Mark DeRosa

When they lost Raphael for Cal, their shortstop at leadoff batter, that really hurt their attack and hurt it badly.

Well, you know, Mark DeRosa came up and did a terrific job for them, but they picked up Ray Sanchez from Kansas City.

Sanchez is a nice defensive player, but he's not the offensive presence that for Cal is.

That's what I've seen a lot of Sanchez.

Ray Sanchez will be coming up.

We've got B.J. Serhoff to pitch in.

And Mark DeRosa will come in to pitch run for Lopez.

B.J. Serhoff, a left-hand hitter, veteran player.

So it was a really unique time when I was coming up into the big leagues where there were guys that were retiring and now kind of looking on the back end of my 18 holes, I can see, you know, some of that with the guys that I played with, like, having similar stories now, not near the career of, you know, the Greg Maddox or Barry Bonds or some of the hall of famers that I get to play with or, or face.

Um, but you get the same kind of, uh, questions throughout, you know, the last, for me, probably the last six or seven years, six years, um, from guys that were younger and said, Hey, I, you know, I watched you growing up and, uh, similar questions and, and, uh, what is it like, what was it like playing? You know, if I said that I got to face, uh, you know, JJ Hardy or, um, you know, was teammates with Greg Maddox or Ryan Dempster and, uh, Mark DeRosa.

And they see these guys on TV or, you know, in the hall of fame, they, they just think I'm really old.

So, but yeah, so guys like, you know, uh, Watching Mark Burley get to pitch and with the efficiency that he was able to pitch, you know, that proficiency and the efficiency that he was able to pitch with was inspiring, you know, guys like Ricky Henderson.

Yeah, I mean, it goes back to sort of the Little League World Series.

I think one of the things that we try to do on that show, our main goal, is to use guests that you listen to, whether it be Mark DeRosa or Dustin Pedroia or Dusty Baker or Buck Showalter or Adam Wainwright or David Ross, Dave Roberts just the other day, is to use their journeys to get to where they got to and share those experiences with parents and young players who are beginning or in the middle of their own journeys.

And to see that this is not necessarily a linear journey.

There are so many different ways to go about if you wanna be a high school player, if you wanna play collegiately, if you'd like to end up in the major leagues, They all do it in different ways as opposed to, I think sometimes we get misguided into there's only one way to do it and it is to specialize beginning at the age of eight.

who I label him as maniacal in the best kind of way to find the compassion for the player who's bought in completely to everything he is selling.

My gut tells me that Ben, as a coach, has that thing that Mark DeRosa says baseball managers have to have, the ability to tell people the truth without them wanting to punch you in the face.

Like, Ben's just kind of got that thing.

And at his best, maybe the quarterback will grow into that thing.