Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Big Dumper Keeps On Dumping

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

In hour one, Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports (3:00), plus they talk the pressures of youth baseball and parenting with MLB writer Hannah Keyser (25:12). This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. You're listening to Halford and Brough. The three-two on the way to Cal, swing and a well-hit ball, deep to left field, headed to the upper deck, stay fair, upper deck, good-five baseball, number 50. Cal Raleigh. First pitch, and that is jumps on it. And he sends this one on a rocket to right field. It's gone.

Solo shot for Mr. Bumblehead. Good morning, Maker. 601 on a Tuesday. Happy Tuesday, everybody. It's Halford. It is rough. It is Sportsnet 650. We are coming you live from the Kintech Studios and beautiful Fairview slopes in Vancouver.

Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adon, good morning to you. Good morning. And Liddy, good morning to you as well. Hello, hello. Halford and Brough of the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Learn how a consumer proposal could get you on the road to being debt-free in just two weeks.

Visit them online at sands-trustee.com. We are coming to live from the Kintech Studio, Kintech, Footwear, and Orthotics, working together with you in step. Got a lot to get into on the program today on a Tuesday. Guest list today begins at 6.30. Hannah Kaiser is going to join the program. Freelance baseball writer with a recent piece for the New York. Times titled, How Fast Should Your 12-year-old Throw? And the answer is 78.

At a minimum, you loser. Why are you not at 80 yet? This is actually kind of a dovetail off the conversation we've had, not just yesterday, but a lot because we're both involved in youth sports. It's a baseball story that Hannah wrote, but it's also a parenting story. We don't go back to a simpler time in youth sports anymore. Everything's about more training and more coaching. and more specialization and more money. I'm making the money sign with my hands.

And that's kind of what this entire article is about. She's spent a lot of time writing it for the New York Times. So I'm excited to talk to her at 6.30 this morning. And it's about the risk of pushing your kid to throw harder and harder in baseball and the injuries that are associated with it. But I think, like Halford says, this is almost a story about all of you sports these days because a lot of the reasons that these kids are throwing harder, and harder is because they've got private coaches telling them how to do it and pushing them

and the coaches are aware that there are injury risks but in a lot of the cases the kids just want to throw harder because it's it's cool and that honestly there's a social media contingent to it too right like I'm going to put my numbers out there and compare them to others so we're going to talk to hand at 630 about her most recent piece in the new york times and then at 730 we're going to probably have a larger scale of conversation about one of our favorite subjects, and that's youth sports, as they currently exist. 7 o'clock this morning,

Luke Fox is going to join the program. NHL writer from SportsNet. There's still six RFAs. Oh, they're twisting in the wind, still unsigned. The two big ones, obviously, both have connections to the Vancouver Canucks. Luke Hughes in New Jersey,

Mason McTavish in Anaheim. We can also talk to Luke about what's gone on lately with the Toronto Maple Leafs. A lot of people and his former teammates of Mitch Marner reminiscing about his time in Toronto. So we'll talk to Luke about all that. at 7 o'clock. At 8 o'clock, Julio Caravetta is going to join the program. He, of course, is one half of the BC Lions' play-by-play team with the Moj. Even more breakdown of the Lions'clock of 34 loss in Toronto. Over the weekend, we'll look ahead to what lies for the Lions into their bye week before they come out with back-to-back games against Ottawa. So working in reverse on that guest list, 8 o'clock, it's Julio Caravetta. 7 o'clock, it's Luke Fox, 630, Hannah Kaiser, for a little baseball talk and use sports talk. That's what's happening on the program today.

Laddie, let's tell everybody what happens. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was... We know how busy your life can be. What happened?

Missed it? You missed that? What happened? What happened is brought to you by? The BC Construction Safety Alliance. Making safety simpler by giving construction companies the best in tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at BCCCSA.ca.ca.

So Laddie started off the intro with some big dumper highlights And then as we were talking I realized that we're going to start with baseball But not with the Toronto Blue Jays We're going to start with the Seattle Mariners And people say You know we're married to our corporate overlords

You know We're making the executive decision To go with the Seattle Mariners Because of what happened We've just lost the radio feed by the way We've just Completely cut out Not on the air anymore.

Is that Green Day? What's going on here? Cal Rally hit his major league leading 50th home run. Yesterday, Jorge Polanco drove in four. The Mariners be one of the best teams in the National League, the San Diego Padres, 9 to 6 on Monday night in Seattle. And now this is what Lattie, this was the important thing that you did, is you told me we're not going to play the call that I sent along.

You instead found the Rick Riz call on the radio last night. Love Rick Riz. Cal Raleigh's historic home run. Here's what it sounded like. Like last night, the big dumper goes yard for his MLB leading 50th home run of the year. The 3-2 out of the win of Cal, swinging a well hit ball, deep to left field, heading to the upper deck, stay fair, upper deck, goodbye, baseball, number 50 for Cal Raleigh. He becomes one of only 33 members of the 50 home run club,

and he reaches the upper deck like he did with home run number 48. yesterday. 49 he crushed off the out of town scoreboard and the magical season just continues for Cal Raleigh. Holy smokes, what a shot. So we have been. It's going to be sad when Aaron Judge wins the MVP. Okay. So there's a conversation we have. Laddy and I were having this conversation too. So I said I looked at a couple of the betting markets this morning. Judge is still the favorite. Judge is still the favorite. Yeah. And it's interesting because yesterday at MLB.com, they pulled, I think it was about 50 of their riders and Rally got the quote-unquote votes from the writers

but by a narrow margin on MLB.com. So it is a tight race, right? I mean, the odds. It is a tight race. And put it this way. I understand why Judge is firmly in the mix and in the betting markets in the lead. He had an unbelievable towards start to the first half of the season.

He still leads the majors in a lot of categories. And as you astutely pointed out, maybe it's the batting average that's going to end up edging. him over Cal Rally. Has it ever been an MVP that's hit under 250? I don't think there has. And judges it 323, which is very impressive these days.

Now, you suggested earlier that the catchers traditionally have never really been MVP candidates for a myriad of reasons. I kind of think that this should be in his favor going forward this year. If you talk to anyone in that Mariners

Clubhouse and I was watching some video last night, the guys say like, he plays beat up and banged up all the time and he's not just playing well in spite of the physical stress of the position what he's doing is historic so right now he

and Mickey Mantle like let's put this in perspective there's two switch hitters in AL history to have hit 50 home runs this Cal Rally and Mickey Mantle that is pretty elite company to be in and I think he's the only one that's got more than 20 home runs from each side

Yeah, and eighth player in MLV history to get to 50 home runs while the calendar is still in August. So we're talking about a historic season that he's having here. When I put that up against Judge, who's having a great year, I just kind of feel like this might be the year where you have to recognize what he's done. By the way, you're still not sold. No, I don't think you can lower the standard just because he's a catcher. You can't put him higher just because of the position. Well, listen to me for a second. Yeah, I'm listening.

In hockey, if toll on your body was taken into account, would a goalie not be up at the top for MVP every year? I love how you, I knew you were going that direction. Well, no, that's the angle you're taking here. I know. And the thing would be is that I think he would end up probably having the lowest batting average of an MVP in MLV history. By quite a wide margin, I would think. He's under 250, right? That's something that you have to consider.

Whatever the case. I am very, very excited at the prospect of a postseason where we've got the Mariners who aren't quite there yet, but they're looking good. And this is a not necessarily a pivotal series in terms of the standings because it's interleague play, but Potteries are good team. Potters are one of the 570 plus win teams in the National League. They've got big bats

across the line. We've got a good bullpen. So the Mariners getting that series off on the right foot and winning that one, that's a big one for them. Is there a potential for a Mariners, Yankees, wildcard series? Yeah, which would be pretty great. Having the two MVP candidates going like head to head there, that'd be pretty awesome. Judge goes crazy in the series. Everyone's

like, wow, he is good. We should change our votes. Is it too late to go back? So that was the first half of the baseball story yesterday. Mariners beat up on the Padres and Cal Rally goes for 50. The other one yesterday, obviously, the Toronto Blue Jays. Max Scherzer goes six wins his third straight start. Alejandro Kirk and Andres Jimenez on Jimenez Bobblehead night, both Homer.

Jays beat the twins, 10, 4 on Monday night. Let's hear the call from Dan Shulman on the Jimenez bomb, which made it 5-0 and stood up as the game-winning run for the Jays, who went on to, win 10 to 4. Crowds. And he gets into one. And this ball is gone. Have yourself a night.

He got every bit of that. And on his bubblehead night, he hits it out to make it five to nothing. So Jays are now 132 games played of 162 this year. They got 30 games left in the season. They're making the playoffs. They're at 99.8 or maybe even 99.9% likelihood to make it right now. Five games up on the Sox for the best record in the ALE East. One game back of Detroit for the best record in the AAL.

Five games back in Milwaukee for the best record in baseball. All this adds up to a team where I'm trying to start to look ahead and see how realistic it is for them to be a legitimate World Series contender. Because I think a lot of people think this is a good, solid baseball. baseball team in the regular season, but I don't know how many people are picking them to be a legitimate World Series contender right now. Laddie, who's your MVP of the Jays? And where would that player rank in the league?

Man, it's so tough because you look at the, even like the war leader board on the Jays. I think Vladdy's got up there. Yeah, but it's mainly because of his walks and getting on base and not because of the power. I don't know if there's a singular person. like Springer was I think my shot earlier in the season he was great he was great but he wasn't carrying the team yeah there isn't a single player I think you can point to other than maybe the pitching staff as a whole they've been pretty good like everyone's been pretty good like that's just how it's been this year right what would you what would you rather have a team like that or a team that's carried by a few real stars you want the one like especially in baseball you want the one player in the moment, but I think overall you'd rather have the solid top to bottom team. I like the way that

they're constructed now because they play better baseball. They make fewer mistakes, they make fewer hours, they play better defense. They do everything at a higher level than they have in years past, where especially when it came down to singular crunch moments in the playoffs, they'd kind of puke all over themselves, right? Especially the base running against

the twins was the one we were talking about yesterday. So yesterday was a good example of what the Jays are kind of about. It was like the Jimenez show, right? I know he went yard, but he also, he had two hits on the night, got a walk, stole a base. No one for his glove, but why not? But that's a thing, right? It's like they get different guys stepping up all the time. And while those guys maybe don't have the consistency, the team has that consistency where it's always someone else putting forth one of these really good

individual performances. I think it bodes well for the playoffs. But again, I go back to what we were talking about yesterday, you need more of the singular power at bats, I feel in the playoffs and they just don't they manufacture runs more than they blast runs if that makes sense right i know i'm putting this down to like the most basic terminology imaginable but i wonder if that's going to cost them in the postseason well i mean the most important thing for them right now is to clinch that buy get past the wild card and let some pretty good teams battle it out well you want home field too well that's the other look at the road record it's 500 so they want that way advantage you know i have to say when i'm watching that big dumper homer

yesterday. Too many empty seats in Seattle. I know. I know. Jays are playing in front of 41,000 yesterday. It's loud. It's raucous. The twins broadcasts, all they could talk about was how full of Jay's built. Yeah, yeah. And how amazing that sounded. In the atmosphere. Yeah. Yeah. See, now that's, that's interesting because, like, another thing to consider is that if you can get homefield advantage throughout enough of the plus, like, they've won 30 of their last 39 games at home. And throughout the year, they've shown, like, it's a tough place to play. They do well at home. the other thing that we should consider is that they've had a really good run of health

like injury-wise this year I know like Varsho and Santanderer of missed time but outside of that like the pitching staff has been relatively healthy That was another point I wanted to make when you have a team that's built like this where you have players contributing all through the lineup doesn't really matter if one guy goes down

like Springer just went down for you know a couple weeks so it didn't even make a blip on how the Jays were doing Vladdy heard his hamster Vladdy's been out the last couple games just got back in there Okay. I do want to turn our attention now to the National Football League. It was a very busy day yesterday. So today is NFL roster cut down day. So there's going to be a lot of news as well. But yesterday, I cannot believe the amount of time and effort and energy that the entire world is spent about the third and fourth string quarterback situation in Cleveland. But we're going to do it again. We're going to do it again. So yesterday, the Cleveland Browns traded Kenny Pickett to the Las Vegas Raiders. We'll get to the Raiders side of this story in a second. But. The bigger story now is what it does to the Cleveland Browns quarterback room, most specifically, Shadur Sanders. So Pickett was supposed to be the number two in Cleveland.

He goes to Vegas. What it means is that Joe Flacco is still the starter. Dylan Gabriel is still going to be the number two. What does it mean for Shadur Sanders? I've got some audio here from Tony Grossi from ESPA in Cleveland talking about what it means for that number three spot and what it means specifically for Shadur Sanders and that number three spot, which is basically a roster spot. At this point, here's Tony Grossi from ESP and Cleveland on the latest for the Browns quarterback room. Now, what does this mean about QB3?

Will the Browns trust Shador Sanders in that role? Or might they bring back Tyler Huntley? I don't know. But they feel their incompetent hands with Joe Flacco, who's an Iron Man, and Dylan Gabriel, again, who has proven he's advanced enough to start his rookie season as a number two quarterback. Here's how I want this to play out. I'm listening. I want the Browns to be really good, but only if it's Joe Flacco,

bawling out at quarterback at 40 years old, keeping both young guys on the sidelines. How amazing would that be? I would love to see it. Flacco's hilarious. he's so old he's so old even for the standards of the earth

he's old right I mean he's he will be for in January he will be 41 years old when I know the playoffs will be on and the Browns will probably not be in them but he'll be 41 years old and the fact that he's been called off the couch and basically

out of retirement to revive his career and all that stuff is great I have a really hard time seeing him thrive yeah me too I have a really hard time that's why I want to see it But I also have a really hard time seeing him stay healthy.

Yeah. I know that Tony Grossey called him an Iron Man there. And I was like, he played like six games last year for the Colts. And like, good on them for getting through it. But it is remarkable, though, the amount of time that this is a radio show in Vancouver that has no particular affiliation with the Cleveland Browns, aside from sat liking them. And the amount of time that we've talked about, Shadur Sanders, the potential third quarterback on what's going to be one of the worst teams in the NFL, it's remarkable. It's remarkable, but it speaks to, one, the ecosystem in the NFL, but the power that that brand, that surname,

and what Dion and him built at Colorado and what it has now. And also just how they go about their business, I think. Right. And it's a foregone conclusion that if he makes the roster, he's going to be the third quarterback. So again, we are talking about the three, the QB3 on one of the worst teams in the NFL. Don't forget, you got the president in the United States involving himself

in this discussion as well because Dion is a supporter of him. Right? Yeah. And I think there's just, I mean, there's probably some people in the culture wars that are a little bit confused here. Like, is this a race thing or is this a mega thing?

I don't know which way to go. I don't know what's going on here. Which side is the woke side? I don't even know anymore. I'm so confused. Okay. So I mentioned that the Las Vegas Raiders had to go out and get a backup quarterback.

Do they go to Cracker Barrel? Yeah. Why did they change it? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? I need someone to tell me. So the Raiders yesterday were super busy. They got a new backup quarterback because Aidan O'Connell has hurt. And I've been paying close attention to this story because they've got such ties to the

Seattle Seahawks with Pete Carroll now as their head coach and Gino Smith now as their quarterback. So their number one receiver, Jacoby Myers. I'm going to bang through this as quick as we can here. He wants a trade out of Vegas. notes versions or he's in the last year of his deal. He's their leading receiver, like so many guys that are coming to the end of their contracts and want to get paid with the risk of getting hurt and no contract certainty. He's like, pay me. I'm your best player. So the Raiders responded by signing free agent wide receiver on Mari Cooper. Now, I don't know if this was to strengthen the wide receiving group or whether it was a panic move to make sure that they were, you know, not going to have any good receivers if Myers was eventually to get his trade request filled. Whatever the case, it's not great for Pete Carroll going into his first year on the job with the Raiders. They've got Gino Smith, who say what you will about his ability to, like, lead a team to real title contention, which I don't think he's capable of.

He still puts up really good numbers in the regular season, right? He's good for about- What would you say the big weaknesses with Gino, just the big mistake? Yeah. Make some dumb plays. He does. I mean, his red zone decisions were tough. there was a lot of

whenever the offense didn't go right it always felt like it was a Gino issue even though the offensive line was horrific and he was running for his life half the time and they went through offensive coordinators with pretty good regularity and D.K. Metcalfe was clearly an issue

both on the field and then with his attitude so I think when history is kind of retold later I do wonder if we're going to look back on that time and say you know Gino was actually a way better quarterback back than everyone gave him credit for for his time in Seattle. And the other two deals yesterday that got done in the NFL, Trey Hendrickson, one of the best pass rushers in football. He got an extension.

So his hold in, that's a very NFL term. That's where you show up and you go through all the work, but you don't really do it all that hard. It's kind of like what we do every morning. Right. Yeah, we've been holdings for a lot. Yeah, that sounds super familiar.

Yeah. Holding in for years here. We have not, however, gotten any sort of pay raise. Trey Hendrickson got $14 million for it. So he is now back and good on the Bengals for getting all of these contractual situations that kind of hung over them for the majority of the preseason and the exhibition campaigns done with. They're a really interesting team. I went and looked today.

And speaking of quarterbacks that are getting old, Joe Burrow is going to turn 30 this season. Yeah. He's going to turn 30 in December. His body will turn 48. That's, I mean, you look at a guy who has had. a really tough go at the start of an NFL career that was late getting bloom because he spent so long in college. He's in a conference where you've got Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, and Josh Allen, all

to get through if you want to get to a Super Bowl. He has done that and gotten to a Super Bowl. But if you look at it now, like the window, even though Joe Burrow is not that old and hasn't been in the NFL that long, it does feel like it's shrinking a little bit. So it wasn't it also feel like he has taken so much. A lot of some of it, some of it, his fault holding onto the ball, but a lot of it is just past protection. Offensive line issues and them not investing around the franchise icon and like the best player that they've got. Now all their respect to Jamar Chase and everything, but

God, I hope the Seahawks offensive line is, is improved this season. I've been reading a lot about people are optimistic. I've been reading a lot about the Seahawks offense. I sent you that article last night that they've got like a specific run package design for Jalen Milro. Like I they drafted out of Alabama. Like I'm very curious to see how this works because it feels like between McDonald and Kubiak, they know that they don't have like a lot of talent on offense and it knows as coaches it's almost going to force them

to get really creative to create offense because I don't think they're going to score a lot though. Yeah, and here's the thing. They don't really have great at any position. You could say that Smith and Jigba's maybe getting to that level, but he's not there yet. Yeah. Everyone else is in the hall of good.

and that can get you like Not even very good in a lot of cases They're fine And fine, the Hall of Fine They got a lot of Hall of Fine guys And their offensive line is going to be better But it's not great So I'll be very curious to see

If they're able to really like manufacture things out of nothing like Trick plays Really like advanced design stuff on offense To try and get points on the board Well If their offensive line is good Then I'm not sure they'll have to resort to that

too much, just run the ball and let the defense carry it. We'll see. Okay, we got a lot more to get to on the program today. Coming up, we're going to talk to Hannah Kaiser. So she is a freelance baseball writer and has a recent piece in the New York Times titled, How Fast Should Your 12-year-old Throw? Now, don't let the title throw you off. This is also a article that goes well beyond baseball and about youth sports, parenting, sports specialization. A lot of things that Bruff and I talk about on a regular basis, given our involvement with youth sports. And a lot of, I'm assuming our listeners right now have had involvement with as well,

either with their kids or maybe, you know, they coach at a variety of different levels. It's very interesting where we're at as a society between social media, the specialization of sport and the pressures that a lot of really young athletes are under, not just to specialize on one sport, but to excel at those sports. So we'll talk to Hannah Kaiser coming up next, her most recent piece in the New York Times. How fast should your 12-year-old throw?

We'll go over that with her coming up next on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet, 650. 631 on a Tuesday. Happy Tuesday, everybody. Halford Brough, Sportsnet, 650. Halford and Brub of the morning is brought to by Sands and Associates, V.C.'s first and trusted choice for debt help with over 3,000 5-star reviews. This is them online at sands dash trustee.com.

Let's go now to the Power West Industries hotline. Our next guest is a freelance. baseball writer with a recent piece for the New York Times titled How Fast Should Your 12-year-old Throw? Hannah Kaiser joins us now on the Halford and Brough Show on SportsNet 650. Good morning, Hannah. How are you?

I'm good. How are you? We're good. Thanks for taking the time to do this today. We appreciate it. So in framing this piece and I was following along on your timeline, you wrote that this is a baseball story but it's also a parenting story. And myself and Jason, we're immediately drawn to it because we've coached a lot of youth sports

heavily involved in them. And a lot of the things that you wrote about were pretty applicable to the stuff that we've gone through through U-Sports. My question to start is, what was the inspiration for you for wanting to go out and research and write this piece? Well, I became a parent myself.

I could try to make it sound smarter than that, but it really is. I covered baseball for a long time and majorly baseball. And one of the things that I sort of ambiently picked up on in covering baseball was this sense that, like,

you know kids these days they're not learning to pitch right like you hear it from older former pitchers a lot of times guys who are maybe broadcasters now and they'll say like you know back in my day we didn't care we didn't you know we weren't selling out for velocity we were learning how really really pitch and that that kind of seeped in and i that became kind of my understanding of like oh okay yeah kids these days they don't learn to pitch right and then i became a parent my son is only one years old so he's not throwing anything yet except you know banana off the high chair. But I started to think about how tricky it must be to be a parent whose kids are pursuing really any youth sports these days, but especially things like major league

baseball and pitching, because the ecosystem is just completely different from what I grew up with and certainly from what people older than you grew up with. And so I wanted to think about, like, if you consume enough baseball content to know that pitching, it's become really dangerous, it's become really specialized, that guys there, you know, Jacob de Grob, if he didn't throw so hard, maybe he wouldn't blow out his elbow all the time. But then if you become a parent, like, how are you supposed to kind of incorporate that understanding into how you genuinely raise your kid, which they're going to want to be the best they can be as quickly as they can be because that's how everyone feels, especially when they're growing up.

One of the lines you had in your story that really stuck with me was you wrote, in some ways, the most dangerous part about programs designed to help youth pitchers throw harder is that they work. And, you know, you're talking to a couple of Canadians here. So I've coached hockey and up here in Canada, and parts of the United States, too. Like, there is a lot of expense. that goes into hockey. There's private lessons.

There's special clubs that you can join. And again, it's really expensive. But then you look at the players and you're like, well, that kid is pretty good. Like he's getting a lot of intensive coaching and he's getting really good. So as a parent, how do you balance that where, you know, you're tempted to try and get your kids the best. experience, but maybe it's not always for the best long term. Yeah, I mean, that line was a riff on something that a youth coach said to me. I talked to so many people for this story who I didn't get to include because I really

wanted to understand it holistically. I worked on this story for months and I talked to like truly so many more people than actually ended up quoted in the final piece. And Kyle Snyder, the Ray's pitching coach, who is quoted. it. I think he actually really gave me the best answer. I wanted to kind of get to the point where I wasn't just hearing people reiterate the problem because a lot of people, like, one of the things that's been really remarkable about this piece is that so many people are like, this is exactly like my experience, whether or not their kid

is a baseball player or a hockey player or a mountain biker. I talked to a dad yesterday who's kids do mountain biking, and he was like, this feels reflective reason of my experience. But Kyle's not going to raise pitching coach, what he told me and his sort of full explanation didn't necessarily make the final piece because we're telling a story in the New York Times was it has to be really specific to your kid and their specific development and whether or not they need training to reach the next level. So we'll circle back to why that's not always the case. And of course, that gets into the expense because you have to be able to afford to get these individualized and reputable coaches, but Kyle Snyder talked about

how, like, yes, these programs work, and so you may want to pursue some sort of weighted ball training or biometric type stuff, but it has to be tailored to, first of all, just your kids' physical maturity, kids don't hit puberty always at the same age, and you really need to be careful about, like, weight training and anything kind of with weights before they hit puberty. But then also he was saying it should be really tailored to whether or not they genuinely need that to make the jump to whatever the next level is. It's going to allow them to continue on in their whatever sports journey they're on.

And if they don't need it, you don't need to be doing it because it's like they don't, the real problem becomes the feeling that you have to be the best at 12 if you're going to get noticed for the coaching. you would need to be good at 16, good at 18, good at 25. And so Kyle's advice was really like, hey, be honest about like, at 12, is he good enough that he's getting noticed that he's, or she, it's a girls who do sports as well, are they getting noticed by the coaches who are going to give them future opportunities? And if they are, they don't need to max out necessarily their 12-year-old ability.

They just need to sort of be able to keep progressing. So that's the actual, like, actionable piece of advice that I didn't necessarily get to write that I thought was really interesting. But that is, you know, that goes hand in hand with the expense part of it, which is becoming a professional athlete, becoming a college athlete, becoming a good high school athlete is getting crazy expensive because there are kids who are going to do that, who are going to get that individualized training and be really careful in how they kind of move up level to level. And so it becomes this literal arms race to try to keep up with them. Well, it also comes at the expense of playing other sports. And, you know, I'm curious how often the notion of specialization and doing the one sport and dropping the others came up with kids who are 11, 12, and 13 years old. And specialization down to just pitching, which I think is also a concern.

And, yeah, that, I mean, certainly there were parents I spoke to who, we're trying to keep their kids from specializing, it does become, yeah, it's right, whether or not they're playing just one sport, but also are they play, how much are they playing that sport? If they're doing the perfect game tournaments on the weekend, are they also playing on a travel ball team? Are they also playing on a high school team or a middle school team? Like, the specialization is an issue, but I think maybe even more so the issue is like

how much baseball they're packing. in every year, even if they are doing other things as well. Tell us about Perfect Game, because some people up in Canada might not know about Perfect Game, which you describe as a youth baseball behemoth that provides a platform for youth athletes and a database for scouts. Perfect Game is a company, it's a for-profit company, that runs tournaments and showcases and then has a, you know, a digital footprint that logs and ranks. It's like, you know, baseball reference or fan graphs for kids.

You can look up their velocity. You can look at videos of them. You can see their percentiles. And it's, it's, there's a lot of concern, first of all, that it is one turning things like velocity into these. rankable metrics. And those rankable metrics become the things that kids are

obsessed with because they can use it to compare themselves to everyone else in their age cohort around the country. And that's dangerous. Like that is just sort of objectively speaking a dangerous way for a child to be thinking about their own athletic development is

to be reduced down to one single number and then see that number in juxtaposition to everybody else everywhere. And then the other concerns is, right, it's like a, it's a, it's gatekeeping. It's expensive, not just the participation itself, but traveling to these events can become expensive. Even if one of the kids who I featured does really well, gets noticed by some national travel teams and they, they pay for a lot of stuff, but they don't pay necessarily for the travel. If you still do have to be able to

get there and your parents have to be able to take the time to take you to these perfect game events, but it's unavoidable. It's inescapable at this point. I thought this was so interesting. I genuinely at this point can't remember if it got cut from the final draft or not, but I had a detail in there about how perfect games, Instagram and TikTok, or touting how like the first 57 or something drafties at the most recent Major League draft had all participated in Perfect Game. And of course, it's not true that everyone who participates in Perfect Game gets drafted, just that nearly everyone who gets drafted, participates a perfect game, but it's tough to get around that at this point because

it's made the process much easier. And the same way that kids can look at who's the best in the country, who's throwing the hardest, so can scouts, so can teams, so can colleges. So it's become this a little bit of a dangerous but unavoidable fixture that serves there's a little bit of a barrier between amateur baseball and both college and pro baseball. We're speaking with Hannah Kaiser, who's written a great article for the New York Times on youth baseball. And one of the things you touch on is the actual injuries that are occurring. Tell us a little bit about why there is a risk in having your kids throw hard as teenagers

and maybe add in a little bit about all the Tommy John surgeries that are happening to kids that are still in a high school, I guess. Yeah, I mean, if you watch baseball at all, you know Tommy John surgeries, elbow injuries have become, I think even MLB itself calls it an epidemic at this point. I think last off-season MLB put out a big study there. They are trying to wrap their hands around why it feels like, Not even why it feels like, but what to do about the fact that modern pitching seems heavily correlated with elbow injury.

What of, I thought, the most important quotes in the piece came from Mets pitching coach, Jeremy Haffner, who said, essentially, we don't know how to keep the big leagher safe. And that, to me, really crystallized wanting to do this story, because I think parents want so much, of course they do, to keep their kids safe. Even parents who are sending their kids to every perfect game tournament in the country and they're doing all this training, they want their children to be safe. And they think that they are, they believe that they are following a safe path, that they're trying to be careful. And so it was really sort of sobering to hear a major league pitching coach say, even at the major league level where not only, you know,

they like these guys, they want them to stay healthy, but there's a lot of money invested in these pitchers. There's a lot riding on keeping these guys. healthy and even with all the science and information and investment in major league baseball, we still can't keep these pictures safe. It is simply a reality that throwing max effort repeatedly puts a lot of stress on your elbow and your UCL and oftentimes that results in a tear and then you need Tommy John surgery to repair it. And part of the concern with kids doing this training younger in life and getting these surgeries younger is that, I'm you seeing this with

Shohayotani, for example, is that coming back from a second Tommy John surgery, it's much less of a sure thing. So one Tommy John surgery, you'll probably be able to come back. Of course, kids don't necessarily have the same rehab facility and oversight as major leaguers, but you can probably come back from one Tommy John surgery and get back to where you were. But if you're getting that Tommy John surgery at like 16, are you going to be able to go the rest of your career? If you seriously have the skill to pursue pitching at a professional level and you have a Tommy John surgery in high school, you're essentially already on the clock because the next one, that recovery is going to be more difficult and more unpredictable. So that's really the risk

of getting a younger. Also just that this is major surgery. I think as it pertains to professionals and adults who are undertaking this willingly, who, you know, have guaranteed contracts and we're providing for their families with their pitching, we can sometimes see Tommy John surgery as almost just like a right of passage. It happens to pitchers at some point. But one of the things that I took away from talking to the kids themselves, because you've had Tommy John, but also kids who've had other injuries, is that, like, when you're a kid, it's a real bummer to be missed an entire baseball season. You guys have kids.

You said you coach, like a year is a long time to a kid, and rehab is boring, and it's difficult, and it makes it difficult to do other athletics. It makes it difficult to, you know, like, if you're not rehabbing in a professional setting, and it's not your job to rehab, then rehab can be a real drain. It's not as much fun as playing baseball with your friends, and if you don't do it well,

then you won't necessarily come back like you were before. The article is how fast should your 12-year-old throw? It's in the New York Times right now. As Jason said, Hannah, it's an awesome piece, extremely well-written and researched. I encourage everyone to go read it, and I want to thank you, Hannah, for taking the time to do this this morning. We really appreciate it.

Thank you so much Hannah Kaiser from the New York Times freelance baseball writer How fast should your 12 year old throw a lot of feedback into the Dunbar Lumber text message in basket on this one Well I mean

The most recent example If we're talking about Tommy John Is Shane Bieber He had Tommy John And then people were like Oh I wonder how he's going to be And the Jays made a bet That he was going to recover nicely

From Tommy John And based on his first start For the Jays It looks pretty good, but it was a total wildcard. Now imagine that when you're like 17 or 18 years old. Right. Shane Bieber is 20 or he's 30. He's 30, right?

Yeah, so there's a big difference there. And Hannah astutely pointed out there, like, it's Shane Bieber's job to rehabilitate from Tommy John surgery. That's not the same for a youth athlete. They have other things to do like school and being a kid or being a teenager. And it's a very different landscape. But there's a lot that goes into that conversation beyond the arm health and everything. One thing I find is that people outside of youth sports become very opinionated without really knowing the experience of youth sport and having your kid right smack in the middle of it.

You know, they'd be like, well, I would never do that for my kid. you know i would never join the kind of rat race around youth sports because you know we wouldn't do that as a family oh yeah wait till you're in the rat race you know rep tryouts are starting right now yep in hockey and i think there are a lot of parents right now that are kind of like i i really want my kid to make this team and it's not it's not it's not i mean for some parents it's for them right Their ego is way too tied up in their kid But the other one is like I want my kid to be playing with his friends

Or I don't I don't want my kid to get cut I think that's a big one You know? I think that's a big one Now Because getting cut is is hard And yes it's it's necessary in some ways Listen I was cut from teams and didn't destroy me

The Canox has destroyed me But you get cut once and it's all the same after that Right? Yeah yeah You get used to the feeling You do get used to it. Adog was cut from his hacky sack league. Yeah, I was really tough because the guy was super high when he cut you.

And he's like, what was your name again? I get out of here. You can come back if you want. That's kind of like cutting. I was preemptively cut from most sports teams. So, okay. They did an advance. They just look at you walking in.

Like, what do you get out of here? The entire youth sports industry and complex is essentially based on that one fear. The driving force has to be something that would force parents to do something that they would otherwise be like, this is insanity, having my kid going to a specialized pitching coach 12 hours a week so that he can throw his arm off, even though he's 5'1 and weighs 110 pounds. There is an inherent fear among parents with their kid getting cut because what it says is so many different things. And you can't boil it down to just one. It's it.

your kid's not good enough your kid won't belong your kid's going to miss out your kid's going to be held back these are all like very concerning things at a parental level that go beyond sports you don't want your kid to ever

experience that if you can help them avoid it and that's why I say from an outside perspective people are like well you have to let them fail right you know and we've said that before you know and then you sit with them

and you fail in their failure and it's all part of you know growing up as a person you can't be graded everything. Right. But it's also like, yeah, I still don't want to get it. I don't want them to be cut. And the flip side of that is that there's an entire part of the industry and complex that

profits off that dynamic. Absolutely. Because. The anxiety of it. Right. Because what, I mean, and I'm not trying to say that everyone that runs an academy or a clinic. Don't want to fall behind. They are, whether they're doing it subconsciously or not, they're leveraging off that fear of,

well, what if I. What if my kid doesn't make it? And, you know, parents have that conversation all the time about everything in life. What I'm if they don't do well in school? One of them's if they don't do well socially. What's what they don't adjust? So you apply that fear to, you know, the sports.

And suddenly there's a bunch. And it is a griff to a certain degree where all the- Is it fear of the truth, though? Part of it is. Here's the thing, though. If there's a buck to be made, who might argue with someone? Like, it's not the worst thing on earth is to work with young athletes to try and get them to be the best that they can be.

Right? To try and say, hey, I have a wealth of knowledge. And I know how to do this one thing particularly well. I can help your kid do it. Now, I think that there's something a little greasy about the ones that will promote the positives without giving the reality as well, which is like you can't, I mean, for example, there's a, in the soccer sphere, there's a couple of academies that, you know, are very clearly. One of them has it in the name, like there's almost a promise or an understanding that what they're doing is will lead to being a professional. And I think if you're going to do that and you're going to have that in your marketing and in your name and everything else, you should probably give everyone the percentages of the likelihood that it actually is,

even if your kid is the best 12 year old right now. Oh, no, no. That's showing weakness. Right? You can't do that. And that's what I'm saying is like you have to understand that there's hundreds of thousands, millions of children doing this across the country, across the hemisphere, and then the world. and the percentages are so small and so tiny. Even if you're the best of what you're doing at 12

and the best of what you're doing at 13, I think what a lot of people don't understand it is there's a lot of other kids just like that all over the place. And to capitalize on the parents of those kids, it can be greasy at times without question. And I'm sure you see this all the time in hockey. I'm sure you see it all the time. Absolutely.

Right? Because you coach goalies. It's a very specialized position. It's more, more, more, right? They want you on the ice more, doing more, going to more coaches. But what we've seen from this conversation that you just had with Hannah Kaiser,

and from my experience, I interviewed the doctor that worked on Thatcher Demko's hips, and for goalies, it's hips, it's not the elbows. And the only solution seems to be do less of the thing that's causing the problem.

And that means don't go to that camp. Take the off season off, play a different sport. Many parents aren't willing to do that with their kids, just straight up. If it means playing that sport less, they don't want to do that. But the kid might not also get,

recognize oh you weren't at this camp doesn't sound like you're committed exactly but that's what's causing these problems it's a really double-edged sword and then the other one that I brought up with Hannah I know we're up against it for time so we can continue we're going to continue this conversation at 730 by the way get into a different vein as well but there is right now at 1112 and 13 a push from the high level sports to individualize and this should be your primary sport. And we've had that conversation in soccer. The club has had that conversation with us. And if you're playing sports, this one

has got to take priority because you're playing it at an elite level. Now, for me, I understand. You're nine. Yeah, I understand. I understand why the club wants to do it, right? Is they want you fully invest it in this. But if you talk to pretty much anyone involved with youth development,

universally, they'll say, it is more beneficial to play more sports, not just because of the dexterity and the skills that you develop, but also because you don't get burnt out the one sport when you're playing other ones when there's seasonal change and everything uh Greg olson who I was hoping that we'd get on the show at one point former NFL tight end and now he's doing color commentary might be a little above our pay grade but he's also got a side project right now that he's working on and he specifically says like my kid and you'd think if anyone's kid

is going to play one sport at a potential professional level it would be Greg olson's kid playing football right but he said like we've said you don't get to specialize till later in your teams like you're playing all these different sports during all these different seasons so you have different friend groups and different experiences and different coaches and you're not doing the same thing over and over and over again. I think it's very interesting. Okay. We'll continue this conversation on a bit on the other side and I want to hear some thoughts from you into the Dunbar Lumber Text Line at 650, 650 Metro Vancouver's Trusted Choice for Contractors and Renner Warriors for over 50 years. Visit them at one of their three locations to serve you or online at

Dunbarlumber.com. If you could choose one sport for your kid to pursue, think about your kid, but also be a little bit selfish and think about you, you know, the weather you're going to be watching your kid in, how much it's going to cost, et cetera, et cetera. What is the, there's probably not an ideal sport, but which sport would you pick? And Halford is just thinking like whatever sport makes me the most money through my kid. I'm making the money sign with my hands right now. You're listening to the Halford-Abrough show on Sportsnet 650.