An Arizona baseball coach sent the internet into a tizzy this week when he gave his pitcher a sermon on the mound during a Little League World Series regional game.
Drew Breivogel went viral Wednesday night when an ESPN hot mic caught his faith-filled message to his pitcher in the fourth inning. With the game hanging in the balance and two runners on, Breivogel called time, walked to the mound and gave his player some simple advice to help calm the nerves.
"I'm so proud of you," he said. "I've known you since you were eight. Remember Zacchaeus in the Bible? Someone planted that tree, 30, 40 years prior, so he could climb up into it. Salvation. We're talking salvation. It's a baseball game, right?
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"If you walk the next five guys Jesus is still Lord. If you strike out the next five guys, guess what? Jesus is still Lord. I love you. Have some fun."
Nothing like a little church on a Wednesday night! Brings me back to my childhood.
Social media, shockingly, was all over the place on this video. Some loved the message. Others were confused by it, given it didn't include any real strategy on how to work out of the jam.
Nothing about mechanics, or 'buckling down,' or throwing strikes, or hitting spots.
A quick check of the box score says that Hawaii would score four runs in the inning en route to a 5-2 win to stave off elimination. Not great.
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"How about a scouting report?" one fan commented on the now-viral video. "Some advice about mechanics? Something that may actually help the kid learn baseball? If I was the pitcher I would of pushed my coach away."
"If I’m struggling on the mound on national tv and my coach comes up to me and starts this BS instead of advice or mechanical changes, I’m quitting," added another.
Said a third: "Then the next 3 hitters reached base safely because there was no gameplan instilled during the mound visit. This was a coach using TV to make himself look good he knew he was Mic’d up, that was his BIG moment."
All fair points. But it's also Little League. A big spot? Absolutely. But these are 12-year-old kids. How much of a scouting report do they really have on them? Little League baseball is the Wild Wild West. I grew up in. I've seen it all. I've heard it all. Admittedly, I was never part of a mound meeting quite like that.
So, again, I see both sides here. That little sermon did remind me of a great quote my old Little League coach used to tell us when we were nervous before a game:
"If you strike out, there are a billion people in China who won't care tomorrow."
Makes sense. Made us feel a little better.
But, we also never got close to reaching Williamsport or the Little League World Series.
So perhaps we could've used a different approach.