I'll probably catch some heat for this, but here goes. I'm a HUGE believer in multi-sport athletes. I grew up playing multiple sports. Loved basketball. Loved competing. And I firmly believe those experiences helped me become a better baseball player. Different movements. Different challenges. Different ways to compete. I've spent decades around this game, and I'll tell you this: being a better overall athlete sure as hell isn't going to hurt your chances of becoming a better baseball player. Does that mean every kid needs to play three sports? Nope. Does that mean specializing is wrong? Absolutely not. But I do think we've gotten a little too comfortable convincing young athletes they need to choose one sport before they've even figured out what they're capable of. Let kids compete. Let them develop. Let them figure it out. There's more than one road to becoming a great ballplayer. 👊

One of the hardest lessons baseball ever taught me had nothing to do with baseball. You can do everything right and still lose. You can work harder than everyone around you and still get passed over. You can give everything you have to something and still watch it fall apart. That's baseball. That's life. But here's what I've learned... The work is never wasted. Even when the outcome isn't what you wanted, the person you became while chasing it is something nobody can take from you. Keep showing up. 👊

Hard is coming. In baseball. In school. In your career. In relationships. In life. You don’t get to choose whether hard eventually finds you. But you DO get to choose who you are when it arrives. Confidence helps you through hard. I believe that. So does preparation. So does discipline. So does having people in your corner. So does faith. So does doing difficult things when life is still comfortable. Because when adversity finally shows up, you rarely rise to some magical new level. You fall back on what you’ve built. The bullpen when nobody was watching. The extra reps. The early mornings. The failures you refused to run from. The promises you kept to yourself. Don’t spend your life hoping things get easier. Build yourself into someone who can handle when they don’t. Hard is coming. Build your floor. Chase your ceiling. 🔨⚾️