Baseball Business Spotlight: Dr. Drew Baseball
This week, Painting Corners sits down with Dr. Drew Baseball, Founder of Dr. Drew Baseball. You can follow Dr. Drew on his official Instagram (@drdrewbaseball), where you will find hitting tips, drills, and mentoring reels.
Where did you grow up? Where are you located today?
I am a born and raised New Englander from New Hampshire. I’ve been in Indiana for the last decade though so I guess now I’m also a Hoosier.
What is your baseball team affiliation(s)?
If you’re talking favorite team, I’m a diehard lifelong Boston Red Sox fan. As far as coaching, I coach for an organization called the Indiana Titans. I’m currently in my fourth season coaching my team which is currently 16U.
What does your company do/sell?
I offer remote hitting lessons for baseball & softball players, and mental training/mentoring for players and coaches (especially coaches who are new to it). As far as physical products, I have shirts and hats available and am currently writing a mental skills guide book for youth athletes and coaches of youth athletes.
How did you get into baseball?
I first fell in love with the game as a little kid playing tee ball. I played little league and then middle school ball before taking a break for high school to focus on music (I was a serious musician back in the day). I played one final year of baseball my senior year of college. As far as my love for the game and its history, I have to give all the credit to my paternal grandfather. He was originally from the Bronx and a lifelong Yankees fan. I spent countless hours as a kid and then adult watching games with him, talking about the history of the game, and bantering back and forth anytime the Red Sox and Yankees played.
Why is it important to incorporate that into your business?
I think that childhood passion and love for the game is something that we all can relate to. One of my favorite quotes I heard years ago (I can’t remember who said it) is that “when you’re in the field, baseball makes a kid feel like a big leaguer, and it makes a grown up feel like a little kid.” It’s that feeling of timelessness and yes, nostalgia, that keeps us all so invested in baseball for our entire lives.
Dr. Drew Baseball’s Championship Team
What was the spark that led to what would become your business?
I’ve been coaching youth sports for years and along the way I’ve been asked by various coaches, parents, and players for advice or help, whether it was skills related (i.e. hitting, fielding, etc) or more mentor/advice type stuff. I’ve always been good with teaching and explaining things at my job, especially with junior colleagues or colleagues outside of my discipline. I thought “hey, I’m good at teaching and I love to talk, I should make an account and share this stuff with other people.”
I also wanted to bring a lot of positivity to coaching because growing up, that wasn’t the norm. Anyone my age or older will tell you that most of our coaches yelled and screamed at us and belittled us because that was just the way it was back then, regardless of what sport you played. Coaches were trying to make you tough and they were trying to motivate you; that’s how people thought it was the best way to do it. Having my own kids and coaching them, I decided that not only did I not want to coach that way, but that there is a better way to coach and teach players that makes them feel good about themselves, but still holds them accountable and instills discipline and hard work in them.
So at the age of 44, that’s what I did! I started an IG account and figured it out as I went (I still am!)
Is there a special meaning assigned to either the name or logo?
Well, I have my doctorate in chemistry and while I don’t ever ask people to call me “Dr.”, loads of friends over the years have called me “Dr. Drew” as a nickname and as a play on the more famous “Dr. Drew,” so I thought it’d be fun to incorporate that with baseball. As for the logo, I’ve got a logo that combines a chemistry flask and a baseball…my two “careers,” if you will.
What would you describe is the essence of your brand? Who does this brand exist for?
I would say the essence is positivity and learning. Positivity not only in learning the game and working at it, but in the mental approach to it. And then expanding that to life in general. As far as learning, my goal is to help players and coaches learn to love learning the game and again, carrying that onward into the rest of life.
Basically, I want to be the coach and mentor I wish I’d had growing up!
What makes your business unique?
I think it’s the positivity and mental aspect I bring to everything that makes it unique. Growing up, I suffered from really low self esteem and didn’t have a lot of good ways to cope with it. All of the growth I’ve had in my own life is down to just living and learning and the wisdom that comes with it (and I’m not done! It’s a never ending process, which is awesome). My goal is to make sure everyone I coach and help, whether in person or remotely, not only becomes a better player, but feels good about themselves during the process. Basically, I’m trying to help young athletes avoid the mistakes that I made when I played.
Is this your main gig, or a side hustle? Was that always the case?
I’ve been an R&D chemist for almost 20 years…that’s my day job and what pays the bills. Dr. Drew Baseball is a side gig and an outlet for my passion for teaching the game and helping players and coaches. Of course, if it were to ever *become* my main gig, as much as I enjoy being a chemist, I wouldn’t complain!
Highlight reel: What has been your biggest moment since starting your business?
I’ve had a lot of cool moments, including parting with some up-and-coming brands, but probably the biggest highlight was being asked by a company whose product I’ve been using for years to film an ad for them, which they then shared on their website and social media accounts. The fact that it was a product that I still use and stand behind and believe in, made it really cool.
Blooper reel: What was your biggest mistake or learning moment since starting your business?
Probably when I started making reels. I’ve always been great at talking to people and teaching people, and I’ve given so many presentations over the course of my life from college to grad school to my job, but speaking to the camera and then sharing it with everyone on social media was very scary and I was very awkward at first. My early reels were very lame and make me cringe when I look back on them now. While I’m still not perfect, I’ve come a long way, as have my video editing skills!
Are there any obstacles you have had to overcome in your journey as a business owner?
Honestly, the biggest obstacle is probably just time. Because I’ve got a career, a house, a family, coaching responsibilities and other responsibilities, it’s really just finding the time to pursue this side business and try to build it up. I’ve got plenty of ideas and things I wanna do for it, it’s just finding the time in between everything else that needs to get done.
Dr. Drew Baseball’s 2023 Champion Team
What is your favorite customer story?
I don’t have any one in particular, but it’s anytime someone thanks me for helping them, whether I’ve made them a better hitter or a better player or I’ve helped them with their mental game. That’s what’s most rewarding and why I do what I do. When all is said and done, the reason any of us do this is because of the people and the relationships you make along the way. And I just like to help people… so that’s what’s the most rewarding to me and probably my favorite thing about it all.
Who has been your greatest support or inspiration?
As far as inspiration, it’s always God, my Lord Jesus Christ, and my wife and kids. They’re the reason I do everything. As far as support, I’ve made so many great friends over the years that I’ve coached, both in person and online, and it’s great how we have a support system where we all help each other. That’s invaluable and my advice to anyone who is starting out is to find that support system and cultivate it and grow it. Also make sure you’re giving as much as you’re taking, that’s what it’s all about.
What does a typical "day in the life" look like for you?
As far as coaching, right now in the winter months, I work with my own kids in the evenings at our indoor facility, and then I work with my team on the weekends at indoor practices to get them ready for their high school seasons. I also try to film as much content as I can when I have time, which is all indoors in the winter. Once the weather gets nicer and the season starts, I’ll record content outside and go to my kids school games. When the summer starts though, it gets real busy. Usually on game weeks, which run Wednesdays to Sundays, I spend a lot of time in the evenings making lineups and bouncing ideas to work on based on what my assistant coaches and I observed. On game days, it involves getting to the fields early, setting everything up for my players to warm up, writing out lineups, talking with the umpires and the other coaches, and doing administrative stuff. Then during the actual games… I dedicate my full attention. Afterwards, it’s talking to my team, debriefing them and going over things we did well and things we need to work on. I make sure they feel good about themselves, regardless of the outcome, and get them ready to play again that day or the following day. It’s a very intense season in the summer (we play 7 weeks out of the 8 week season), but I love it and I’m thankful for all the time I can spend in a dugout and on a field.
One of the teams coached by Dr. Drew
What is one piece of advice you would give to someone today starting their own business?
The biggest thing I would say is to just start. I had the idea to start this years ago, but I was too unsure or insecure and afraid to do it until I hit 44 a couple years ago and said, you know what? If I don’t do it now, am I ever going to do it? Just start and figure it out as you go. It’s going to be a learning process just like life is. My other big piece of advice is to cultivate and grow a network of support beyond your family and immediate friends, and make sure you’re giving and supporting your network as much as you’re accepting support from them. If we all help each other out and cheer each other’s successes, we all end up winning and being successful.
What makes baseball so special?
Gosh, there’s so many things, and I could write a whole book on it. I think it’s the pace of the game. The fact that there’s no clock creates much more drama because you have to get every out to finish. It’s a team game, but it also consists of individual one-on-one battles. Baseball lends itself to connections between people more than the other sports because of the pace and set up of the game. Think about it: when you’re watching from the stands, you have plenty of time to have some pretty deep conversations with the people around you without missing any of the game action. It’s the same thing when you’re coaching or playing, the moments in the dugout before, during, and after games are actually what stay with you much longer than the wins or losses when your playing days are over. I think baseball is unique in that aspect, and I feel like the relationships I’ve made along the way are ones that I never would’ve made otherwise.
What is your personal favorite baseball moment or experience?
As a Red Sox fan, it has to be the 2004 season when the team finally broke the “Curse of the Bambino” and won the World Series for the first time in 86 years. I was not quite 25 when that happened and I had lived through my own fair share of heartbreak starting with the 1986 World Series, all of the near misses in the late 80s and 90s, and the crushing defeat to the Yankees in 2003. Finally beating the Yankees in the playoffs in 2004 and then winning the World Series was the greatest moment of my life as a baseball fan. I always tell people that the three best things that ever happened to me in life were marrying my wife, having my kids, and the 2004 Red Sox winning the World Series
Dr. Drew Baseball himself!
What do you like or dislike about the baseball community?
I love the community aspect of it. Whether we’re fans, coaches, players, or parents of players, it’s a very tight knit community both in person and online that I haven’t seen in my experiences with other sports. For instance, I played basketball for years growing up and also coached my kids playing basketball for years and while this is just my personal experience and doesn’t speak to everyone else, I never saw the same sort of closeness and support that I have seen in all the years I’ve been involved in baseball.
As for what I dislike, at least when it comes to the online coaching space and online community, there is a sizable and very vocal subset of coaches that teach the game their own way, which is totally fine. But what I don’t like is that they discount anyone who has a different opinion or who wants to teach it a different way. A lot of these disagreements evolve into outright feuds and make coaching more of a grudge-match type competition between the coaches and their philosophies. You know who loses out when this happens? The players. We should all be in coaching to help our players become not only better athletes, but better people. One of the things I’ve learned in my career as a scientist and as a baseball coach is that you should be learning from everyone that you can, including the people that you disagree with. You might pick up something or a new perspective that you wouldn’t have otherwise, and even if it ends up being information that you discard, that’s valuable. But when we stay in our own bubble and think that the way we’re doing or thinking about something is the only way, that’s never a good thing.
Dr. Drew Baseball is based in Indiana.
