No one could write this story… but GOD DID! 🙏 The best way to describe it all came from my dad…. “I thought I was attending a baseball tournament and walked out of the stadium feeling like I left a REVIVAL! 🤲 When you truly SURRENDER with “Open Hands” God does the work!

Been getting a lot of requests for our apparel! Here ya go! All proceeds go to help support our upcoming Missions Trip to the DR! 🇩🇴 👇👇👇

Go comment with your suggestion! 🍌 instagram.com/reel/DeNdPBQpV…

Congrats Zay! @isaiahparido12

Give Up Surrender, giving over, letting go…. GIVE UP! As a coach, these are words or phrases we tend to not have in our vocabulary—usually the exact opposite. Instead, we are more inclined to move towards FIGHT! Fight till… The last pitch. The last second. The final goal. The final buzzer. Waving the white flag is never seen as a positive. It means you have nowhere else to go except to give yourself over in order to save your life. To actually wave the white flag, you have to drop your weapon to do so—completely making yourself defenseless. You are saying… “I am done fighting!” In sports we take pride in fighting until the end. So much so, if someone doesn’t run out a ball to first base even when we are down 10 runs in the 9th inning, our whole team will be sure to let that guy know that’s not how we compete. This teaches perseverance, grit and the ability to face adversity head on! Not allowing your circumstances to change how you steward what God has given you. Yet…. I am convinced when it comes to our lives and following Jesus—the best place to be is in the state of “I give up!” I give up: Control My desires Resisting what You want Trying to fight this sin with my own strength—because I can’t Psalm 55:22 — “Cast your burden on the Lord, and HE WILL sustain you!” When we “cast” or throw away from us everything we are clinging to or trying to fix ourselves, how much lighter do we feel? It’s like carrying a heavy bag on a long hike, and when you make it to your destination you finally throw it to the ground. Your body immediately feels free from the weight you were carrying. When we give up control of our lives, the same is true for us. The resistance, anxiety and pressure turns into peace and joy because we know HE WILL SUSTAIN US! Definitely dating myself here but if you know you know… My first remote control car was a Tyco Rebound. It was incredible! You could drive on both sides, do hundreds of flips and take it pretty much anywhere with your control. It was one of the more popular RC cars you could get, so my friends had them too. I would meet up with my buddy and we would try to drive them together and race them. We quickly found out they operated on the same frequency. At times my car would go where I wanted it to go, and other times we found one of us would actually be controlling the other’s RC car. It was really frustrating as a 7-year-old boy. Finally, one of us gave up and shut their car off to not disrupt the other’s control. When ONE was in control, it operated how it should, going where it was supposed to go. Yet how often do we try to control our own life that was meant to be controlled and shepherded by God? God is always fighting, defending and contending for us…but can you imagine if we just shut off the remote we are trying to use to control our own life? What if we just gave up? Not gave up on God or because we lost hope. But gave up the fight for control. Whether we “give up” because we have nowhere else to go but God, or because we finally realize how much better His way is for us, there is an incredible sense of peace and joy that follows no matter the circumstance. So GIVE UP….Give up the fight for control. Give it up to Jesus and trust what He already promised: HE WILL SUSTAIN YOU!

“The Battles You Never Knew He Fought” Being a father, my boys believe I assume many roles to them. All-time whiffle ball pitcher, coach, storyteller, Lego master and so many others. But one role I’ve seen often by their response to me is defender, protector and shelter. It never fails when I am traveling and not able to be home for bedtime, I get a call because our oldest is struggling to fall asleep without his dad home. I’ll admit, this gets hard. Knowing they want me home and I can’t be. And sometimes I even become frustrated wondering why he can’t just fall asleep when I’m not there. But when I began to sit and ask, “Why is this?” I started to realize it’s because me being home provides safety to them. If Dad is home, nothing is going to hurt me. A thunderstorm is scary when I’m not home, but when I am home it becomes a spectacle for us to take in and watch together. Same storm. Same thunder. Same intensity. But a far different view of the storm in their world. The presence of their father changes their outlook on the storm completely. How true is this in our own lives? The storms we face seem so much stronger when we feel like our Heavenly Father isn’t present in our lives. Yet in Romans 8, Paul explains that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. What if we haven’t read our Bible in months or even years? Nothing can separate you. What if we fell back into that addiction we thought we beat? Nothing can separate you. What if I am questioning the realness of who God is? Nothing can separate you. When I leave for a recruiting trip or a weekend series, the last thing I would ever do is leave my boys if our home wasn’t safe. If the windows were shattered, I would make sure they were fixed before I left. If the lock on the door was broken, you better believe I’m making sure it is fixed before I leave for a few days. So what makes us think God would leave us in a place that wasn’t safe for us? The problem is, safety may look different to us than what God sees as safe. We tend to think safe means nothing bad happens. No pain. No suffering. No storms. But God never promised us that. What He did promise is that He would never leave us. God loves us so much that He has even prepared a room for us. So even if we suffer here to the point of death, God has prepared a place for us that is the most amazing place we could ever be. And He didn’t just leave us here alone until then. He sent us His Spirit, who intercedes on our behalf. Paul says earlier in Romans 8 that there are moments when we don’t even know what to pray for, and the Spirit Himself “groans” for us. Think about that. There are moments when we don’t even know what to say, yet God is still working on our behalf. In Scripture we see God fighting battles His people could never fight on their own. Many times they didn’t even fully understand what God was doing, yet He was already working. My boys don’t realize all the ways their earthly father is defending them either. They don’t think about the bills being paid so the heat and electric stay on or the doors being locked at night. They just know Dad is home. And sometimes I wonder how much God is doing that I don’t see either. There have been many moments in my life where I have been lost. I’ve felt distance from God. My own sin was breaking some of the threads that allowed me to draw close to Him. Yet God was still fighting for me. He was protecting me. He was continually drawing me back to Him even when I didn’t see it. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to fight for my two boys. Nothing I wouldn’t do to protect them. And as much as I love my boys, my love as an earthly father doesn’t even compare to the love our Heavenly Father has for His children. So when the storm comes and it feels like God is nowhere around, remember: The storm may not have changed. The intensity may not have changed. But your Father is still there. And when we are IN CHRIST, NOTHING CAN SEPARATE US FROM HIS LOVE.

Isaiah Parido continues to show he can play. Different level. Same result. He keeps producing. Don’t overlook the guy who keeps proving he belongs!

Really enjoyed this conversation! Thanks for having me on!

Special!

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He is unreal right now! 🤯

I’m not sure expressing your own style and building a winning, sustainable, selfless culture are mutually exclusive. Coaches should be true to who they are and maybe this is what Coach is getting at—but Ballplayers don’t need to look, dress, or express themselves exactly the same to be bought into a culture. Culture isn’t about the cleats you wear, the endorsements you have, or how much fun you’re allowed to have. It’s about a group of people willingly rallying around a shared vision that’s bigger than their individual desires. Unity doesn’t require uniformity.

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Doing it all!

“Don't Look Away” I will always remember this day—July 4, 2025. It was the day I took my first helicopter ride... because my four-year-old son, Ryder, was being life-flighted to Children's Hospital. He had fallen backward off a water slide—nine feet straight onto his head on concrete. There are moments in life that become permanently etched into your memory. This is one of them. My wife was in shock. My six-year-old son was screaming, "I don't want my brother to die." Everything around me slowed down. It felt like I was watching a scene from a movie, except this wasn't a movie. This was our family. 911 was called, and before we knew it, Ryder was being loaded into a helicopter. We had no idea how serious his injuries were. Looking back, there are probably seven different stories I could tell from that day about how God showed up. But the one I keep coming back to is how I saw God through the way Ryder saw me. I was the first one to get to him after he fell. It honestly felt like I levitated out of the pool. Without thinking, I scooped him up and held him. Maybe that wasn't the perfect response medically, but it was the response of a dad. He was crying—which, oddly enough, brought a little relief. As the EMTs arrived and began caring for him, I stayed with him every step of the way. I could see the fear in his eyes, but he never let go of my hand. He held it with a death grip. As long as Ryder could see me and feel my hand, he had peace. Then we landed on the roof of the hospital. The flight crew directed me to walk the narrow path to the hospital doors while they wheeled Ryder behind me. It wasn't far—maybe a hundred feet—but for that brief moment, he couldn't see me. Immediately, the panic returned. He started crying. Fear took over. The comfort of his dad was gone because, from his perspective, I was gone. The moment he came through those doors, I grabbed his hand again. He looked up, saw my face... ...and the peace returned. That same pattern repeated itself through CT scans, X-rays, and every test that followed. If he could see me and knew I was with him, he had peace. If he couldn't, fear and uncertainty crept in. A few months later, I found myself reading Moses Blessing to Aaron in Numbers 6. "The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance (face) upon you and give you peace." As I read those words, I couldn't stop thinking about Ryder. In the scariest moment of his young life, it wasn't that all of his circumstances had changed. They hadn't. He still had to be flown to a hospital.
He still had scans ahead of him.
We still didn't know what the outcome would be. What changed was whether or not his eyes were fixed on his father. When he saw me, he had peace. That realization has challenged me ever since. How often does God simply invite me to keep my eyes fixed on Him, yet I choose to stare at my circumstances instead? I fix my gaze on anxiety.
On fear.
On failure.
On uncertainty.
On the storms around me. Then I wonder why my heart isn't at peace. Peter didn't begin sinking because Jesus stopped being powerful. He sank because his focus shifted from Jesus to the wind and the waves. I'm not much different. The peace of God isn't found in having all the answers or knowing how everything will work out. It's found in the presence of our Father. Just like Ryder experienced peace when he could see me and knew I was near, we experience a peace that surpasses all understanding when we keep our eyes fixed on our Heavenly Father. The circumstances may not change immediately. But our perspective does. So don't look away.

What a blessing to be encouraged by some great friends, great group of guys and coaches who have helped shape me into who I am today! God is good! #indianapolisclowns #Coconuts