Velo Baseball & Softball

Aaron Judge opens up on why he needed several years of development in college and the minors: “I think you need that grind. I went to college. I got kicked around and beat around a little bit. I was terrible for a long time. Then you’ve got to learn how to get yourself out of that.” “Every great athlete, you’ve got to figure out how… When you get kicked down… When you get beat down… Coach ain’t going to pick you up.” “Your friend ain’t going to pick you up. You’ve got to pick yourself up and get yourself out of there.” “‘It doesn’t matter if you’re in Low-A, Double-A or Triple-A.’ Treat this like the big leagues.’” “‘Prepare every day like you’re about to go out on the field in the Bronx.’ It doesn’t matter if you’re in Charleston.’ It doesn’t matter if you’re in Trenton, New Jersey.’ You’re preparing to play for the New York Yankees.’” “I know I just sat on a bus for 10 hours… And now we’re about to play a game… But I’m getting ready to play for the New York Yankees. I’m suiting up for the New York Yankees.” “That helped me a lot… Instead of being like, ‘Poor me.’ ‘I should be in the big leagues.’ ‘I’m stuck here in Double-A.’”

Please share this with everyone. Let’s never listen to these liars ever again. I guess CNN doesn’t need Sanjay to be a useful idiot anymore

It's that time of year again. I can taste it.

Usain Bolt runs 100 meters in 41 strides. Tyson Gay takes around 45. Sprinters know their numbers cold. How many base stealers know theirs? MLB base stealers take 10 or 11 steps — not counting the drop step and slide. That's roughly 2 meters per.

Jeff Kent is 100% right. New wave hitting philosophies is destroying baseball at ALL levels. No fan finds “Entertainment” in a 0-4 day with 3 strike outs a a fly out to center. It simply doesn’t win baseball games over a long period of time.

Here is @tomhouse on the state of baseball right now 🗣️⚾️

Absolute classic from the Covid Totalitarian era - trust me, you will not be disappointed!!!

If you don't already know what critical theory is, I recommend you do some independent research and figure it out. Because, right now, literally every manmade problem in the USA is a function of critical theory. Defeating critical theory is the most important task for American survival.

Jermaine Dye That guy rocked.

🇬🇧 THEY TOLD YOU A STORY. 🇬🇧 Colonisers. Slavers. Oppressors. And you were supposed to feel ashamed. Not for what you done... But for WHO YOU ARE. 🇬🇧 So we tested it. Britain wrote everything down, so we opened the books. 📖 Turns out fewer than 1 man in 10 could vote in the year Britain banned the slave trade. No woman could. Your ancestors could hang for stealing a sheep, get shipped across the world for petty theft, or go down a mine at 8 years old. In Manchester, the average age of death in a labouring family was 17. They weren't running the slave trade. They were underneath it too. Which is what makes what happened next worth knowing. In 1772 an enslaved man named James Somerset walked free from an English court, because English law couldn't hold a slave. In 1791, 300,000 families just stopped buying slave sugar. No march, no riot, just a decision made at 300,000 kitchen tables. In 1792, 519 petitions carrying 390,000 names hit Parliament, most signed by people who couldn't vote themselves. In 1807, Britain banned the trade. Then the slave owners sent Britain a bill for the 800,000 people they still held. 💷 £20 million. About 40% of the entire government budget at the time. The Treasury says it wasn't paid off until 2015. So if your family paid British tax before then, they helped buy 800,000 people their freedom. From 1808 the Royal Navy spent 60 years hunting slave ships at sea: 1,600 stopped, 150,000 people freed, and 1,600 British sailors dead, mostly of disease, buried thousands of miles from home. ⚓ In 1816 they ended two centuries of Barbary corsairs enslaving Europeans. In 1896 a war that lasted 38 minutes ended slavery in Zanzibar. 🇹🇿 Almost every country on Earth outlaws slavery today. That fight was paid for largely at British expense, by British hands.🇬🇧 So why haven't you heard any of this? Because within living memory, someone rewrote the story. You got taught the crime. Not the cure. The powerful exploited the world. They exploited their own people first. It was those people who ended slavery. 🇬🇧 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ History got rewritten once, in living memory, by no one who was ever named or held to account. We are ordinary people doing what ordinary people have always done. Opening the books. Refusing to look away. This is how we fight back. Fact by fact. Story by story. Name by name. We are the home of British heroes. There is a place for you in it. If you can afford to support what we do: proudofus.co.uk/support Be part of us. ☝️🇬🇧 Be Proud Of Us. 🙏🇬🇧

One of the biggest mistakes I made as a player... ...was hitting off a tee. Not because tee work is bad. Because I was using it wrong. I'd walk up to the tee... Take my swing. Adjust my mechanics. Then do it again. I was training my swing. I wasn't training myself to hit. Everything changed when I started treating every tee swing like a real at-bat. Before every swing, I'd picture the pitcher. I'd picture the pitch I was looking for. Then I'd picture myself driving a line drive into the gap, hitting a double, or launching a home run. After every swing, I'd replay the result in my mind. The crazy part? The more I saw success in practice... The more I expected success in games. And the more confident I became. Now I teach the same thing to my youngest players... (as young as 6 years old) After every swing, I ask them: "Where did you hit it?" "Where did the ball go?" I make them tell me. Out loud. I want them to vividly describe the result. Because I don't just want them practicing their swing. I want them practicing success. Most players spend hours training their mechanics... But almost no time training what success looks like. Then when they don't get immediate results in a game, they start believing something is wrong with them. I want my players to see success hundreds of times in practice before they ever have to experience it in a game. So here's what I'd do tonight: - Take 20 swings off a tee. - Before every swing, picture the pitcher and the exact pitch you're looking for. - After every swing, ask yourself: Where did I hit it? Where did the ball go? Say the answer out loud. Make every swing feel like a real at-bat. Because here's one thing I've learned playing this game: Confidence isn't built only by what you do. It's also built by what you repeatedly see yourself doing. Thank you for reading, Jermaine Curtis P.S. If you enjoyed this and thought it was helpful, please share it. (It tells me you want more content like this.)

No better way to kick off the 4th than with this little throw back 😂🤣

Alright, I’m convinced. The Tomahawk champ should be USMNT’s chant. FSU does it, the Braves do it, the Chiefs do it, it’s has native America heritage. And it is probably the most intimidating chant in sports. Let’s spam it tonight.

Umpire Cam of the @tigers three first inning home runs last night.

🚨ODD SCORING ALERT🚨 This is from tonight's #RedSox and @Nationals game, from the first inning. Here, Curtis Mead is picked off and decides to run way left of second base, and the throw from Willson Contreras hits him. For scoring purposes, this is a pickoff and a stolen base for Mead, because he took off on the pickoff and never stops or hesitates going to second, so even though the throw hits Mead, by rule it has to be a stolen base. Rules wise, this is a legal move by Mead. He isn't out of the base path because you can establish your own path, and if you don't want to run in a straight line, you don't have to (otherwise there would be no rounding of bases). You cannot be out of the basepath until a tag is attempted (and then you get three feet). #NATITUDE #DirtyWater

That level in Super Mario 3 where the sun is trying to kill you is just every day now.

White Sox hitting coach Derek Shomon wanted the offense to be “relentless” and “a pain in the ass.” Mission accomplished? podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the…

Michael Jordan breaks down the absolute true mindset of a champion. "First of all you got to believe in yourself. You got to have a passion. You got to put forth the work." "Discipline means you have to really decide on that you want to be a winner. And when someone tries to take you to go do things that's not focused on being a winner you have to be disciplined to say you know what, I got to stay to what I have to do." "For people who skip those steps and think they just show up on Sunday, I don't want nothing to do with them."

Baseball Truths: Part 3 Here's another truth I've learned: ⚾ Nobody is coming to save your baseball career ‼️ Not your travel coach. Not your high school coach. Not your parents. Not social media. I've watched players spend years complaining about things out of their control.. playing time, exposure, opportunities, coaches, weather, and teammates. Meanwhile, I've seen other players with less talent, head down grinding in the cages... In the weight room.. In the bullpens.. In silence, alone.. Getting better.. Day after day.. The game usually finds those players. Not always immediately. But eventually. Most players overestimate what one weekend can do for them. And underestimate what 1,000 good days and hard work can do. The players who make it the furthest rarely have the fewest obstacles. They simply spend less time looking for excuses and more time finding solutions. Build your floor, so YOU can chase your ceiling. 🙌⚾

As an AD, you learn quickly that everyone supports accountability in sports… except when you’re unwilling to make an exception for their child. Strong cultures are built on standards that apply to everyone.