The One Trait College Coaches Look For First In A Recruit

What Separates Good From Great

SPEAKER_01 0:02

What separates a good player from a great one in the eyes of a college baseball coach? Is it talent, velocity, excellent velocity, stats? According to legendary coach Ray Birmingham, it's something deeper. It's the competitor who shows up every day with the same fire in game fifty as he had in game one. It's understanding that hitters aren't all built the same and they shouldn't be coached the same either. Coach Birmingham spent more than four decades building winning programs and became the winningest coach in the WAC conference at the University of New Mexico. Along the way, he developed elite offenses, coached future big leaguers, and learned exactly what it takes to build players and teams that win. Today, he pulls back the curtain on recruiting, hitting philosophy, and the lengths coaches go to find the right players. And before we're done, he shares a story from his career that perfectly captures the unpredictable magic of baseball. I'm your host, Coach Ken Carpenter, and this is Baseball Coaches Unplugged.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Baseball Coaches Unplugged is a podcast for high school travel and college baseball coaches who want to build better players and stronger programs. Each episode features real conversations about high school baseball coaching, travel baseball development, college recruiting player development, practice planning, teaching and good development, and building those women in baseball coach. Looking for practical ideas about running better practices, developing players, dedicating the recruiting process, completing a successful program. This podcast showcases to best coaches from across the country with your host, 27 Years High School, Coach Ken Carpenter.

Meet Coach Ray Birmingham

SPEAKER_01 1:52

This episode of Baseball Coaches Unplugged is powered by the Netting Professionals, improving programs one facility at a time. The Netting Pros specialize in the design, fabrication, installation of custom netting for baseball and softball. This includes backstops, batting cages, BP turtles, screens, ball carts, and more. They also design and install digital graphic wall padding, windscreen, turf, turf protectors, dugout benches, and cubbies. The netting pros also work with football, soccer, lacrosse, golf courses, and even pickleball. Contact them today at 844-620-2707. That's 844-620-2707. You can visit them online at www.nettingpros.com. Check out Netting Pros on X, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn for all the latest products and projects. Hello and welcome back to episode 204 of Baseball Coaches Unplugged. I'm your host, Coach Ken Carpenter. And if you enjoyed today's show, please be sure to share it with another coach, player, or parent of the game of baseball. It helps us to grow the show. Well, today, another Hall of Fame coach who joins the lineup of great coaches we've had the past five years. His name is Ray Birmingham. He's coached junior college. He's been the head coach at the University of New Mexico, and he's coached Team USA. If you're wanting to learn about recruiting and the how it works at the college level, this is the show for you. So before we go any further, it's Ray Birmingham, retired coach from the University of New Mexico. Joining me today is the winningest baseball coach at the University of New Mexico. And his name is Ray Birmingham. Coach, thanks for taking time to be on Baseball Coaches Unplugged.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

My pleasure.

Coaches As Entrepreneurs

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Well, you've won over 1,200 college baseball games between New Mexico Junior College and the University of New Mexico. What are the foundation foundational habits that create a winning culture?

SPEAKER_02 4:11

You can't compare them to basketball and football or they're and not no slight to those coaches either. They're great coaches. But baseball coaches are entrepreneurs. That's who they are. They start a business, is what they really do. Because most most baseball budgets, most baseball support from their school is minimal. Not for anybody's reason, not to downplay anybody, but they have to build their own field, find their own materials, do the work themselves, and um and drive the bus and do everything. So that's been my experience as a baseball coach. And it it it's um it's work ethic. It's tremendous, tremendous work ethic and huge, huge passion. And Tommy Lassorda told me a long time ago as I was bugging him about uh techniques and coaching. He said, just be a people person. And that's what baseball coaches are. They're great salesmen. We can get we can get a baseball field sprinkler system put in our field with a baseball free baseball cap and a shirt. We've managed to figure out how to do that. And so it's it's true for all of us, everywhere. And um the things that we've got done with a nickel is unbelievable. Baseball coaches are the best.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Yes, I agree. And I, you know, you think about like you mentioned, uh, you know, football and you uh possibly even basketball. I mean, they they don't have to uh they don't have to drag a field, they don't have to uh put all the work into the field that you would uh see a baseball coach doing. And I can recall early on, you know, I I brought that up at a booster meeting on and when I was early in my career about does the does the football coach carry bags of diamond dry around the field? You know, do they do they have to put out all the down markers and things like that? And and I was just trying to get a machine that I could have to to drag the field and and move some dirt around with. And you know, you're right, it's it's the work ethic is the biggest thing, I think, when you think of baseball coaches.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

You do. Um when I graduated from college way back in 78, um and I started coaching, I had a I had a chain link backstop in a field full of dirt, and that was it to practice. And so I go, dear lord. And it was cracked dirt, you know, farmland that hadn't been watered in a while. And so um, I've learned how to work heavy equipment, I've learned how to weld, I've learned how to do cement, I've learned how to lay block, I've learned how to do sprinkler systems, I've learned how to build fence, I've learned how to be a mechanic. Um, and then I've learned how to raise lots of money. I've raised over 20 million dollars in my lifetime. Um I've learned how to make sandwiches. I've learned how to drive a bus, my CDL, how to keep a CDL log, um, how to um make a lot of phone calls to find the best and cheapest motel I can find that's not terrible. Um how to um how to counsel, how to make how to make uh graduation uh curriculum for kids, because you have to fill out all your players' um class schedule and make it work. Um on and on and on. We're entrepreneurs. We've we've been we've learned it through necessity and we've learned it through life. Um the many stories that I've had are crazy, um, but they're fun. And um and I heard an administrator tell me a long time ago, I said, why don't you guys meet with me once a month? You meet with all the other coaches once a month or once every two weeks. Why don't you meet with me? And they go, We don't worry about you. You take care of yourself. You don't even ask us for money.

Hitting Mentality And The Short Swing

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Wow, amazing. Well, you know, you were known as one of the best hitting coaches in the country, and uh between the you know your junior college experience at New Mexico, Team USA. What separates the great hitter from the average hitter when it comes to college baseball?

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Um, you gotta have the right mentality, obviously, and then and and then education. Short swing, I I'm a short swing guy, as many of us were. Um I spent, I don't know, I drove all over the country wherever they were speaking to to hear to hear George Brett or to hear Tony Gwynn, or to hear, you know, I got to spend time with people who could hit, and I would write down what they would tell me. And it a lot of times my head was spinning. There was so much. But to simplify it, to simplify an approach and get guys to start talking like hitters instead of batters, and how to learn that education process about themselves, the swing and the pitchers and the yards, because hitting across the country is not the same. Um you know, if a guy hits a lot of home runs in in Dodger Stadium, it's way different than if you hit it in Chicago, because the atmosphere is different and things are different, and the ground is different. And I'm out in New Mexico, and and uh you can think you're a power hitter because the wind blows straight out all the time, and then you go to you go to Houston, Texas, that ball's a flyball out. So you you gotta look it's like golf. I mean, golf is learning the swing, the technique, the approach, the game, and becoming a student of the game. Alex Bregman is a kid that I've helped in my lifetime, and man, is he a servant? He he he takes in knowledge like this, and he's not afraid to make adjustments and try, and um, and he has the right mentality to do it. And because of his short swing, he's a little bitty guy. He's not very big, and he's got a little juice, and um he he he doesn't strike out much and he walks a lot. He does he's a student of the game, student of the game, and and really kids today, kids today have too many coaches. They they grow up with one coach in an academy, then they hand him to another coach in an academy, then they get a high school coach who's battling with the mindset of the coach in the academy that's coaching the kids at the same time. There's too many people in their head, and it's confusing, sometimes it's misleading, sometimes it's ignorance, but there's a lot of problems with that. And you need to find, if you're gonna be a good hitter, you got to find one guy. And my kids bought in. My kids bought in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Now you talked about short swing. Compare that to, you know, everybody talks about launch angle and in this, you know, not everybody's Aaron Judge, in my opinion, but um explain why you I know Aaron Judge.

SPEAKER_02 11:55

I cooked I coached against Aaron Judge, and and I get it. I mean, but he's a different beast. He doesn't have kids take swings not thinking about their body type and who they are. That's one of the biggest fallacies that I've seen lately. You'll you'll see a five foot nine, 160-pound second baseman trying to swing like Aaron Judge. Man, is that dumb? And that and and and there's just, you know, there's so much on the internet, there's so much this, the kids are getting so much into their head. And sometimes I think it's like a monkey with a machine gun. You've got to be careful. We're gonna wound a lot of people. You you gotta you gotta be careful.

Angle Hitting With Two Machines

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Yes. What is a a hitting drill that that you're like, all right, all players, and if I'm a high school coach, I should be doing this with my players every day.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

So Gary Ward was a friend of mine, and Gary Ward told me a long time ago, you know who Gary Ward is? I've heard that name. He was the coach at Oklahoma State, and they they had a Oh, okay, yes. Yeah, and um there he really worked on hitting two. And it obviously hitting begins with the feet and all that. But um I Gary Ward helped me. He said he said make a drill where the dirt drill does the teaching. And then when I was a young coach, I would drive from New Mexico to spring training to the Cubs spring training in Arizona and and other ones there. And um I um you know I'm I'm kind of walking around the ballpark like I own a place, like I'm I'm I'm in, and I get past places I shouldn't be. So um the the the great second baseman for the Chicago Cubs. Anyway, he he just passed away. Um Sandberg. Thank you, old man. So um Sandberg was amazing to me and one of the greatest players of now he didn't lead in home runs, but he led he led the league in doubles every year. Every year. And um he was in the back behind the bleachers by himself with a coach, and they were hitting off a machine. But back in those days, a lot of people didn't use machines because they said throws your timing off, and you can't get your timing off a machine. And so I I talked to him, and I think this is like in early 90s, late 80s, I can't remember, but um he said, I don't have any trouble with it. Well, obviously he didn't, um, but he used a it was a Ponza Hummer machine, and the ball would go in and it it never sank. It's it stayed up, and like the other machines would sink. Everything came out of the machine would sink. So I asked him about it, and he says, I use this because I I want a flat swing, and I can I can put the ball where I want to and work on different locations and uh and I can juice it up so it shortens, it forces me to shorten my swing. So, with all that said, I use those machines. They use hack at junior hack attacks now or hack attacks. And if the and they I I learned angle hitting, and I think angle hitting, and that's what I've used as the foundation of my hitting my whole life, because I can put the ball, I put the machines, I have two machines, I put one at the front of the mound distance wise, and I move it between first and the mound, the foul line, first base foul line and the mound, and then I put one between the third base foul line and the mound at a 45 feet. So with that said, they can learn how to cover away and in at the same time, because great pitchers, great pitchers stay out of the middle. They're they're on the edges, and they find that you can't control one side of the plate or the other. That's how they attack you. And so if you can learn to cover, if you can learn to hit, everybody can hit in the middle. My sister went four for four in the middle. But can you can you can you hit on the can you hit on the edges? And so angle hitting, big time, and flat, big time. And I speed the machine up because it forces you to be short. You have to be short to catch up to velocity.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Well, you know, moving toward, you know, staying with the whole college theme here, uh, when you went out to to recruit and look at players at a game or a tournament, wherever it may be, what are some of the first two or three things you look for in a player when you walk up to a field?

SPEAKER_02 16:59

Well, I I I you know you can watch the game and the game playing any game and who's pitching. You can go four for four, but if if the pitcher not very good, that doesn't mean anything. That doesn't mean a thing. No good. But good hitters has got to crush bad pitching too. So, but I want to see you hit off a good guy. And then I want to see, but the biggest thing I want to see is are you a winner? Are you is your mentality to win and compete? And are you a team player? Those things are real important to me. If you're not if you're an I guy, you'll kill my culture. You'll you'll absolutely destroy my culture. And I I unless unless you're uh Aaron Judge, uh, I'm not gonna give you the time of day if you're not me guy. Me guys drive me nuts. And um, and then the other thing is, are you are do you have that little league attitude? Are you fiercely competitive and you're excited every day to come to the ballpark? And I could watch a guy over Friday, Saturday, and Sunday on a weekend series somewhere, and you know, in in in early February Division I, everybody's excited. Are you the same guy in in May? Are you the same guy in May? Do you have the same approach to every day? Because I do know Aaron Judge does, I do know uh Lindor does, I do know Bregman does, and I can go on down the line, Max Muxie. I mean, those guys I've watched and known my whole life, uh Hunter Pence, I can go on down the line. Those guys came to the ballpark with some excitement and energy every day. That's a separator.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

And now, when you went to a place and you were high on a player, but you hadn't seen him play yet, were desire time where you're like, this isn't the right guy for our culture.

SPEAKER_02 18:52

Oh, a lot. A lot. Yeah, a lot. Yeah. I uh yeah, it's a culture killer, man. You cannot have big league teams have culture killers on their team and they buy them, and they may be there may be the one of the best hitters or one of the best pitchers, but they're killing their culture, and you're gonna lose. And it's about the team winning, and teams win championships, individuals don't. And you'll see eventually they'll trade that guy because he's a culture killer. That Alex Breckman has been very close to me his whole life and my whole my time coaching in Mexico. And um, he's a team guy, man. He brings energy to everybody. I coached him on the USA team, and you know, he's he's getting everybody together, and he's touching base with everybody to get their heads on right and to be us and we. And you get a guy in the locker room like that, you need an alpha dog like that in your locker room. And and he may not be a best player, but he gets everybody going. That's big. That's big to have that guy in your locker room.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

Now, have you ever had an experience where you showed up and you you kind of like the player, but uh you realize that maybe the parents could be an issue?

SPEAKER_02 20:11

Yeah. Yep. I've had guy I had a guy offer me a hundred thousand dollars to sign his kid to a scholarship. Me personally. Yeah. I told him take that hundred thousand dollars and give it to his wife and see if she would, you know, blah, blah, blah. So I I I said, you're gone. This this baseball thing is about, and it used to be, I don't know if it is anymore since I got out because the culture was changing. Um, but it was about building men. Baseball builds men because there's a lot of people that don't play baseball, especially in Ohio, even in New Mexico, because it's cold and it's windy, and I'm not going out and playing that in that kind of weather. That's where that's the first step in becoming a man, a good man, a solid man. Because you can work your way through some adversity. And I get the other sports, no offense, but that's a big deal. A lot of guys don't play because of that.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Yeah. You know, I I wanted to to ask you, you know, when when you're looking at the high school and the travel players that are out there, what is like one of the things that that you see them doing that maybe either is a good thing or a mistake when it comes to trying to get on a college coach's radar?

SPEAKER_02 21:39

Oh, um, you know, it he the the so I have some kids in the big leagues who really got the public relations part of it. Because when you work your way into the minor leagues, 24th, Sam Haggerty was really good at understanding how to carry yourself. How to market yourself to get to the big leagues. He's the center fielder for the Rangers. And he he got in the door. He was a serious baseball player. And he got out of the door because he could run 6'360. That got their attention. 24th round draft pick. Well, he's made a career out of the big leagues because he can play infield. He can play outfield. He can chip in wherever he may. He doesn't cause any problems. He gets along with everybody. He works hard. He's professional. All those things are important because there's a lot of guys. There's a lot of guys who don't have good character and they never made it because of their character. Character is everything. Everything.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Now, when it comes to for guys that get signed to make it to the professional level, is it if you're if you're that guy looking to sign a guy to go to the major league professional level, is it good or bad to take a high school kid versus a college kid?

SPEAKER_02 23:08

I I think college helps you, but they there's a mentality out there that they want to get them as soon as they can in case somebody ruins them along the way. You know, they see it and then they can. But, you know, I go all the way back to the story of David Clyde. Can you can get amongst men? Those are men in that locker room in the big leagues, and it's a different culture. There's a lot of Caribbean culture in there that that the kid from Ohio doesn't understand. I don't know what, I don't know how to hang around with those guys. You know, there's a lot of mixed cultures, and it's very difficult for an 18-year-old boy to have to deal with that. Um, but I go back to a young man named David Clyde, and David Clyde won the state high school baseball championship, pitched in it, he's from Houston, Texas. He's the first-round draft pick of the Texas Rangers. And two weeks after throwing in a state tournament, he's pitching against the Minnesota Twins and Texas Rangers Stadium and beat the Minnesota Twins. So that's fine and Danny. Physically, he could handle all that. But mentally, he started drinking beer. He never drank beer, and we can go on and on and on about the other things that a young man who's hanging around with 28 and 30-year-olds doesn't know to say no or can't handle, or whatever it is. Josh Hamilton. We can go on down the line, and I think you need to go to college with age groups your age so you can learn how to become a man and how to handle this next steps.

Why Junior College Develops Players

SPEAKER_01 24:55

Well, I'm I'm a big fan of seeing players who you know they they focus on this D1 or bust attitude, but you know, you you were phenomenal junior college coach. And should players consider going to the JUCO route to kind of get them ready for the college experience at the D1 level?

SPEAKER_02 25:20

So, yeah, that's a great question. That's a great question because here's the truth. Here's the truth. Today it's all about hype, and I call it bragging at Applebee's because the parents want to go to Applebee's and tell everybody in Applebee's that their son's a D1 player. All right. Well, that's that's silly. It's really kind of silly. It's defeating. So um every coach in college, Division I, and I can go from the coach at OU at Texas Tech, at Texas, all these guys that coached junior college, Dave Van Horn in Arkansas, they would rather do it, they would rather be in a junior college, if they could get paid the same, they'd rather be coaching junior college than Division I. Why is that? How about that? You know why? Because junior college, because junior college, you get a lot more games in, a lot more advanced in, a lot more work in, a lot more travel in, a lot more this and that from a humble beginning. There's nobody pampering you there. And you get to work on the game and watch kids develop faster because there's no hour limitation, and they get to go to work. I was in Hobbes, New Mexico. There's nothing else to do but play baseball. We played every seven days a week, and we went every day from middle August to November, and kids were getting 400 at bats, and they were getting, you know, a hundred innings in work with in structured work in mental approach and things like that. It's a junior college is a great place to develop.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

I like that. I like that too, because it's uh the kid that goes out and you know, he tries to sign, you know, somewhere where maybe he might be in just a little bit over his head. And you know, if he goes the JUCO route and there's a lot of choices around the country, you know, I think that it's a huge benefit to them because exactly what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

It's huge, man. I I every coach would say I'd rather be coaching junior college because I like to coach, I want to teach, and I want to watch kids develop. But I think I want this paid too, which is not gonna happen. So that's why they've moved on.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Now, when you were at the the JUCA level, did you have players that when you brought them in, they they really just started blossoming and they went on to have a grade D1 and maybe even a professional career?

SPEAKER_02 27:52

Tons of them, 169 of them. Um I would go find a guy with a tool, and a lot of pitchers, I I took a lot of so here's here's the here's the transition that I saw. Coaches, coaches in high school and a lot of times had to coach football and baseball. Correct? Well, I did, you did, we all did. Yes, I did that. You had to catch coach two sports. All right. So the football coach is probably primarily a football coach, and football's his number one love, but he's picking up a little extra with a baseball team, and he wants them to do good, but his passion's not the same. So he's not spent a lot of time working on developing because he's got to go coach football with summer comes, or he's got to go, you know, because of time and effort and distraction or whatever. So when they get the team together and they start working, the guy that pitches is the guy that can throw the ball over the plate because they don't have a lot of time to get ready. Okay. So I knew that. And I knew that I wasn't, I had junior college, I could develop you. So I went and got catchers to be my pitchers, shortstops to be my pitchers, right fielders to be my pitchers, and I had guys that were throwing um low to mid-90s or developed into that from long toss and exercise and all the old school stuff we did. But guys would jump from 88 to 95 a lot. And then the guys who were already big on, we make it bigger and we teach them how to throw strikes. If they can throw strikes, they're drafted. And then hitters how to hit really hit and shorten your swing. And then, you know, thousands of ground balls. Because if you, you know, ground the ground out in New Mexico, the wind blows it all over the place. Your field can be on your friend's field by tomorrow from the wind. So um the ground wasn't that easy to catch ground balls on. So, yes, that's why you could develop in junior college, man, because you need lots, and this game is lots of proper repetition. Lots of proper repetition.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

That that makes total sense there. Now, when I mentioned guys like Skip Bertman, Augin Garrito, Ron Polk, Mike Martin, and then and I got to put it yourself in there too. Ron Polk coached at the University of New Mexico. Really? I didn't know that. I didn't realize that. But what were the traits that made guys like all of you guys such great coaches at the college baseball level and you know, and for the most part, college baseball history?

SPEAKER_02 30:43

There's a whole bunch of guys that we have a passion for the game. We have we think we think bigger, we we're not afraid of work, we're not afraid of hustling. Um, and all those guys, Gene Stevenson, Gary Ward, the great coach at Miami, um, he changed it with ESPN. He drove up there and begged them to put it on TV because they needed airtime. We're creative, we're entrepreneurs, baseball coaches are. And they're true in high school. That's true at junior college, all over. I can go, you know, it they like to separate us and put us in different things about how where we coached at or where we want to at. But we're all the same, man. We're all the same. There's a lot of great high school coaches who had to take Swince Paladuras and turn him into a good baseball player because that's all he had. And he did it. And it's cool. I mean, Earl Hersheiser wasn't very good coming out of high school. He could even make his junior college team, but he kept him around to work and he went to uh bowling green in Ohio and turned into who he was because coaches care. They know they took they want if you want to work at it and you want to get better, all those guys would do that. The division one model doesn't allow that. But the junior college does, and the NAI does, and the Division IIs, and that's where they that's where they're developing.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

Now, was there a a coach or a player that kind of had a huge impact on you and and your style of coaching?

Celebrating Role Players And Loving Wins

SPEAKER_02 32:24

I think they all, you know, you learn from your players, you learn from everybody. I got in junior college, I got a lot of Caribbean kids because um Puerto Rico is you they their Pell Grant worked and my name, they're American entity. And I found that I would go to Puerto Rico to get my middle infielders because they they hobla ground ball better than most people. There's not much training there and they're smooth. We used to call it salsa feet. They had salsa feet, and they could really dance too. So, you know, baseball's from the ground up, and uh, they had great feet. And um I would get my catchers from there too. And eventually I would move into Venezuela because I had them coming in through. But those kids, they could catch a ground ball. What they were catching a ground ball on was unbelievable. There was no turf. There's no turf over there. And uh, and so my catchers and my middle infielders, I would get from there. Um but yeah they were always thankful that for the opportunity, and a lot of them went pro. And then I would go, I would go get the hungry kid. I went to the Bronx. I was in New Mexico. I sand, remember Danny Elmonte? Danny Elmonte, New Mexico Junior College. Uh I went to the Bronx to the Youth Service League, and um tried to. We all tried to get Manny Ramirez because I had three of his teammates, and I had Manny Ramirez. Manny Ramirez signed four junior college scholarship offers, and of course he went pro. But um we were all hustling, you know, and the Bronx had great athletes because they were of Dominican descent. A guy named Mel Zitter was running that program and being hard on them, and they were raw talent, but they were talented. And the reason Manny Ramirez could hit is they hit in a in a National Guard armory with a mopstick and bottle caps. They had a big box of bottle caps and they would throw them at each other. And you know, they're moving, they're sliding. That's where Manny Ramirez learned to hit. Boy, could he hit. But all across the country, that was going on. And so you would find those places where those guys had taken raw talent, turned them into a fierce competitor, and you wanted those players. So all my players, Brendan Donnelly with the Angels. Brendan Donnelly was not a very good pitcher coming out of high school. But boy, was he fiercely competitive and a fighter. He wins game. As time goes on, he gets his opportunity. We get rid of his up and down curve ball, give him slider, and that got me in trouble too, because I was teaching him how to throw a slider by the tack. I gave him some pine tarts so he could feel his fingers and how to spin the ball the right way. Well, he started using it in the game, and he got in trouble for that. Um, but it got him to the big leagues. He won game, he won game six in the World Series for the Angels, and then won the All-Star game the next year. But all those kids from California to New York to Puerto Rico, a lot of Canadians can hit because they play hockey and baseball, and those guys are great hitters because of that combo. I've learned so much from all of them. And they're all junior college kids. If you ask them, we'll say their junior college experience was better than their Division I experience because of the intimacy and the work ethic and the time together. So they all taught me about their culture, their lives, who they were, personalities. We still stay in touch today from 1978 till now. I still talk to all of them. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

You know, I wanted to ask you, do you do you hate losing or love winning?

SPEAKER_02 36:21

I love winning. I hear guys talk about losing. Losing's part of it. And if you don't if you let it whatever your motivation is, but gosh, when we win, I celebrate kids. Um we we have a deal where we we bring the kids into the locker room or wherever we're at, circle up in the outfield, we're on the road, and I'll bring a kid in, not the guy that not the guy that gets always the accolades, went three for four every day, but the guy that did something special. That's there's guys on your team that get invisible, and I don't want them invisible. So I watch to see that moment when they do something that made our team better. And uh it could be a little bit of a thing, but I'm uh I'm about raising all boats. So I I love winning and I love celebrating the kids, man. I love it. Like, look at you. Look at you.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

That's pretty cool. Well I'm gonna throw a uh a major league question and check your your your thoughts on this one here.

SPEAKER_02 37:26

If you could build Oh, you better be old school because new school is crazy.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

Well, if you could build the best outfield in Major League history, I'm gonna give you nine names and you can pick three of them. Willie Mays, Ken Griffey Jr., Roberto Clemente, Barry Bonge, Ichiro Suzuki, Ted Williams, Mike Trout, Hank Aaron, and probably the one that's the newest guy would be Aaron Judge. Who are the three that you would say that's that's my outfield?

SPEAKER_02 38:02

You named him early. Let's see, Willie Mays was one of them. Go down that list. Willie Mays is definitely one of them. Uh Ken Grickley Jr. He's one of them. Roberto Clemente. And who's the Yeah, those are all that's it. You we're done. Those other guys are good. Those other guys are good, but they're playing with better equipment, better outfield to run into, a smaller ballpark where they can stand up a nick against the fence and most of their plays left or right and forward. But those other guys, they played in bigger ballparks where it was behind you, in front of you, left and right, and it was a lot of room to play in, and they didn't have the gloves these guys have. So we can argue that all day long, and I'd be glad to argue it because Roberto Clemente played with with with uh bulging discs and still played like a god. And Willie Mays. Yeah, I mean, um, and Ken Griffey Jr., man, did he play with such enthusiasm? He was fun to be around, wasn't he?

SPEAKER_01 39:03

Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, you can't go wrong with any of those guys, I would think, but uh I I like the three that you picked. And when I wrote them down, I didn't think that those would be the first three that that you came up with. So Robert Roberto Clemente, his arm strength was incredible. Oh my God. He was ridiculous. I I'm uh I'm a big Cleveland fan. Grew up with being a Cleveland fan, but I would probably have to say Roberto is my favorite all-time player. Me too. Really? Me too.

SPEAKER_02 39:38

He played so hard. He played so hard and and and brought Pittsburgh a World Series championship, and that don't happen very often.

SPEAKER_01 39:47

No, definitely, especially nowadays with the way the money's being spent, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_02 39:53

Yeah.

The Yellow Dog Bus Story

SPEAKER_01 39:53

Well, what is a what is a story from your coaching days that still makes you laugh every time you think about it? Got a good one.

SPEAKER_02 40:04

So in 19, I used to coach junior college basketball. I was an assistant basketball coach. In 19, I take uh there's a place in Hobbs, New Mexico, it's called College of Southwest. It's about 200 students. And they want more students, so they always start sports, right? And so uh they start baseball. And they the first year's a calamity and a loss, and things happen, and it's it's a ship. So they call me at the junior college, which is across the street from this little beach school, and they say, Will you come over and coach baseball for a little raise? And I go, sure, I would rather do that anyway. So it's a mess, right? So to travel, they were traveling in cars. They would put, they didn't have a bus. So they would go to ball games five hours away, and they would put five teenage kids in a car and fill it up with gas, and they'd all be on a train, you know, going, you know what's gonna happen. You, you, we all know. If you're a veteran, you know that they're gonna break down, they're gonna stop for beer. Well, you've got to watch them like a hawk, right? So you got to keep an eye on them. So we couldn't do that. I go, we're not doing that. That's not gonna happen. So we didn't have any money. There was no money. This is we got no money, we're a poor 200 student school, and um but we can pay you, we can give you your salary. Good luck. All right. So that's that's what baseball coaches deal with, period, since the beginning of time. So I bought a yellow dog bus. I raised the money and bought a$5,000 Hobbes Public School Yellow Dog bus. You know, five on the floor, clutch, the whole deal, right? Goes 55 miles an hour max. Well, we're going to go play the University of Texas. So Cliff, Cliff played me, and I love Cliff. Cliff, Cliff was a down-to-earth guy. He said, Yeah, I'll play you during spring break. I need two games. All right. I'll pay you when you get here$2,000. I go, that's awesome. I need that$2,000 to feed the kids. So this 1988. So we're we we we get on the bus, Yellow Dog bus, 55 miles an hour. We stop in San Angelo, Texas, and we're putting the gas in there. Now I've had trouble with the starter. So we have to get underneath the starter's sticking. So I have to crank it and get a guy underneath with a ball peen hammer and tap the starter so it will start, right? Well, I tell the guys, don't turn the bus off as we fill it up with gas because the starters may not work again. Well, somebody turns it off while I'm pumping gas. Some guy from the very back of the bus was asleep, didn't hear me, thought he was turning it off to help coach. And um, and now we can't get it started. So, yeah, but being an entrepreneur, we coaches know that you can push start anything with a clutch. Right? So I get the whole team off the bus, we start pushing the bus up over this little incline to get out of the gas station and start pushing it down the highway, and I pop the clutch. Well, it starts, but it'll die if I go below five miles an hour. So I accelerate when it starts and get it up to 10 miles an hour, slow down to about eight, so it won't die, right? My catchers can't catch up to the bus, so I gotta stop it again. So now I got to put the catchers on the bus. You guys should stay here because you're little poison. So the threat of the team push the fast guys have to push the bus again, pop the clutch, get it started, and then run and jump in the door as we go down the high. Highways before the bus dies. So that's small college baseball all the time.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

And you know, I guarantee every one of them will remember that story and and tell that story and probably won't ever remember anything that ever happened in a baseball game.

SPEAKER_02 44:16

We've all got them. We've all got them. We've all got them. We won and won a tournament. We won a division. That same team won a Division I tournament later on the next year. And we that bus broke down. We had to borrow a Boy Scout bus. And where it says Boy Scouts of America on the side. We drove up and won the tournament, and all the Division I coaches were yelling at their players because they just got beat by a team who drove up in a Boy Scout bus with no seats. We didn't have any seats in the bus.

SPEAKER_01 44:45

Oh my God. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 44:47

Yeah, we had to borrow, we had to borrow everything. We we we went and got mattresses and laid them on the floor, so that's that's when we got there. There were no seats. It was illegal as heck.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

Well, it's Ray Birmingham, head baseball coach at uh University of New Mexico, and he's accumulated over 1,200 wins. Coach, I I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join me on the show. And and if you're ever free in the future, I'd love to bring you back again.

SPEAKER_02 45:18

You know what? We're all lucky to be baseball coaches. You know, our whole life we got paid to do it. We got to do our passion and be around a bunch of kids who were hungry to do it. That's fun. That's a whole lifetime for me. I lucked out.

SPEAKER_01 45:33

Without a doubt. You know, and coach, thank you so much for for uh making baseball coaches unplug podcast a thousand times better.

SPEAKER_02 45:42

You're the best, Ken. I'm so glad you're doing this, man.

Sponsor Outro And Sign Off

SPEAKER_01 45:45

Keep it up. Today's show was brought to you by our friends at the Netting Professionals Improving Programs One Facility at a time. You can contact them today at 844-620-2707 or visit them online at www.nettingprose.com. Be sure to tune in every Wednesday for a brand new episode. And as always, I'm your host, Coach Ken Carpenter. Thanks for listening. To baseball coaches, unplugged.