Base running, or as we like to call it, the art of the steal, is the spotlight topic today, and let me tell you, there's a lot more to it than just running fast. We're diving into the nitty-gritty of how to make smart decisions on the bases, avoid common rookie mistakes, and capitalize on every opportunity to score. With insights from Ethan Dungan (Glovehound Baseball Glove Repair Shop), Rick Finley (MD&I Baseball Academy), and Cincinnati Reds Hall-of-Famer George Foster (George Foster Baseball) we're not just throwing around jargon; we're chatting about the real strategies that can turn a game around. Whether you're a seasoned player or just starting out, we’ll cover the essentials you need to know to navigate the bases like a pro. So grab your cleats and let’s hit this topic out of the park!

Base running is often underrated in the world of baseball, yet it's the very backbone of an effective offensive strategy. In this episode, we dive into the intricacies of base running.

We start by tackling common mistakes young players make, such as the failure to utilize the pop-up slide—a technique that can significantly enhance the ability to take extra bases. As we meander through the conversation, we explore the importance of awareness on the field, emphasizing the need for players to understand their roles and the situations around them.

From not making the first or third out at third base to the critical necessity of knowing how many outs are in play, every detail matters. We also take a humorous jaunt down memory lane, sharing stories about the crazy moments that make baseball so enjoyable, like the time someone forgot which way to turn after reaching first base.

It all culminates in a rich discussion about how to teach these skills effectively, ensuring that the next generation of players is not just fast, but smart on the bases.

Podcast Partner Bios

Ethan Dungan - Owner of Glovehound Baseball Glove Repair Shop. Ethan played for several teams during his career including Midland and Fairfield High School. He now operates Glovehound from his shop in Fairfield, OH.

Rick Finley - Founder of MD&I Academy Baseball Training Facility in Fairfield, OH. Rick has successfully coached and trained hundreds of players at the Select, Travel, and College levels in both baseball and softball.

George Foster - Major League Player with the Giants, Reds, & Mets. NL MVP 1977, 5-Time All-Star, Silver Slugger and member of the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame. Founder of George Foster Baseball where he offers private baseball instruction.

Timestamps to relevant points within the episode:

• 00:22 - Introduction to Base Running
• 00:28 - The Art of Base Running
• 19:32 - Strategies for Successful Base Stealing
• 37:24 - Understanding the Game: The Importance of Awareness on the Field
• 54:41 - Successful Sliding Techniques in Baseball
• 58:43 - Transitioning from Personal Experience to Baseball Strategies
• 01:11:15 - The Impact of Turf on Player Performance

Key Takeaways:

• The importance of embracing the outfield position lies in the unique opportunities it can present to young players, allowing them to specialize in critical skills that enhance their overall game.
• Outfield play requires a comprehensive understanding of various situational aspects, including the ability to communicate effectively with teammates and anticipate the actions of both batters and base runners.
• A strong emphasis must be placed on the physical skills necessary for outfield success, including speed, agility, and the ability to make accurate throws to the appropriate bases during plays.
• The mental aspect of the game is paramount; outfielders must remain engaged and aware of game situations, ensuring they are prepared for any action, regardless of how infrequently the ball comes their way.

Links:

• glovehound.com
• mdaiacademy.com
• georgefosterbaseball.com
• twocreativedigital.com

Teaser:

Next week we talk about Practice. Practice? We're talking about practice? Yes, Mr. Iverson, we're talking about Practice and you won't want to miss the tips that the fellas offer up. See you then.

Companies mentioned:

• Glovehound
• MDI Baseball Academy
• George Foster Baseball

Welcome to the Complete Game podcast where we're all about baseball with Ethan Dungan, owner of Glovehound Baseball glove repair shop. Rick Finley, founder of MDNI Baseball Academy and the creator of George Foster Baseball, the MVP himself, Reds hall of Famer George Foster.

I'm your host, Greg Dungan. Now let's talk baseball. So today we're talking about base running. We're calling it the art of the steel.

And we're going to be talking all about different aspects of base running and, and how we teach that and things like that. So let's go ahead and get started. We're going to start off with our name five now because we have had much controversy about the way name five works.

Okay. We're going to do it differently today and each person names one as we go around the table.

I knew that.

See, that way they don't take all your stuff.

No. But if you group it, then there's more than one.

There you go.

Perfect. Now we're working as a team, not calling any names. Rick.

There you go. So, all right, so Ethan, why don't you get started and you can go and, and start us off with the first.

The question is name five common base running mistakes that young players make.

All right. My number one is not utilizing the pop up slide.

Oh, okay, that's a good one.

Because it's something that you see it all the time at the major league level, but it takes some skill and it's not, not something you're going to do naturally as a young kid. You're just going to think to slide and stick and stay, but that doesn't allow you the opportunity to take extra bases.

So not utilizing the pop up slide is a, is a, it's not a huge mistake, but it's, it's a, it's a small one. That makes a big difference that I see all the time at the youth level.

Very good.

Good.

Let's go back the other way. So, George, why don't you go next?

Oh, we're going counterclockwise.

I may do it differently every time. You never know.

We're going clockwise. Yeah. Okay.

They're trying to protect me from taking all the answers.

Yeah, we're gonna go back to Indianapolis defense. No. But always been a proponent of the pop up slide. And I don't really like the diving head first.

Some guys get away with it, but when we play, if you, you slid in with head first, you're going to get stepped on, your hands get stepped on, get kneed in the face. And I like to pop up, slide, prevent a lot of injuries.

But the one, one key one that I have, and I know Rick has it too, so I have it first, is that do not make the first or third out at third base.

Yes, sir.

And that happens so times.

Yes.

And I mean, you're on set. You, you one out and you. And one out. Okay, but no outs.

Don't make the first or third out at third base because you don't want to stop them, stop the rally because you have a, You're. You can be on second base, no outs. They'll be able to get you out, but you don't want to make the third out first or third out at third. And that's.

I've seen that happen so many times.

Yes.

That's cool. That's a good one. What about you, Rick? What you got?

Okay. Sometimes they turn to wide, get too, too wide, and they, you know, they hook up past second base a little bit.

A lot of kids don't know how to hit the inside part of the first base. Okay, that'll cut down that, cut down your stride length a little bit and keep you in line in the second base and strata going out here.

So actually, I just did a base running the other day with about three teams last week, showing them how to, how to when you get here and then belly out, cut inside and you know, you don't lose your. Your stride length and everything. So that's it.

Cool. My, My first one was the sort of the cardinal rule I learned from my dad.

This was the easiest way to get chewed out when you got back in the car after a game was to be caught not hustling. So no hustle. That's bad. So when you, you know you're going to take off to first base, it's.

You get there, you go as fast you can go to get there, and you hustle to second and third base and all the way around and nobody, no lala gagging out there.

Yeah. Doesn't take any talent to hustle.

That's true. That's true. All right, Ethan, what you got?

All right, My second one kind of goes along with George's first one, but it's not being aware of your role at second and third with less than two outs because you don't have to go. But that doesn't mean you can't go.

Oh, yeah.

And there are a lot of mistakes you can make by running into plays when you don't need to. And then there's a lot of missed opportunities that can happen. There as well.

Yeah.

Just to add on to that is that when you're at second base, you're thinking about the many ways you can advance to third, but the ball has to be behind you. I mean, the ball hit right to shortstop. Unless you're playing for the other, you're going to be the MVP for the other team.

You don't want to run into an out, but that's very critical when you're at second base. Like, say, there's no force play. So making sure that the ball's behind you and that you're not going to run into an out.

But the one that really stands out is knowing how many outs.

Thank you.

I've seen guys are either not tagging up or they're running and thinking that. Oh, sometimes thinking there are two outs and they take off and there's only one out. And so you gotta really know how many outs.

You may not trust the opposing team asking them or the umpire, but maybe call timeout, but make sure that you know how many outs there are.

Okay.

And to add to that, not reading the ball, being aggressive, and especially anything hitting the gap, you know, you're thinking too out the box, you know, and just being aggressive. I think that's one of the things that I. Okay. I can't add enough.

Stop it.

Stopped himself.

I stopped myself. There you go. So I'll go with that.

You're gonna get tased if you have.

That's funny. This one's for younger players who are first learning to. First learn to run bases.

But I have seen older players actually do this, and that is turn the wrong way after you run through first base.

Yes.

If you turn to the left, they can tag you and put you out. If you turn to the right, you're in foul territory and they cannot tag you. Yeah. Turn in the wrong direction after you run through first base.

Absolutely. Let's see here. My number three kind of going off of Rick's not reading the ball is not watching for dropped or passed balls from the catcher.

Rather than just reacting to when it happened. Happens. Be. Be anticipating it, especially at the younger level because it happens more often. But. But don't wait till after it's happened to react.

Be looking for it so that you can make the most of that opportunity.

Yeah. Be aggressive when you're on the basis. Be aggressive. Looking to advance to the next base.

And from the next five years, you know, it was George Foster in the Reds. No, but being able to be aggressive on the basis really helped you to win a ball game.

But another one that a lot of kids are even not just kids, but players they forget they don't pick up. Either they don't pick up the third base coach or they don't pick up the third base coach on time. So you got to let look at the third base coach.

I say maybe halfway you look at pick up the third base coach. Especially if the ball is hit behind you. The ball hit in front of you can read it.

Yeah, but it hit behind you that 1 sec start period of time that you're looking to see where the ball is. You may be safe or out. But look at the third base coach.

He's having you to come on and then, then being able to make, make the third base and, and Pete Rose one of the best going from first to third on, on balls that are hit. He had great instinct.

Mine is a lot of especially young players, even other players, they land on top of the bag instead of on the front part of the bag. That's how you twist your ankle or anything. I've seen it where that, the bag is slippery and they hit the top and they, they, they turn the ankle.

So just learning how to hit the front part of the bag and not on top of the bag. Yeah.

So that's one of my, my next one was knowing when you are in scoring position. Now that doesn't necessarily mean which base. That means when you as your ability to get around are in scoring position.

Ricky Henderson was in corn position. He was in scoring position from the plate, you know.

Oh, that was me.

Me. No, I had to be halfway to third before I was in scoring position. I was not a fast, I was not a fast person.

So you know, if you are speedy slickster fast and you can, you know, you're in scoring position at, at second base, that's fine. Or you know, if, if you need to be on third base before you think about taking home, you know, whatever, listen to your coach.

But just knowing that about yourself and knowing when you're thinking, okay, when that ball's hit, if I leave here, I'm aiming for home, not just the next base.

Right. Not station to station.

Let's see. My next one is not timing the pitcher. This is something that doesn't take a lot of physical ability. It just takes attention to detail.

But pitchers get in a rhythm and they're going to, they're Going to kind of, you know, they're trying to control themselves, keep their head on straight. They got a lot going on. So they may or may not be thinking about you over there at first, second or third base. And they're going to have tendencies.

They're going to hold the ball for a certain period of time, they're going to get the sign for a certain period of time, come set for a certain period of time. And if you can recognize that and take advantage of that, if it's consistent enough, you can get much better jumps.

You can steal more bases and get more bases on balls in play just by paying more attention to that.

Yeah, the key is being able to advance. You don't want to just stay at one base. This one involving not getting doubled off.

Make sure the ball's on the ground in the infield and before you try to make a move to the next base. I've seen so many times the guy trying to get a great jump and hits a line drive to someone he's doubled off.

So make sure the ball's on the ground in infield before you try to advance to the next base.

And my last one is knowing how to tag up.

Oh, yeah, that's.

That's a good one. Is getting your chest to the, to the outfield, getting your head back around, especially if you had second base, especially Bermuda Triangles.

And Bermuda Triangles are, say, for instance, first baseman, right fielder, second baseman, they all going for the ball. So if you're at second base knowing that the ball, depending on how far the ball is going, you should be able to get back to the bag.

Tag up in advance. You know, just knowing those kind of things. Yeah, just tag up.

That's a good one. I had knowing the hitter behind you.

So you may be in a situation where you're playing a tournament or you're playing games where the lineup changes frequently and it's not always the same guy behind you.

And so knowing that, okay, this guy behind me hits a lot of fly balls, I got to really be paying attention, make sure I'm tagging up, make sure I don't get doubled or, you know, this person's line drive hitter, so, you know, I can, once it hits the ground, I'm, you know, I'm off like crazy. Or, you know, this is a ground ball guy or this is, you know, this guy likes to go the opposite field. So I'm paying attention what's going on there.

This guy always pulls everything, so I'm going to be paying attention that way and whatever that's going to mean for you running that base. You know, you're coming from first to second. This guy always pulls it to left field.

You know, you're, you're trying to be careful that you could get doubled up real easy there. So, or at least you know, out there. So knowing what the guy behind you has a tendency to do can help you out.

When you're running baseball, throw a mini one in off of that. If you're at third base and you got a right handed hitter, you got to get into foul territory, make sure.

Because if that ball hits you, you know, in fair, you're out, you'll end up being out.

So, and that can come into play, you know, running second to third, making sure on a ground ball, you know, you're hopping over it or whatever, but, but coming along, knowing the guy behind you, knowing where he's likely to hit it, making sure you're not in that same spot so it doesn't hit you and you end up making an out for no reason.

It's all me.

Yep, it's all you, buddy.

Well, that, that was one that I leading off, learning how to. What Ethan was talking about leading off at third base, you want to lead off and file territory.

So if you do get hit, you're not out physically, you may be out, get hit in the head. So then after the ball past the, the plate, then you jump into fair, fair territory. People like, why jump into fair territory?

Well, you block the view of the bag for the, for the catcher and then if he tried to throw it, throw you out, may hit you or yes, the third base may miss. But that's very important. You don't want to give him that lane, stay in foul territory when he has the ball.

And I remember I advanced, I was able to score on that. But sometimes guys just go right back to the bag, you know, being passive but stay aggressive, ready to steal a run.

And that's, that's an edge for, for you and for the team.

And I add to that, always watch how the catcher throws back to the, oh yeah, lob it back or he drops to a knee and then just pick up anything along those lines. And the leading off at second base. A lot of people don't know how to lean off that second base.

And listen to one of your coaches because if you lean off a second base, I can see my second baseman. I have to look around to see what the shortstop is before I shorten up and getting back into the, the baseline.

So learning how to back up and then walk in to your lead off and then you can see how to advance from there. Yeah.

Cool. The last one I had was be ready for the bunt. Like, especially if your third base coach is calling signs to the batter.

Right.

You know, if, if you're in a league where you're playing up a little higher and you got a little more, you know, freedom to do what you're going to do at the plate, that's one thing.

But if you're, if your batter is constantly looking at third base coach and he's giving them signs, you know, swing away or whatever, then if he, you don't know when that third base coach is going to call bun. And if he does, you need to be ready and know what you're going to do when that happens so that it doesn't be like, oh goodness, there's a bun.

Now what do I do? And you get that moment of hesitation could cost you in, you know, you could be out. Yes, absolutely.

I'll throw one. One more quick one in there is when you have multiple runners on base and one of them and the lead runner gets into a pickle.

Having that, the runner behind, making sure he's getting as far as he can. Exactly. While the lead runner stays in that pickle.

And I can remember watching, you know, kind of funny, funny base running videos on YouTube in the majors. And there would be so many times where two guys would stand on one base. And it took me forever to understand why that happened.

And it's because the lead guy, especially if he wasn't fast, knew he probably wasn't going to get out of it.

So his job is to buy as much time as possible to try to get the guy behind to the base where he was so that you try to minimize the amount of damage caused by the, by the mental error of getting into the pickle in the first place.

No, that was very well put because you lose the game or lose give up outs by doing that.

But you, you gotta once again be paid attention, be alert out there knowing, oh yeah, back we talked about who's behind you, who's hitting, know who's running. If I have a guy that said Tony Perez, who's in front of me, I know that I'm not going to make sure he gets to his base. No reason to run him Down.

Right.

But the, the best one I had seen going back to Willie Mays and Bobby Bond, that's where you could knocked the catcher down. Sorry, Ethan.

So.

So Willie Mays is the lead runner. So he goes in and. And knocked the catcher down. He's safe. So that now it clears away from Bonds to score.

But that was the days that you can make contact. My last one is just. We. It's. It's piggyback on what Greg had said before about running through first. But make sure you run through the bag.

Not just stop at the bag, run through the bag like a track runner and go from there and stay inside the foul line, but run through the bag.

And since I love to suicide and squeeze a lot, my players have to look at me to get signs, especially on third or second. Also delayed steel. I don't think a lot of people.

Know how to utilize steel.

I love delay steel, man. And. Yeah, because then you're trying to get that guy on first into a pickle to score the score to run.

And if we say if he doesn't throw, then that guy pick it up and get on the second base. Now we got guys on second and third. So yeah, the late Steve.

Yeah.

But being aggressive out there. Yes. Can't be passive out there. Be aggressive.

Gotta be aggressive.

Yeah, I like what you said. It's not station. Not station.

Station to station.

Yeah, that's true. All the way through.

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Alright, so moving on into what we call the main thing, we're going to be trying to figure out a couple of things about, about base stealing. What are, what are the keys to a successful lead off?

This is something important because, you know, you see a lot of times guys will get, you know, they'll take a lead off but then you know, they can't get back in time or they get confused and they lose track of what's going on or they're not paying attention, they get picked or, you know, whatever. So Rick, why don't you start us off here with, we'll go back the other direction. What are the keys in your mind to a successful lead off?

Well, second base. I think I just mentioned it. The way you lead off, okay, you got to look at your second check and see where your second and shortstop is.

You back up and then you walk into your, you walk into your lead also you're listening to your coaches. He might say shorten up, shortstop behind you or something like that. So you got to be mind, mindful of, of that also.

Yeah, it was like I said once again, you got to be alert when you're on the bases because your, your run can be very important. But how you lead off.

A lot of times a lot of guys lead off from second base and leading off towards shortstop and so they create more room that took too much more area to run, but try to be more in the straight line. But that's just like going from going from home to first. You and you're going to go to second base.

You want to make like a banana turn or veer, veer out. Same thing. Going to third base and, and as we said early earlier, do not assume you're going to stop at third.

Be aggressive around and tag the inside part of the bag. And watching the third base coach, if he's going to tell you to slide or stay up or, or stay there, but be an alert.

Just don't be out there feeling that, okay, once I want to hit home runs, I don't have to run hard. But you just got to be aggressive and alert on you when you're on the base.

Yeah.

For me the biggest thing I was not a fast guy and so the biggest thing for me was my secondary lead because I wasn't, I wasn't really a base stealing threat and I wasn't very quick back to the base and so I was really trying to make sure that I didn't get picked off because you know that's just giving it up for free. But in order to, to still be effective, making sure I got a good secondary lead.

Be an athletic as I was taking that secondary lead so I have a quicker reaction when a ball is hit. But making sure I'm not standing flat footed, you know, when, when the time comes to, to make a decision and go.

Yeah.

I think that keeping in mind that there are, there are other objectives to leading off than just getting a jump to steal second. Like your leadoff can be effective even if you never go to second because you're, you're in the pitcher's head.

You're making him think twice, you're getting him. Maybe he's, he's, he's having to split his focus between looking at you and looking home.

Maybe he really wants to throw out the wind up and now you're making him throw out a stretch. You know, different things that, that can happen there and being able to, to be mindful. So even if you're not going, you're taking that lead.

You don't, that lead doesn't cost you. You don't get out too far and you can get back.

You know what, what are some good guidance that you guys give on how, knowing how far to go and then technique for getting back properly.

Well, go ahead, George, go ahead.

The many note I wasn't a base dealer, but it's the fact that it's been once again getting an edge. So you shorten the distance you have to run. But they talk about like three and a half steps when you're at first base having that lead.

And, and but, but, but you got to practice all this.

So, so seeing how far you can get off and being able to dive back to the bag and, or if you're going back standing up, being able to tag, tag the bag with your left foot so that you're the, the first basic cannot, you know, swipe, tag, but being able to have at least three and a half, three and a half feet off that bag so you have a good job. But like Eastern I said, but having that secondary lead after the ball is thrown, I mean being able to, to advance more.

Yes. Reading balls in the dirt too. Because if you're, if you, if he kicks away, you should be at third, third base, standing up, man, if it kicks away.

And reading that, I think that a lot of teams that I've seen it comes in an academy, they need to work on that more and more and more with, with kids. And I always said, man, if you, you work on it at practice then and in the game, it'll be secondary to you.

Right.

You know, you gotta keep practice. And I think that I always say the boring things or the things that it'll. You'll lose games or win games.

So you got to do those things that are boring. And I think that a lot of teams don't work on it enough.

Right. With the younger kids don't feel exciting.

Yes.

And you only go out there and maybe hit and hit and hit, but you don't do the other parts of the game.

Exactly. Well. And I want to, I want to stress to players to take personal responsibility of figuring that out for themselves if.

You want to get better.

Exactly.

Because of.

Coach is going to look at all the kids on the team and make his best guess, you know, depending on how long he's known you, his best guess at how far he thinks your lead can be. And something. You notice it when you watch major leagues.

I was watching even a guy like Shohei Ohtani, I mean, he takes a nice big lead, but he's tall.

Yes.

You get some guys, you know, that take really short leads because you know, they're just not planning on it. But, but you figure out that distance by trial and error and you decide that for yourself.

Don't wait for a coach to say, oh, well, it needs to be exactly this distance, you know, figure it out for yourself and figure out how much space you need to be able to get back to that bag.

And you'll see these guys with these big long leads, but they know exactly how far they are and exactly how to get back to make sure they're not picked off.

I think kids need to have the autonomy to, to be able to take as wide as league as possible and they'll. I think kids are so resilient and I think we control everything.

Let them, you know, they'll figure out just like if they were outside playing by themselves, they'll figure it out real quick.

But you want to be a threat out there. Yes.

Want to be a threat.

What are some thoughts about getting back standing up or getting back diving? Is this more a function of, oh, I got out too far far. So I have to dive now or is it a preference?

I prefer to dive back or I prefer to go back standing up. Or is it you're only going back standing up because you didn't get enough lead? Like, what are some thoughts on that?

Some kids don't have a lot of confidence, so yet I coach a lot of confidence out on them. And for guys that are quicker, that understand, sometimes they'll dive back.

We want them to touch the backside of the bag, keep their hands on the bag, crawl up, call time, whatever it is, look for the ball. So I did this the other day. I did a hitting ball. Well, really wasn't hitting ball trick. I just act like I threw it back to the pitcher.

I just held the ball like that in hand. The kid wasn't paying attention, so he got off, just walked over there and tagged him. Just stuff like that.

And then your first base coach should probably say, hey, stay on the back. The ball haven't been thrown back to the pitcher yet.

So.

So you got those kind of things that are going on.

Yeah, it's a matter of preference. But it's. Once again, you want to practice it and see which one have that flexibility, see which one you like to utilize.

And you know one guy we talked about, Ohtani, guy like him, he can. Cause he's tall, have long strides, he can get back maybe standing up, but then he want to sometimes push the envelope. But he knows how to die back.

So don't, don't try something for the first time in that game, but work on it and over and over again. Because we talk about Iverson. Practice. Yes, Practice, practice. You got to get practice to have practice to get better and improve your form.

Well, the idea of you take somebody like Ellie De La Cruz, now the guy is forever tall. So if he, you know, if he gets out far and he can.

Or he can go a good ways and still get back by diving, that's, you know, that's kind of a big thing. So, you know, how tall are you? How long. How long, you know, can you get back there?

Sometimes looking at. Maybe I haven't tried, but looking at the length of someone's body, let them have their feet on the bag and stretch, see how far they are out.

Yeah, that's. That's true. The other. One of the other things I was thinking about with regard to, to stealing.

Is it's against the law.

Yeah. How is, how is the lead from second different from the lead from third?

We've talked about how second differs from your lead from first, but second and Third because, you know, you think about. It takes me back as, as a dad.

It takes me back to that first year of kid pitch when you know, every game is run is won by, you know, a hundred steals. And, and it's that, that battle at third when you're halfway down the line, you know they're looking at you.

The poor pitcher is like coming unglued because he's trying to throw strikes and his kids running all over him. So you know, how is the lead from second different from the lead from third?

Let's say at second you really want to be more, you can be more aggressive because I mean the pitcher, I mean you're behind the pitcher, so he's not. Doesn't have a good sight of where you are. And the pickoff move, not going to be. It may be as successful, but you get a lead once.

Once again, we talk about Ethan talking about secondary lead, making sure you get a secondary lead, knowing where the shortstop or the second base where they are and listen to your coach. But you want to be able to get a lead that you're ready to go and strive not to get to a position that you, the pitcher make you stop.

Yeah, keep moving.

You got to keep your feet.

Keep moving.

Yes.

And this is back to say stealing bases. Eric Day was saying that once you're still second base, what's the, what's the best time to go to third? He said the next pitch.

So you want to be aggressive out there, but.

Yeah, but making sure that you're getting, being aggressive on the basis and getting that secondary lead and ready to go to advance to third base and, and you can look right in front of home plate and tell if the ball is going to be in the air on the ground. And we said earlier, do not get picked off because you, you're in scoring position there. So do not get picked off.

Another thing is too, while the kid's in the dugout, look and see if he's got an inside move. I love doing inside moves.

You know, if you do it correctly and we've done it correctly, our teams that we worked on inside move to freeze a guy and then we have somebody come back door or, or reverse pivot, you know, while they're in a dugout, look at, look and see what kind of moves he has. If he varying his looks, you know, and, and things like that, that that's also how you can get a good lead.

But back to third is that you're. They say you're close to, to home plate now you Want, want to be aggressive but not reckless over there.

Yeah.

So watching, watching the pitchers move and like he may have that inside before you could fake to one base and throw the next. Is it? No, because the kids are getting confused so now.

But you want to make sure that you, you're in score well, you're closer to in scoring position. Do not get picked off over there. So with your peripheral vision, you can see the third, how far he's back.

Yeah.

And it determines how far you can get off.

That's a good point.

Yes, but going as such. But like say bottom line, being aggressive but not being reckless.

Oh, because at second base you got a guy on either side of you that you got to keep track of.

Yes.

At third base, especially because the pitcher doesn't want to throw it away at third base either, because that's giving it a free run.

Depending on where they're gonna shift you, you could have, you could have a lot of space at third base and then you might as well be as far as you can because there's nobody to throw to. You just gotta, you know, be cognizant of, of how fast that third baseman might come back to the base.

The other thing is we talked about, you know, pass balls at home, but when you're, especially when you're in younger leagues, you know, watch for that pass ball to the pitcher. That catcher doesn't always get it on, on the money.

And if he throws it past that pitcher and you're, you got a good solid lead to third base, that could be your ticket home.

Well, or even if they're not throwing it past and you know, the, the pitch, if the pitcher's ahead case, and he's really focused on what he's doing and, and he's going to turn, he's going to turn towards first base and he's really concentrated and nobody checked you and you're still, you know, in your secondary lead. I mean, that's basically a free ticket.

Yeah, I forgot something. Also, if you notice you can as you get in the higher high school, it's not prevalent, but with the younger, if you notice they throw the ball back.

Look, check and see how many times though the second at shortstop, turn they back towards the right field or walk that way.

Yeah.

I say take that other base. And everybody is like, hey, he's going like, yeah.

And what the, what the pitcher does when he gets the ball back. If he gets that ball back and turns his back to you at third and looks at first base every single time.

You know, if he gets that ball and turns over his left shoulder every time. If you're a good part of the way down to the bag and the catcher didn't notice, throws it back and he turns his back to you.

You know, if you're speedy enough, that could be your ticket.

Yes.

Yeah, that's. But this is a word from Ethan's vocabulary, idiosyncrasy. So a lot of guys do not have a certain routine. You know what they're going to do.

So it's just you watching, watching, watching, and then you can take advantage of that. And pitcher get the ball. And he walked behind the mound and go towards second. I mean, that's what happened with Del Cruz.

When he sold like three bases in one one game. The pitcher just assumed, you know, turned his back and he's gone. Yeah, Speedy Gonzalez on the base. You gotta be ready.

I remember a story somebody I was watching on YouTube. Somebody was talking about Ricky Henderson. I can remember which first baseman it was. His nickname for him was Gas.

And he would get to first base, he'd say, are you going, Gas? And he'd say, you know, I'm going.

I'm going.

I'm in planes. I'm in planes.

So there wasn't any question what he was going to do. So, you know, it can be one of those also, if you got a good rally going, man, and you're, you're scoring and you're, you're stealing and you're.

And, you know, if they can't stop the insanity enough to get everybody's head on straight, you know, it's important to.

Everybody's watching what's going on, watching your coach not getting caught up in the excitement of, oh, hey, somebody scored, and then, oh, I should have been running, you know, Right. You take running.

So staying engaged in that, because, you know, We've said this 100 times, but it's true, especially at the younger levels, the team that makes fewer mistakes wins the ballgame.

It's really, it's rare that it's the team that does the heroic thing, offensively or defensively, and it's more likely it's the team that just made fewer mistakes and they win. So when you can keep your head in and make fewer mistakes, you got a better chance of winning that ball game.

The other thing I'll mention is in terms of, you know, trying to gauge your.

Your steel and your leadoff and that kind of thing is watching the catcher because at the beginning of every inning, he's going to show his arm off when he Throws down second base and you very rarely are they going to fake it. You know, every once in a while you get one that's going to lava down there, but then gun you down, you know, in the real scenario.

But they're going to, they're going to telegraph.

And if you get a catcher that's got a lot of excess movement, you know, prior to his throw, I mean that's just, you know, tenths of seconds on tenths of seconds and it adds up. And you know, for you to be able to get in there ahead of.

The throw time is real that scouting.

Scouting during the game. Because I tell my catchers, if your arm is not sound today, don't throw down the second base because they don't know how your arm is.

But if you throw this all we're going to run on him all day long. But being able to. Well, good story, but it's pitching wise. So we're in the 75 World Series. So Clay Kirby had, we call a broken arm.

He couldn't, couldn't pitch, but the opposing team didn't know that. So Sparky had him to warm up. So now that changed the strategy for the opposing teams. Oh, a right hander's warming up.

We can't put, can't pinch hit a right hander. But the guy couldn't throw. But it was deception there. But back to baserun. We. This is very important.

Take your signs when you're on the base, take your signs on the base and then evaluate. Look around the outfield, see where they are. But don't take it when you're off the base.

No, stand on the base, take your sign and then evaluate where the outfielders are.

So the right field is playing down the right field line or say playing towards center, the ball hit down the right field line in your mind, you know, that ball right over the first baseman, you can get there, but still you want to pick up the third base coat. But those things like that give you an edge.

Well, yeah, and that goes back to what I said earlier, which is being cognizant of the guy behind you, knowing what the guy behind you does.

Because if your outfielders like what we talked about last week, if they're out there and they're getting bored and they're not paying attention and they, you know, they're not really embracing the idea of playing the outfield then, and you know that your guy is always going to hit it to a place where that outfielder is in the wrong position to field it right now. And he doesn't know that because he hasn't paid attention right. To what the guy behind you is going to do.

You go over there talking to the first baseman. Yeah, yeah. I said get, get his number, call him later.

Oh, absolutely. So let's talk different how second is different from third. Let's talk about stealing home for a second.

So obviously you're probably never going to do that in a youth league unless your coach says go, you know, because you don't want to be the guy that took off home and he's going, what in the world is going on with you?

You know, but let's, let's say you're playing a little higher league, you got a little more independence, you kind of got the, the, the all time go sign. You know, then he's kind of trusting your instinct. What is that perfect scenario that, that says, oh, oh, oh, this is it, I need to go home?

Well, it's once again reading the picture and reading what he's doing his routine and showing that there's a time. So you want to stay once again standing. I keep repeating that word, staying aggressive there.

So then watching with the third basement, you don't want to get picked off. Say you're too close to scoring, but there's an element of surprise.

Yes.

And then also sometimes the catcher is not paying attention. So the catcher is, you know, lop it back, fixing his gear or talking to the umpire.

But being able to, knowing that time frame and being able to go and it's like a squeeze, you know, it's the element of surprise. So. But you don't want to be jockey off the bag and get picked off. But let him know that you didn't. Let him know that you're there.

And back to the word being aggressive.

It's easier to steal off a lefty also is back to you.

Right.

So right.

You know, you can at least take a couple of, you know, leads or a bigger lead or whatever and just seeing how his, his delivery is, his rhythm, his holds, is, varies, stuff like that. Does he slide, step right, right. Little things like that.

But speaking of lefties when you're on first, because I, I really struggled with reading lefties at first. What, what do you look at to make sure they're not coming at you? Because you can't trust the head, shoulder, shoulder, back foot.

If they knee breaks the, breaks the rubber, then you gotta, you know.

Yeah, but if you're not a bad stealer, just stay close to the bed.

I was like, man, you don't understand sons, right?

You don't want to get picked off.

That was me, man.

But, you know, also, you got those, those, you know, those later points in the game where the game's kind of. Especially if you've had some long innings with lots of foul balls and lots of, you know, walks and lots of pitches.

You know, you get into that inning five, and it's starting to drag on. Or if you're up where you're playing nine ends, you get into that seventh inning and it is dragging on because it's been a long afternoon.

That's when you really watch. See, people are not paying attention because, you know, sometimes you start to check out because this game is wearing you down.

And, you know, that's the time when you really start looking to see who's paying attention, who's not.

Well, that's when not only physical, but mental conditioning.

Yes, sir.

Where you're out there, you got.

I know I keep saying it like Iverson saying, practice, practice, but being aggressive all the time, have that edge because you figure, well, I'm up eight or nine run. No, keep going, keep going. You never know what that other team's going to do. But just doing the ordinary thing. Extraordinary.

Well, you don't have to go out there and be a hero. And I just picture myself being at third base. Once the pitcher delivered. I'm looking right in front of home plate.

That's going to tell me if the ball is going to be in the dirt or not. Because I remember in the Houston Astrodome, they have Astroturf, and we had the infield in, and so Daniel scored on a ground ball.

I said, how did he do that? So he's. Once the ball, once the guy made contact right at home plate, he was gone. Yeah, a lot of guys make the mistake.

They wait till the ball's hit and it's halfway to a fielder. But I've seen that you can get a good jump by watching the bat as it crosses home plate and make contact from right there. You can score.

But being able to score in the infield end and after turf, that's great. Base running.

Let's talk about time in the picture. So your time in the pitcher, obviously, if you're on first base or whatever, you're. That's your first chance to see them from the base.

But when does time in the pitcher start? Does it. Does it start before you get. I mean, can, can you be doing that from the dugout? What kind. What kind of time are we talking about?

Especially when you're on the third base, first base side you can, you can see.

Yeah.

So everything starts from the dugout. Focus on.

Because I, I watch the cameras are in the dug, you know, pitching the guys in the dugout, and they're talking about something else other than the game itself.

Right.

But we were focused on the. What was happening at that moment.

And in my case, even though I said it, not a base dealer, but still watching what the pitcher is doing out there, we can see his move. Then when I look at Joe Morgan, I look at Griffey and those guys that. When. What's your timing? So I'm watching, watching.

But Joe and, and Joe and Griff and Dave Conception and Geronimo, they work at that. They go out there and work at it. It's not just going to happen. They work on getting that timing.

I had some players that Luke and Sam, and they was in the dugout. They were. One was injured, the other was. He was just coming in the pitch. And these guys.

I knew that I took the time to teach them deliveries and stuff, so I gave a wrong sign and they corrected me and. Yeah, exactly. That's what I, I was like, oh, yeah, you know, and I gave them both a fist pump. I said, man, you guys are really as focused.

You're focused on the game, but your.

Response should be, I was just testing you.

No, I had to get. I had to give them. They, they put. I said, thank you, man. You know, and they smiled and everything.

I said, you know, that lets me know you guys really focus on. On the game, Know the game.

Thanks for having them. Thanks for having my back.

Yes, that's it. Thanks for having my back.

You know, but. But each pitcher has their own cadence and it's going to be different for everybody. But give it the old one Mississippi, two Mississippi.

On everything they do, count how long they're walking around the mountain. Count how long from once they step on the rubber to once they come set. Count how long they come set and keep track of that.

And then you'll start to identify patterns and that's what's going to give you the edge. And that doesn't take any extra physical ability. That is all mental and can make a massive, massive difference.

That's good. I mean, a lot of guys who don't. Johnny Benson have great speed, but he did the delay steal a lot.

So now the catcher not even expect he's going to go to second base. So now the catcher's throwing the ball back to the pitcher. Nice and easy. He's taken off. But the A. Grayson, I love this scenario. So I was.

I was coaching 16. Well, Babe Ruth, 16, 18. And we're down, I think two runs that inning. So I had. We worked on the bunning. We bunt. And then now I said, you.

You're stealing. So it says speed doesn't have an off day. So now, now the catcher gets. Get all uptight.

And, and so now man at third base said, now we're going to squeeze. Yes. So we squeeze. But the guy who, he put down the squeeze bun ended up at third base. So I said, okay, now the catcher's throwing from one knee.

He's just lobbing. He cannot see that you're moving because the batter is there. Okay, ready? Once his hand goes up, take off.

Yes.

And so he was trying to. Well, he threw it to the pitcher, and the pitcher tried to jump up in the air and catch the ball like a basketball football.

But where we're ending up, score. But it's timing and practicing. But I trusted a guy, had good speed. He would. When you, When I have a guy said, you sure, coach?

We're going to shut it down.

Yes.

But the guy said, yeah, I'm ready to go. That was great.

Well, in the, the. A lot of times you can find that moment when you're. You're watching the pitcher, watch his. Watch his face, watch what he's doing.

You can find that moment where he decides, I'm going home.

Like, there's that moment where he's thrown over maybe once or twice or whatever, but you can see it in his eyes, you know, when he's giving up that pickoff and he's going home, maybe he has a tell, maybe he does something right every time he goes home.

You know, young pitchers, but you record that in your.

Yeah.

Programming. In your mind.

Yeah. Because young pitchers, they haven't learned to hide their tails yet. A lot of them. So.

Exactly.

You're paying, you're playing that. You know, that first bits of select ball up through even junior high and high school, those guys are full of tells, man.

I used to sit and just watch him in the thing, and I, you know, Ethan come over in between innings, I'd be like, okay, this guy does this thing, this guy does that thing. And so, yeah, learning to know those tells and learning to know when he's given up.

The other thing is learning to know what time you have on your side. So once the ball's in the air, no one can make it come down any faster than it's going to come down.

Right.

Okay, so that's, that's physics. That didn't. Nobody can change that.

So whether that's from, from pitcher to home, you know, if he's, if he's throwing a big loopy curveball or he's, you know, he's got a really slow change or he's got, you know, whatever you. That may be a.

Something that gives you a window, or if that catcher, again, if he's lobbing it back once it's gone out of his hands, nobody can make it come any faster. So that's time that you know you have and you can. And you can start to work that to your advantage.

I get, I try to get into the pitcher's head. I was telling, I tell him I'm really talking to the pitcher, but they think I'm talking to the bass run. I said, he can't pick you off. Get off.

He can't pick you up.

So he's gonna try to prove me wrong, you know, end up throwing a inherent throw. But I just said, oh, the catcher is. He can't throw you out. Come on, you can run on the catcher. Let's go.

Well, then there's the thing too. If you know, the guy tries to pick you off and he overthrows first base.

Right.

That doesn't necessarily mean you only got second. Yeah, I was going to say keep going. As long as the third base coach is saying, come on, go force, go.

We talked about last week with, with playing outfield, if your outfielders aren't paying attention, that's important.

That's.

That happens a lot, especially in youth baseball. So they get out there to get bored. They're, you know, they're looking around, they're picking dandelions or doing whatever they're going to do.

But you said picking dandelions.

Another thing too, at the youth level, it just seems like. And again goes back to practicing. They only throw over one time or no times.

But one time they threw over that one time.

Yeah, everybody go. And then everybody goes on the second quarter. Yeah, one time it's like, man, throw over two, three more times, man. Or very.

Look, hold, hold for five seconds, man. Watch them or, or whatever. And then wait to the, the, the battery.

Because Thomas, it's called multitasking. They're not in the multitask. But that, that shows you that how baseball trying to bring back stealing bases.

So you, you, if you throw over there the third time, you got to pick that guy off, but it enhances it and, and plus making the bags bigger. So now really the base path are shorter than before. So a guy before was out by a margin, but now he's safe by a margin.

But now I remember in the World Series billboard, Odom, he kept throwing the first, kept throwing the first. And Joe Morgan, those guys are trying to time it. He said, well, he's thrown over here eight times. He's not going to throw the knife.

And lo and behold, that ninth time he threw over there, he's out. But it cuts down the base dealing, but it's being able to go out there. But now I say you, you know, okay, he's thrown over twice.

Okay, gotta get me out now. But like I say, major baseball, trying to encourage that. You saw, you see the steals are up now compared to before.

Well, the other idea being that especially in youth leagues, when people are still learning all the positions, the bulk is your friend, man. The more you can make him throw over there, the more chance you had that he's going to make a mistake and balk and give you that base.

Especially if you're not really a base stealer, you can get him to throw over at you.

You know, as long as you're good about getting back and you've practiced it, you know what you're doing, then you know, the more times he throws, the more opportunity he has to make a mistake and either overthrow the first baseman, which is going to happen, or he's going to balk and give you that. And give you that.

It's trying to force an error. Yeah, yeah.

I was teasing this kid that it was up at another facility and, and I. He was getting ready to pitch. I said, bach. Then he. They say is that wasn't the bach. I said, now it is. So.

But they're thinking that I'm coming from the dugout. I said, that's a bach. Is that. No, I thought, yeah, it's a Bach. But what the other one about base riding is that you can, as you.

The ball's delivered, get off the bag and try to get the catcher to throw that first base. And a lot of times that first base is not paying attention. So you jump off then. Now you have his attention.

So he's double pumps and just take off the second base. As long as you're doing the correct things on the bases, don't be concerned about getting thrown out.

Keep being aggressive because you put it in the mind of the opposing team that you gonna run. Yeah. You're not going to become passive. You're going to still be aggressive out there.

You got to create doubt in the mind of the. This life is all I like that life is all about this, that parenting is.

This parenting is trying to create doubt in your child so that you don't actually have to take him out back and wear him out. You just want him to think you might. And so.

But outback is a good place to go to eat.

Yeah.

I love the potato soup. Yeah.

But sometimes, I mean, and sometimes, regrettably, you know, you're gonna have to follow through because you said you were. But you know, the biggest thing is can I create doubt in your mind? And that doubt will then stop you from doing something. So.

Like the word hesitancy. Yeah. But the other part is I. Look, I was reading about being prepared. You know, saying the word is.

Yeah, okay, but prepared, it means readiness and you're ready for whatever situation you're going to be confronted with. But I like the fact that putting doubt in the, and the opposing player and, and that they losing that confidence.

I'm not really sure why he's trying to steal on me. I thought I had a good arm. Didn't he see my arm when I was warming up?

Yeah. It ain't bragging if you can bring it.

Right, right.

And, and evidence is the strongest, is.

The strongest deterrence was the same when I'm, I'm, it's like I'm using psychology though. I'm stepping in and out of the box.

And I think, yeah, that last night I was reading about, you got to relax after if you're not relaxed, so that now the pitcher gets irritated. He's not relaxed. He's so tight. And so now that's going to. His muscles are not going to be as, as quick as before. And so they.

Now you want to try to embarrass me, you know, throw his best fastball, but you're going to throw me a change up. But I changed it so he going to try to throw the best fastball.

So I know that now the fastball is not going to have as much velocity until it hits off my bat. So. But it gives me an edge in that situation. And I've seen in. Oh yeah. When I was playing left field or playing in Dodger Stadium.

And as a catcher though, it's like the guy's getting, you know, act like he's gonna steal. You got the balls like, go ahead, you're there, go ahead.

Well, another thing is that it brings us back to what we've talked about with causing the pitcher to throw certain pitches. If, if you're, if you seem like you're a threat, even if you're not but if you can make the pitcher think you're a threat, right.

That batter is not going to get nearly as many breaking balls. Nobody would if there was nobody on base.

So there is a, there's an element as a baserunner that goes beyond what you're doing in your own role in terms of trying to get as many bases as you can. You're affecting what's going on at the plate. Whether realize it or not.

That's the word I gotta say, once you realize what you're doing, you're creating havoc out there. You, you changing situations and to your favor.

And once again we use the word doubt or hesitancy and that you're hesitant, just hesitate just a little bit. It makes a difference of being safer out.

Also while you're at second base to start to see the signs, pick up signs, pick up signs a little bit, see if they go three signs of flash, a couple signs to throw you off and stuff and just pick up.

One of the basics though is that the catcher is moving in and moving out.

Yes.

And I knew that their conception. If you ever, when you ever meet him, you're going to ask him about the grand slam. He put me in a situation to get so he's at second base.

So if these guys going to throw a curveball, you're putting your hand pointing back to second base. So he's going to throw a fast while you point to third.

So now, now the guy I knew it's going to be a fastball, I in the hit end up hitting grand slam.

But yeah, and so you know, anytime you can create, anytime you can create that doubt. Okay, so let's talk about successful sliding real quick here. So what is the secret to a successful slide at second or third base?

And when I'm talking about successful, I mean you got there, you, you're safe and you got up and you stayed on the base and they didn't get you out. So what are the secrets to making that happen?

Well, paid a guy off, call timeout.

Now that's a head first slide, George. Like the pop up slide.

Yeah, Ethan, I like pop up.

I like head first slide. For me just getting there closer and you know, learning what part of the bag.

And you can tell what's part of the bag that you want to go to depending on the person that's covering the bag, where he's at, where the ball, it'll tell you where the ball is going, how the throw is going to be.

So well and head first you can kind of decide a little Bit more than going feet.

A little bit. A little bit.

You got that oven mitt now, so everybody better be.

You can put that on your foot now.

Yeah. And plus you have a, all your valuables in there and you can pay the guy off like that.

But the one that I would recommend, I mean people do not as much now. It's a hook slide.

Yeah.

And, but, but things have changed. Like in football, things a little soft now. So they always, they said, okay, don't dive, don't slide head first in the home plate.

Do not hook slide in first to home plate.

Right.

The Dodgers were known they would have one foot step on to block the one. So you the one leg and then you take the, the glove and hit and hit the other one. So now you're spread eagle out there.

And so you may have, may have had a deep voice before.

So the, the choice between head first and, and feet first. This is an interesting thing.

Back to practice.

Yes, back to practice.

Yes. But you understand that you're sliding. I learned from Pete Rose. Sliding on your chest.

Yes.

So a lot of guys mess up their elbows or their break of finger because they're sliding on their hand, but slide on your chest. I had done it one time, I think the game was going back to LA and family and friends are watching, so I dove into third base and head first.

That was the first time and the last time I had done that. But it's like, well, this is cool. But I slid the correct way.

Ethan is more than my podcast partner. He's my son. And like every baseball parent, my first priority was his development as a player.

Every year we'd start out with a new coach and a new team, making new promises, only to end up playing the same old tournaments with little to no practice in between. You know what I'm talking about. That's why I'm so thankful that we found MDNI Academy.

I first met Coach Rick over a decade ago when Ethan was just a kid. And I'll never forget the relief I felt watching his first lesson.

I knew right then that no matter what team he played for, my son would have amazing, consistent instruction from someone who cared. Rick has trained baseball and softball players at the select, travel and even college levels.

So I knew that Ethan could continue his excellence through training approach. For his whole baseball career. He learned hitting, pitching, catching, fielding, and more all in one place.

Most of all, he learned to love the greatest game in the world and how to play it with character and integrity.

MDNI is a first class facility with plenty of Tunnels for hitting and pitching instruction that open up into large areas for teaching fielding, baserunning, speed and agility. They even have a weight room for strength training.

So if you're wearing yourself out running all over town to multiple teachers or worse, you're counting on that new select coach to actually develop your child. You need to check out MDI Academy today.

Go to mdaiacademy.com and contact Coach Rick to learn how you can get all the baseball instruction you need from someone who cares about your favorite player as much as you do at MDNI Academy. One of the things I want to, I want to kind of move on to our, one of our favorite segments here called Then versus Now.

And base running is one of those things that has changed quite a bit in the game with the new rules and just over the years. And so George, you, you go back further than all of us with, with playing.

What is the, what are some big differences between base running back when you came up in base running now?

Well, it's part of the when teams with draft guys, you're going to draft guys with speed. And because you look at the cup, go back to the Cardinals, you know they had spent speed all up and down that lineup and you go to Maury Wills.

The Dodgers would win on maybe a one or nothing ball game on pitching, defense and base stealing and Willie Davis and all those guys. So it was based on speed and then your lineup also based on speed. And I always said speed sets up set up power.

But it's been a change in how they put a lineup together. They don't put as much. It was, it probably just happened with Dela Cruz.

They didn't get, get him to well, well we got a leadoff guy here or McClain, we got a leadoff guy here. But they don't know how to put the lineup together. I remember it, it started in 75. Griffey was batting seventh in the first game in the World Series.

We lost that game, did the next game he was batting second. So now you have Margaret and Griffey speedster. And now they're because Griffey, his talent was wasted batting seventh. But now he's instrumental.

Now he gets, gets on base. Even if he doesn't steal. The catchers think that he may steal. He's going to call more fastballs.

So you're going to have a Perez bench Foster who are fastball hitters. So it makes a big difference.

But I don't think they've been drafting draft as many guys who had speed and looking for Power now and on base percentage. I mean, you win a game by scoring, scoring runs and not just on on base percentage.

But if that on base percentage is a guy who has speed, he's actually at second base once. Once he steal a bag. So the mindset is starting to change. It's just that some of these teams, they don't.

They don't like when they have the ghost run at second no out, they don't bunt. So certain things they don't work on today as they had done before, and it's prevalent so that now it's.

They say, well, we're not going to steal you, so you can't steal. So it's like an equalizer. But I just know that that's what stood out when I played the Cardinals.

Oh, I got to make sure I go have yoga and get stretched because those guys, those guys are going to be running all the time. And you got to be ready. Don't want to pull a muscle while you're running for a ball. You can't call timeout. The play still going. But that was.

It was predicated on speed. When I was coaching, I look for guys who had good speed, running speed, because that's going to change the game.

Well, and that's the thing. I mean, a lot of people don't. Maybe not know about Griffey, was that. I mean, his best prospect was as a football player or a track guy.

Oh, you go to donor. He has all the records in football, basketball, that track. Talking about an athlete, I was. I felt proud that. Yeah, this is my. My roommate here.

I read a thing one time that said there were times when I'd love to ask him this someday, but that there were times when he would be on the field, come off the field on a baseball game, run up the hill and go participate in a track event and come back down and get back on the field and play baseball.

That athletic, though.

Yeah. Me being in travel baseball for so long, that was one of our prerequisites, is to get kids with athleticism and speed and track.

So our guys, whereas we're aggressive, we could hit and we could run and we did a lot of sprint work with our players. We did a lot. And we had so a lot of. I don't know if you guys know this, but Jacob made at play with my son Ricky. They scored just those two.

They scored 100 runs in a season.

I knew that in high school because this guy told me about that. It's from MDI.

Guy told me they scored 100 runs in a season. It hasn't been broken in since, man, it's about 18 years, almost 17 years. But based on Ricky getting on base, he scored 54 runs, Jacob 46.

But being, you know, having that athleticism, man speed, I do want to touch.

On that real quick, though, because a lot of people, when they think running, for me, the first thing I think is distance, just, you know, without, you know, just kind of subconsciously.

But when you talk about sprint work, specifically when you're running the bases, you know, your own, the most you're really gonna run is maybe first to home. And that's really not that long of a distance. And that's. That doesn't happen all the time. That's kind of a rare scenario.

But making sure that you can. You've got good sprint work for the. That first to second, that second to.

Third, the shorter distances, 60 yards that they're talking about. But as the younger. So what I do is I break it down to. I might go 10 and work on those kids that really don't. That are starting off.

We'll go 10, 20, 30, and then we'll run those sprints.

So sometimes if I can't get on the field on a track to run, what I would do is we would run the curves on the, the, the infield and I'll break it down on 30. So, you know, people don't know how to use that, but I will run the curves.

I have video of our guys running the curves there, so that'll help them with their sprint, their stride length, stride frequency and stuff.

But there we are. It's the stride length and a guy who's not as fast, you can be quicker increasing their stride.

A lot of kids do not know how to run right, but it's like in martial arts, you know, you want to get your, your knees waist high so you're going to have a longer stride.

Yes.

A lot of them just little, little choppy step. Yeah, like, like piranhas are there. I don't want to step on the piranhas.

Yes.

Let's talk about strategic bass ring, like breaking up double plays. How was that different than now?

I mean, like, I remember watching guys would go in with the spikes, they'd be running with their arms up in the air and all kind of crazy stuff.

You have to learn to be talking about athletic. Ozzie Smith's probably the best one. It's like one of these cartoons. Whoop. So a guy tried to go in and get him, but he had great jumping ability.

So he can get up high, but some of these guys, they stay on the bag. And I've seen it first class. And you could hear the sound. So the guy slid in.

He said he put his right foot behind the guy's left foot as he stepped on the bag, and he took his left knee and pushed against his knee. Hearing that crack. But the one that I saw, I said, is this really happen? The guy ran and kicked the guy in the chest. I said, is that allowed?

I mean, I thought, it's not wrestling. This is baseball. But it was allowed. But you're in trouble. You're in the DMZ zone.

When you're at second base trying to turn a double play card, these guys will come at you. But today's game, no, you gotta slide right in. You gotta slide into the bag. You have a lane over there. And same as in.

I know the Posey rule, you got a lane. So they're getting. I know they want to prevent a lot of injuries, but they're getting really soft out there. It's like, ah, that guy.

Cause, oh, yeah, Albert Bell ran the second baseman, tried to tag him. So he's game. So, yes, gave him an elbow. And the guy looked at, what are you doing? So you got the ball, you're trying to tag me.

But I got a lot of times that one one at first, I was trying to be nice at the time. So I'm running the first base, and the guy, the first basic, had to go, had the ball. He would tag you, but it tag you in the helmet.

But you got to protect yourself out there.

Did he swipe Tag you?

Yeah, he tried to swipe, yeah.

Smack you in the head.

Concussion.

That's crazy. Some other things about. About that have changed in baserunning. Let's talk about going home. I mean, you know, you got. You got.

Yes.

And came in and just absolutely blanked the catcher.

That was social for the Dodgers.

That's what it was.

So I don't know, I think Eric may have gotten hurt on this play. So social faked as though he had the ball. So Eric, I think, was going to slide, then he was going to between sliding and staying up and hurt himself.

But of the three guys, the Nasty boys, Charlton was the toughest boy I heard he was. And he Came in. He just barreled in there with his arms and shoulders and knocked him to kingdom come.

Oh, he did too. He did. And of course you can't do that anymore. So. No, the, the. The strategy.

What, what, what is the best strategy current that you would teach for breaking up double plays and for coming in home when you're coming in hot?

Well, just make sure that you're get in the way of the. Yeah. Just so you got to slide into the bag.

You got to slide, but make sure that you stay down because there are times once again when we were playing you coming into second base, they not concerned if they get a double plate. They want to hit you in the head. So they come down real low. So you have to get low like you doing limbo.

Get real low because they would come real low and try to hit you in your head and so you can get out of the way. So there are different ways they can get back at a, at a team by. By doing as such. But now you can't be.

You can't grab none of that but just.

Just playing it safe like get down and slide into the bag and prevent your from getting hit. Some. Some guys would go out towards right field. They feel that all these guys are. There was.

But if you know that you're deputy out, you know, get out of the way.

Yeah. First bait. I mean home, you know, since you can't block. So some guys I've seen even at the youth level go head first. You, you know.

So I guess since they can't block, you can't use your shit guards because right when you come across with your guards, boy, you.

I probably recommend practicing the hook slide. At least it's save you from breaking a finger or get. Yeah, get a finger in your eye or things you can easily break. Break something. I remember.

Yeah, you can break a finger or in your elbow, but with the feet you're pretty safe. But practice, practice, practice. I have these kids, I put a. We'll have a sliding pad. That's one of the things bunning and sliding.

Because I haven't someone to slide and they say I can't slide. I said, that's why we're working at it. So here's a pad to help you to slide. Then after a while. This is fun. Yes, they do.

I have a mat in the, in the academy and guys just slide on it. They slide on it or they'll dive on it. You know, either one dive diving plays or sliding plays. They'll learn.

But a lot of guys do not like, or try to steal basic because they don't know how to slide.

Yeah.

So that limit their skill level or their ability.

Well, yeah. We go back to again, limiting the mistakes and not sliding when you should is. Is a big one. And you see that because kids are uncertain about sliding.

Sliding. And you go, oh, man. If he had just slid there, he would have been, you know, he would have been.

We're assumed since we. If you don't go over, you don't know if the kid can slide or not.

Right.

So we're assumed that's being taller. The kid knows. It's like same as Bunny. You. You assume that they know. But if you work at it now, say, yep, you got to. You have. You're accountable now.

But before I said, the guy went in feet first, he's out. Instead of sliding back. I think way with the Oakland A's and. And the Yankees, when a. John, one of the Jambi brothers, he didn't slide at home plate.

And to this day, I think that he was safe, but he didn't slide right. So the umpire called him out is now he put that there's doubt now. Did he get tagged or what? But if he was slid, there's a good chance he's safe.

Let's talk about different surfaces here real quick for before we. Before we wrap up. George, you played kind of like right in the middle of your career was when they really started going with the turf and all that.

So I remember, you know, that was a big thing about Riverfront is it was, you know, had turf and so some thoughts about the differences between sliding on dirt, sliding on turf, and how to, you know, acclimate yourself.

Well, if you're going to slide in the outfield, even in the infield, they have the astroturf be ready to not have all of your skin left. Because I did that one time, you know, but I felt, yeah, this. That was cool.

Then my arms started burning like, okay, where's the rest of my skin on my arm? No, but I, I don't advise guys to dive on AstroTurf unless you have protection on your. On your arm.

But that I know with the astroturf coming in, it helps speed up the game, and then it keeps the games from being canceled because if it rains, then you're able to play. But you got to really be careful because I felt bad for football players because there's no cushion there.

I mean, it's the astroturf and then the opponent. So you're in the middle of it. So. But now the grass. More grass is coming back now compared to before.

But they realized there are a lot of injuries have taken place because of the azure turf. Cincinnati and Philadelphia probably had the best astroturf. The worst. San Francisco and Houston.

San Francisco, because it's so cold there, it was like playing on concrete there. So. And then in Houston they had those car. Those trucks.

Oh, yeah. Oh.

And then Olia, they had bull fighting things and such, so. But they didn't really level the dirt off. So it's going to see it's uneven, but they put, put boards underneath. You can.

If I'm on left field, I can hear someone running and right. So it's like boom, boom, boom, boom. But it was really hard on your legs. So I went from Houston to Chicago. I said, wow, something I got.

I just gotten beaten up because that astrotur is really bad on your knees, your ankles and your back. But the best surface was Wrigley Field. Yeah, I love Wrigley Field. Had the best, best surface.

When you talk about. Especially if you're playing tournaments. So let's say, let's say your home field is dirt. Okay.

But then you go play someplace like Cal Ripken Complex where the whole thing is astroturf. Talk about that a little bit, Ethan.

Well, first of all, it was hot. That was.

Yes.

Yeah. And I got that.

Hot versus cold turf. That's another thing.

And that was something that I hadn't really. I hadn't played on a lot of turf up into that point. But it was, you know, 110 or more on that turf. And I was wearing black cleats.

I thought my feet were just gonna burn right off. But then when we would play in the morning, it was wet because the dew.

Yeah.

And turf, you're already gonna slide further.

Yeah.

And when it's wet, it's even worse. So I see a lot of young kids, if they've never played on turf. Yeah.

Yeah.

They start their slide where they expect to and then they go past, past it and then their hand comes right off the bag. You can't hook because it's too fast. Too fast to grab the base. So practice trying to. I'm seeing more turf come back. I think it's because.

I think it's because teams are tired of getting rained out.

Yeah, it is.

So you're kids these days are going to have more opportunity to learn that. But it just to harp on the importance of practicing it. Practice on the different surfaces because it's going to play significant.

Significantly different.

Yeah. Ultimately all for the purpose of.

Of coaching, you know, try and make sure that you get that practice time on different surfaces and, you know, try and see. I know it's hard to get us. It's hard to get a field. Sometimes you're lucky to even find a field somewhere.

Sometimes you're sliding on practically gravel because you're working on a field nobody's touched for a long time because it's out behind some of elementary school someplace, and they're like, oh, yeah, you can rent the field if you want to, but try and practice sliding on those, those multiple surfaces because you're going to go play at complexes, and when you go to complexes, you're going to see more and more of that turf.

And so you're not used to it, but then you show up to play tournaments and then these kids have been sliding on this all, you know, forever because they, they play on turf situations.

So, you know, so high school too.

Yeah, good.

You playing on. Because most high schools got grass and dirt, except for Molar, that's all turf.

When I was playing it, when I was playing at Fairfield, we. I was part of the class that helped lay the new grass infield. And we. They had us do it as. As the players. We had to lay the sod on the infield.

And no kid there knew how to lay. We've never done that. But we were free labor. And it was like, hey, you know, might as well. And I can't blame you for that. But.

But you lay sod in the winter so that it doesn't dry out and it keeps the moisture. So it's snowing and we have a team full of guys out there laying sod who've never done it before, okay.

And lo and behold, by the time we get done, I go to take infield a couple weeks later at third base, and there's a giant divot right in front of third base. And I hated playing there because they would always want me up and okay, fine, but I'm right, right there. And was like gunshot.

But no, but people didn't realize I'm at Shade Stadium. And they use it once again for football. The jets played there, so when they roll out the.

The seats, they create a hole right, right down left field line. And I looked at it like a. One of these, like a. If you step in it, you go. It's like a tunnel, like a manhole right there.

So the ball's coming and they wonder why I'm running around instead of running straight. I said, there's a big hole there, a big Divot there.

Wow.

But they say, ah, let Foster play left field. If he falls in that, that ditch, that's fine. But it does, it did change how you played on defense.

Well, it can be different on your infield situations too because those fields where you guys would play, where they would cover them in like crushed brick, like that's a whole different ballgame, man.

It would be that, you know, you let the field grow over, over, you know, in the off season and you're just going out there picking the weeds real quick top dressing it and well, I mean that doesn't offer the most level playing so service.

It's good for a dentist though. Kids get hit and get their teeth knocked out.

Level swing, let it travel, wait for your pitch, be aggressive out there. It's no wonder young players get confused at the plate.

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Apply at George Foster baseball.com All right, so fellas, that, you know, I'm going to kind of wrap us up here, but that was a great episode. That was. There's a lot more about base running to talk about than I thought.

I wish I had this episode when I was playing because there's so much that you can do as a base runner to make up for the fact that you're not fast. While you're working on your sprint work, while you're trying to get stronger and faster, there is so much that so many advantages.

You can Gain mentally that don't rely on your physical ability. And I think that's really important for young kids to understand.

One of the most frustrating things that I don't see enough of in the academy is people taking the time to go into the my team meeting room and utilizing that to really teach the mental part of the game to the kids.

Because I think that coaches today, and I think, George, you are all you guys alluded on this, the baseball iq, you know, you got to teach it to them. You can't assume that they know because the generation of kids today, they don't watch baseball a lot on TV like we did, man.

And to gather that information, you know, they watching clips in ESPN or. Or YouTube, but not a full game.

Right.

So I think coaches a day have to go in and you know, or show the kids, hey, go to YouTube and. And just go to base running or stealing bases or whatever they need to because that's there. That's where they're more comfortable at.

And we got to start meeting kids where they're at instead of making excuses. But how we used to do it and that's how I do it now, man. Because the kids are. They're so resilient, man, and funny and stuff.

But you got to make it fun for them to come to you. That's right. That's what I've learned.

But we have one a segment about coaches. So a lot of times we'll give them too much, I guess, expecting them to know. A lot of them don't know.

Yeah.

So they're maybe embarrassed to try to teach you because they don't. They don't know. And that's what really stood out for me when I was in high school.

The coach would give you a readout on situational play or bunning or things and such. So you have something to read. Yes, and homework, per se, for. For baseball. And the coaches today, they. They don't do that.

And they either don't know the importance of it or they don't know or they don't want to take the time to do it. So. But they. You can win a game by base stealing of running bases correctly. And so the set staying at second year at third base with one out.

So it makes a difference.

Yeah. What you talk about going in the room and doing some strategy. You know, I used to call that baseball bunching because when I was a kid, we used to.

We used to watch Johnny Bench with the whole baseball bunch.

And that was so.

I mean, I would have watched Johnny Bench change a tire. I, I just, he was my hero, so I watch him do anything, but he had that, he had that game.

And then Tommy Lord as a, see, I always knew him as a dugout wizard because, you know, he was from, from that show. So. But yeah, that's, you know, you got to get your baseball bunch time in.

You got to get to talking about, talking about the errors and remembering again that the team that makes the fewer errors is usually the team that comes out on top. The more you can fix that between the ears.

Yes.

The better off you are going forward, regardless of how athletic your team actually is.

Right.

So. All right, well, it's been great talking about bass running. We, we hope you'll enjoy this.

Now this is like, like George said at the beginning of the, of the podcast, this is the beginning of March, which means our first episode comes out on Wednesday. So by the time you see this, we will have had, you know, three or four of those out. But we're excited about that.

We're excited that you've chosen to join us for, for this podcast for the season.

We're going to make 12 of these in a row and then we're going to take some time off to play baseball in the summertime and then we'll be back in the fall with 12 more episodes. So got a lot more fun to have, a lot more things to talk about. So we hope you'll join us again on the Complete Game Podcast.

We hope you've enjoyed the Complete Game Podcast, the show that's all about baseball. New episodes drop each week, so be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a thing.

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Check us out at 2CreativeDigital.com on behalf of Ethan Coach Rick and the Silver Slugger George Foster, I'm Greg Dungan saying have a great week and we'll see you real soon.

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