Many claim they want to get better, but few are willing to put in the necessary work. Doing what is comfortable is their standard. They're unwilling to press on and test their limits. Welcome to In the Bullpen with Mark Dewey, brought to you by developing Contenders Ministers. You're listening to the Fight Lab Peace Network. Thank you for joining us. And look who's coming up. I'm Michael, the right field. She is God! We are much closer to the end of spring training than to its beginning. And that's a beautiful thing because that means the regular season is getting very close. But I want to go back to the beginning of spring training and in particular the beginning of spring training in minor league camp. Now the last time I was in spring training in minor league camp was 2019. And I'm assuming some things have changed, but I'm also guessing this particular aspect of it has not changed. Players come into spring training in waves. Pictures and catchers are first, and then sometimes a few position players, and then ultimately all position players. But however that works out, when everybody is in minor league spring training camp, there is a meeting. All of the people are in the room, all of the players, and then a number of people will speak. Usually the president of baseball operations or general manager will speak. Usually the player development director will speak. Usually the head trainer and a number of others. And all of the minor league players are in this one room. And I have told people in the past, and there's probably at least back then, between 130 and 150 players. That if you were to ask the question of the players, this question of the players, every single hand would go up. And the question is this, how many of you want to be major league baseball players? Every hand would go up. Some of those hands would be guys who have already had an opportunity to play major league baseball. But then I tell people, if you were then to give all of these players truth serum, and ask a follow up question, the number of hands that would go up would be drastically reduced. The follow up question is this, how many of you are willing to do what is necessary to become a major league baseball player? I don't know what percentage of hands would go up on the second question. My guess has been somewhere between 20 to 25%. In other words, everybody wants the major league career, or at least getting to the major leagues. Very few people are willing to do what is necessary to make it there. All things being equal, I want to be a major league baseball player, but all things aren't equal. In line with that, I read a conversation that reminded me very much of that a couple of weeks ago. And it was one that Clint Hurdle had with the player in the Rocky system during the beginning of spring training. And Clint wrote this, quote, thoughts from the desert. A tough conversation I had with a player yesterday. How long will you put off what you are capable of doing just to continue what you are comfortable doing? Do well. Don't just mean well. We know you mean well. We need, and your teammates need, you, to do well. No excuses, no explanations. Good intentions don't lead to good performances. Do your best job to help your team. And then this past week, I saw a post by Troy Silva, who's a hitting coach. He wrote these words, quote, hitters getting that extra work done. Mental confidence developed? Five stars. Discipline earned. Five stars. Comfort zone sacrificed. Five stars. Character built. Five stars. Longevity created. Five stars. Weakness is improved. Five stars. Easy to do. One star. End of quote. This is why so many people who profess they want to get better. Never do. They don't possess or they're unwilling to endure what it takes. They want five star results from the one star activity of ease and comfort. They're simply not willing to put in the sacrificial and diligent work. Here's what they want. They want to be able to write words like these. Words written by Ned Coletti. Ned Coletti, who is the general manager of team Italy. Ned Coletti, who wrote these words after team Italy beat team USA. After team Italy went for no in pool play in advance to the quarter finals. But before Italy won the quarter finals game and is now in the semi finals. Ned Coletti wrote these words. These last 11 days have been an incredible blessing and special time. End of quote. People want to be able to write those words as Ned Coletti did. But they want to be able to do so without paying their dues as Ned Coletti has. To be in the world baseball classic in any capacity. Let alone to move on through the rounds to move on to the championship game. To win it all is not easy. It demands a lot of work over many years. You and I get to see the five star highlights broadcast far and wide worldwide as it regards the world baseball classic. What we do not get to see as a rule is the sacrificial work that takes place in empty rooms when nobody is watching. We watch and hear all of the five star events. We neglect to consider all the hard work that comes before them. We get to watch and rejoice over things like this. Mason Miller's eighth pitch to Perdomal. Here it is. The United States takes down the powerhouse that is the Dominican Republic. It's who to one the final score. What a game. It was going to be top three. The team that lost in a one-room game. But man, oh man. It had everything. So last night USA defeated the Dominican Republic two to one. And therefore team USA is in the championship game which is tomorrow night. All of the runs in that game came on solo home runs. The Dominican Republic got a run in the bottom of the second on a solo home run. And then team USA scored two in the top of the fourth both on solo home runs. And so now USA will play the winner of tonight's semi-final game, the other semi-final game, between Italy and Venezuela. And the championship game is tomorrow night Tuesday at eight o'clock in Miami. Now I spoke a moment ago about empty rooms. And here's a truth. Those who achieve the most publicly, at least if the achievements are legitimate, those who achieve the most publicly do the most privately in empty rooms when no one is watching. I have mentioned before when I was a pitching coach that my practice of posting the details of what was going on that day from who the starting pitcher was to who had bullpins to what the rotation was, assignments and the like every day that would be posted. And every day at the bottom, I would have a quote. Usually the quote would correspond with some kind of a theme. One of the quotes I loved and that I posted was a quote from Jerry Rice, the NFL Hall of Famer. And the quote are these words or is this quote, today I will do what others won't. So tomorrow I can accomplish what others can't end of quote. That's how you become a Hall of Fame football player. That's how you have the experience of Ned Coletti and team Italy or team USA or even those teams that have been eliminated. That's how you achieve excellence in any sphere the Lord has called you to. Recently we have been doing a study each Monday for, well, I don't know six or seven years now. I do a Zoom Bible study for developing contenders ministries and several weeks back we started a study that is the being names and attributes of God. And recently we studied the incompatible attribute of God's omnipresence. And in that study I quoted from Thomas Watson, I quoted these words quote, God is not confined to any place. He is infinite and so is present in all places at once. His center is everywhere. End of quote. So now I have to say this. Ultimately there are no empty rooms. There may be empty of people, but God is there. And you may be the kind of person that takes it easy, that wants personal peace and affluence, comfort and convenience. Or you may be the type of person who recognize that to be better and to be the best you can possibly be is not easy. And achieving excellence in any endeavor in any sphere takes hard work. You may be familiar with the words of Colossians 3 23 that we are to do our work with all our heart or heartily as unto the Lord and not unto men. And yes, I realize that we are saved by faith alone through grace alone because of the person in work of Christ alone that it is not our hard work that earns us salvation. However, works, diligent works flow from that salvation there by the grace of God. But we can't separate what God has done and what our responsibility is. Remember, we're to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, remembering always that it is God at work in us to will and do according to his good pleasure. And the same is true in the physical realm. We are incapable of doing anything apart from God's grace. In him we live and move and have our being. We've got to recognize that. But we also have to recognize that we are called to pursue excellence going back to Colossians 3 23. We're to remember that the horse is prepared for the day of battle. That is our responsibility. But victory belongs to the Lord. That's his sovereignty. But we cannot use and as an excuse, God's sovereignty over all things in order to not do what we are capable of doing what we are called to do. Now, Yahweh is not only omnipresent, he is also omniscient. Which means that God knows the thoughts and intents of our hearts. He knows our inner most motives, fears, and our rationale or rationalization. You got nine bodies ready to roll today, I would imagine. Absolutely, I'm going to look at it. I'm going to get some guys off their feet. No question about it. I'd like to get Goldie a start. And you know, he has been awesome. Just a leader of men behind the scenes with Aaron judge. I'd like to get him in there. I'd like to get Gunnar in there again. Tonner respect for Italy. It's weird. We want to win. We want to win this game. Even though our tickets punched at a quarterfinals because Mexico plays Italy actually tomorrow. So this the way the way the schedule lines up. This is an important game for us. Nolan McClean will start. He's on the bump and he's good to go. He's an absolute beast and I expect him to throw the heck out of the book. So that was team USA manager Mark Derosa. Before team USA played Italy in an interview on the MLB network, which he works for. Harold Reynolds and Matt Vasker, asian or the men who interviewed him. And that interview and in particular, this line quote, our tickets punched to the quarterfinals end of quote has been fodder over the past week. Now I along with many others believe that this could have been put to rest quickly by simply making the statement, I or we messed up wheat. We just didn't know. And of course, that should only be made if that is indeed the case. Mark Derosa had an opportunity to make such a statement after the game against Italy. Is that true? Yeah, I misspoke. I was on hot stove with a couple of buddies today and completely miss red miss red to calculations. We knew that Mexico is going to play Italy and then running all the numbers with if we lost tonight with the runs allowed and run scored and outs. So I just misspoke. I do not believe I misspoke and totally miss red the calculations are mutually exclusive. However, they seem to be different enough to say I don't know if you can say them both in the same response. That was the first opportunity that came after USA lost to Italy. Then there was a second opportunity for Mark Derosa to own it. Is there anything that you want to clarify about the timeline of when all the type records became clear to you? Yeah, it's just an overly confident statement on hot stove period the end and it's my fault. It felt good about where we were after Mexico. Listen, us hanging out in the clubhouse is everything I ever dreamed of creating you got to buy into this thing super quick and try and create a team and for those players to invite the coaches in and for us to spend time together and enjoy a huge win that we hadn't had in 20 years was something that well and play well against Italy. They played a hell of a game they smacked us in a mouth early they got up big. We went into that game prepared to win it. I think there's a couple false narratives out there, but no, I was well aware that we had to win that game based on all the scenarios that could take place. I mean, they went into and oh, we went into and oh, we knew they were playing Mexico the next day. We knew there was tiebreaker rules involved. So I can understand the questions about lineup and pitching situations we were up against. You know, a lot of guardrails with regards to teams, the deployment of certain relievers, how many pitches they can use, whether they can go back out, whether they can clean up innings and you're just trying to piece it together in real time. So at the beginning, Mark de Rosa said, it's my fault. I appreciate that. But then he also said there are a couple false narratives out there. Is that true? Now, he did misspeak in that particular clip because he said both USA and Italy were two and all going into that game. And of course, USA was three. No, that's a simple mistake. When you're on camera being interviewed as much as he is during this world baseball classic, you're going to misspeak. No problem with that. But it appears, and I would say to me, but to many who have looked at this much more closely, that not only did Mark de Rosa not know, but it didn't appear that the team understood what was going on until about the eighth inning of that game against Italy. Now, what might be even worse if this is true? I mentioned that that first interview was on the MLB network. And I read, though I can't prove this because I don't have the ability to see when it was pulled or put back on, but I read that that interview was pulled from NLB networks page or site. And if that's true, I would agree with something written by hashtag baseball truth. He wrote quote, MLB network conducted the most significant slash newsworthy interview in WBC history. They had a manager saying his team had advanced when they hadn't. And they took that video down as soon as they realized its significance and newsworthiness end of quote. Again, I don't know. I have seen, I have heard, I have read enough to form an opinion on all of this. However, I readily admit I lack enough information to be dogmatic about it. But I am dogmatic about this being better isn't easy. Whatever's going on in this whole situation or has gone on in this whole situation, it is the result of being better of pursuing excellence. And that isn't easy. And here's what I want to say to get better to pursue excellence to be the best you can be. It is vitally important that you use crack consistently. Some of you just stopped in your tracks. Some of you might have chuckled because you remember me talking about this in an episode last year by crack. I mean this commitment, responsibility, accountability, consequences and kindness. And we are a C all of that has to be tenaciously pursued, tenaciously held on to uncompromisingly the standard, but all of it in kindness. And when I mean kindness, I don't mean niceness. I mean kindness or to put it differently. It needs to be done in love. And there is one man who appears to be consistently on crack. And that is Aaron Judge. Do you see that Aaron Judge did to help calm the waters for Team USA? Yeah, I mean he's calm all the time. I don't have never seen that guy wager. It's pretty impressive. I think that's why he's the captain of the Yankees and he's the captain of our team. There's a lot of leaders on this team pretty much everywhere of their own teams and having Aaron here is he's the captain. It's not just for the Yankees, it's for the United States. So that was starting pitcher Logan Webb talking about Aaron Judge. And that kind of response about Aaron Judge you hear over and over and over again. And you do not hear it from Aaron Judge. You hear it from those who are around him. Whether that is with the New York Yankees or whether that is with Team USA. Speaking of Aaron Judge, you've taken a lot of criticism the last 48 hours. Is there anything more he would like people to know just about the way you approach this job? Have an undying passion for it and an undying belief in every guy in this roster. I don't think there's an A and a B. I think they're all A's. Thanks very much. So that was an in game interview Friday night when USA was playing Canada. Ken Rosenthal asked that question of Mark Derosa. You heard the question. You heard the answer again based on what we've already discussed. I will leave it to you to determine how you understand the answer given. But what does this interview have to do with Aaron Judge? It was a reporter Ken Rosenthal talking to the manager of Team USA, Mark Derosa. Well, here's what I want to point out. I want to point out something you couldn't see. When the interview began, Aaron Judge was sitting on the bench. As soon as the interview began, he got up and stood right next to Mark Derosa. And he did so for the duration of the interview. Now there was a slight distraction because a teammate came up and said something Aaron Judge and Aaron responded. But he stood right next to his manager. Why? I'll leave it to you to determine. But I'll also tell you what I believe. I believe it was a very intentional act from a man who is always striving to get better. And to be consistent in what he does best. And it appears to me that equal to his baseball talent is his leadership ability. Speaking of leadership, a couple of weeks ago in an episode of In the Bullpen, I read the first three paragraphs of an acrostic on leadership. And this was in a document that I wrote for our pitching coaches with the brewers. Back then I covered the letters L E and A in that leadership across. Today, I want to discuss the next four letters D E R and S. I'm not going to read everything that I wrote, but I'm going to highlight some portions. So first of all, the D leaders disciple. I begin by saying or writing, we are to teach, train and bring up coaches. Coaches are at the core teachers. And then I want to explain that how we teach is as important as what we teach. And I said, each of us have our own styles, our own methods. And that's beautiful. And there's benefit in that. But I said, we have to be sure that our communication is always clear, concise and consistent. We've got to speak with words. We've got to convey ideas that our pitchers can clearly grasp that they can understand. I said, the conciseness is important. The less words, the better. And I say, some have referred to this combination of clear and concise communication as lucid brevity. And the sum I was referring to there was actually one, John Calvin. We talked about how important consistency is that we can't send mixed singles signals. We can't engage in contradiction. And then I quoted from a man who wrote a book at the end of the 19th century. The book is titled The Seven Laws of Teaching. The author is John Milton Gregory. And this book has been used in training teachers since he wrote it. And a quote from that book that I used in our document is this quote, it is only the unskilful and self seeking teacher who prefers to hear his own voice and endless talk rather than watch the working of his pupils thoughts. End of quote. Letter E. Leaders encourage. And here I've stressed how important it is to instill confidence and inspire courage in our pitchers. That it's one of the most important acts that we can be engaged in as pitching coaches. Now, Matt Krueg was the director of psychological surfaces with the brewers at that time as a PhD. You could say he's the performance enhancement guy from the mental side. And he would often tell us about the importance of the three big seas, confidence, concentration and competitiveness. And I encourage our pitching coaches. I said we can never lie to instill confidence or inspire courage because the ends cannot justify the means. But as we work lovingly with our pitchers, we're going to find ways honestly to increase their confidence and inspire courage. And then I said or wrote to encourage requires courage and that requires us to have conviction and to have a willingness to stand firm and refuse to compromise our convictions. I ended that paragraph by writing to live and coach in such a way as one of the best means by which we are able to encourage others. Then the are leaders respect and I stressed we must respect all people. And then I wrote we will work with those who think and act much like we do. And with others whose beliefs and practices are virtually the polar opposite of our own. Now I'm writing this for pitching coaches dealing with pitchers but even among us that were pitching coaches that statement is true. But I said regardless where to treat everyone with respect. We are to treat everyone with the dignity and value every human being deserves. We are to respect those who are our superiors, our infuriers and our equals. And that we need to understand that we are all equal in our being but in our roles we can be equals, superiors or infuriers. As coaches were peers were equals among one another. As those who are coaching pitchers were superiors we have authority. As those under the player development director the GM whoever it might be were infuriers. Final letter for the day the letter S leaders serve. And I wrote to begin that paragraph we serve others for their good not our own glory. We are not fundamentally working to keep or take a job but to do our job well for the benefit of our pitchers and our organization. I think that's vitally important. And I think at least it used to be that players could see if you were in it for yourself. If this was about putting something in my resume. If this was about a stepping stone somewhere else they could see that. I don't know if that's still the case to be quite honest with you. I hope it is. But I stress that leaders serve. Now hopefully in the next couple of weeks I hope to hit the last three letters of this across the the H the I and the P. But today I want to skip down to the end of this portion of the guy that we put together. And I mentioned that across the fun they're valuable to help remember things but they'll always fall short. And I don't want to exhaust any subject with a number of letters. And paragraphs based on those letters. And I said we could we should discuss other characteristics other activities of those who lead well. Good leaders are trustworthy. They take initiative. They focus on objectives. Not obstacles. They cultivate loyalty. They're decisive. They know their personal limitations. know how to delegate their passionate. And then I just had an ellipsis. The length is, the list is very lengthy. And then I mentioned something that I think is often missed. If you're in a room and somebody says, tell me, give me some adjectives to define good leaders. You'll hear many of the things I brought up, but a word you really don't often hear. And I don't know if I've ever heard it is follower to be a good leader. You must be a follower. And I think we don't hear it because at first glance, it seems to be a contradiction, but it's not. It's actually of the utmost importance that all who lead with authority also submit to authority. And I wrote that if you find a leader who refuses to follow, at best, you've met a tyrant. And at worst, somebody with a God complex. And then I ended by saying every good person in authority is also a person under good authority. And we know, at least we know if we believe the Bible, that King Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth. Then the section ended with these words. Finally, a historically great leader, General George S. Patton, would say we've missed an essential attribute. And then I quote, Patton quote, moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men end of quote. And then the final words of this section were mind men may it not be absent among us. Moral courage is impossible without moral conviction. And both are impossible without an unchanging standard of good, better and best of right and wrong. Now consider this, General Patton made that statement during a time in US history that it has often been said. And I believe correctly is a time of quote unquote the greatest generation. If it was lacking then, how much more today moral courage demands moral conviction and both flow from an uncompromising willingness to stand for what is good and stand against what is evil. We must always remember that good and evil are not determined by my personal preference or your personal preference, not determined by counting noses, not determined by how well accepted something may be at any given time in history. Moral conviction and courage demands we stand for good and against evil regardless of the consequences, actual or potential. We cannot and we must not play it safe. But that's a conversation for another day. Join us next time for In the Bull Pin on the Fight Laugh Feast Network. Thank you for listening.