how to reach Cal ripken j. And that is how I got an email.
I got about ten different emails. I wrote a two page letter,
and one of somebody got back to me. His publicist, I guess,
determined that I was saying I don't know how, and then he passed the
book along to Cal and he wrote the most beautiful review. Nice, Well,
it's awesome. We'll read it after we after we get because we don't
want to lose our time with you. But what did you get out of
this? You know, in the end, the book's written. You've had
other successful you know, you've been a successful writer. You have another book
that you've written. But what did you get from this At the end of
the day, when you think about this book. I learned so many things
watching those ten year olds play, and in particular that you cannot step in
the bucket. That's the thing every Little League parent knows, and that applies
to grief because all of us are going to get hit by a wild pick.
There isn't any human being who's going to get off this rock without experiencing
grief of some kind, without losing somebody or something we love. And what
I learned watching these little tips play. If you want to hit that ball,
if you want to barrel it up, you can't step in the bucket.
You have to risk getting hit by a pitch. It might hurt,
it might bruise, but there's no way you're ever going to hit that ball
square unless you risk it. And that is the same way with grief.
It might hurt, it might staying in my bruise. You have to feel
it in order to you know, in order to go on with your life,
in order to experience joy. And that's another thing I learned just sitting
side by side with my dad. You can be happy and sad at the
same time. You can fear, and you can grieve, and you can
cry, and you can scream and you can yell. You can be happy,
you can be sad. We all contain multitudes and all of that can
happen within one single inning of baseball. So how can they find? How
can people find the book Making It at Home Life Lessons from a Season of
Little League by me Teresa Strasser. It's available now. You can order it
wherever you buy books. You can hop on Amazon. In fact, Making
It at Home has been one of the number one baseball books in America since
it's been out, which is crazy because it's not about Aaron Judge or Ron
Say or all the other big baseball books out right now. It's about kids
should be cool. And hey, I see that you used to co host
the Adam Carolla Show, Yeah for five years on the radio, just like
y'all. Wow, nice, nice, Okay, well, Teresa, did
we thank you for for coming on the show and talking about this. This
is a This is awesome and I will have this available on podcast. Can
share? Yeah, you can share this on a We'll post the podcast tonight
and we'll tag you on it and hopefully you can share that as well.
Thank you so much for having me. Thanks about Yeah, enjoyed two sign
as best you can thank you? Yeah. Interesting interesting stuff. So let
me let me. Read the quote from cal Ripken. It said, baseball
has always been away for people to come together in making it home. Teresa
and her father used baseball to come together and work through some of the most
difficult circumstances we can imagine. This is a story about a team that becomes
a family, and a family that becomes a team. Is a wonderful book
that powerfully captures how we work through life's challenges with baseball as a background.
That's pretty cool. Yeah, pretty cool to have that written about you.
There's another quote in there. You can you can google the book. You'll
see all this stuff. But the director of the movie Sandlot talks about this
as well, so article stuff, and so she found him just by googling
up. Yeah, so hold on, how to find Sophia from God?
I'm trying to look at it right now. I know we would find a
way to twist that up. All right, Hey, let's take our break,
Cory to come back. We'll tell some little League stories when we get
back, because I think both Steve and I have so I'm sure she saw
a whole lot of them during that year. But interesting stuff that she talked
about it in themselves. If you're an Arizona Man's basketball fan. You know
it's been successful for nearly forty years. Now take a look back at the
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a Team security dot net. Steve Bravera and Shaken Salez. They have their
eye on the ball on two sums Sports State Jeff Fox Sports four Team streaming
live I mean I heard radio app Hey, welcome back toy in the ball
here O Fox Spots fourteen fiftie. I'm Steve Rivera. He's jackens All,
Scott Jason, and today you got about ten minutes if you'd like to give
us a quick call. He wanted to talk about Little leag First of all,
I was checking out the the customer reviews of the book on Amazons four
point six out of five. Yeah nice, it's gotten good reviews, um
against some of the uh, some of the reviews from famous people like Cal
Ripken, Adam Carolla, um bab Mankowitz from Turner Classic Movies. He's somebody
that I pay attention to because his brother Josh is one of the Dateline reporters,
um the director of sand Lot. All these people go are put there's
reviews from them on the uhok So anyways, uh uh I can't tell um,
I can't tell sh be here. So it's uh basically fifteen bucks uh
in paperback on on Amazon, you can order on kindall, and it's also
an audiobook. No nice, Okay, all right, cool? Pretty good?
But yeah, you know, look Steve, I mean you know you
played Little League. I played Little legue our kids played little league. Um,
no, Mike played. Mike just played soccer. They just played still
around the same thing. As far as when you're talking about the parents in
the whole bit, Um, you know, my son played little league baseball.
One of my daughters played softball all the way through through well into college.
My daughter played soft a couple of years, but then she did you
know, mostly soccer after that and then volleyball. But we all ran into
those parents and and uh, the story, you know, you go through
that much of it, you have to have story. Oh yeah, yeah,
yeah, you're gonna say what I have one? Go ahead. So
my kids, Uh, Cameron, everyone's Cameron, who's a Goldian And it
had to be about twelve years old. He had to be twelve years old.
And there's a lot of Hispanic parents. And these are the elite kids
of the of the AAU circuit. Uh. And all they did was talk
to each other in Spanish, and but they knew English too, and Dave
Cosroo was a coaching you know, Dave Cosros head coach. So they would
go back and forth, you know, not saying kind things of a lot
of things in Spanish. And I was you know, sitting standing there kind
of and they were off to the side, p P P p P.
People. I can't say what they're saying, but you know what they're saying.
And come on, guys, enough enough of this. You know BS.
And I'm not saying BS. I'm not this BS. You know.
Back and then they turned to me, says you understand Spanish, I says,
well, I am Hispanic. I may not look it, but I
know what you guys are saying. And come on, let them. Let
the kids play. Yeah, they're good little lit them alone. Don't tell
them how to coach. And after that they didn't have the conversations about with
me. Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny because Teresa was talking
about the story of her son who hit three kids. They came and got
him. So my daughter was alone. Was a picture from middle school on
actually even before that, but she's a picture of school. She's in the
eighth grade. She's our only pitcher, right, she has to throw.
We don't have anybody else. So we're in a game and she's hit three
girls, all right, and she hits the fourth girls school middle school.
She's in the eighth grade, so she hits she hits this girl. The
girl starts crying. It's a second time she's hit her. Okay, So
the girl is crying. Them comes to me and says, if she hits
one more, we're gonna have to take her out of the game. But
she hits the girl and the ball bounces away, and my daughter, being
let's just say, very determined, okay, she didn't go give her a
hug or anything like that. She was like, give me the ball so
I can throw my next She felt no sorrow for the girl who she had
just hit the second time was slug was had crumbled to the ground at home
plate, and she just wanted the ball back so she could throw the next
pitch. And that told me this kid is going to be a handful.
By by that, I mean very determined kid. Sure she didn't let it
bother. We didn't she hit another person. No, she didn't hit anymore.
Okay, And she didn't hit anymore. She finished the game. But
when she hit that girl, she told me one more and she's out.
But instead of getting worried about it, instead of you know whatever, she
was just like, give me the ball, Yeah, throw me the ball.
I'm ready to throw my It was well the story I remember you telling
telling us it was the dad, Dad, the dad who said, what
are you doing putting my kid to pitch? That's of all the little league
stories, I've told that story on here before. That's why didn't tell it
again. Just not, but of all the stories that I of all the
things I experienced as a as a coach all the way through high school,
that one where um, it was the last game of the season. This
was that, this was minors. Okay, so well it was work.
This was the first year work, ten years old where the kids were pitching.
And this kid through towards the end of the season, and he was
a kid that didn't do much in Sandwich. He was that kid who wasn't
a good ball player. I think he was out there because his dad was
like, I'm gonna make my son play little league, um, you know,
to whatever, to be a man or whatever her and but he was
out there all year long. Had come to the practice, so didn't say
a lot, participated what wasn't very good, but I was always trying.
And so towards the end of the season we let him pitch a little in
you know, in batting practice and stuff. So then he said he wanted
to pitch in the game. So he said we would let him pitch in
the last game. So we go to the last Indian of the last game
and we bring him in and his dad comes sprinting out of the bleachers like,
what the hell are you doing. You're gonna embarrass my kid. He
doesn't know how to pitch, he can't throw, YadA, YadA, YadA,
And we just told the dad to go sit the hell down, go
sit down, and and the kids struck out the side. He struck out
three in a row, and we never saw the daddy the game ended.
Didn't see the dad because I wanted to throw him the finger or something.
I was so mad at him, but you know the kids. I hope
the kid went up and said him there that that that was for you,
you big, but give me where's my ice cream? But I wanted to
do that. I mean I literally, well not I we because we were
three coaches. We looked for the dad. We were looking for him to
be able to go up and say something. But don't you know, don't
do that to your kid. Jason, you have one, did you play?
You probably play. I didn't play. If I don't have any good
stories, I feel none that I could think of right now. No,
probably, But I did play UM football when I was younger that I played
volleyball UM and the basketball too. But I mean, you know, nothing
that comes to the parents. Coaches or refs were the worst of your experience?
UM, probably coaches really, My coaches really you know, like amped
up all the time, like for everything. So yeah, I think you
know they probably were, you know, the worst or the most memorable these
for me. So yeah, I remember I was umpiring the game and I
was there to watch my son's game. All right, he was I think
he would have been ten or eleven years old. He was in he was
in majors, and I just just went to watch this game. Well,
they didn't have they didn't have a home play umpire, and I've done.
I was an umpiring league, so they asked me to hump the game.
And um, so you know, at one point there was a pitch that
I called a strike, was on the outside corner. I called a strike.
And I was good friends with all the coaches, right because you know,
I just knew him all. And the coach yells from the dug out
the opposed the coachails from the dugout, you're really like, come on call
it straight. I ripped off my mask and I went over there and I
and I just got up in the guy's face. I said, you know,
you asked me to umpire this game. I said, if you think
I'm not calling this straight, then you got a problem. Said yeah.
I said, you know, I'll I'll leave or you're gonna leave one of
the two. I said, but don't. Don't you say one more thing
like that to me. And the thing was he was a good friend of
mine. He was he was a journalism professor at the U of A,
and um and uh, you know, and his kid was on the other
team, and you know, he and I know. It was a It
was a kind of a quick reaction kind of thing. Probably forgot who was
umpiring, probably got the off the circumstances of it and just said, come
on, call it straight. It was just a commented he was arguing to
strike. But man, that was the closest I came to having a thing
as an umpire in the league. Yeah. I don't know how I would
have handled. I would just since he here's my mask, here my shoting
guards or whatever. You were protective and says here you here, I'm done.
You have your little game. Oh and then all Stars were the worst.
I umpired, umpire Majors, All Stars the district tournament one year.
Oh my god, that's that's what she Yeah, you want to talk about
a whole new level of parents because those are parents and now the best players
in the league. That was Twitter before Twitter was twitter. Oh my god,
Oh my god. That that was that. That was so tell me,
tell me, we gotta gotta been enough. What was she talking about?
The scouting thing? You're not allowed to scout, but but she there's
something. There's a scout. She said that. She said that there were
that there were Oh, the Game Change nap. It's a nap. That's
that was first. It was first developed when I was coaching uh high school
baseball. Stall. It's a it's an app to track to do your stats.
You keep scoring this app okay, and so all you all you gotta
those keeps. But it doesn't show video of the kids. It does now
there there's there's there's ways to shoot video and put them on Game Change.
So there's no scouting, but you can use that. You can go on
there and see you see how you can record your games on there. You
can record games and put them on there, and people can go see those
games for recruiting. It's a whole new level of thing that that app had
just come out. We were just starting to use it, uh towards the
tail end when I was coaching idea. But uh, will you just kept
scoring the game and then accumulating all your sets. That's how you send them
to you to max perhaps so that then they've got they've got all the stats.
Crazy night. I religiously kept that because we would put our stats because
the parents and kids and as little john that thing has gone very far.
Little Johnny Yet three twenty two. You can't spell cat, but he's batting
three twenty two. And I got to give a shout out to the to
the parent I know who's keeping his kid's stats, batting stats and t ball.
He was saying, he's batting like nine hundred. Said, if he's
not batting the thousand, then he sucks. Okay, if in T ball
everybody gets a hit on every yet bat, as long as we're not picking
daisies, let's take our break. We'll take We're gonna come back. Breaking
news right breaking us with Jason. We'll be right back