One of the biggest influences in my playing career.

Looking back on life of baseball, a few major influences stand out. First and foremost, my mother, who spent her time as a "stay at home" mom, working with me daily on baseball fundamentals. But second, was a simple video of my childhood role-model, Ozzie Smith. Through my playing career, starting at the age of 6, I wanted to be Ozzie. I wore my uniform like him, I wore his number from when I was 6 until my career ended in my twenties, and I "tried" to play like him.

When I was 6 years old, my father would get up at 5:30 or 6am on Saturdays to record a program called "The Baseball Bunch" on our VHS recorder. The Baseball Bunch was a baseball fundamentals program hosted by Johnny Bench. On Saturday afternoons my friends would come over and we would watch the tape. I'll never forget though the episode which featured my favorite player, Ozzie. The episode changed my life. . . literally.

Two things stand out on this episode with me. The one minute highlight real at the beginning, and the drill segment on "wall ball". I watched this so many times, the tape was about worn out. (I still have the tape today, just no VHS player. I even thought of transferring it to DVD and put on YouTube, but someone else did already!)
I would imitate all the plays Ozzie made in my basement, my yard or out on the sandlot. Watching the highlight real today, I saw how many times Ozzie would slide down on his left knee, with his right leg extended to backhand and throw quickly, and thought, "That was the exact same way I did it." I copied that technique from Ozzie so long ago. Next, the wall ball segment was a drill that I believe led me to everything I do today.

Watching Ozzie play wall ball inspired me to do the same. I had a brick wall on one side of my drive way, and I used a tennis ball to work the routine play, forehand and backhand. By the time I was 7, I had mastered the backhand, years before other people my age could do so. Therefore, because of that drill, I played shortstop on every team I ever played on and I was still doing the drill when I was 21 years old. Quick fast forward - that drill was the reason for my college scholarship, which led me to my coaching job in Division I college baseball, which led me to what I do with a professional organization today. I can trace it all back to a over-energized 6 year old with a bowl haircut banging the tennis ball off the wall for hours upon end.

I still use the drill today in some of my lessons and I love in part 2 of the video how Ozzie describes how his hands play "through" the ball instead of funnelling. Nobody taught that at the time, but now most infield coaches teach this technique. Ozzie was way ahead of the game, and became the best shortstop of all time. Take a minute to watch the video that changed my life!