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1:00
This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
1:14
I'm your host Kyle Thompson, let's get into it.
1:16
All right, guys, if you were listening to this podcast on time, then tomorrow is a very, very momentous day for you.
1:22
So this podcast is being released on March 28th, 2018.
1:26
And March 29th, Thursday, March 29th, is opening day of the 2018 Major League Baseball season.
1:34
Okay, guys, I can't even begin to describe to you how much I love this time of year.
1:38
It's literally my favorite time of year.
1:40
There's a lot of opening days where I usually, I'll take the day off or at least make sure I get to watch a lot of games.
1:46
This year, actually, the games are starting quite a bit earlier because with the new owners agreement, they're allowing a few more off days.
1:53
But baseball to me is, it's my favorite sport.
1:56
I mean, I love mixed martial arts.
1:59
I love watching the UFC.
2:01
I love watching my my Thunder play in the NBA.
2:04
I like watching college football, not a huge fan of the NFL.
2:07
And, you know, I just got a burgeoning interest in jujitsu and every one of those sports appeals to me in a different way.
2:13
But baseball is kind of central to my life.
2:15
That is my preference because I played baseball my entire life.
2:18
I have an extreme interest in the game and I've always been interested in what's gone on on the Major League level.
2:23
So if you don't know me and I haven't really talked about on podcasts, I don't think I'm a huge Cardinals fan.
2:29
I became a Cardinals fan in 1997, actually.
2:32
So that was the year that Mark McGuire was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals from the Oakland Athletics.
2:37
On all my baseball teams growing up as a kid, my nickname was Little Mac, right?
2:41
So because his name was Big Mac, that was his nickname. And so he was a red-headed guy that hit a lot of home runs.
2:47
I was a red-headed little kid that hit some home runs from time to time.
2:50
So that was my nickname.
2:51
My dad bought me a St. Louis Cardinals like New Era hat, like the official 5950 New Era road hat.
2:58
And that was like it.
2:59
From that day forward, I was a Cardinals fan.
3:01
And for anyone who thinks like it's a bandwagon thing, 1997, the Cardinals were like hot garbage, okay?
3:06
They finished like fifth in the division out of six teams.
3:08
That was when there were six teams in the National League Central.
3:11
So it was the year after that that he did the whole home run race
3:14
with originally Ken Griffey Jr. and then eventually was Sammy Sosa.
3:18
And since it's become like a huge liar, cheater, thief, all those kinds of things.
3:22
So he's kind of dead to me.
3:23
But anyway, I'm still a St. Louis Cardinals fan.
3:25
Big, big fan still follow that team till today.
3:28
So around this point right here, if you haven't turned off the podcast already,
3:32
I know there's people that are already like baseball.
3:35
You're just not into baseball and I get it. There's, you know, popularity for the game
3:40
in some pockets of society is going down.
3:42
Like I understand it.
3:43
It's not a game that's for everybody.
3:45
It doesn't have a time limit again, like it's on innings.
3:47
It's not on time.
3:48
So it's kind of an indefinitive time when it's actually going to end.
3:51
But I'm just going to guarantee you something right now.
3:54
If you've stuck in this far, if you've gone in, you know,
3:56
three minutes or so into this podcast with me,
3:59
this podcast should be interesting to you regardless of your fandom
4:02
or I guess non fandom with the game of baseball, okay?
4:05
Because I want to talk about baseball and I want to talk about how it's
4:08
directly a reflection of life and a lot of ways.
4:11
And the way I'm going to do that is I'm going to do that in three ways.
4:14
I'm going to talk about this as America's pastime.
4:16
That's the first part.
4:18
The second part is going to be the life lessons that I've learned from the game of baseball.
4:22
And the third part is we're going to talk about baseball and resilience.
4:26
So the first part, let's go ahead and get into America's pastime.
4:29
Okay.
4:30
Everyone's heard that in reference to the game of baseball,
4:32
specifically looking at Major League Baseball.
4:34
But really, baseball helped America in a lot of different ways, okay?
4:39
And so I'm going to describe three ways that baseball helped America.
4:43
And I think it's a lot of these things that you probably already know,
4:46
some things you're not going to know.
4:47
But when I think about baseball, I think about it in terms of our country and in these three ways.
4:51
So the first way is that it helped America grow.
4:54
So the turn of the century, so that would be the turn from the 19th century to the 20th century,
5:00
that is when the popularity of baseball skyrocketed, okay?
5:03
And there was a commentator at the time named Jock Barzone.
5:07
And he made this quote and it's a great quote.
5:10
It's whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.
5:15
He wrote that in his book of essays in 1954 called God's Country and Mind.
5:20
And it was around this time that baseball became America's pastime,
5:24
which kind of begs the question, how did baseball become America's pastime?
5:28
And really, it became the national pastime during a period of really extreme nationalism
5:33
in the United States. And a lot of people call this the progressive era.
5:36
So the progressive era was kind of a time in the United States,
5:40
where there was a kind of widespread political reform that would kind of be
5:43
the definitive nature of that era. And that was from like the 1890s through like the 1920s.
5:49
So not exactly into the roaring 20s, but just kind of into the early 1920s.
5:54
And this era was defined by, you know, being against the government,
5:57
being against government corruption specifically, but also looked at
6:01
reforming problems in the United States caused by immigration and industrialization,
6:06
urbanization, a lot of other different things.
6:07
And major league baseball began professionally really, you know,
6:12
major league baseball sites night or 1869 is kind of the first year that baseball was
6:17
established. And that was because of the establishment of the very first
6:20
professional major league team. And that was the Cincinnati red stockings,
6:23
which eventually eventually became the Cincinnati Reds, obviously.
6:27
And so the thing was is around the same time that there was kind of a coming of age movement
6:32
with a lot of Americans. That was when baseball became incredibly,
6:37
incredibly popular. And so if you've ever heard the statement or the phrase America's past time,
6:43
that is really where it came from. It's from that era,
6:46
because that was the main form of entertainment during that time, you know,
6:50
when there was a huge surge, when there was a whole bunch of teams added,
6:53
and that's what a lot of people did for fun. And so this was, you know,
6:57
pre radio and pre television and pre night games and all those different things,
7:01
but it became America's favorite past time. Okay.
7:04
So the second thing that baseball helped America with is baseball helped America fight.
7:09
So you've heard a lot about these different things, but I like talking about how a lot of
7:13
major leaders have served in war, okay, and specifically during the first two world wars.
7:18
Okay. So I just want to run down a list of some of the guys that were at the time,
7:23
incredibly famous players. I mean, you're going to recognize some of these names and
7:26
some that you might not actually recognize, but these were incredibly, incredibly big time players
7:32
that the only way of thinking about it right now is it would be like, since that was the most
7:36
popular sport at the time, it would be like if, uh, gosh, if LeBron James or Steph Curry or Russell
7:43
Westbrook or, you know, Peyton Manning, when he was playing or, you know, Brett Farver,
7:48
you know, one of those really, really popular players, it would be like one of those guys taking
7:52
a two to four year break from their career in order to go serve the country overseas as a member
7:57
of the military. Like that's just to kind of put it into perspective. So just to run down the list
8:01
a little bit, uh, versus Bob Feller, I love the story of Bob Feller because he enlisted in the
8:06
U S Navy one day after Pearl Harbor, one day. And then he spent four years of service. Bob Feller
8:14
is seen as one of the better guys of his era in Major League Baseball, but he took four years
8:19
out of the prime of his physical life to go and serve in the military. Now we have yoga,
8:22
Yogi Bear, obviously the Hall of Fame catcher for the New York Yankees. He was a gunner's mate on
8:27
board, a landing ship that landed on D day. So this is a guy who I think he won 10 world championships
8:33
with the New York Yankees. And everyone's heard about the, the yogi isms, uh, those types of things.
8:38
And so just an incredible guy and incredible baseball player, but also served our country.
8:43
Then we got Ted Williams, probably the best hitter of all time, certainly the best left-handed
8:48
hitter of all time. He was a naval fighter pilot and he did a whole bunch of missions during World
8:52
War II. And later he became a Marine Corps instructor. And so he spent a huge chunk of his prime years
8:59
fighting in the war. We have Joe DiMaggio, who enlisted in the United States Air Force as a
9:03
staff sergeant is what that's how he retired was as a staff sergeant. But he, the kind of the
9:08
interesting thing about Joe DiMaggio is there was still quite a lot of Italian pride at this time
9:13
and even for Italian immigrants. And this was a war where we were fighting the Italian. So the
9:17
fact that Joe DiMaggio hopped on board this war was pretty fantastic and incredible. Warren Spon,
9:22
who was probably the best hitting pitcher of all time, he fought in the Battle of the Bulge,
9:26
you know, with the United States Army. So that's pretty incredible. And then Ty Cobb,
9:31
he actually, he's one of the better players ever, even though he played kind of during the
9:35
dead ball era, he served in kind of the modern day special forces equivalent in the US Army.
9:40
And he did that during World War I. And so again, the game of baseball has allowed at different
9:46
points for its biggest stars to go and fight elsewhere. And just think of the names I mentioned
9:51
earlier, just think of the top sports figures you can think of right now and whatever you feel
9:57
like is the most popular sport in America. And imagine that person taking three to four years off
10:02
during their physical prime. So think the ages of like 27 to 32. That's normally when you have your,
10:07
you hit your peak physical athletic prime and just imagine those guys going over and, you know,
10:12
fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan or maybe, you know, North Korea or Russia or China or wherever
10:16
you want to end up thinking we're going to fight someday, whatever place you think we're going to do
10:20
that. It's a pretty incredible thing. So again, the game of baseball helped America grow. Secondly,
10:26
it helped America fight, but also it helped America heal. And this is one that I just really like
10:32
talking about, because I was in 10th grade when September 11 terrorist attacks happened. And that's
10:38
when 2977 innocent people were murdered by Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. And so we obviously know
10:46
a lot about what happened during that. So I'm not going to sit here and extoll you on all the
10:49
different things that happened during that period of our history. But baseball had a huge impact
10:56
in helping the United States heal. Okay, because that happened in September. Obviously, if you
11:00
know anything about baseball, you know that the season runs through October. October is normally
11:04
when the playoffs in the World Series begin. And that that is just an incredible time for baseball
11:11
September is because you got a lot of pennant races going on. Or these are races to get into
11:16
the postseason and try to get to the pennant rather. And so when 9/11 happened, you know,
11:21
just like with all of us, the entire country went to a pause and really all sports went on a pause,
11:26
right? And so the game of baseball was able to really help people start to really think about what
11:34
had happened and try to put it into an appropriate category, but also to help us move on. So one of
11:40
the first times we saw that is the first game back in Major League Baseball was the St. Louis Cardinals
11:45
versus the Milwaukee Brewers. And this was on the 17th of September of 2001. And so this was in
11:52
St. Louis. And the Hall of Fame announcer Jack Buck actually came down from the booth and he was on
11:58
the field and he addressed the crowd. He gave a speech and a poem. And at the time, and some
12:04
people didn't know this, he was battling lung cancer and Parkinson's disease. He was not really
12:09
in good shape, but he knew he had to address the crowd at this momentous occasion and ended up
12:14
becoming a really, really amazing thing that he did. So many people questioned whether baseball
12:21
coming back, you know, just about a week after the attacks, they questioned if that was too soon.
12:26
That was kind of the narrative going into this first game. It's like, you know, is it too soon?
12:30
Are we really rushing this? Should should the nation heal more? And so before he got into much
12:36
of his speech, Jack Buck said this quote, I don't know about you. But for me, the question has already
12:42
been answered. Should we be here? Yes. And he was so emphatic with that. And I just remember
12:49
the emotion of that because I was a kid at the time. And I remember watching that, I was like, man,
12:53
yeah, you know, we should be here. We should be doing that. But then Jack Buck, he wrote a poem
12:57
that he he read to the crowd that day. And it was just so it was so apt for the situation. So I'm
13:02
going to go ahead and read that to you. It's a very short poem. So indulge me as I read that for
13:06
you here. So this was Jack Buck's poem that he read on the 17th of September 2001. Since this
13:12
nation was founded under God, more than 200 years ago, we've been the bastion of freedom,
13:16
the light which keeps the free world aglow. We do not covet the possessions of others. We are
13:22
blessed with the bounty we share. We have rushed to help other nations anything, anytime, anywhere.
13:28
War is just not our nature. We won't start, but we will end the fight. If we are involved, we shall
13:34
be resolved to protect what we know is right. We've been challenged by a cowardly foe who strikes
13:40
and then hides from our view. With one voice, we say there's no choice today. And there's only
13:46
one thing to do. Everyone is saying the same thing in praying that we in the senseless moment,
13:52
we are living. As our fathers did before, we shall win this unwanted war as our children will enjoy
13:59
the future we'll be giving. And that was just an incredible moment. There was a 21 gun salute
14:04
after that. There was a bunch of firefighters and first responders and police officers that
14:09
were on the field. Just an incredible, incredible moment. And then also just a little while after
14:14
that. So September 21st of 2001, this was the first game back in New York City after 9/11. Because
14:22
of course, there were a ton of security concerns about having any type of large crowd gathering in
14:27
New York City in the immediate aftermath of September 11th. And so 10 days after that was the first
14:33
game. And this was the Braves versus the Mets. Okay. And the Mets were in the playoff hunt. So the
14:38
Braves were incredibly good in 2001. They they had a I think a five, five and a half game lead
14:43
whenever this game had happened. And the game went fairly predictably. It was a low scoring game.
14:48
Good pitchers match up. But the New York Mets were down two to one in the bottom of the eighth inning.
14:53
And Mike Piazza, who was one of if not their best player at the time. He comes up to the plate.
14:58
And he was going up against Steve Carse, who was a very good pitcher at the time. And there was one
15:04
runner on. And Mike Piazza ends up hitting an incredibly dramatic to run home run that gave the
15:12
Mets the lead the lead, which they held and ended up winning the game three to two. But you know,
15:17
that's just any game, right? You know, how many games have been have ended three to two in the
15:21
month of September between two teams going for the playoffs? There's probably been dozens if not
15:25
hundreds of games just like that. But the emotion in the stadium. I mean, in the show notes, I have
15:32
a YouTube video where you can actually watch the faces of some of these people, because there's a
15:35
there's a ton of first responders in the crowd. There's families there of deceased firemen and
15:41
police officers and people that were in the towers or on the planes. And so it was such a
15:47
cathartic moment for a lot of these people. And so that was one time where you know, a lot of these
15:52
people could compartmentalize their lives, at least for a few hours, right? And you know,
15:57
if the Atlanta Braves had won that game that night, it wasn't as if that was going to be some colossal
16:01
disappointment. Again, you know, baseball, there's 162 regular season games. I mean,
16:05
you're certainly not going to win them all. But it was just so appropriate that it went down in the
16:10
way that it did. And then the last moment that kind of has showed how America has helped baseball
16:16
has helped America heal is literally one of my favorite moments in history. And I'm not being
16:22
hyperbolic when I say that I literally mean this. And that was George W. Bush, the president at the
16:27
time it was him throwing out the first pitch during game three of the World Series. So this was on
16:32
the 30th of September. And this was a World Series I was played between the Arizona,
16:38
Arizona Diamondbacks and the New York Yankees. So pretty incredible that the New York Yankees
16:42
made the World Series in a year where there was a tremendous terrorist attack. So a lot of the
16:46
country that would normally just look at them as the evil empire and move on with their day
16:50
was actually, you know, actively rooting for the New York Yankees. But the president, who if you
16:56
didn't know, if he hadn't been, you know, if he hadn't gotten beaten out by Bob, you know, Bud
17:02
Selig as the commissioner of baseball, he very well may have been the commissioner of baseball and
17:06
not the president of our country. Just a huge baseball fan had been part of the ownership team
17:12
for the Texas Rangers. Just a tremendous student of the game and a tremendous fan.
17:17
George W. Bush wanted to throw out the first pitch at a World Series game after this terrorist
17:22
attack. Now, the Arizona Diamondbacks had home court or home court, home field advantage during
17:28
this time. And so they got to play games one and two and then if necessary, game six and seven in
17:33
Arizona at their stadium. Okay. So he wanted to throw that pitch out there, but it just didn't
17:39
make sense to him to throw the first pitch out in Arizona. Now, if he did it in Arizona, it obviously
17:43
would have been much safer, you know, as far as we know, but he was very, very adamant about
17:48
throwing that first pitch out during game three, the first game in Yankee stadium of the World
17:53
Series. Okay. And so there's also in the show notes. There's a video here that's kind of like a
17:58
little mini documentary about that pitch because George Bush was, he was so nervous going into
18:04
this pitch, right? And again, it's just a pitch. How many horrible pitches have we seen? I mean,
18:08
Barack Obama threw some of the worst pitches from anyone who ever claimed to be an athlete that I've
18:12
ever seen in my life. There's just been so many bad first pitches, right? Carl Lewis, 50 Cent,
18:16
they're just bad, right? And everyone just kind of forgives it. We just kind of chuckle and move on,
18:20
you know, they're not major league baseball players. But Bush was a, he was a player, right? He was
18:24
good athlete. And he actually threw out a first pitch pitch in Milwaukee previously in his tenure.
18:30
And he was wearing like cowboy boots that day and his foot kind of slipped on the rubber and he
18:35
ended up bouncing it, right? Which if you've ever thrown out a first pitch, which I've actually had
18:39
the opportunity to throw out a first pitch out of baseball game at Bush stadium in St. Louis before,
18:43
you don't want to, you don't want to bounce it. I mean, if you're going to do anything, you want
18:46
to throw it high, you definitely don't want to bounce it. And so in a little bit of a way, George
18:50
Bush was trying to kind of, you know, recapture that moment again and actually have a better first
18:54
pitch. But the grandeur of the moment was not lost on him, right? So much so that before the game,
19:01
he was in the tunnel underneath Yankee stadium and he was warming up. Like he was warming up. I think
19:06
it was with one of his secret service members. And because he did not want to mess up this first
19:11
pitch. And you know, the captain of the New York Yankees and one of the best short stops of all time,
19:15
Derek Jeter actually came up to him and kind of tongue and cheek said, Hey, you know, good luck,
19:19
you know, we appreciate you being here. And as he walked off as the legend goes, he says,
19:23
Hey, make sure you don't bounce it because they'll boo you, right? So it was just this kind of really,
19:28
really funny moment. And you know, it was interesting because George Bush refused to wear a bulletproof
19:33
vest, right? Because again, there's still all these security concerns. You know, it took people
19:36
hours to get into the stadium that day, because they weren't sure, you know, if anyone is going to
19:41
try another attack of some kind. But he's like, I'm not wearing a bulletproof vest. I'm not going
19:45
to go out there and look all puffed up and, you know, portray this idea to the country that we're
19:50
all still scared. And so all that setup and all that going, he's introduced by the famous Yankees
19:56
announcer, he goes out there, he gets on the on the mound, he waves at the crowd. And then he throws
20:02
a strike. He throws a perfect strike. And it was just incredible. I mean, I'm even getting goosebumps
20:08
literally sitting here recording this right now. Seriously, one of the most incredible moments,
20:12
and look, it doesn't matter if you voted for him in that election or if you had voted for Al Gore,
20:17
it doesn't matter at all. It doesn't matter if you're not a Republican, it doesn't matter if you're
20:20
not a George W. Bush guy. None of that matters. At that time, we needed a leader, and we needed a
20:25
leader to go out there and even do something small, something symbolic that was going to help the
20:30
nation heal. And that was just an incredible, incredible moment. So again, if it seems like
20:35
I'm romantic about baseball, it's it's literally because I am because baseball, whenever I look at
20:39
it, it has helped America grow. It's helped America fight and it's helped America heal. And it's done
20:45
it on more than one occasion. So some of you will probably remember the movie Field of Dreams. So
20:50
this was a movie is a little bit corny, but it's got some really cool parts, especially if you've
20:54
seen it. But there was a scene towards the end where Terrence Mann, who is played by James Earl
20:59
Jones, was talking to Ray Kinsella, who was the main character played by Kevin Costner. And this
21:04
was a quote that he said, he said the one constant through all the years, Ray has been baseball.
21:10
America has rolled by like an army of steam rollers. It has been erased like a blackboard,
21:16
rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, it's part of our
21:24
pass ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again. And so as we wrap up that
21:32
first section, I really feel that baseball has been a tremendous thing for us to view in light of
21:38
what we've done as Americans, but also how we have progressed as a country. So that's the first
21:43
point there. And then so that's just kind of basically talking about America as America's past
21:48
time. And now let's get into the second section, which is life lessons learned from baseball.
21:53
So I really was able to distill it down to four major lessons that I think all of us can get value
21:59
from in terms of what we can learn from the game of baseball. Okay. And so that first life lesson
22:05
is the importance of individual responsibility and performance. Again, that's the importance
22:11
of an individual responsibility and performance of any game that I can think of. This game puts
22:18
you on the spot. Like in a huge way, there is only one pitcher on the pitcher's mount. Like there's
22:25
not a line of five fat guys in front of the pitcher before he throws the ball. It's just the pitcher,
22:29
right? I mean, there's only one hitter at the plate at a time. Like there's not a bunch of other
22:34
hitters like distracting the defense going a bunch of different directions. There's only one hitter
22:39
at the plate. I mean, there's only one fielder in that area of the field. And in the infield,
22:44
they're all kind of all bunched up in the off of their little bit more spread out. But
22:48
you're in your area. And if the balls hit in your area, you are put on the spot.
22:52
When the pitcher throws you the ball, you were put on the spot. When you're pitching the ball,
22:56
you are on the spot. There's only one ball in play at any one time, right? This is a game where
23:01
individual responsibility is key. Because if you're playing center field and the balls hit to you
23:06
and you just stand there, it's going to be a problem. I mean, the left fielder or the right
23:10
fielder will eventually get there. But if you just stand there, it's going to be one if not two more
23:15
extra bases for that fielder, maybe even three, right? But you've also got to perform like you're
23:20
responsible for yourself. There's nine guys that go through the batting or you're responsible for
23:25
your part, but you have to perform like everyone has to do their own part in order to make the cog
23:32
in the wheels go forward, right? And that kind of leads into the second thing. So the first was
23:36
the importance of individual responsibility and performance in the second life lesson
23:40
is not all cogs in the wheel are equal, but you need all of them, right? So the game of baseball,
23:47
it's a game that can be dominated by dominant players, right? So we've heard about dominant
23:52
pitchers like your, you know, sandy co-faxes and your Bob Gibson's and your Clayton Kershaw's
23:57
and Max Scherzer's, right? Randy Johnson. Then you've heard about your dominant hitters. So
24:02
these are your Stan Musicals and your Ted Williams is and your King Griffey juniors and your Tony
24:06
Gwen's those types of guys, right? But dominant pitchers still need a catcher, right? Like they
24:12
still need defenders behind them. You know, dominant hitters, they still need runners own base, right?
24:18
Even the best home run hitter of all time, Hank Aaron, he needed some extra guys on base.
24:22
You know, he needed some RBIs to help his team win, right? But the thing is is at the time that
24:28
Clayton Kershaw's on the mound and he's pitching in a game like he will to, you know, this weekend,
24:33
he's the most important player on the field. He just is. He's the most dominant player on the
24:38
field for either team, but he can't do it by himself. He can, he can get really close to winning the
24:44
entire game by himself, but he can't do it by himself. And the same with hitters. You very,
24:48
very rarely see a game where one hitter in the lineup has all the offense for that lineup. It's
24:53
incredibly, incredibly rare, right? Because essentially you have to have nothing but solo home runs.
24:58
That's essentially how that goes. I mean, one player, you know, whether that be a hitter or a
25:04
pitcher, one player can win you most of the game, but not all of it, right? So, so not again,
25:10
not all cogs in the wheel are equal. There are some that are greater than others, but you need
25:14
all of them in order to go forward. So the corollary obviously for you in your life is you're going
25:18
to be in teamwork situations, right? You're going to have times where you have to be able to perform
25:24
and you have to perform even within the context of a team that goes back to the first point about
25:29
individual responsibility and performance. And you might be the most important person on your
25:33
team and you might not be, you might be the most important person in your family at that exact
25:36
time, or you might not be, but you're still an incredibly important person to that team.
25:41
And you need all the people on the team and everyone's got to be able to perform. Okay,
25:44
the third life lesson that I've learned from the game of baseball is your attitude in the dugout
25:50
is as important as your attitude on the field. So I just got to admit something to you when I
25:56
played baseball and anyone listening to this podcast that ever played with me can obviously
26:00
really attest to this. I had the worst attitude. If I did poorly, I had a horrible attitude. So
26:08
people say, you know, shake it off, move on to the next play move on to the next that bat,
26:11
I couldn't do it. If I struck out in my first at bat, I ended up having a horrible game because
26:16
I was thinking about that strikeout the rest of the game. I was thinking about in the field. I was
26:19
thinking about every time I got into the batter's box, every time I walked back in the dugout,
26:23
I was just like, like, I couldn't believe that I would mess up so bad, right? And this, the worst
26:28
part about the most nefarious part was that was whether or not my team was winning, which looking
26:33
back is incredibly embarrassing, even to talk about, but I was just so mad at my performance.
26:38
And here's the thing, you can have a bad attitude on the field, right? Yeah, I mean, we've all seen
26:43
it, you know, a guy strikes out and chucks his helmet or, you know, even Bo Jackson breaking his
26:46
bat over his head or over his leg or something like that. We understand that. But your attitude
26:51
in the dugout is incredibly important as well, because that's where you have the closest contact
26:56
to the rest of your teammates. And look, if you're walking around and you're pouting and you're
27:00
whining and you're complaining about, Oh, well, if you hadn't given him that second strike,
27:04
I wouldn't have to had to chase strike three or, you know, gosh, the zone's just been so big today.
27:09
And gosh, I just don't really know. I, you know, I got some flower seed in my eye or something stupid
27:13
like that. You know, it affects your teammates. They're either going to have to waste their time
27:17
and energy looking at you like, what a freaking moron, or they're going to, you know, think to
27:22
themselves, yeah, you know, that zone is pretty big today. Like gosh, you know, I had to kind of,
27:25
you know, widen my stance a little bit just to kind of make sure that I could reach out there and
27:29
get the pitches that he was calling for strikes. And you don't want to do that. And in life,
27:33
it's the same thing, right? You know, some people act differently when they're outside the home,
27:39
then when they're in the home, you know, they have like a great attitude when they're at work and
27:43
everyone thinks they're a great person and they're super positive and everything's about, you know,
27:47
positive vibes and all this other stuff, right? But then when they're at home, they're just a
27:50
curmudgeon. They're just like, you know, they're hard to talk to and they're it's not you can't
27:54
really get maybe you can't get a word in edgewise or they don't really love on people around them.
27:59
They're not really polite. They're not really accommodating. But your attitude in the dugout is
28:03
as important as your attitude on the field and it's the same thing in life. Treat the people in your
28:08
immediate family, the people you're around a lot of the day and a lot of your life treat them
28:12
incredibly well. Have a good attitude in front of them. Show them that when things go poorly that
28:17
you don't have to act badly, right? Just like you wouldn't work. There's a lot of times where,
28:22
you know, you get a you get a bad report that comes back or, you know, your profit and loss
28:26
isn't what you thought it would be for this quarter. You don't just, you know, walk around
28:30
pouting, like, especially if you're the manager or the CEO or the leader of the team or whatever
28:34
that looks like you're not going to walk around pouting. I mean, if you do, it just makes you
28:37
a crappy leader. But that that's really the thing, right? Is you have to have a good attitude,
28:41
even if you're having to try to convince yourself that that's something that you need to do, right?
28:44
So lesson number four that I've learned from baseball is going all out typically
28:53
works because this one's probably my favorite. Okay, going all out typically works. So to take
28:59
you a little bit back to kind of how I was in athletics, my parents didn't really care whether
29:03
or not I played sports. Like it wasn't like really, really important to my dad that, you know,
29:07
I like prove something in sports as if that was going to have some reflection on him. Like they
29:10
just didn't really care about whether or not I chose to play sports. What they cared about
29:15
was my level of effort in whatever it was I chose to do. So if I wanted to be in band or I wanted
29:22
to be like a little ballerina or if I wanted to, you know, do something, I don't know, start a
29:26
business when I was like eight years old, they didn't really care, but they wanted me to give
29:29
full effort all the time. So in a game, I never got in trouble after a game because of things that I
29:37
did wrong during the game, like in terms of my output. So if I went over for it, the plate with
29:43
three strikeouts and two errors in the field, didn't matter. My dad wasn't reaming me on the
29:48
way home. Like no one was getting mad at Kyle at that point, except maybe myself and my coaches,
29:52
right? But the only times I ever got in trouble in my entire athletic career, so this would have been
29:58
baseball, wrestling football, like soccer, anything was if I didn't give full effort. If I was doging
30:05
it, that's what my dad would all say is like, you just can't go out there and dog it. Like,
30:07
if you're going to go out there and dog it, you're not going to play. And so every time I played the
30:12
game of baseball, it didn't matter if I hit a sharp ground ball to the shortstop and he filled
30:17
it immediately, cleanly, and I'm barely out of the box. You know, by the time it's in his glove,
30:21
I am sprinting to first base, right? Absolutely sprinting. You know, maybe I hit a ball in the
30:26
gap and there's one of the outfielders has a good arm. I'm taking a huge turn around first base,
30:31
because if he babbles it at all, or if he doesn't come up throwing, I'm going to take second, right?
30:35
I would always run really briskly or sprint to my position. I normally played outfield. That was
30:40
where I was the best at sprinting to the outfield. And after the inning was over sprinted back to
30:44
the dugout, right? And you don't see this a lot in the major leagues, because most of the outfielders
30:49
and infielders are incredibly good defensively. But every now and then you see a guy, you know,
30:54
he hits a ground ball and then he just kind of jogs out of the box or something like that,
30:57
or maybe a fly balls, maybe a better example where, you know, it's a routine fly ball, but gosh,
31:01
it gets up there in the sun. And all of a sudden the fielder can't find the ball and then it just
31:06
falls near him or on him, but he doesn't catch it. He doesn't get the outright. And then you look
31:11
at the the guy who had hit the ball and there he is just standing on first base. When if he had
31:15
been hustling the whole way, he'd be standing on second. So now you ever run her in scoring
31:19
position? And you know, you didn't really have to give much effort. But because you had made a
31:24
decision that out of the box, well, this isn't out. I'm so I'm just gonna go through the motions of
31:28
running to first base. You ended up costing your team a chance at a run, right? And so for me,
31:34
I'm the type of guy that, you know, if you know me, I'm not a huge guy, I'm like five foot 10,
31:38
190. So I'm not like this huge, you know, you know, Giancarlo Stanton type of guy look like I've
31:43
been cut out of a piece of solid granite or something like that. And so I always had to do different
31:48
things on the field that maybe weren't completely naturally or completely natural to me. So there
31:54
are a lot of things I do well athletically, but there's a lot of things that I don't do well
31:57
athletically or any more superior than any of the other elite guys on our team, right? But one thing
32:03
that I could always control was my level of output. And my thing was I was gonna go all out all the
32:10
time. And I think that's a great lesson to learn in terms of life. So whether you're playing a sport,
32:16
you know, even as an adult, you're doing a sport, or if you look at your job that you're doing as a
32:20
dad or the job that you're doing as a husband or the job that you're doing as a mentor, the job
32:24
you're doing as a deacon or whatever that ends up looking like for your life, go all out guys,
32:29
like why not? Like that was the thing I never understand about even major leaders that don't
32:34
run it out. It's like you don't know what's about to happen. 99% of the time the shortstop's
32:40
gonna field the ball cleanly. He's gonna throw it right at the first baseman's chest and you're out.
32:44
But if if you don't want to run it out, why not just run straight to the dugout?
32:48
Like why pretend like you give a crap by running to first base or jogging to first base? Because
32:54
how many times you see it the ball, you know, goes in the dirt, the first baseman doesn't field it
32:58
cleanly. But here you are, you're still probably 20 feet away from the base and the first baseman
33:02
has has time to readjust maybe pick up the ball in the second hop and you're still out. Go all out
33:07
guys. Like that that is the thing for for all of you guys listening to this, even if you're not a
33:11
baseball guy, which if you're not a baseball guy, you're probably not, you know, listen to this still,
33:15
but go all out. Like that's a great lesson to learn from the game of baseball. So again,
33:19
my four lessons that I've learned about life from the game of baseball is number one,
33:23
the importance of individual responsibility and performance. Second, not all cogs in the
33:28
wheel are equal, but you need all of them. Third, your attitude in the dugout is as important as
33:34
your attitude on the field. Fourth, go all out or going all out typically works going all out
33:40
typically works. But even in baseball, there's a lot of other things that we can glean from the
33:44
game of baseball that I'll just go through these quickly, a lot of other different areas. One of
33:48
those is leadership. You know, we've seen a lot of different types of captains that are on the field.
33:52
We've seen that in the modern in the modern day game, but there's a lot of guys that even if they
33:55
don't have a, you know, a sea on their jersey, which, you know, we don't really do that in baseball.
33:58
Anyway, these are guys that are just captains of the field. Then yeah, you know, leaders like,
34:03
you know, great managers like a tonally root Tony LaRusa type of guy. And even though the angels are
34:08
pretty much, you know, hot trash, Mike Sosa is the type of guy that, you know, the only reason
34:12
that you still have a job after losing so many games over so many years is because you're still
34:17
such a great leader. You're great for the clubhouse. So we've learned a lot about leadership. We've
34:21
also learned about economics. So look at the salaries, the average salary for a major league
34:26
baseball in the 80s and look at it now. So I think I hit most of my audience's lifespan, right?
34:32
80s to now. I mean, in the 80s, if you had a guy sign a multi million dollar contract, it was like
34:37
wait a minute. This is going to be in the first like the front page in the New York Times. Now,
34:42
we're looking at in Manny Machado and Bryce Harper are going to be free agents going into the 2019
34:48
season. Both of those guys could very easily sign contracts that are over $300 million guaranteed
34:54
over 10 plus years, right? I mean, we've seen increasing salaries. We've seen free agency
34:59
come into the into the fold. Cardinals player Kurt Flood was supposed to be traded to the
35:04
Philadelphia Phillies and he denied the trade. And you know, he ended up taking his case all
35:10
the way up to the Supreme Court because at the time you didn't really, you couldn't really say,
35:13
no, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to be traded. I'm not going to be traded like that.
35:17
So we got a lot of a lot more incentives in the trade market. We got a lot more things
35:21
surrounding free agency. So we've learned a lot about economics from the game of baseball.
35:25
Let's talk about immigration. Some of the best players in baseball, especially, especially over
35:30
the last 10 years, have not been Americans. So these are guys from Japan, from the Dominican
35:36
Republic, from Venezuela, Canada, Netherlands, Mexico, Korea. I mean, just you can name off all
35:42
these different places. Puerto Rico, like I almost left Puerto Rico. That's some of the best players
35:46
that we have, right? But let's also look at Cuba. If you leave Cuba, you have to defect. So all these
35:52
Cuban baseball players that you know, I mean, look at, you know, in the 90s and early 2000s,
35:56
you had Orlando Hernandez and his brother live on Hernandez. You have even modern-day guys like
36:02
Yasiel Puyg and Jonas Sespedus. These are guys that, you know, had to leave their country of origin.
36:08
Some of them under incredibly insane circumstances, just Google Yasiel Puyg's,
36:12
you know, path to coming to the major leagues in the United States. We've learned about immigration.
36:17
We've learned about all these guys that are from countries. Some of them are good countries. Some
36:21
of them, maybe not so much. But these are guys that all wanted to make a career for themselves
36:25
in the United States. And for a lot of these guys, they stay here. So even after their playing days
36:30
are done, like they don't end up going back to their other countries, they stay here. But they're
36:34
also serving their other countries. A lot of players, I mean, you know, they'll go back to their
36:39
original countries will go back to the Dominican Republic or they'll go back to Venezuela or
36:43
maybe not Venezuela now, but they'll go back to these countries and they'll help the people out in
36:47
the villages that they grew up in and different things like that. So it's just incredible. We've
36:50
learned about immigration. And that goes into, you know, we've learned a lot about freedom.
36:54
So these are guys that, you know, especially look at your modern day guys, you know,
36:58
Yasho Puig and Yona Sespedes and other Cuban ball players are these are guys that don't have freedom.
37:03
I mean, draw a circle around the United States and delete the United States and then ask anybody
37:09
else in the world what they think about free speech because they don't have it. They don't
37:14
have a bill of rights where they live, right? They don't have those types of freedoms. We learn
37:18
about equal rights, right? So there's been a lot made about Jackie Robinson and rightfully so.
37:23
He broke the baseball color barrier in 1947, which was about a decade before the civil rights
37:28
movement. Right. So so baseball, even though it should have been integrated a long time before
37:33
that, it showed us a lot about what this country thought about equal rights in the direction that
37:37
we were going. I mean, even in 1884, that was actually when the first African American played
37:41
professional baseball, his name was Moses Fleetwood Walker. So it wasn't actually Jackie Robinson.
37:46
It was Moses Fleetwood Walker. But this was even before baseball was kind of this, you know,
37:51
posh thing that people would be into. But it showed us a lot about where we were going as a country.
37:56
You can look at technology. So within technology, right now we have advanced metrics, you know,
38:01
people look a lot at at war. They look at for hitters, the launch angle coming off the bat.
38:06
That is revolutionized the game really within the last season or two. There's a first step timer.
38:11
So if you're a fielder, it's kind of how quick is your first step towards the ball? That requires
38:15
a lot of technology. Poptime, that's the catcher, you know, basically from time his, if a player is
38:22
stealing second base or third base, it's basically the time it takes the ball to hit the glove and
38:26
for them to come up and throw the ball. Like that's their pop time, right? Then there's path
38:30
efficiency. So if you're a fielder, like an outfielder where the balls hit in the gap, you know, how
38:34
efficiently do you get to where the ball ends up landing, right? All technology is really helping
38:39
with that. It's helping, you know, with strike zones and different things about how pitchers are
38:42
preparing themselves. And really innovation, the game of baseball has taught us a lot about
38:46
innovation. We've seen a lot of defensive shifts. So you'll see, you know, guys that are normally
38:51
pool hitters, they'll see three infielders on the left side of the infield. We've seen different
38:56
teams. I think it started with Tonya Rousa and a lot of other people done that in the National
39:00
League. They'll actually hit the pitcher eighth. The pitcher is normally the worst hitter on the team.
39:05
And you know, you hit them eighth. And then if you have a good hitter, a good on base percentage
39:10
hitter in the nine hole, you're going to end up getting, you know, potentially like two lead-off
39:14
hitters right there. Even now, I mean, I just saw an article today where the Houston Astros,
39:18
the defending world champion, Houston Astros, are going to use four outfielders at different points
39:23
during the year, like not like a rotation of outfielders where they're going to have three out
39:28
of the four playing at one time. They mean taking a guy from the infield and actually putting him
39:32
in the outfield. It may be like a rover situation, but we just learned a lot about innovation. So
39:38
the game of baseball has taught us a lot. And again, that's kind of a summary of some of the
39:42
life lessons that I've learned about the game of baseball. So again, the three things we were
39:47
talking about today is America's pastime. The first thing that's what we just talked about.
39:50
And then life lessons learned from baseball, just wrap that up. And the last thing is baseball
39:56
and resilience. So again, everything we talk about here at Indons and Life has a lot to do
40:01
with resilience. But here's the reality about the game of baseball, guys. Baseball is a game
40:07
of failure. Like you've probably heard it called that if you've been anywhere near the game. But
40:12
if you succeed three out of every 10 times you do something in baseball, you're a Hall of Famer.
40:18
I'm basically meaning at the plate. If you get a hit three out of 10 times, you're one of the
40:24
greatest players literally ever. Just think about that as a corollary to other sports. If you were
40:30
a basketball player and you made three out of every 10 shots that you took, that is not a great
40:35
percentage. Like at all, you're essentially Andrei Robertson. Sorry for Thunderfans listening to this.
40:40
I know I'm hating, but you're just not really a good scorer. You really should never have the ball
40:44
in your hands. Like think if while Peyton Manning was playing, think about if he only had completed
40:49
three out of every 10 of his passes. Like that would be pretty insane, right? But it's a game
40:55
of failure. You can fail seven out of 10 times and still be considered one of the best people to
40:59
ever do it. Here's another thing is perfection is almost impossible in this game. So there's been
41:05
over 150 years of Major League Baseball. And in 150 years of baseball, there's been well over 200,000
41:13
games. There have only been 23 perfect games ever pitched in the history of the game of baseball.
41:20
So over 200,000 games, right? But there's two starting pitchers to start a game.
41:26
So there's been almost half a million, well, I mean, well over 400,000 chances
41:30
for a perfect game. And if you don't know what a perfect game is, that means the pitcher
41:34
has gives up no hits. He gives up no walks. He does not hit a batsman. And there's no errors in
41:38
the field. 23 out of hundreds and hundreds of thousands. But here's the interesting thing about
41:46
that. Even in those 23 games, those pitchers still made mistakes. Like there were still pitches that
41:51
probably could have been hit. Like, you know, maybe for a home run or at least for a single
41:56
or something like that. But it ended up not being like a bad thing. They still made mistakes though.
42:02
And in a lot of ways, it's like that in life. It is like life. Our lives are full of failure,
42:07
guys. Like we fail literally all the time. And if you can't admit that to yourself,
42:12
maybe we need to do a separate podcast on how we should be honest with ourselves and have a good
42:17
look at what we're actually doing and how we're actually living. But as Christians, we call failure,
42:23
you know, which is basically the failure to live up to God's calling for our lives. We call that
42:27
sin, guys. And we all have it. I mean, Romans three 23, you can probably quote it before I even say
42:33
it for all of sin and fall short of the glory of God. That's all of us. But you know, whenever said
42:38
all they certainly meant all right. But there's a scripture that I want to talk about because I've
42:43
seen it quoted a lot, especially in sports type settings. And that's Philippians 413. And you might
42:48
be able to quote this one before I say it as well. But Philippians 413 says, I can do all things
42:53
through him that strengthens me, right? You've probably seen that on a coffee mug, you've seen a
42:58
t-shirt bumper sticker, you know, maybe it was on like a placard outside of it, like a football
43:02
camp or something like that. But the thing about this is even though it's used by a lot of athletes
43:07
and business people and, you know, nonprofit people, it's kind of used incorrectly for the
43:11
most part. Because again, if we're being honest, meaning comes from the speaker, right? You know,
43:17
or the speaker or the writer of the thing, not from the person reading it. So we have to look
43:23
at what was trying to be communicated here, what was Paul trying to communicate here to the Christians
43:28
and Philippi. So as you would agree, text without context is just text. So we have to get a context
43:35
for why verse 13 was even in there. And if we include versus 11 and 12 with 13, then we get a
43:43
much, much clearer idea about what Paul was trying to get across to us. So I'm going to read to you
43:48
Philippians for 11, 12, and then I'll read 13 to you. So here we go. I have learned in whatever
43:54
situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and
44:00
every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.
44:06
I can do all things through him who strengthens me. So Monty Waldron, he had a little article
44:12
online, and I thought he put it very well. So I'm going to read a quote from his little blog,
44:16
which was this, Paul's aim here is contentment, not achievement. Rather than envisioning all that
44:22
he can accomplish, he is focused on his heart response to his circumstances, whether favorable
44:29
or not. Guys, baseball is a game that teaches the people that play it resilience. If you played
44:35
baseball, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You have to forget your last at bat. Again,
44:41
seven out of 10 times, even if you're really, really, really good on top levels, you're going to fail.
44:46
You have to forget your last error. You have to forget the last thing you did wrong.
44:50
Baseball is a great conduit through which we can practice spiritual, mental and physical
44:57
resilience. Okay, we live in an ever growing secular age and Christianity and Christian thinking
45:02
is becoming marginalized. But we have to be resilient in the face of all of that, right?
45:07
And again, I know I'm being a little bit romantic here. I've mentioned that several times about
45:12
my attachment to the game of baseball, but it just goes deep for me. And I'm sure it goes deep
45:17
for a lot of you as well. Baseball is something that has to be overcome in a lot of ways, even
45:23
if you're really, really good. You have to get back out there. You have a bad day. You do things
45:28
poorly in the field, but you still have to move things in the direction that would be beneficial
45:34
for you and beneficial for those around you. And so I just want to be very, very open with all of
45:39
you that, you know, I'm here for you. Like if you're going through a tough time, you know,
45:44
again, look at the look at the game of baseball as an example for you of what you should do.
45:49
Guys are not striking out and then sitting in the dugout for the rest of their lives, right?
45:53
You know, you may have struck out in business. You may have struck out in a relationship.
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You may have struck out on a conversation with your kids. You may have struck out in, you know,
45:59
whatever situation, but you got to get back up and you got to be resilient. Okay.
46:03
So as we wrap up here, guys, we're going to do a quick resilience boost as you know by now.
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We are a men's ministry and our mission is cultivating mainly resilience. And specifically,
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we do that by providing content that forges spiritual, mental and physical toughness.
46:16
So what I want to do for you is I want to provide some, some resources to you that are all centered
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around baseball, some things that I've discussed in this podcast, but also some things that I would
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like to suggest to you thereafter. So I mentioned Jack Buck's speech earlier in this podcast.
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I talked about Mike Piazza's home run against Atlanta Braves and also George W. Bush's first pitch.
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So there are YouTube video and also the field of dreams, quote, kind of that people will come
46:40
speech. I've got the YouTube videos for all of those. Those are going to be in the show notes.
46:44
So check those out. Those at least give you a good idea if you didn't know what I was talking
46:47
about. There's also an article that I found while it's kind of researching my notes here.
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And it was by William McKinsey, who's part of the George W. Bush Institute. And it's called
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Why Baseball Matters Still. So I thought that was a it was a short essay, but I thought it was
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very, very powerful and gives us a better I, a good idea, even in modern times, why baseball is so
47:05
important to us. But then I also wanted to suggest four books to you guys. So like I said, I try to
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read a lot of books. And I've read a lot about the game of baseball over the years. So there's four
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books I'd like to suggest to you because I think they might be interesting to you. The first one is
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42 Faith by Ed Henry. So this is a story about Jackie Robinson. So there's been a lot of
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biographical and autobiographical information out there about Jackie Robinson. There's been
47:28
documentaries made. It's been, you know, a lot about a lot about him has is out there already.
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But there's not a lot of people that have talked about his faith in Jesus, right? His
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relationship with God, you know, kind of his, his setup and his discipleship with all that.
47:40
And so Ed Henry goes into that in that book. And it's very interesting. It's got a lot of detail in
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it. The other one is the Methini Manifesto. And this is by Mike Methini. He's the current
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manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. So before he became the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals,
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his only managerial experience was actually for his kids like Little League team. Like he had never,
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he wasn't a minor league coach, he wasn't a college coach, he wasn't even a high school coach.
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He was a Little League coach, right? And so the Methini Manifesto originally started as,
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you know, this kind of multi page document that he gave to the parents of the team that he was
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coaching at the time, you know, the kids team. And it was just basically standards by which
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they were going to, you know, hold themselves to throughout the year as parents, but also as players.
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And you know, the little note went viral and then it eventually became a book. And so it's an incredible
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book. And you know, there's a lot of lessons in there, even if you're not into baseball.
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Then there's another one called The Game by John Pesso. That's P E S S A H. Now this one's an
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incredibly involved book. So you really got to be a baseball fan to be into this one. But it kind of
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talks about the era where Bud Selig and George Steinbrenner, who was the owner of the Yankees and
48:47
Bud Selig was the commissioner of baseball at the time, kind of the power struggle that they were
48:50
going through, you know, kind of what was going on during the strike era during the steroid era.
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A lot, a lot of detail. I think it's like five or 600 pages. But if you're a baseball guy, like,
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dude, this one's totally for you. And then obviously you probably knew this one was coming.
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The phenomenon by Rick Ankyl. That was my number one favorite book in 2017. So I think that goes
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back to what was that podcast two or three where I was talking about the best books that I read
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in 2017. This was my favorite book. So it's the best autobiography that I've read in terms of like
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sports autobiographies, probably the best autobiography I've read ever, actually. And so that's a great
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book. Good one for you to pull up. So those resources are there. All of those are in the show notes. Okay.
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So again, thank you guys for listening to this podcast. Please subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud,
49:35
or Google Play and refer your friends to listen and share on social media. And always, as always,
49:40
if we deserve a five star review for this podcast, please leave us one and make sure you leave us a
49:44
kind comment as well. And also new thing that I'm going to be making in terms of announcements.
49:48
I am booking speaking engagements for 2018. So if you'd like for me to come and speak to your
49:53
men's group or your men's ministry or to your church or to your business, you can get a hold of me at
49:58
info at undaunted.life. Again, reach out to me, Kyle Thompson info at undaunted.life. Our website
50:05
is www dot undaunted.life. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at undauntedlife facebook.com
50:11
backslash undaunted life. You can check out our free devotionals on the U version Bible app.
50:15
Just search undaunted life under plans. And as always, we want to thank the band August
50:20
Burns read for allowing us use their music library for our content. The intro outro track on this
50:24
podcast is their song King of Sorrow, which is off their latest record entitled Phantom Anthem.
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The links to all of this are in the description. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Remember,
50:34
keep cultivating manly resilience, keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical toughness.
50:40
Keep seeking the Lion of Judo.