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Tournaments | Story | 10/30/2024

MLB Vets Help the Next Wave

Jim Salisbury

Photo: Mo Vaughn (Perfect Game)

JUPITER, Florida -- It seemed as if you ran into a former major-league player everywhere you turned at Perfect Game’s 27th annual WWBA World Championship.

Here was former American League MVP Mo Vaughn giving an impromptu hitting lesson to a group of young prospects.

Over there was former Atlanta Braves and San Diego Padres slugger Ryan Klesko giving instructions from the third base coaching box.

Meanwhile, Sean Berry, who played 11 seasons in the majors, stood behind a backstop and spoke with a group of parents, while Chad Durbin, who pitched in 456 games over a 14-season big-league career, counseled a young pitcher.

On the next field over, former National League All-Star Domonic Brown tutored his hitters in the cage before they took the field.

Tom Gordon, Brett Myers, Howie Kendrick and Jose Contreras, all owners of World Series rings, were also on hand, speaking with young players, coaching them and sharing the wisdom they gained throughout their long major-league journeys with youngsters who hope to one day follow a similar path.

They were all in Jupiter for one reason.

The kids.

They all came back to baseball – in some cases, never left – because of their desire to help kids succeed in the game they love.

Their stories are inspiring and illuminating.

Here are a few of them.

RYAN KLESKO

One by one, members of the Braves Scout team approached Klesko. Some shook his hand. Some hugged him. Some posed for a keepsake picture. The team had just played its last game at the tournament and now it was time to say good-bye.

“This is the last travel ball event for 75 percent of these kids, so there’s a little emotion,” said Klesko, who clubbed 278 home runs over 16 big-league seasons and won a World Series with the 1995 Braves.

Ryan Klesko

He started coaching travel ball six years ago, when his son, Hunter, became involved. He helped found the Braves Scout team three years ago. Contreras and Mark DeRosa, a former big-leaguer of 16 years, are also involved in the program.

For Klesko, coaching means giving back.

“I tell the kids if I didn’t have the people in my life helping me do events like this when I was young – they didn’t have PG but I did do some travel ball stuff -- if it wasn’t for people in my community, my Little League coach, my high school coach, my mom working two jobs to be able to put me through hitting and pitching lessons, I wouldn’t have had a chance,” Klesko said.

“I really love this. We spend a lot of time on training. We take kids and try to develop them.”

Wins are nice but they’re not the ultimate reward for Klesko.

“Getting that kid who’s not on the map, then three years later he’s getting a full ride to Tennessee or Georgia, or getting drafted,” he said. “There’s a lot of those kids this year. We had a couple of kids who played for us this year who had no offers and by the end of the summer they had five offers. That makes us feel like we’ve done our job.”

MO VAUGHN

He was a big teddy bear with a warm personality, a friendly smile and a powerful bat during his 12 seasons in the majors. Vaughn hit .293 with 328 homers and a .906 OPS during his career. He was the AL MVP in 1995 and finished in the top 10 two other times. But when Vaughn’s career came to an end after just 27 games with the 2003 New York Mets, he wasn’t feeling particularly teddy-bearish.

“I left the game very angry,” he said. “I left due to injury. I never really retired. I just kind of walked away. I knew it was my time, but it was still a very, very tough time.”

For more than a decade after baseball, Vaughn forged a career as a successful businessman. Then, six years ago, his son Lee started playing baseball, started getting better and better, and before you knew it Mo was back in the game, coaching his son and many other youngsters. He founded the Vaughn Sports Academy in Boca Raton and was one of the coaches for the VSA Red Sox Scout team in Jupiter.

Vaughn credits his 12-year-old son for bringing him back to the game.

“What a gift he’s given me,” Mo said. “I didn’t know how much I missed it, how much it meant to me in terms of what it made me.”

Vaughn prides himself on communication. It is the foundation of coaching.

“Can we communicate, can we talk to the players to where we can get them to understand what they need to do, to where they can put it to use on the field,” he said. “I have a full understanding of what they’re going through. I know what it’s like to roll over on a ground ball, to get sent down, to be off-balance at the plate. All of those things happened to me. It gives me a better understanding of how to work with them. And when they get it, when they’re successful, it’s so rewarding.”

There’s part of Mo Vaughn that can’t believe he’s a coach.

“It’s something I didn’t know I had in me,” he said. “People say to me, ‘You’re like your dad.’ My dad coached high school football and high school basketball. Now, I've come to find out that I’m a coach, too, and I love it.”

CHAD DURBIN

He was actually still pitching in the majors when he joined the Knights Knation program in 2012. More than a decade later, he was in Jupiter simply as a dad, watching his son Cade, a University of Louisiana at Lafayette commit, pitch for the Dodgers Scout team.

Chad Durbin

Durbin is a keen observer of the game and whether he’s on the field coaching with Knights Knation – 12-year-old son Cavan is also in the program -- or in the stands watching, he’s always willing to share wisdom with parents and players

“We’re always trying to educate parents, when is it time to turn a kid loose, when is it time to pull in the reins,” he said. “And I love the connection with the kids, talking about the mental side of the game, how to deal with both success and failure.”

Durbin won a World Series with the 2008 Phillies, but he never plays the “former big-leaguer” card.

“If you come up to a kid and say, ‘I’m a former big-leaguer, you need to listen to me,’ you’re just background noise,” he said. “If they know you care, they will listen, and that’s when you can make a difference.”

Durbin admits that today’s young players, with advances in technology and training, and the expansion of travel ball programs like PG, are way ahead of where he was at a similar age.

“These kids are where we were 500 innings into pro ball,” he said. “I got introduced to concepts at 24, 25, 26, almost nine years into my career, that these kids are learning at 16 and 17. There’s a lot of really good stuff happening in the game.”

With his sons and other pupils, Durbin tries to mix all that is good in an evolving game with the traditional values that helped him get to the majors.

“Show up early, hustle, play the game the right way,” he said. “Don’t walk people, beat ‘em with strike one. Failure is an opportunity to get better. Fall in love with process. Work hard. Be a good teammate.

“So much of this you can apply throughout life.”

DOMONIC BROWN

He wears a reminder of the best of times on top of his head. It is a red Phillies cap emblazoned with the logo of the 2013 Major League All-Star Game on the side.

“I only wear it here in Jupiter,” Domonic Brown said. “It’s special to me.”

Domonic Brown

Brown hit .272 with 27 homers and 83 RBIs while earning his way to that All-Star Game in 2013. Three years later, he was in the minors. He finished his career in 2020, after a few seasons in the Mexican League.

Failure is inherent in a game where getting a hit 30 percent of the time makes you a star. Some cave to the failure. Some are inspired to learn from it. As his playing career wound down, Brown became a devoted student of hitting, digging into the reasons he struggled. He moved into coaching and is still a student of the science of hitting, learning something new every day.

“You go from one of the best players to one of the worst, you start to figure some things out,” he said. “I know a lot more about it now than when I played. I’ve learned how the body works. I worked hard as a player, but the education behind the swing I did not have. I grew from my struggles as a hitter, and I’m still growing and learning. I’m still studying and learning from all the technology we have now. It’s like updating your iPhone. You’re constantly upgrading.”

Brown serves as hitting coach for a number of travel teams. He runs his own academy outside of Philadelphia. He was at PG’s WWBA World Championship as hitting coach for the FTB Phillies. He might one day like to get back into pro ball as a hitting coach, but for now he’s loving life as a youth coach, helping young prospects achieve their goals.

“Treat whatever level you’re at like the big leagues,” he said. “Ryan Howard told me that in High A and it always stuck with me.

“I never left the game and I never will.”

SEAN BERRY

This guy’s got some perspective. He played third base in the majors for five teams over 11 seasons then went on to coach for 20 years in the minors and majors for the Astros, Padres, Marlins and Orioles. After decades in the pro game, Sean Berry sought change a few years ago. He shifted his attention to youth ball and joined Perfect Game.

He’s found something one of his old big-league coaches, Jackie Moore, used to say to be quite true.

“This is a people business,” Berry said.

Sean Berry

Berry coaches and runs showcases for PG in California and other western states. He tries to never forget what Moore used to tell him.

“It takes courage for a kid to get out there in front of cameras and stopwatches and scouts for the first time,” he said. “The kid might be 13, his first time on a big field. He might have trouble getting the ball across the infield. I seek out that kid. I tell him it’s OK, tell him his maturing strength will come, tell him he showed courage coming out here. The next year he’s firing the ball across the field and it’s awesome.

“I go into the stands and talk to parents. They’re nervous. I get it. My kids played sports. Sometimes they worry about a bad showcase. I tell them it’s an opportunity to have a good one next time and show a progression.”

Sometimes a parent will ask Berry what’s the secret to advancing in the game.

“There is no secret,” he tells parents who simply want to help their kids achieve their goals. “Keep working, keep learning, keep moving forward. Have a plan every day. Learn. Make adjustments.

“This is a journey and we’re going to learn every day.”

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