From Diamond to Coach: Christina Whitlock's Journey and Insights on Sports Leadership

Moore to Consider (00:01.878)
Welcome to another edition of Moore to consider. So as we all know, in all of my past shows and all the shows that I know everyone in the world's wanting to watch, we've talked about football, we've talked about baseball. We're going to talk about some softball today. Kennedy assassination. I might get a little bit from my guest about what her views are on the Kennedy assassination, but I have a very special guest and a very dear friend, Christina Whitlock. And I call her Tina. Tina is.

big in baseball and softball and she's a wonderful guest and I highly respect this. She's a two time all American in softball at the University of South Carolina. She is a native of California, San Diego, wonderful town. She is God bless her, kind of a Navy brat. So she's been all over as people that have grown up in the Navy or parents with military service. You get to live everywhere, which is wonderful. She helped her team win in 1997, the first

Southeastern Conference Championship and then went on to the 1997 NCAA World Series for women's softball. She's also been a member of the U.S. national team. So she's a player. She played the game at the highest levels and this led her into a journey where she is also coached in professional baseball. So she is an all-American softball player with a background, 20 plus years of coaching softball and then got into baseball as well.

Tina, welcome dear, how are you?

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:31.553)
thank you, Jack. I'm doing well. And I appreciate you inviting me to be on your show.

Moore to Consider (01:38.379)
So we met through some mutual weird baseball friends that also were heavily involved with, and I have on my Bryant and Stratton softball hoodie today. We run in the same circles with some people that have been in softball with women's softball and a couple of friends that we share played professional baseball. Tell us your journey, your baseball to softball back to baseball. Tell us your journey, how that all went.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:43.124)
You

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (02:07.488)
wow. Well, thank you. Thank you again for inviting me. And yes, we met through some characters in baseball. And that's the great thing about the sport is if you're in the game long enough, you become, you know, you're just either a guru or you become a character, right, or a legend in the game or whatever it is. And baseball and soccer are full of just really unique people. So my journey began when I was young. When I was in Utah, my dad wanted to put me into sports and

he put me into Little League Baseball and that's where I started. So I think I was eight years old or so, maybe a little bit younger than that, I don't know. But I started there and then we moved to California and I resumed playing Little League Baseball. And when I was about 14 years old, my dad asked me if I wanted to go to college and play women's softball. I only, I topped out in college at five, three, one, 30. So I was a very undersized player in the game. And so my dad knowing that just,

Size alone might be a limiting factor if I was to continue in the guys game. He's like, let's see, there's women, there's opportunity in women's sports now, so let's focus on that. So we transitioned out of baseball and went into softball, fast pitch softball. So was 14, I think, when I first picked up a softball bat and a softball. And the game became, again, it was very natural for me. So transitioned in and just worked really hard to become the best softball player I could so I could earn a scholarship to play at the college level.

One of the things that I did so I could keep my ties to the game was, San Diego has a league called Winter League, so the high school would play Winter League. And I'd go over and I'd play Winter League as my spring training to prepare for softball season. And I had a great coach by the name of Butch Smith. And he also is Dave Roberts' coach and coached many other professional athletes and collegiate athletes that have played at the highest levels there out of San Diego. He owns Big Fly Academy.

And that's where I trained. Originally it was prime time sports and then it became Big Fly Academy. And Vista High was the high school I went to and it was great. It was funny, it was a time when you would think that as young kids that there would be an awkwardness in a girl going over and playing in guys sports, but there wasn't. Like I said, the guys I played with were all high achievers and the team that I trained with ended up being a state championship.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (04:31.645)
that they were really good at what they did. So it was an iron sharpening, iron if, know, game in regards to how we trained. So for several years, that's what I would do. I'd go in, I'd train with the guys, catch bullpens, play third base, get a few pinch hits. The hitting part of the game there was a little bit difficult because I was going from, at the time it was 40 feet, right? So going from 40 feet to 60.6 inches was a little bit different, right? So my patience wasn't there. However, it refined me with my defensive skills.

Then I earned my scholarship to the University of South Carolina, was happy to be able to... Well, was being recruited, I was kind of late in the recruiting process. I kind of, I flew under the radar a little bit. Again, being a 5'3", at that time, 119 pound catcher, know, people weren't looking for undersized catchers at that time.

Moore to Consider (05:05.722)
Why South Carolina? Why South Carolina? What happened with that?

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (05:24.601)
I had an opportunity to go to Fresno State, I had opportunity to go to South Florida and a few other small schools in the Northeast and then South Carolina was the biggest school that had asked me to come on board for a trip. So I went on board for a trip there and I remember just going back and I loved the culture. I tell people I fell in love with the people and the trees there. It was different than Southern California and I think that, you know, honestly it was a time for me to test the

my ability to go and do what God had prepared me to do and that was just to go utilize this mission field he'd given me and that's what I did and when I was finished playing college ball I had a chance to play pro ball and I had a chance to play with Team USA and the cool thing about that was the mound distance had changed so we were playing at there there were some weekends you'd be playing at 43 feet

for professional and then you'd be playing at 40 feet for Team USA. So it was a time when you were constantly making these adjustments and transitions in your game at the highest of levels.

Moore to Consider (06:31.375)
Yeah. And you know, one thing about now, so I have this friend of mine, a coach professionally, you know him well. He coached professionally in baseball and he was sort of back and forth between baseball and softball. So he asked me a few years ago to help him with softball. I had no background in coaching the softball at all. I don't want to ever say the thing that's out of line about males and females coaching, but I re I really, I didn't ever thought this, but

I really enjoy coaching the females because they seem to be so much more into it. They just want the information. And I know it sounds kind of, I don't think what people would necessarily think this way, but I think that the women are much tougher to be honest with you. think guys let a lot of things bother them, but it might be a guy guy thing. You know, it might be a guy guy thing. And maybe when women coach women, it's a little bit different dynamic. I don't know, but certainly.

The thing that I think translates so much where I wanted to go with this, when you're talking about back and forth between the two sports, I do think that when people see men and women play, say basketball, it's still a 94 foot floor. So it's 10 feet to the rim. So you can see it and kind of go, the women aren't as tall, clearly don't play above the rim like men do. And there's a time thing. But when you go on a softball field because of the distances, it becomes very relative. you know, everybody gives me a hard time. I carry a watch everywhere I go.

Cause if I have a stopwatch, when I coach baseball in the summer, when I coach the girls now, the young ladies in softball, you start to see relative speed. You can understand how good the players are by the watch times you get. And just like in baseball, where a 2-0 throw to second is considered average, it's a major league level of 2-0 throw from catcher to second on a throw. We're kind of in that same timeframe. Now we had a young lady last year that you know her. She could go 1-6-5-1-7.

And I think she had five, she had like five bases stolen her all of last year. And teams told us, we simply didn't run. We're not going to run on her. And it was pretty insane. Cause when someone goes mitt to glove in one, six, five, one, seven, one, seven, five was kind of a average. You don't run on that. The times you get to.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (08:25.803)
Yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (08:45.513)
No, it's, I think it's not just the quickness, but the accuracy of that. Because the faster you go, the more accuracy is needed. You can have an impressively strong arm, but if you're not accurate, right? And I think that's where, you know, a lot of times we forget that even a slower arm can get that runner as long as they're accurate.

Moore to Consider (08:51.871)
yes.

Moore to Consider (09:05.845)
Yeah. And I do believe though, think word got around, but I do think too, though, you know, when she threw down to start the inning, you know, the pitcher got her warmups. She throws down. was kind of like, okay, you know, you could just see it. I mean, if you didn't have a watch, you could kind of tell the throws on the bag and boy that seemed to get there very quickly. But my point is in the, distance of the bases, the distance of the fence, the game is fast. I I've coached third a little bit with my buddy there.

And I see what young ladies have to do playing third and it's much more daunting to baseball at third. Third in baseball is tough. You're 90 feet away roughly. But when you're playing softball, the fact that you have to respect the slap hitter, the bunting game, you're taking your life in your own hands. That's not an easy place to play. Everything happens super, super fast. And the relative speed, the young lady starts, you know, she's above 60 miles an hour at that distance. It's kind of looking like 90 in baseball.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (09:41.054)
You

Moore to Consider (10:02.921)
So you do have lot of relative speeds that I could see where if you played back and forth, the distances increase, but the timing probably for you didn't really ever seem like it changed that much. Did it?

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (10:15.573)
Well, as a hitter, yes, that three feet distance in the mound. Is that what you're talking about or when I went to baseball?

Moore to Consider (10:22.291)
No, I'm telling you that when you face a baseball player throwing from 60 feet, six inches, you're used to seeing balls coming from 43 and 40.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (10:29.308)
Yeah, so for me personally, it was just a patience thing, you know? Because I wasn't usually not seeing the ace pitcher, so I wasn't seeing the V-Low I needed to make up for that distance, right? So those fast balls still seemed slow to me because just the reactionary time. So for me personally, it was a patience thing. you know, just there was a timing piece. And I think it was one of those things of getting more at bats, more reps, and you learn to just sit and wait on it.

Moore to Consider (10:58.623)
Yes.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (10:58.856)
bit more and BP would be fine it would just be the game time and just not seeing the the VELO needed from the opponent. But as far as the defensive part of the game you know the hot corner is still the hot corner you got you've got whether it's a slap hitter or you know again the slap hit can come off the bat really quick and play off that that dirt right that skinned infield really really fast and you know in baseball

Moore to Consider (11:05.758)
Well, and there it... Yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (11:25.587)
You got that grass that slows things down. you're the hot corner is going to be relying, you know, looking at more of that low line drive and that, that, that drive through the five, six hole, right? So you're more sewing up that hole there where is the hot corner and softball is like a little bit more of the, got a hard bunt, you know, and, the ability to, you know, move your defense a little bit. And that's changed a lot as regards to how we play our, the softball changed a lot in how they played their.

their corner because you have not only you had a couple different advancements. Number one girls got stronger right. So and then the bats got more powerful right. So so in many ways you got this the ability to just dump a dump a ball right there where you're creating movement between you know a pitcher catcher and a third baseman right. You're creating that movement there right. But then you're also putting it in the third baseman's head like

Moore to Consider (12:02.747)
Right. Right.

Yes, yes.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (12:23.802)
if you come any closer, this is going to get dangerous, right? So there's a different dynamic there, but the ball plays off not just the bats faster, but off the ground faster. So the third base corner can be a little bit more dangerous, I think. But still, a ball coming at you at 90 plus miles an hour, whether you're on a baseball field or a softball field, is still pretty dangerous.

Moore to Consider (12:27.975)
Right, sure.

Moore to Consider (12:48.796)
So you go through this time, you tell us a story. You have a love for baseball growing up, no doubt. You transition to softball. There's still the love for baseball. You're back and forth between the two. So clearly, and you have many friends in both, you know, both sports. And to be honest with you, you know this, a lot of the males that I've run into that are coaching softball have huge baseball backgrounds. wasn't like, I mean, they played professionally, many of them, and they had a daughter that played.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (13:11.803)
Yeah, yeah.

Moore to Consider (13:16.239)
They had a link, had a driving force to get into the game and then they love it. They tend to love it. They, and they tend to stay in it, that type of thing. So you see the back and forth. What is your journey into professional baseball?

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (13:29.252)
wow, well again our mutual friend. So when I had gotten out of the collegiate ranks coaching, I was rebuilding some things for my private side of my business. And I happened to be online and I noticed this, our mutual friend Kelly Arons, I connected with him on LinkedIn and I really loved the stuff he was teaching in regards to the hitters handicap. And just the mastery of like 30 swings and how that can translate into.

Moore to Consider (13:46.522)
Mm-hmm.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (13:57.155)
being able to get some consistent swings in a game. And the stuff that went into that concept really made sense to me because I'd experienced it as a hitter, you know? And it was like, wow, you know, like this really makes sense. And so as I was looking between my social media accounts, I realized that we had a mutual connection. It happened to be a guy that I caught bullpens for in high school. So I reached out to my friend in high school and I'm like, hey, do you know this fella? And he's like, yeah, I've done work for him.

Moore to Consider (14:20.89)
Mm-hmm.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (14:27.043)
And he goes, you should really connect with them. I said, well, he's in my backyard. He's here in South Carolina. So again, a small world, right? And the guy that I talked to, he had went on, think he played at Fullerton was where he had played baseball. And he had also transitioned into coaching women's softball for a short, very short period of time. So he understood that dynamic as well. And we had a respectful relationship. He already knew what I was capable of doing because I caught his bullpens.

Moore to Consider (14:32.513)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (14:54.614)
and we had trained as youth athletes together. Again, Iron Sharpeners Iron, we were both high achievers trying to take our sport to the highest levels. So I reached out to Kelly and he said, come meet me. And I met him and his family and he shared with me about his testing and the athleticism piece. And that actually, made sense to me again, because growing up, being old, right, I just turned 50. And it's one of those things where it's like, I grew up during the time when...

we were testing athleticism through the presidential physical fitness test, right? So it wasn't just about being a softball player or a baseball player, it was about being an athlete, right? And so again, looking at the athleticism piece of it and then having two boys of my own that were young athletes, I was like, okay, this makes sense. I really like this. The fact that we're testing things that are gonna transition into athletic performance.

Moore to Consider (15:24.695)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (15:48.179)
executing athletic skills because if you can't be athletic and understand how to do those basic components, how you can expect that your performance on the field is going to be where it needs to be. And so it made sense, just got involved with that, started to coach some softball teams for him and then he asked me one day, like, would you like to coach baseball? We don't have a coach for this particular weekend. And I started coaching baseball, youth baseball there and coached at the youth levels and

then started giving lessons to some of the older guys that were within the program. And then I got a call from Major League Baseball. They had reached out to me and they said that they had a diversity inclusion initiative where they wanted to bring women and people of color into the game and really maximize that piece of the game. And when I spoke to Tyrone Brooks, at that time I was coaching with the British. And I said, I would love to do this, but...

I don't know what questions to ask. I'm in softball right now. My focus is on the world games. Can you give me some time to let me pray about this? And when I get back, we'll talk. And that's exactly what I did. And when I got back from Japan with the British, from coaching with the British, I was like, yes, let's do this. Let's do this.

Moore to Consider (17:04.768)
Now in the time you coached with youth in baseball, do you see differences? then, well, let me throw the cliche bumper sticker slogan out first. I have a close friend of mine that had a daughter play college softball and he had a son play college baseball. And one of the things he said, and it's sexist, I'm sure it's probably not the right thing to say, but I think there's some truth to it. They said, you know, guys feel good about themselves when they play well.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (17:21.118)
Okay.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (17:27.517)
You

Moore to Consider (17:33.801)
Girls play well when they feel good about themselves. And I thought, there's probably some truth to that. Cause I've seen kids that if things are going, males, if things are going bad, I don't know that she was really a trip wire of great things you can say to kids. They're going to come out of it when they start playing better. And I think sometimes when you're kind of more abrasive in your coaching style, I don't think it helps. But I definitely noticed with young ladies, a lot of it is,

making them feel good about their environment, they will play well. think once they don't feel good about the environment, they won't play well period. And some guys, you know, they'll just go whatever kind of way. and again, here's the thing I taught criminal justice, the college level, I had male and female students, you know, their level of achievement in my classes, I felt like was equal. I mean, I just think it was kind of all God's children type of thing, but you're a teacher. First and foremost, if you coach, you are a teacher.

And that same thing you do in a classroom, you do on the field. how do you think, did you see differences between the young men playing and what motivated them or kind of what helped them to achieve better results in competition? Are there differences between males and females in that?

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (18:49.351)
Well, yes, I think in the book of Genesis, God tells us there's differences, right? So when we look at things just biologically, there's a truth there. There are differences. that's so we can be compatible with each other and complement one another. We kind of fill in the gaps for each other. However, when we talk about sport, think you can look at it a couple different ways.

Moore to Consider (19:01.063)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (19:18.694)
Because when I came through sport, again, I wasn't treated as a female athlete. I was treated as an athlete. So I think sometimes when you take that approach, and again, all the guys I played with, they were guys. So I adapted to what they did. I was trained the same way they were. So I personally can't always relate to that, however I notice it. When it comes down to it, there is still a difference. I am still a female athlete.

Moore to Consider (19:26.61)
Mm-hmm.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (19:48.645)
And so there are times when those things do play into things. But not when I was younger and I look back at that, I didn't want to lose. I wanted to compete. And I wanted to go where people wanted to win and be game changers and do the uncomfortable stuff and break their mild time limits and challenge one another.

Moore to Consider (20:01.564)
Mm-hmm.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (20:13.735)
And I would say the quote that I like is work within the tension, right? And however, you know, I've heard male coaches that say this is, they have to look at that aspect of the female athlete to make them comfortable. And I think it's actually more of a trust thing that is just a comfort because I will tell you this, I've been coached by three female coaches and they've all been great. They all are legends in their game. was a female soccer coach, Vera.

Joyce Compton and then Judy Martino. that was my college coach and my professional coach and they were all great. But I had, I had, and I had, and I had male coaches prior to that, right? But my male coach, I remember the hardest coach I had was a gentleman by the name of Phil Broder and he had numerous championships, numerous All-Americans, numerous players that represented the Team USA and so forth. And he was tough.

Moore to Consider (20:54.244)
Right, right.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (21:11.875)
I mean, he was tough. And the thing was, he could be tough on us because we knew he had our back. We knew he had our back. You probably couldn't coach the way he did because he was a master motivator. And it was like you either loved him or you hated him. I loved him because he pushed me to my limits. And I would never be able to figure out what type of athlete I could.

Moore to Consider (21:29.348)
Right, right, right.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (21:39.589)
if I didn't have somebody that pushed me through that uncomfortable stuff. And I appreciated them about it. But the biggest thing was I trusted him. But it was also during a time when you were expected to give out blind trust too. So we've changed in those dynamics of how things are today. So yes, one of the other things you mentioned was the ability to make someone comfortable. I think this is an important thing.

whether you're male or female, when you're strong, you usually have a different confidence level, right? And I think when you've mastered a skill, you have a different confidence level. And when those things have been, when your strength and when your skill levels have been tested, you have a different confidence level. So I think that's important to note as well because if there is a lack of confidence, it's usually because something may not have been tested in that area.

Honestly, these last few years, I've been going through that. Certain things about myself and my knowledge and experience in the game, they've been tested. And as uncomfortable as it's been, I'm trusting that process like I did with my coach Phil Bruder because I knew that in the end, he was going to get me to be the best I could be.

Moore to Consider (22:55.662)
You know, you just triggered another thought that I really wanted to cover because I talk to coaches about this all the time. I'm at the Virginia baseball coaches association meeting and a young lady was there. She gave a really good talk as she works with lot of professional athletes, male and female, but she works with, she works with a lot of guys in professional baseball. And she said, one of the most worn out things I get from people in management positions in pro ball, professional baseball, blah, blah, blah is everybody's like,

How do we give Jimmy more confidence? And she said, it's dead end. It's not an issue. And when I heard what she had to say, I thought, that's an interesting point. What she said was this, I have seen guys that were super uber confident after a 0 for 4 game. You're like, how confident were you? I was really confident. Then she goes, I've talked to a guy that went 4 for 4 and had the game of his life. I was scared to death. I was scared all day. And he went 4 for 4. So she goes, OK, coach, tell me why it matters.

Hold the gun to be confident. goes, I don't get that from that. Now I'll say this. I have a friend I dearly love that pitched 13 years into big leagues and we became very close. And he said to me, one time he goes, you know what, Jack, I swear he goes, you know what mindset I never got out of my head the whole time I pitched in the big leagues until his late thirties. said, what? He goes, I never wanted to get sent home to my small town and explained to everyone why I failed. And I went, that's why you're good. Cause he had an emotional stake in the outcome.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (24:16.086)
Yeah.

So, yeah.

Moore to Consider (24:21.449)
Now that's still a fear of failure. I...

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (24:24.875)
Well, I think that's the difference between confidence and courage. So I think, like, the courage to still put yourself out there, though you know there's that high possibility of failure, right?

Moore to Consider (24:30.748)
Moore to Consider (24:38.261)
Well, the problem I'm running into now, because I'm coaching baseball and softball at the same school. So, but when I, when I talked, I actually went and made a mound trip the other day and one of the coaches like, I've never seen you like that. Cause I've been loving uncle Jack so far, but I went out the other day and we have a kid with the greatest ability. He'll probably never see this, but he has the greatest ability and he's not the same guy on the mound that he is in the bullpen. So I go out there and I said, Hey, if I'm in your situation right now, what the hell else could go wrong? Like,

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (24:42.296)
Hahaha!

Moore to Consider (25:07.871)
Fight back. know, and I was kind of really animated on the mound. I come in and one of the coaches who played pro balls, man, I was like, you know, I really am right there. He goes out. He kind of allows everything to fall apart on him. And I'm kind of like, I think the message now is try something different. Fight back. Be different. Like we've given all that I've motivated you, I've had you on the ass in the bullpen. And now you're out here and you're careful. And ball four and you put another guy.

Why not just let it go, figure it out? And I do find, think that's not just now generation, but I do notice it with a lot of the kids. They're not competitive. I mean, they're really, they're really, really not competitive. They're not tough in moments of competition. And I think it's not their fault. Every bullpen they throw is with an instructor. Everything they do is under instruction. Everything they do, they're being told what to do.

And this brings back my whole mantra about we've lost the Sandlot ball player. The kid in the Sandlot learned how to play with others and wanted to shine among his peers and didn't want Timmy to beat him in that game or, or Sally. They wanted to be the one that, you know, walked away with the trophy and the kids today. feel, I really kind of feel bad for him, but I don't understand being on the mound or any kind of level of competition.

and have it handed to you and further go into a hole or a shell. At some point you got to fight back. But when I say I have a friend who pitched at the highest level, but his fear was always being sent home, think that's what made him really good. Right? If you're scared of getting sent home, that might not be the most utmost confidence, but clearly, like I said, you have that emotional stake in fear of failure that motivates you to keep going.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (26:42.639)
Yeah.

Moore to Consider (26:56.756)
And, know, but you've seen that too, both male and female. They'll be the athlete. You know, you hear that it's kind of bumper sticker slogan. they're the nicest person off the field. But man, when they step between the lines, they're a different person. We've all seen that. There is that.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (27:10.193)
Yeah, you know, I think I actually like that concept of being able to be someone different than you are off the field, right? I think that because it actually to me is freeing in the sense that it allows you to put on your superhero cape or allow for you to assume that different personality that allows you to compete, allows you to operate in a different mode. And I think sometimes

Moore to Consider (27:18.119)
Mm-hmm. Sure.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (27:40.496)
We put a lot of rules and safety protocols and we really tried to micromanage and control a lot of things in an attempt to get the most out of our athletes. And I will tell you, the times when I've given freedom to the athletes that I've worked with, right? And let them play the game and give them a reassurance that their failures

part of the game and just point out where that can work for them. There's going to be a lot of failure in the game. And I think sometimes even the failure can still be productive to getting a situation. That ground ball out can still be productive if it's advancing that runner. So I think it's important as an instructor, a teacher, a coach, to point those out in certain scenarios. Say, hey, but if we were in this situation, that would work.

You're gonna be in a time in the game where that applies So they start to see how they could pull the good out of scenario and say well, okay in that situation if I'm finding that myself in a game I better run my tail off down that line right to get there because I can make something happen in That in that failure being able to still pull something good out of that mistake

Moore to Consider (28:51.802)
Right, right.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (29:01.667)
Yeah, so in many ways too, we've just tried to control, going back to like the pitching piece of that. Like in the girls game, had a legend in the girls game is Lisa Fernandez. And one of the things that she talked about was how she practiced. And she would practice in these certain circumstances that that tested her, whether it was bad weather, bad mound that she had to work off, whatever it was, she created these scenarios to where she was preparing for anything that she was gonna have to face.

Moore to Consider (29:11.944)
yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (29:30.334)
And I think that it may not even be inhabiting a catcher. I've worked a lot of clinics and camps and even in giving lessons they're like, well, we need to bring a catcher. Yes, a catcher is great. But I think it's very important in development when we're talking about being able to locate a ball and have precision in locating the ball, which is a primary thing of control, right, is knowing how to locate it. Because control will then lead to command and then command precision, right?

knowing how to look at a target. The catcher's there to make you look good. The first baseman is there to make you look good, right? They're there to salvage the mistakes or refine that pitch, you know, in a frame. Whereas, you know, if a pitcher can learn to pitch without a catcher, they're going to start to see exactly where their mistakes are and start to work on that. It'll refine how they work. And so I think it's important to

to learn how to work like that without a catcher.

Moore to Consider (30:32.227)
You know, Brooks Robinson, one of the greatest infielders and I mean, some of the plays he made in the 70 world series are insane. Like he's 27 feet into foul ground, fielding a ground ball that just went over the bag and throws a runner out. He said growing up, he was in Arkansas. He had a brick wall and a ball, which a lot of young people did. No one stopped him from throwing the ball against the wall all day. And I was whitey Ford, one of these historic pitchers was talking about that where he grew up in New York.

He grew, he drew a box on a brick wall and threw all day. So what you're talking about for the kid who may not have had to playmate, the catcher, the whatever, many of them got really good. And I've told our pitchers this and part of what's going on, don't understand, you know, I'm not really well versed in the young ladies game as far as it goes with the pitching. I've learned more in the last years, but this is the thing.

Whether you're throwing a softball with movement or location, you throw in a baseball with movement or location. All pitching is, is upsetting timing, getting the ball near the zone or near enough the zone to get strikes and get people out. So it's going to, it's going to translate. So our mutual buddy, Tom House, we're talking several years ago and he said, he had talked to Greg Maddox and he said that Maddox would go out between starts, start five days later, going to start again.

And he said, what did every major league ballpark have? I'm like, well, goes, a padded outfield fence. I'm like, okay. And he said, so he would tell the clubby, the little clubhouse boy, go take athletic tape and make a four inch square on the padded wall. Leave me 80 pearls out there. Leave me 80 rubbed up baseballs. And he would take the bucket, go 45 feet from the square, move up and down and hit the square.

And then after he'd thrown the 80 balls, the club, went and picked him up, put him back in the bucket, carried him back to the clubhouse. Did that every day. And I asked a group of kids the other day. I'm like, have you watched Maddox pitch? know it's, you know, he's, he's more removed now in time from their time, but he'd throw 87 pitch full, you know, complete games and he's dotting up both sides of the plate. And his mindset was take 80 baseballs relate to in and out by moving his setup 45 feet and just throw the ball with a

Moore to Consider (32:49.536)
quiet hit and hit the hit a four inch square. Who the hell does that? But they're like, coach, it seems so complicated, right? I mean, it was like, no, I need my bullpen catcher. I need my pitching coach. No, he's a major league pitcher who's renowned for hitting spots and he's hitting a little four inch square on a padded wall. And, you know, it's a big league. So you can tell the clubhouse boy, you know, leave me 80 balls. So what does he know? I got 80 throws. I'm hitting a target. I'm walking away. I go back in. I'm done. I'm done for the day. I've made my 80 throws.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (32:52.939)
Yeah

Moore to Consider (33:19.771)
And I've hit a spot over and over and over and it translates. It translates. So, and I feel bad. And I've told the kids, I've said this on other podcasts, the kids today are being told. I don't know. I guess it's probably happening with the young ladies as well. I'm sure it is, but there's like these pitching mills today and they're telling them that, know, the power five conference school's not taking you unless you throw X. So they are completely out of control, trying to reach a number and no kid learns to pitch anymore.

They can, they can't play catch Ryan Crotin. And don't know if you met Ryan at the convention. Yeah. Okay. You know, Ryan Ryan's I love Ryan. So Ryan and I were talking about that. And you know, he says, I'm going to play catch with the guy today. And he had a little box on his hoodie and he goes, my guy pro guy, he's got to hit the box every time it's on my glove side. This is where we're playing catch. And he goes, if I go out and see two guys throwing from 60 feet and they're playing fetch and they keep running after the ball, that guy's not going to pitch.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (33:53.78)
I have, I have, yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (34:08.392)
Yeah.

Moore to Consider (34:18.191)
at a very high level if he can't play catch from 60 feet. And there is a lot of that, but I think it goes back to what I'm saying. I really, mean this. I wonder if there's a kid today that has a wall and a ball and Brooks Robinson, Whitey Ford, whoever, they're either trying to hit a square or they're trying to feel ground balls all day. Does that happen anymore?

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (34:42.012)
Well, you know, going back to the control thing, right? Like you utilize the word complicated, right? Honestly, I think it's the mundane grind part of the game, right? It's the boring stuff. You mean I'm gonna throw this ball to that little box 80 times? I think that's what they're thinking like, and I'm gonna hit it every time. Like we've kind of lost sight of the competition part of being good about.

at that, right? And so that grind part of the game is important. to me, that's how I grew up. You fall in love with that part of the game, everything else is going to become easier, right? Because it's the repetitive part of the game, but it's also the competitive part of the game. Does that make sense?

Moore to Consider (35:30.012)
Yeah, but I'm also of an age. I'll tell you this. If I have to be fair, we had no air conditioning in the house. No one did. And I had a friend that we're still friends for life. And we played, we played world series every day. We either hit against each other and we had to be your Stremski hitting from the left side or rice hitting from the right side. We had to mimic the lineup. So we switch hit both of us, or we threw to the strike zone with each other game after game.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (35:37.681)
Yeah, we didn't either. We didn't either.

Moore to Consider (35:59.292)
There was nothing else to do. So if I'd had a wall to throw against to feel ground balls, I was going to do that because it was a good way to pass the time outside in the sun. But if you'd have given me AC when I was 11 and I got a video game platform, I'm playing video games. I mean, let's be honest. I mean, if that was available and I was in, I would grow up in a time it just didn't exist. I mean, I don't think I saw my first kind of home.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (36:19.417)
You

Moore to Consider (36:29.468)
video type of game until I was 20, 21 years old. They just weren't out. You know, the Atari's and they were very, very primitive and you remember, but, but no, would it be more fun to, you know, it would have been more fun. Yeah. But what had been more fun to be in the house playing a video game rather than maybe, but sir.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (36:34.191)
Yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (36:38.352)
Yeah, they were. It was just a joystick.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (36:48.687)
I don't know, we had an Atari, my dad wanted one when first came out, but I was never one, I couldn't be confined to the house. I remember, no, but you know, it's funny, I think some of the greatest athletes there are, I think that's a commonality. They didn't like to be in the house. They wanted to be outside playing. And I remember having, I had Urbander Holyfield come speak to my softball team I was coaching at a high school level once.

Moore to Consider (36:53.924)
Yeah.

Moore to Consider (36:59.566)
You didn't like it,

Moore to Consider (37:09.562)
Sure! Yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (37:18.184)
And that was one thing he said, he loved being outside. He loved, he had all his friends out there and that's what he did. They were outside, they played until you know what, the street lights go on, go come on or mom calls you home, right? And he remember him saying, like, goes, but the thing about going home for me, he goes, I had five other brothers and sisters to play with. you know, it wasn't, he could still continue having a, you know, a playing experience, right? Even when he got home, it wasn't like he was leaving his friends.

Moore to Consider (37:29.434)
Mom calls for dinner, yep.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (37:47.02)
you know, outside. But I think that being outside pieces is crucial. I think that that and unstructured. The fact that you go out and you play like you were talking about the wall ball and the repetition. It forces you to play the game in your mind, right? So as you're receiving that ball, you're thinking of in your mind turning, right?

Moore to Consider (37:53.999)
Yes.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (38:14.615)
We used to play during times where it ghost runners. In your mind, you're playing what does it look like when a runner's gonna advance or there's gonna be a trail runner, a secondary runner. I grew up playing Whiffleball with my cousins and that's all we did was play Whiffleball every day after school in the neighbor's backyard and it was so important to development. And we didn't have any adults out there telling us how to play the game.

Moore to Consider (38:26.827)
Yeah, yeah.

Moore to Consider (38:40.375)
All right, exactly.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (38:41.936)
And I still believe that wiffles are some of the best ways to develop patience and timing and feel. Because if you don't hit that thing right, you can tell if you've hit it wrong, right? It tells on you. So I think that free play, that ability to be outside amongst your peers, letting the game teach you, right? The game teach you. I think that's really important. And then just learning how to play it in your mind.

Moore to Consider (39:03.489)
Yeah, yeah.

Moore to Consider (39:07.927)
So had a Dominican friend on the other day that I dearly love and he grew up in the DR. He went to high school with Ortiz. he sent me a picture with him in Pujols the other day cause they, they, he knows everybody. mean, you know, and he played some pro ball and his brother played in the Astros organization. And I said, okay, what gives what is it about where you grew up? And he goes, Jackie, like, we like, we play in the streets. You hear the stories, but we played in the streets. When a car came, we had to clear and let the car through. But he goes, I remember at one point.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (39:16.234)
Ha ha ha!

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (39:30.677)
No.

Moore to Consider (39:38.535)
One, little girls in the neighborhood, we took the head off the doll she had and put some tape around. That's the only ball we had. Right. So, you know, it could be a rock taped up. could be whatever we could find. Cause the baseball is too expensive. Tennis balls were cheaper. Sometimes we played tennis with, with the tennis ball. Cause then our neighborhood, we get together and we go try to beat up on some other neighborhood team, you know, and that's kind of, but he said he grew up in, you know, a poor area and,

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (39:43.735)
no.

Moore to Consider (40:07.99)
But they, and I remember Pedro Martinez said this once, Dominicans are the most grateful poor people for an opportunity in the rest. And they're making up 20 % of major league baseball. You you coached in pro ball, so you know a lot of Latin American kids. And I do think a lot of it is they're a hundred years or 50 years behind us in their play habits. They're doing what American kids did 50 years ago.

They were probably doing that then 50 years ago, because there was a great number of players coming out there at that time too. But American kids, I know the nutrition's a part of it. We're not in good shape as a nation generally, but the kids are just not in the streets playing. Also, I think a big part of it, you hear every older scout, why am I riding by an open baseball field and there's no kids on it or softball field? Well, a lot of it's lawsuits. A lot of it's lawsuits. You know people chain up the fence.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (40:56.776)
Right?

Moore to Consider (41:01.928)
because they're afraid if some kid goes out there and trips and chips his tooth, all hell's gonna break loose. So they tell the kid not to go on the field. The kids have access nowhere to go play unless it's structured and there's a huge liability insurance policy out there or something, nobody goes near it. And heaven forbid somebody else's kid gets hurt in your backyard. So I do think that the way we think sometimes about kids and whether they could get hurt and all this type of thing.

I just don't think they're, I'm living in a neighborhood with younger kids and I do see some kids out here kind of on the playground stuff, but I don't really see kids throw anything. I don't see kids play catch. I really don't. I don't see kids do anything like that.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (41:46.248)
So, Jack, you're lawyer, so you're right. Liability is a big thing. I know I took eight years of coaching to start my family. And when I got back into coaching, I had a big eye opener in regards to liability, right? We had to use foam balls or sponge balls or put face masks. Like we souped up the bat.

Moore to Consider (41:49.329)
Yes, sir. I'm just ma'am.

Moore to Consider (42:06.183)
Mm-hmm.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (42:16.946)
This is in the game of softball. Baseball went through this as well. And I think that they realized that the integrity of the game, they went back to, they got away from composing all this, right? And so, and it's a business, right? It is a business. Unfortunately, everything seems to be that, right? A business, right? So we've, along with business becomes liability, right? And people want to protect their business. And so we've got face masks. It went beyond just having a mouth guard. We've got chest,

Moore to Consider (42:25.992)
Absolutely.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (42:46.706)
protectors now. We've got shin protectors and we almost we gear up to play a game that we used to not have to. And again, we've also got stronger athletes and so forth. But you make a good point like why are their kids not out there playing playing ball? And there's all kinds of liability pieces to that. And that's, that's a really sad state because the game is a beautiful game.

And it's played by both the male and the female athlete. And I know growing up playing San La, like we just all got out there, you know, the guys and the girls got out there. And it's really weird to know that in the time that I grew up, we were doing that and that was normal. And now all of a sudden there's this, we're in this really kind of a quandary, whether it's right or wrong when it's like, well, we've been doing this for years. I will tell you this.

Moore to Consider (43:21.125)
Right, yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (43:42.426)
Back in 1991, two, three, right? That's my high school years when I played baseball. Not once did I run into anybody that said you shouldn't be doing that. Not once did I run into a young male player that said you shouldn't be doing that or anything like that. There was nothing. Now my coach might tell you different, but he handled it very professionally, but there was nothing but encouragement.

because we were there to make each other better. So I was very fortunate in my time that we didn't run into any of the walls that maybe some others have. I was very fortunate. I had good coaches and I had good teammates and I had good parents that surrounded our programs.

Moore to Consider (44:29.488)
You know, that's one of the things I noticed because again, I'm at the same community college or junior college working with the pitchers on baseball. And I work generally with the young ladies and this winter. I'll tell you what, it really gave me a warm feeling in my heart. It really was one day we took our catchers over to this indoor building where the guys work out. These guys were working with them on blocking drills. They like literally chaired so much at the young ladies help.

in any way they could. And I was like, I wonder how this dynamics working every catcher. And it wasn't condescending like we're guys. No, it was like really colleagues working things out together. And the young ladies were like, well, what do do on this pitch? Well, you know, I've been taught this or I've been taught that, but you know, it's kind of a personal, but I'm like, wow. And that's what was being promoted. The two programs were kindly working out together.

A pitch in the dirt is pitch in the dirt. If you can block that pitch up and keep that ball in front, you know, it works for both sides. And, they were doing all the same drills. The young ladies were in there doing the same drills with the guys side by side and our guys. Yeah. But, but I had no idea where this was going. Cause I had not yet really gone over to the baseball program as much yet. I'd kind of talked to some of the pitchers and I got more heavily involved, but like,

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (45:35.383)
Yeah, collaboration, right? Collaboration.

Moore to Consider (45:48.847)
I'll be honest with you, the year, well, it 2024, probably before the turn of the year. I gotta be, I gotta tell you, the guys, I mean, I already knew our young ladies for three years of experience with them. I was really pleasantly surprised what gentlemen they were and what kind of colleagues they were to each other. And it was really neat. It was really neat to see that. And of course the kids are from all over. You know, we had kids from.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (46:12.003)
I believe, and I'm not sure if this needs to be fact checked or not, but I believe some of the first coaches to do that were Pat Summitt and Gino Arama, right? That where they brought in the male athletes to help make the environment a tougher environment for their female athletes. And they learned through the pressure of competing against that larger stature, faster stature.

Moore to Consider (46:25.654)
Mm-hmm.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (46:41.724)
and more seasoned athlete because these, guys that they were bringing in were, I guess they were veterans of the game or, know, had already been, they'd already played. So they were seasoned athletes coming in to help train their female athletes and look at those two programs and how successful they were, right? So I think that in other sports, it's been a, I think track athletes trained a little bit together, if I'm correct.

Moore to Consider (47:06.912)
Yeah. Well, I think you'll probably, I guarantee you, if you look at the history of women's basketball, I'll guarantee you some of the top flight players were in a lot of pickup games with a lot of the top males from where they grew up. They just played. They just got there and played. and well, not that this means anything, but I was really good friends when I was coaching baseball years ago at a junior college.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (47:20.841)
Yeah, yeah.

Moore to Consider (47:31.782)
the basketball coach was a place kicker at UNC. He actually was on the Chapel Hill football team and he was place kicker, really great guy. And one day he said, you know, we run a lot of times with nine girls. You want to come out and scrimmage with them five, nine, if I'm lucky, but he goes, whatever you do, be physical, just block them out, move them around because I want them to get used to that.

And I love these girls. God, I love them. They were awesome. And they respect, they, they appreciate I'm slow. I can't jump. I can shoot a little bit, but, just me being in the mix. And then a couple other guys would come out there. I was in my late twenties, probably, but I would run out there and scrimmage. One, it gave them an extra player to scrimmage. But he said, I want them to have to work through you for rebounds because the young lady they're probably going to go up against. It's about your height. You know, we had one girl, I think it was five 11.

Lot of five eights back at that time, a of five sevens. So me being five nine ish was kind of what they see, but I was quite a bit heavier. So it gave them somebody to work through and it was good. mean, you know, we just kind of got to work with them. Do I think that that immensely made their game better? No, but I did notice some of the programs would have some guys scrimmage with them. And, know, if you got more advanced basketball players, even better. And I think it's a good thing.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (48:51.998)
So Jack, just to share a personal story, when I was in high school out in San Diego, we had a sport called water polo. And my sister chose that to be one of her sports. And she was part of the first club team, women's club team. And so she was starting the water polo for girls. So she asked me if I would want to train with her and the team. And so I did. And we would go and play against the guys. And another.

Moore to Consider (49:01.322)
Mm-hmm.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (49:21.406)
And water polo is one of those sports that it's first off is survival not to drown and then second off it gets very physical underneath the water and I will tell you this, going against any competition that can be physical, right? Because it's sport, right? Sometimes it's hand to hand combat, you know, and it is a sense of survival, right? That's how you compete.

Moore to Consider (49:40.232)
Mm-hmm.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (49:48.527)
And I'm grateful for those moments because those are things that shaped me into a competitor. I will tell you, and other women as well, is that ability to go athlete to athlete, right? And get comfortable with being uncomfortable, right? That was probably the best sport that I was able to compete in that really refined my fast pitch game and my baseball game.

Moore to Consider (50:00.168)
Mm-hmm.

Moore to Consider (50:16.264)
You know, on the thing about, mentioned earlier, courage and not to sound like, you know, I'm trying to measure like, you know, what you say about the sexes in sports. I tell you, I think one of the most courageous things I ever saw in my life, and I'll just tell you, that never left me. I'll always remember this. When I was at this junior college, I was in North Carolina several years ago. I would go out and support the women's sports all the time. We didn't have something going on. I was at the softball field.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (50:20.166)
Yeah.

Moore to Consider (50:45.408)
And one of the sports I watched a lot, cause I had a little bit of experience helping my baseball coach who kind of got stuck with volleyball. They'd gone through four coaches in four years. That was a big mess at the universe garden web. But anyway, I went, I got, I kind of got into volleyball a little bit. We had a young lady is one of the best athletes I've ever seen male, female, whatever. She was incredible. And I watched her turn her foot around on her ankle.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (50:55.804)
You

Moore to Consider (51:12.504)
early in the day, you know, volleyball, it's all day. There's one game after the next. As long as you play, you keep playing. And Tina, I swear she turned her foot around. They go over and they wrap her ankle. She is a spiker. She is, mean, she's the, she's like, she's five nine, super athletic. She played on one foot the rest of the day. It was game after game. She couldn't walk on her ankle and she just kept hopping around on one foot. Ball's up.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (51:15.355)
Yes.

Moore to Consider (51:41.731)
She's up off of one foot spike, and then she lands, she grimaces and then kind of moves over that. And I watched it all day. She played all day, basically on one foot with the twisted ankle. And I'm over there like.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (51:47.627)
Yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (51:54.808)
Right? It's very, very karate kid-like, right? And I think, yeah.

Moore to Consider (51:58.181)
Yes, but I mean just the courage and she never whimpered. She never whined. never I mean I will say this about her too. I got to know her really well and she came to me one time and she said coach everybody's got to stop giving me a hard time and I'm like what's the matter? What's the matter now? And she said so I go in the first day of weightlifting right and she was from Michigan. She was I go in the first day and the coach says I'm going to get a max on all these different lifts.

Do what you can, we'll move on. Tina, her first day, what do think she benches her first day?

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (52:35.885)
I'm sure like 230. Okay.

Moore to Consider (52:37.86)
No, she did 160. She did 160. She's about 140 pounds probably. She's 5'9". Maybe 150. But there's guys in there that can't do the bar in the 225s. So it's a gym class. So the head football coach in AD is like, hey guys, look at her. She's doing 160. It was totally embarrassing to me. So there was a guy, 6'6", 300.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (53:03.29)
Yeah.

Moore to Consider (53:06.071)
who was up in age, who was literally a professional bouncer. And they got to be fairly friendly. And he told me one day, he goes, you know, Corey Everson, I said, yeah, Ms. Olympia, goes, she's that. If she ever wanted to go in the weight room and be that, she really is a genetic freak that if she really got, so when she did the 160, she never lifted. She'd never lifted. I mean, she just like walked in, or like, she kept doing the weights and they're like, put two more on and she didn't think anything of it.

But she was embarrassed because everybody's given her a hard time about the fact that she was stronger than three quarters of the guys in the class. And that's the same young lady that played on the one foot. And I mean, that's how she was. Yeah. And so they, she came there to play basketball and volleyball. And then in the spring, they're like, would you play softball? Okay. She's hitting balls six miles and she'd never really played. She's just that kind of athlete. She never played softball. So then she becomes like a three or four hole hitter.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (53:45.932)
Yeah, it's that... Yeah.

Moore to Consider (54:05.975)
hitting bombs because she's just that. And I used to just think like, what on earth could she do if like, she had really, because Corey Everson had that same story. I think she dated a bodybuilder that said, why don't you go into gym and give this a shot? And she became Corey Everson. So yeah, she just had the genetics that once, you know, the whether or not, you know, bodybuilders cheat and all that kind of stuff. We can get into those questions, but no, she was just one of those kind of people that was really naturally strong. And then you put time in the weight room.

and you're 5'9", and you have that kind of frame, you become Corey Everson.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (54:38.87)
Yeah, and sometimes the embarrassment part is just that you're just now made aware of something, right? Sometimes when you just become aware of something and you're like, because your goal sometimes is not to show someone else up, But it sounded to me like the natural place for her was competing on that volleyball court and that was was expected of her.

Moore to Consider (54:46.005)
Yeah.

Moore to Consider (54:53.983)
blend out, blend in. Yes. Yeah. You don't want to be. Yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (55:07.465)
was to play through that injury, right? And you and I know that injuries sometimes will bring about an adrenaline rush, right? And it's like, once that gets going, you're just like, I'm not quitting, right? You're in that fight or flight mode. And it sounds to me like she was a fighter.

Moore to Consider (55:21.183)
just tell you this because well and I'll just tell you this about her because I got to know her quite well she was just courageous it's all it was she wasn't afraid of anything she was a sweetheart she was a great young lady but she just flat team needs me if I have to play on one leg I'll play on one leg she was not about to sit down she never shrunk from anything she's just that's just a character thing she was just built that way that's what who she was and the poor thing like I said I understood the

I understand the coach. I mean, golly, at the time he's probably 65 plus years old. He was towards the end of his career. And he might not have been that old, but at the time I think he was like, Hey guys, check this out. You know, but that put a spotlight on her that she didn't really want. But when they said lifting to failure, hers was 160. You know, in some of these little guys, in some of these little guys that were freshmen that were 130 pounds, it's their freshman year, they took weightlifting class. So they go in there, can't bet 75 pounds.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (56:11.539)
I think that's great.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (56:18.741)
you

Moore to Consider (56:21.182)
You know, and that's who generally ends up in, you know, it's not like the football team is going to take the weightlifting class. And she took it because she said she thought I'd knocked my P E's out. I'll get my P E's done by taking weightlifting and maybe it'll make me stronger. Not thinking that it was going to, I don't, you know, that was the day they walked in the first time to do their max. I don't know what she did later. Yeah. But, but yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (56:42.686)
But that's a great baseline, right? That's a great baseline, just be able to go in there and, hey, this is your starting point and understand capacity. That's really awesome.

Moore to Consider (56:49.054)
If you can bench your weight?

Moore to Consider (56:56.35)
All right, so we've been about an hour. We're going to go ahead and close down. I want to add an enclosing here.

What did you think of professional baseball? Having played professionally in softball and playing at the highest levels. What surprised you? What did you like about it? What did you think was crazy about it? What do you think pro ball could do better? That they, you know, from the development standpoint, what did you see? What'd you think?

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (57:25.097)
you know, I'm in this, so I was with a historical program, the Cardinals, right? And I think we were, you we had just implemented technology a couple years, but my first year was the first year of it really introducing technology. And so I got to witness some very traditional ball and then also some of the advances in ball. And I think,

Moore to Consider (57:42.408)
Mm-hmm.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (57:52.997)
Yeah, I had a chance to scout. I had my whole goal was to to relearn and earn this opportunity from the ground up. And that's what I did, starting out with scouting to see those high school prospects, those college prospects, which I was very fortunate to be in the SEC right there. The SEC was in my backyard. So I saw some of the top baseball come through one of the hot spots in the country, right?

SECAC's baseball is amazing, right? So very fortunate to be able to see it. And, you know, there's a, I think that the women's game and the men's game are very similar. just, you know, that we now lay in the foundation, hopefully a sustainable pro league for the women's league would be great. But I enjoyed my time in baseball as difficult and as challenging as it has been at times. It's very enjoyable.

Moore to Consider (58:22.46)
Absolutely. Yeah, it is.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (58:50.0)
It takes an enormous amount of courage, right? Durability, perseverance, because the difference of 65 or 75 game season as opposed to 160 games, right? That's like two seasons. It takes a lot of fortitude and the ability to endure. So you think about that, you double the failure, right? You double the amount of...

Moore to Consider (59:07.558)
Yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (59:17.018)
perseverance needed. It's like running a 5k versus marathon, right? Or a 10k versus marathon, right? So if you put it into the perspective of that, the perseverance piece and the ability to recover. When we talk about a lifestyle that is rinse and repeat, right? And one thing I don't think people, your average fan understands.

Moore to Consider (59:34.393)
Yes.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (59:44.437)
And even, I think, even within families, I don't think they really understand, is this not a glamorous lifestyle? It is not, because for you to function at that high level, you have to try to keep your body and your mind ready to compete, right? And that means that you have to refuel and recover.

Moore to Consider (59:52.013)
Not at all.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:00:14.776)
Daily, not like after the series, it's daily, right? And I think that people forget that piece of it, when they talk about the grind, that piece of it, it's a real thing. And that the physical and mental recovery piece of it is very much needed. But it's not. You're going out there to perform basically for the fans, right? Because it is a game.

There's a performance piece to it and you really need to be at optimal performance. But the thing is, the reality is your body and mind aren't always going to be there at 100%. So it's constantly making adjustments to be able to find a way to win and compete at like 70%.

Moore to Consider (01:01:01.624)
Yeah. And the thing about professional baseball is I think it's, it's kind of at every level, but clearly like when you were at South Carolina playing softball, was some, it's good old South Carolina. We're the Gamecocks and it means something to us, but then, you grew up a Red Sox fan and the Padres draft you. It's a business. Like, so you kind of get into your like,

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:01:15.97)
Yeah.

Moore to Consider (01:01:24.117)
Yeah, I'd rather be the top Padre player or trade me to somewhere else where I can make a lot of money and play this game for a while. There's not that same mindset of I'm playing for good old team that I grew up loving. They just as soon run me out. There's an old saying one third of guys are able to quit on their own terms. It's one third are injured and one third are released. So the vast majority of kids, feels like that I've known that we're out of the game. I am. I've known, I've known clearly a lot to get released, but a lot of me got injured.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:01:42.978)
Yeah.

Moore to Consider (01:01:53.495)
A lot of them just got injured and couldn't go back. Now that might've led to an outright release and all that. But the minor league lifestyle, I remember years ago talking to a friend, I'm like, you what's it like? And he goes, uh, we pretty much all stay up till like 3 a.m. We might get up at noon. Might play some video games. We out the yard at three o'clock. They called it the yard. You know, you're out at three. You get some early work.

If you're an infielder, you get, talk some pitcher into hitting your ground balls and you you buy him some chicken nuggets or something. And then the games at seven, you know, BP is at five 30, you know, and that's what do do the next day? Same thing. So we go out and drink some beers, maybe. Which according to our buddy, Tom again, is the worst thing you can do for recovery. But so, but that's the lifestyle. And now I, I played in college with a gentleman that

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:02:31.338)
Yeah.

Moore to Consider (01:02:44.374)
played three years into big leagues and a lot of time in AAA. He was a player coach in AAA. Beautiful guy. And I just remember we got to be really close and he goes, Jack, you know, he goes, when I'm, when I'm honest with myself, I said, yeah, goes, bet 85 % of the guys I play with were alcoholics. And I go, real now he's talking in the sixties, seventies. And he goes, it was the lifestyle. He goes, you're away from your families and

Every hotel you stayed in had a lounge in the bar there, you know, in the right off the, the lounge or right off the entry. And so was kind of like you drank some beers at the stadium when the game ended, then you went back to the hotel, nothing else to do. Let's go sit at the bar and drink a few. Go to bed, get up, do the whole same thing all for six months. You know, we start with spring training and then it's six months of the same groundhog day, truly groundhog day. And then.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:03:33.577)
You're right with the Groundhog Day. think because of the nature of the type of money that's being made now and the type of sponsorships that are going into things. I think nowadays athletes and coaches are more under the gun in regards to how well they... Well, that and how much... We talk about liability, right? So your health plays into that. And so I think...

Moore to Consider (01:03:52.062)
outcomes.

Moore to Consider (01:03:57.887)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:04:02.217)
the recovery piece has been taken care of more, like there's more emphasis put into that recovery piece of things and more resources available. I think because there are so much more invested and think about what players are being paid now, think about what the unions have achieved for the players, right? They've achieved more resources for...

for the minor leagues and the major leagues. And so I think the recovery piece is really being considered a big deal. And so I think that culturally, I personally didn't experience that, what you speak of, right?

Moore to Consider (01:04:45.713)
No, no, no. What I'm talking about is a 25, 30 year. No, I think it's true that probably. Yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:04:48.944)
Yeah, but that what I'm saying is think about like that, all the money that's being placed in there. so that's a big deal. That's a big deal of like the recovery piece of things and taking care of your body so that it doesn't break down halfway into the season, right? Because of that grind.

Moore to Consider (01:05:09.331)
Well, you think about two, I think Mickey Mantle probably made 110,000 was the most money he ever made. at the time in today's dollars, that'd probably be a million and a half, but it'd still be low. But if you saw the movie 61, Billy Crystal based that a lot on stories that the Yankees told him. Plus he became very close to Mickey Mantle. And there was a scene in the movie, if you saw 61, Thomas Jane playing Mantle looked just like him. Barry Pepper looked even more like Roger Maris.

But there was a scene where they were kind of talking to him about his drink and he goes, everywhere I go is like, Mickey, have a drink, have a drink. We go out and it's like, come on, Mickey, have a drink. And he was probably self-destructive. A father died young, his grandfather died young, and all these young men in his life had died. And that was clearly the, if I'd known I was gonna live this long, I would have taken better care of myself, that whole thing. But when you look back...

The Yankees didn't really do a whole lot to reign his lifestyle in. Now in the movie, they ended up putting him up in this really big, you know, swank hotel or something. then Whitey Ford's always trying to keep him out of trouble. And they thought Billy Martin was a big part of his problem. So they sent him off to Kansas city only to find maybe Martin wasn't really the problem. But looking back at how much the world has changed, they have a just incredible player and marquee name Mickey Manil.

And he's destroying his life. I love Mickey Mantle. do. think he's just, he's from that time, the Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, know, little Richard, what have you, know, since that, that whole vibe about the fifties and James Dean and everything, Mickey Mantle is part of that culture, but Mickey Mantle was drinking himself to death. I mean, that's exactly what ended up happening. And the team had some level of investment in him. He certainly put butts in seats, but I think that movie really showed.

And it's a depiction of some of the warts as well. And I think that's what major league baseball was. Now you look at like a Tom Brady playing until he's 45. And I, I was at the last 12 or so years he got, he's sleeping in the chamber. His food's being grown in the backyard or a backyard organically. He's doing everything he can to fight father time. And he wins another super bowl at 42 or 43, whatever it was.

Moore to Consider (01:07:34.33)
So yeah, the players have become, and I don't know if it's good for the game or bad, I love Tom Brady, but whatever it's become, they're their own industry. The players are their own industry, you know, and.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:07:46.213)
Yeah, mean, think about that, like all the sponsorships that go into supporting one player, you know? And so that's outside of just the expectations of Major League Baseball. So whether it's a shoe company, right, or a cereal company, right, or a nutrition company, you're correct there. They're their own billboard, you know? And so whatever...

Moore to Consider (01:07:49.55)
Yeah.

Moore to Consider (01:08:02.242)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:08:15.637)
negotiated things are within that or standards that they have to live up to. I personally think Tom Brady is a great example of longevity in the sport. I like what he achieved as an older athlete. Maybe that's because I'm an older coach coming into the industry and I think there's a lot to be learned from the older athletes. It's not just learn of what to do right, I think it's also what to do that might have been wrong to do or

know, the mistakes that were made. think we can learn from both of those perspectives.

Moore to Consider (01:08:50.55)
And having talks with some of our friends that are, definitely been at the highest levels of baseball, I'm always hearing there's so much tension between the old school and the new school. Did you see some of that going on? You don't have to say what side you took or anything, but.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:09:05.442)
No, know what? You know, I'm an old school and I learned the new school to understand it. Yeah, I've had conversations with both, know, young and old. And I do see the tensions between and experience some of the tension between the old school and the new school. And I'm really hoping that, you know, when you get the right people in place on a team,

they can work through all of that, know, those, the old school and new school.

Moore to Consider (01:09:37.228)
Yeah, but let me take it down this road though, because I've had this talk with some people you know I dearly love. Okay. I think so much of this is chicken or the egg discussion. Here's where I'm going with this. I saw the movie Moneyball three times. I read the book twice. I listened to it on tape six times, I think. I would go running and I would just listen to it over and over. And I remember Bill James said,

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:09:49.09)
you

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:09:54.658)
You

Moore to Consider (01:10:03.008)
Bill James that led to all the nerd stuff and sports and everything as far as baseball. He said, the number one thing you could do offensively in baseball is the number one thing you do that's advantageous to your team is not get out. Okay. Not get out. Now that's never going to happen, but theoretically we could have an inning of infinity. It's possible. like don't get out. Then he said, if you look at the game and you look at the numbers, the greatest measurement of it.

offensive player is on base percentage and slugging percentage. And I remember watching the guy on YouTube and I'm gonna tell you what, he took each row versus Adam Dunn. Adam Dunn 239-67 guy. And he says, Adam Dunn was more productive offensively than each row. And he gave the reasons why he made this argument. And then you're looking at it you're like, son of a gun, that 240 hitter, he said,

This is what James said, all things being equal. I'm at the plate. I'm at the plate. I hit the ball. I'm at second. I hit the ball. I'm at first guy hits the ball against defenses at seconds. Better. It's just better. You picked up another base. So guys with power. So where's where I'm going with this is I have a lot of respect for Buck Showalter. I think he's a great baseball guy. And he was on a radio talk show one day and the guy goes, Hey, what'd you think of the whole Billy bean and money ball and all? He goes, you don't teach players in the minor league level to walk more. You don't do that.

And they're like, well, cause you remember you see that with the Brad Pitt, you know, playing Billy Beane. They really did try to get players to be more disciplined. And I've heard studies that say you either know the strike zone or you don't, but show Walter made a great point. He said, go down the list, dude, to the guy on the radio. Who's the all time walk guys. The guy goes, Bonds. Yeah. Keep going. Ruth. Yeah. Who else? Ted Williams. He goes, what do they all share in common? They get hit.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:11:57.0)
Yes.

Moore to Consider (01:11:58.633)
He goes, they get hit, you hit yourselves into walks. So he goes, yes, a stat guy can sit there and go, chief, I'm noticing that walks are important. Let's get more of them. Joe Walter's point was, no, it's not an accident that everybody pitched around Ruth and bonds and, you know, and Ted Williams. Those guys had great eyes in some plate discipline, but guess what? You didn't want to make mistakes in the middle of the plate because they hit the ball six miles.

So he goes, what are we looking for? We're looking for the guy that can hit. And I'm kind of like, okay. So I think that's where the tension is. To me, it's always, is it a ladder observation? Hey chief, we've noticed that the numbers suggest X. Showalter's argument is, yeah, damn right it suggests X because the type of player that generates those numbers is what you're looking for. Not to try to create the numbers out of players that may not have that capacity. Where are you with that? Okay.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:12:55.41)
Well, no, I think you're correct, right? You said it's not just capitalizing on the mistakes down the plate. Like you said, if they just walk those hitters. There was a hitter in the game, her name was Stacey Dubin. played at UCLA, big catcher, USA team player and all this. And she's a coach at San Diego State now and also one of the pro leagues in the women's league. And she was one of those hitters that they wanted to walk her.

Right? So that meant the coach then had to strategically make sure that whoever they, if they walked her, did they have a hitter to hit behind her that was threatening? Right? So strategically looking at that, right? Because sometimes it's not about you get that more walk just because of intimidation factor or a strategical factor and things. But what they taught her was to hit the not so ideal pitch. So plate discipline. Are you the hitter too that if that ball gets in that zone, are you going to demolish it and do something with it that's productive?

Moore to Consider (01:13:30.523)
Right. Right.

Moore to Consider (01:13:44.721)
Mm-hmm.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:13:51.927)
or that pitch that's just slightly out of the zone and learning how to hit situationally that pitch that's not so not ideal, right? Because some hitters, they actually do better with balls that are just slightly out of the zone in some capacity, right? Yeah, so, you know, like.

Moore to Consider (01:14:05.357)
largely. Yogi Berra was the guy that hit everything bad, said, and was very successful.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:14:11.275)
Yeah, so I think it's really at those lower levels is teaching athletes how to hit, teaching athletes how to pitch. And so I think like those that like there's also that thing the old saying like the home runs will come. The home runs will come. Teach them how to hit and those that have the right power, the home runs will come. You don't necessarily have to teach them how to hit home runs.

Moore to Consider (01:14:30.588)
Yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:14:35.629)
as they develop those home runs. And then as you move through the ranks, you just start to refine that ability, right? So I think that there definitely is a place for that in the statistical analytics and that. think it's just knowing when to implement that and develop that. But you make a great point, right? What do the best hitters have in common?

Moore to Consider (01:14:41.541)
Right. Right.

Moore to Consider (01:14:56.709)
Yeah. And, and so that, I think that is attention. And I've had this talk with some people that have had lifetimes in major league baseball and professional baseball. I, I, I kind of tend to skew towards the older guys that I, that I know can see it. They, they can see it. And I know that's kind of, it's kind of belittled like, no, no, the numbers. Yeah, but they're a guy, there's a friend of mine who's a scout. He never misses. He never misses. Now they may go on to struggle some more than others off to feel.

but he can smell the prospect. And you know, he told me he hit in pro ball. He goes, you know, Jackie, you know, you know how I base it, the pitcher would I want to face him? And he goes, I tell you what, if I see a guy in the hit and count, take a cock shot and not do anything with it. I mark him off. I mark him off. I mark him off. If he doesn't hunt that and drill that, then I don't need him. Bye. Move on.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:15:41.145)
Yeah, yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:15:47.769)
Well, it's hesitancy, right? It's hesitancy. Did you hesitate? Like what made you freeze? What made you hesitate on that? And I think that's important to recognize, right?

Moore to Consider (01:15:49.327)
He goes, that's all I need to see. And he's never wrong. Yeah.

Moore to Consider (01:15:59.075)
But you're not that guy. The point is for a scout, can say, that's just not the guy. That's not him. Let me move on and try to find someone else. Cause if, if, if in that moment, now again, maybe he's got an idiot coach that gave him taken that. So I don't know, but like he's like, if it's a hit and count, the guy doesn't hit it. I'm thinking he's not that guy.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:16:17.048)
Jack, I was very fortunate that one of things that I wanted to do was learn from the old guys because there's wisdom in that. Because you know what, let me just tell you this, having done, because I told you I'm gonna learn it and earn it, I went and did a technology fellowship and the reality is batteries die, extension cords die, Wi-Fi goes out, power goes out, tech can fail, right? If it's a daytime game, we don't have to worry about the life.

Moore to Consider (01:16:23.426)
Mm-hmm.

Sure.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:16:46.391)
Let's just say we take that you can still play this game without that, right? And so I wanted to learn from the guys that were the old school guys. I wanted to learn from their wisdom. Like how did you simplify a complex game and how did you discern from the guys, the stock guys between this guy? What were the things that you used to discern between the guys that had the it factor and those that didn't, right? Because the...

If you take away that, you're breaking down an athlete and stuff. However, this is the thing. That's like when you say the piazzas, right? Someone like Piazza who was drafted really low, then makes it to, he's a success story, right? But I think nowadays what analytics and all that does offer is the ability to play the numbers game. We might miss some, right? But...

Moore to Consider (01:17:31.34)
Yeah.

Moore to Consider (01:17:43.168)
Well, again...

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:17:43.359)
we've got a percentage, we've got a percentage. Because I know some of the old school ways too was to look at the scoreboard and when you're managing you're gonna manage according to the scoreboard, right? What is the score? So in some ways there's still piece of that. But what the old scouts, the wisdom that they shared, is the guy strong in the hands, right? Does he have bat control and bat command? Does he have...

Moore to Consider (01:17:55.797)
Sure. Sure.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:18:10.847)
fight when he's got two strikes, is he battling to stay in that? Can he situationally hit? Are the runners aggressive? Are they actually competing in the running game? Because how many athletes are you seeing that really compete in the running game? Like you said, or you mentioned earlier about the power of the double getting on second base. there, doubles is like the...

Like it's a hidden power number, right? Right? It's a hidden power. Everybody's think, yeah, because I think people think power is just triples and home runs and they forget that doubles is a power number right there. And so I think that when we get greedy with all that other stuff, the VLOs and the big time stuff, right? That's when we forget the impact of that, the consistency of the smaller things, right?

Moore to Consider (01:18:43.22)
Being not on first and being on second is great. Yeah.

No, no. Absolutely.

Moore to Consider (01:19:07.433)
But what I'm saying with the kids too, I got the kids, I talked about earlier, the pitching mills, one of the things they're buying into is what, well, let's just say there are devices out there that measure how much your ball moves vertically, horizontally, and all this kind of stuff. That's all they talk about. I'll tell you what, I was out one time with a father. I'm blowing my own horn, I don't care. I was with the father that I worked with as kid.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:19:24.21)
Yeah. Yeah, there's the.

Moore to Consider (01:19:34.591)
And I saw a kid throw a pitch in a 16 and under tournament, 16 and under. And I was like, well, wait a minute. He goes, Jack, you look like you saw a ghost. And I said, give me one second. And I went behind the plate and I came back and said, the kid's a first rounder. He goes, Jack, he's 16. I'm like, he's a first rounder. He went 14th overall. I saw him throw one pitch from 45 degrees. Oh, wait a minute. Hold the phone. And he honestly was like, what are you talking about? He was throwing 88. I said, he's first rounder. And the guy goes, what are you?

Are you serious? And I'm like, he's first rounder. Jackie six. I don't care. He's 16 or he's six. He's a first rounder. He went 14th overall. And I was talking to one of these kids out there the other said, give me all your little measurements and all this. Here's what I know about a lot of kids. Josh up top, one of them, the guys that I've worked with that were the guys that got to the big leagues, stand at the plate was the last four feet. Now, maybe that's measured by the device, but I could see it. Like if you're scouting and you're like, Oh, I don't care what the gun said.

I honestly got, didn't care if the guns did 92 or 62. You could see some guys and there was an extra that stayed on the path a different way. It had a different life when they're really, really good. It's different. I don't know what you call it exactly. It probably does show up with the kids are being, the kids are being misled because one of them literally, we got a guy right now. He went out the outing the other day, like two innings, and I think he threw 75 pitches. It was something crazy.

And his balls strike ratio strikes to balls was like, I think he had 61 % balls, something, something like that. Talking to him one time, he goes, Hey, I went to one of these places. They said, I got a vertical tilt on my sinker. That's insane. They also said, I need to get it back near the strike zone. Tina, he doesn't throw the ball anywhere near the strike zone, but what he's fixated on is how far the ball moves. I'm like, okay, go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:21:28.538)
So let me just, no, no, there's some amazing technology out there, there is. And even in some of the analytic breakdown of things, there's some amazing stuff out there, right? And if I hadn't done my tech fellowship, then I wouldn't understand some of that stuff. So I do like some of the things that it captures, right? Because it either can be confirmation or it's like some baselining of things.

Moore to Consider (01:21:35.066)
Okay?

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:21:54.06)
It's how it's being used and when it's being used, right? Or even why it's being used, right? So there's the thought process of like, we're gonna use it every day. Or there is like with Kelly Arendt and his philosophy with things is he does it like, he does a testing once a month, you know, or quarterly, right? So when are we looking at this to get the, you know,

capture right to be able to document where we are right because because because eventually well that's what I'm saying like the detriment of feel if you're doing it every day are we developing feel for what we're doing are we just looking at this the screen so back back to the scouting my mentor was phenomenal Charles Peters was in his name and unfortunately he passed away

Moore to Consider (01:22:27.749)
But to what end? But to what end is... Yeah, okay. Right.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:22:50.064)
of COVID, but like literally one of the things he's, you know, in our conversations is like, he goes, Tina, when you're looking at that high school or you're looking at, do they have the tools? Do they have the tools? And then when you look at that college prospect, do they have the performance numbers? Are now are they performing, right? Are they putting, are they utilizing their tools in a way that gets the performance, the outcomes that we want, right? And so like in looking at that, that all makes sense because it,

Moore to Consider (01:23:09.815)
Mm-hmm, I agree with that, yep.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:23:19.64)
puts it in a developmental timeline though. The issue is we've got a rush on getting guys to the major leagues. I'm not sure exactly why, but we've had a rush on getting kids. We've had a rush on growing kids from little toddlers to adults. we literally, at all levels of the game, we are really rushing the development, you know? And I think the patience piece is really missing. And I think that's the unhealthy part of this.

Moore to Consider (01:23:28.718)
Yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:23:51.045)
Just to share another example, I was working with some high school guys the other day and we had the conversation about taking care of your arms and I'm like, okay, well let's think of it this way. How many of you guys drive? And they all raise their hand, they all drive. I'm like, how fast does your vehicle go? And they're like 130, whatever. I'm like, have you maxed out your vehicle yet? And they're like, well coach, we can't really tell you that. And I'm like, this is the thing.

Moore to Consider (01:24:12.483)
Sure.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:24:14.985)
You most likely haven't matched your vehicle out or you don't do it all the time. And this is where when we are in these places where it's just Velo, Velo, Velo, you call them the Velo factories, we're taking young bodies that are still maturing and we're trying to test them on how fast they can go rather than teaching them how the car handles. How does your car handle? And you learn how your car handles.

then you're gonna have a better understanding and a better base and foundation than to layer on the speed, right? And layer on the strength to be able to get the power, the power pitch or power hit. so what happens is we forget a couple of those pieces, right? The balance. Am I going through things biomechanically sound? That's basically technique. It's my technique sound where when I start to speed it up or I start to put a little more exertion into it,

that I'm not hurting myself, right? Because now I'm learning how my body handles. I'm learning how my vehicle handles. know where in relation to space and time, I know where things are, right? I know where that ball is. I know where the barrel of that bat is. I know what my hips are doing and what my feet are doing and where my eyes need to be level, right? So you have an understanding of that, but what we've done is we've...

Moore to Consider (01:25:23.37)
Yeah, yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:25:36.553)
We've started to layer on the speed piece before we've got the strength piece or what you know I think I had a coach that I worked with a good colleague his name was Ernie Arboro and he was a former he was a former professional football player, but he played in the men's game fast pitch he was a pitcher in the men's game and I did some training with him and Parents would always come in and say like when's my girl gonna get Velo increases fat because he tested Velo once a month

When's she gonna get faster? She's like 10 years old. And his answer was great. When she grows. When she grows. He worked in that piece of the puzzle that we need to understand most and that is the time piece, the patience piece of allowing nature, mother nature, to allow the athlete to grow when they grow. It's kind of like looking at that.

that six, four, six, five athlete and be like, wow, you have exactly what we can't teach. And that's growth. We can't teach growth there, right? That's the piece that happens naturally.

Moore to Consider (01:26:41.3)
But here's what I think is the problem. I'm just going to throw it out there and all this running my mouth. I'm just going to throw it out there. Here's what I think is the problem. I really think baseball was better off and probably all of sports. Let's go back 60, 70 years and some of those old guys that I talked to that were in baseball and went on to scout. I think if you're in an environment where all the kids are playing all the time and not training so much, but playing, then the game will naturally self-select.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:26:46.429)
Hahaha

Moore to Consider (01:27:11.136)
out or select in the best players and they'll probably have the best movements and they'll probably do the best things because again I'm out there with 14 pitchers on a college team none of them know how to pitch none of them they've all been to velocity mills they're all reaching back trying to get all the velocity because they're being told it's how hard you throw that matters I know I'm being old man get off my lawn stand that over and over but think about it

And have a friend of mine that teaches hitting. And I think what he mostly does in his movement patterns, he teaches is undo a lot of what the guys, guys and gals have been taught getting there. So it's funny. I have a young man that played professional baseball that I love like a son, think the world of him. And he goes, I don't like what your guy teaches. And he teaches a lot of stuff that I think is very primitive and all this. And he doesn't swing the bat. The kid in question.

Six foot three, 210 pounds, doesn't do any of that. And one day I'm watching him just drop bombs. He's hit home run after he played pro ball. And I'm like, you know, you do everything my friend teaches. No, no, no, I don't. He goes, you don't do any of the things you teach. None. Then I ask him, then I ask him what kind of instructions you get growing up. He goes, basically my dad used to bring me out to a high school field and call me very insulting names when I was 12. If I couldn't hit the ball over the fence.

And I'm like, then think about it in the way God made us. If we feel our life is on the line to produce movements, to achieve an objective, what are you going to do? So the little guy, little girl with the plastic bottle bat and the they get, their eyes get big and they want to hit it over mommy and daddy's head as far as they can. Then we put them on a tee to swing that, you know, and all the other stuff happens. So I said, isn't it interesting that you have the swing patterns that got you into pro ball? You don't do.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:28:37.296)
Yeah.

Moore to Consider (01:29:06.22)
any of the things you teach and you didn't have instruction. Your only instruction was come on blankety blank, hit it over the fence. Stop being a, you know, and you align these movements to lift the ball and hit it a mile and you're 6'3", 2'10". So what I'm saying is I think if kids play the game more and got less instruction, I really think everybody would be better off for it. And once I listen, yeah, no, no, go ahead.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:29:10.63)
You

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:29:31.878)
That was part of the freedom to play, The freedom to play. I spoke with a friend the other day just about development, right? If you think about a child walking, right? When they're walking, we don't really teach them or instruct them how to walk, right? What do we do? We cheer them on, we encourage them, right? And the brain does amazing thing about getting them ready, right?

Moore to Consider (01:29:48.462)
No, exactly, exactly.

Exactly.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:29:59.577)
that child ready to take its first few steps and balance out and so forth, right? And then, and it's a slow process. And then what happens next? Then it layers on strength and speed, right? And then that walk becomes a run, right? And so it's a pretty amazing thing that the brain can do a lot of that. There's times where like a quiet practice is the best thing. And it's hard sometimes as a coach, especially when you're getting paid for it and a parent's expecting you to teach and you're like, I am, I am teaching, I am teaching.

Moore to Consider (01:30:23.482)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I think that's part of the industry problem and we're a part of it. mean, you know, we think we're, love you. And I think we both think we're wonderful people and all that, but we're part of it. But if you've been in the instruction game, you know, it's tough because you do feel supportive. And I do think in large part with like Josh up there on the wall that pitched with three big league clubs, that guy was with him at 11 and then I took him to Tom.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:30:35.428)
Ha ha ha!

Moore to Consider (01:30:52.494)
You know, took him out to Tom at 19 and all these guys are standing like, Holy, who the hell is that guy? You know, he just got drafted in third round, but I always try to get them around good people. He also pitched for Gary LaValle. Gary was 13 years in the big leagues. He had a lot of good people around him, but the more I've been around it, like with these guys I'm working with now, all the mechanical stuff I was taught to teach or kind of felt like all I'm saying now is keep your head level. I don't say anything else.

I don't care what they do around it. I try to get them to quiet the head. And I was talking to a guy the other day, I really like on this. And he said, coach, and I believe this, he was coach, try to get all of them to throw it 80 % effort just over and over, and then we'll speed up the effort, but get out of this hair on fire all the time. gets us nowhere. And I said, that's a great way to approach it. But you know, everything is what we're doing is about, I want you to have intensity in your movements, but

If those movements are made with a quiet head, some things are happening better. If the head goes, you're, you know, as time you stay, you're recruiting strength out of sequence. Something's not sequencing properly and you're going to keep getting the bad results. So I try to simplify it more and more. Honestly, God, as time has gone on, I'm not trying to like your elbows here and your elbow, you know, I don't want them to even think about that, but what they can concentrate on is seeing the plate with level eyes. If they can do that, something's going to get better.

When it comes to hitting with all the complicated things I hear people say about swing, plane, and patterns and all, I was listening to a guy the other day and he goes, hey, simply tell the kids this, if it's a soft toss environment, whatever, where they can really feel this. You see the baseball or softball as it moves in progressively, see more and more of the inside and top. Tell them to hit that. If you're a right-handed hitter, hit the third base side of the ball, period. And all the swing mechanics you're trying to teach will clean up.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:32:17.675)
Great.

Moore to Consider (01:32:46.27)
If their objective is to track the ball in and hit the inside of the ball, don't talk about leading with your hands or knobs, just hit the inside of the ball. You ever play tennis? How much when you play tennis, did you really think of where the knob of your racket was? You know what I mean? You don't go like, go lead the knot. You don't think that way. You think about getting to a position in turning, let it go. Hitting is the same way. It's timing and it's body movement. It's not all the things that I think we teach, which I think are counterproductive.

So anyway, I've got,

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:33:16.096)
I've done a lot of T work and I've utilized the seams both on the vertical and on the parallel. And to me that gives a visual focus. when you can get an athlete to visually focus or getting really that locked in state, think getting locked in focus is a big thing. I think that's one of the things that we struggle with nowadays when we're training because I'll have to say like as I've done private lessons and stuff, the one thing that

Moore to Consider (01:33:21.451)
Yeah!

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:33:44.619)
I want to reassure parents is this, I'm not here to entertain your child or athlete, I'm here to train them. my dad, I think, thought he had trained in Navy SEAL in some ways, I don't know. He was so tough on me. My dad was really tough on me. The coaches he had had me under were tough. And it was funny, it was old school. So this is kind of a funny story because this would not fly nowadays.

Moore to Consider (01:33:59.487)
Right, right.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:34:11.613)
the best team I was on, the California Raiders, I told you I had to coach Phil Bruder, and he coached with his mother-in-law. Think about that. Think about that, right? That coaching dynamic, told you, softball, baseball, they're all full of characters. My head coach coached with his mother-in-law, and she was awesome. And she was this little older lady, and to me she was like Yoda, wrinkly smoker.

Moore to Consider (01:34:20.533)
Wow, that's pretty interesting. Yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:34:39.582)
And she'd get down there in the dirt, she'd kneel down in the dirt and she'd be taking a drag off her cigarette and drawing in the dirt. And she's like, we're gonna run the bases like this. And she's drawing in the bases, right? She was not there to entertain us, she was there to train us, right? And everything about that environment, we did the same things over and over and over again. There was not any creativeness to what we did. was very, very mundane.

work towards mastery. And so it was easy to focus on what we were trying to achieve. And I'm really appreciative of that training. And I can laugh at it now and see the entertainment in it. But at the time, that's what we took serious. But you got to understand too, Jack, when I played, we were still laying the foundation for women's sports. And now you ask me about my time in baseball, I hope that I was

Moore to Consider (01:35:21.639)
Yeah.

Moore to Consider (01:35:32.572)
Yeah, yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:35:37.423)
I hope that I've contributed in some way that's still laying the foundation of women in sports. I don't know what my next step is, but I trust that what I've done and what I'm still doing in the game of baseball will be foundational and impactful in some way. And again, if we're able to help just one or two players achieve their goal at the next level, right? And then teach them some things that they can carry over into real life, then we've done our job as coaches.

Moore to Consider (01:36:07.025)
You know, that's an interesting thing that Tom said. You might've heard Tom say this, but I, there's a guy in Virginia beach, Virginia that played in the Astros organization played at Clemson. He's kind of the infield guru for all these guys from the area that played pro ball. And one time I kind of get the connection and I'm like, well, you were with the Astros probably when my friend house was coaching there. He goes, you know what I loved about that guy? That's the way he goes through BP to me extra every day.

every day. And that's what he said. He's an infielder. So Tom's the pitching guru and he goes, yeah, he threw me BP every day. So the next time I see Tom, I'm like, hey, Tom, was talking to a guy infielder and you know, we're sitting in a group like always with Tom. And I said, you know, this guy really loved you for throwing BP. And he looks around and goes, you know what? I thought about it later. All the guys I came up with, we'd all played in the big leagues or triple A, whatever. We get into coaching and I thought about all the guys.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:36:37.705)
yeah, yeah.

Moore to Consider (01:37:06.32)
that ended up in the big leagues as coaches. We were all the ways the ones that stayed last, stayed last. And in our evals, there'd be a lot of players like, like coach cause he threw me extra BP. He stayed around to hit me ground balls. And he goes, when I thought about it, whether it was positional guys, catching instructors, pitchers, if we stayed around for guys, the longest, we were always the guys that moved. No matter what we knew or taught. He said that he was like,

Maybe we were better teachers and coaches, but the players liked you. If at five and you could get out the gate, you didn't leave. stayed. Or, know, whatever spring training you spent X, but that's funny that my friend that played in the Astros organization first response to you must have been, yeah, he me BP all the time. That was his response. And so what he loved about a pitching coach was that he stayed around and threw to him. And I'm sure if you're.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:37:55.375)
Yeah, right.

Moore to Consider (01:38:04.684)
The decision makers higher up, we got all these coaches, they got different philosophies. Who do the players like? That guy, that guy, that guy. Well, maybe it is the guy that hit extra ground balls, the guy that's stood around and threw BP. Yeah, that kind of makes sense. That would be the ones the players would probably like the most. The guys would put in more time.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:38:22.521)
I think that's the servant part and sacrificial part of coaching, right? Is the willingness to have things prepared, the willingness to stay after and be last. read a book, Leaders Eat Last. I think that as leaders, right, that's one of the things that we're called to do is to, yeah, yeah.

Moore to Consider (01:38:35.332)
That's right.

Moore to Consider (01:38:45.22)
Well, that was the old military thing. The generals would eat last. Yeah. Let everybody else go first. Tina, I'm so happy to have, we're going to do this again. I promise you, we got to do this again very, very soon. Please let everybody know to whatever degree you want to get out information about your teaching and everything. How can people get a hold of you?

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:39:02.992)
probably through my email at Plewlock.com. And that is P as in Paul, L-E-W-L-O-C-K at iCloud.com.

Moore to Consider (01:39:06.041)
Okay.

Moore to Consider (01:39:15.222)
Okay. And you're doing a lot of instruction to this day, right? You're still doing some instruction though. Gotcha. Okay.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:39:18.36)
I'm rebuilding right now. I'm rebuilding right now. I'm off the grid in Idaho and just getting ready to get started in a new community. So I'm rebuilding. I had all my clients and the young people that I was working with in South Carolina and now I'm in Idaho. So I'm rebuilding.

Moore to Consider (01:39:38.434)
Okay, we'll definitely stay in touch and we'll cover the Kennedy assassination on our time together about what you think actually happened there. So for all the Moore to consider listeners, we thank Tina Whitlock for being with us today and love to have you back again very soon.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:39:43.334)
Yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:39:48.695)
Yeah.

Christina “Tina” Plew Whitlock (01:39:57.193)
Thank you, Jack.