Clearing The Bases Jimmy Filingeri & David Friedman

Scott Steltz is not just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill baseball coach. He is the Head Coach of the Chatham High School Panthers. The Panthers have won back-to-back NYS High School Baseball Championships and Coach Steltz is the recipient of the 2023 ABCA/ATEC High School Div. III National Coach of The Year. He is truly an amazing coach and shares a lot of his knowledge and experience with us. I want to wish Coach all of the best as he guides his Panthers to, hopefully, a third state title in a row! 

Bert Gonzalez is the manager of the New Jersey Jackals of the Frontier League in Independent Baseball and also the founder of Indyball Jobs. Independent Baseball provides another avenue for high level baseball players to compete and continue to develop in professional baseball. Many Indyball players have gone on to further their careers with MiLB teams and some even make that giant leap to the big show in the MLB!

Justin Sherman is the founder of Justintime Baseball, an independent baseball training, softball training, and coaching business located in Westchester, NY. They partner with little leagues, recreation programs, private groups, and individuals throughout Westchester and Connecticut. They believe in building and developing fundamental skills in baseball and softball, while also instilling a sense of confidence and independence through individualized instruction.

We wrap up our recordings from the 2024 ABCA Convention by catching up with Anthony Pla. These conversations have become an annual occurrence and are just one of the many reasons that I look forward to the beginning of January at the ABCA each and every year. One last thing... I would not be a good father if I didn't thank my son, Vinny Filingeri, for acting as my sound engineer for these shows. He did an awesome job! I hope that you have enjoyed our 2024 Convention shows as much as I did!

One of our last interviews from the 2024 ABCA convention was supposed to be with USA Baseball National Team Head Coach RJ Farrell but we wound up with an added bonus to the show by inviting Georgia Gwinnett College Head Coach Jeremy Sheetinger to join in. Now, RJ would be an unbelievable conversation on his own but having Sheets join us made it that much more incredible. There were even a few jabs thrown at Coach Butch Chaffin!

There are so many great baseball minds just roaming around at the ABCA convention. Paul Gallo and Mark “Pudge” Gjormand are 2 of them that I have had the pleasure of spending some time with both in Kansas City during the Youth Baseball Summit and at the 2024 ABCA Convention. We jump into youth baseball and do a little recap of the Summit.