All right, welcome back. Toucher and Hardy.

I think it's my old college baseball birthday today. Steve Almonte. What did you just say? Played up in Maine for a year. School. College. My old college baseball coach. Really? Yeah. Nasson College. Went bankrupt the year I went. It was awesome. Wait, you got to say that whole thing. Say that whole thing one more time? Two, two things growing up. Seventh grade. I wanted to be a sports journalist, broadcaster or whatever.

Yeah.

And I wanted to play college baseball.

I didn't care how, when and where.

I went to North End over high school.

Yep. And it was all set to go to Syracuse, a deposit dorm and everything else. Yeah. Had a great state tournament baseball game where I went like three for five,

turned two double plays up the middle,

stepping on second on the throw.

And my college coach was there already seeing a catcher that he ended up going to, and he ended up going to, and he ended up going to go to the game. He said, you go anywhere to play baseball? And I said, no. I said, I'm going to Syracuse for broadcasting. He goes, well, he goes, I need a second baseman. I said, you come in and watch and you start as a freshman. Talk to my dad. What do you think? He's like, you want to go for it? Go for it. So I went. Now, Mark, I weighed when I graduated from high school, I weighed 185 pounds. And I said to myself, I'm going to go to this school and I'm going to work as hard as I possibly can

to become a college baseball player the best I can be. So when I graduated in June, I weighed 185,

came back to play Merrimack in the fall in early October. I would be 158. Right. Everything I gave,

and this was back a while ago yeah so there was no real like video

and everything else charlie lowe's art of hitting book with a great you know george brett and

everything like that uh walter riniac book hitting watched videos with my coach went through fall ball

and everything like that and at one point during the season in the spring, and we had a veteran group of guys that were awesome guys, a lot of guys that I love to this day.

My coach, whose birthday is today, I turned to me and he said, you know, all this work, you've outworked everybody.

I ended up winning the Ducky Wallover Award, Never Say Die Award.

All this work, I went to the hospital once because I was dehydrated.

You put in, everything you do, he said you have the right-handed swing of George Brett.

He's the left side.

You have the right side, except you can't hit.

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