As instructor, coach, Basham still endorses narrow offensive focus

By STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Ryan Basham did not have multiple hitting philosophies floating in his head when he stepped into the batter’s box as a Lowell (Ind.) High School Red Devil.

Lowell head coach Kent Hess let Basham do his thing and it paid dividends.

“He was a really positive guy,” says Basham of Hess. “He was hands-off. That made a big difference in terms of my development.

“I was keeping a narrow focus.”

That approach allowed lefty-swinging Basham to hit .539 in three varsity seasons (2001-03), one of the best plate careers in Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association annals.

As a senior lead-off hitter, Basham hit .583, clubbed 15 home runs and drove in 48 runs and was named the 2003 Northwest Indiana Times Player of the Year as well as all-conference and first-team all-state.

Basham’s junior year saw hum hit .538 with seven homers and 33 RBIs and was all-conference and first-team all-state.

As a junior, Basham hit .495 with eight homers, 50 RBI and gathered all-conference and all-state honors.

He went on to play three seasons at Michigan State University (2004-06).

Basham played for the Spartans right away and hit .297 with eight homers, 15 doubles and 27 runs batted in.

“I hit well, but in terms of being a situational hitter, I was leaving a lot of guys on and not driving guys in,” says Basham. “After I made that a primary focus, changed RBI output for the rest of my career.”

MSU head coach Ted Mahan and hitting coach John Young got Basham to see his problem as a hitter with runners on base.

“Early on I put a lot of pressure on myself in those situations,” says Basham. “The pressure is really all on the pitcher with a runner in scoring position. I had zero pressure on me. I relaxed. This is where I want to be.”

His coaches also reminded Basham that scoring a runner from third base doesn’t always require a hit. Sometimes hitting to the right side of the infield or lofting a fly ball will do the trick.

Basham hit ..358 with eight homers, 12 doubles and 43 RBI as a sophomore. As a junior, with David Grewe as head coach, he hit .373 with eight homers, 12 doubles and 53 RBI. He was twice named all-Big Ten Conference and earned a marketing degree from MSU (2007).

The Toronto Blue Jays selected Basham in the 29th round of the 2006 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft.

After an injury kept him from playing in the Blue Jays organization, but he did log five seasons of independent professional baseball with the Florence (Ky.) Freedom (now known as the Florence Y’alls), Windy City Thunderbolts (Crestwood, Ill.) and Joliet (Ill.) JackHammers.

In 420 pro games, Basham hit .285 (195-of-573) with 50 homers, 39 doubles and 123 RBI.

Now owner of Basham Baseball LLC, a training facility in Whitestown, Ind., Basham still endorses the theory that hitters can have too many voices.

Some players can have many different opinions coming at them from the their head coach, hitting coach, travel coach, father, grandfather and so on.

“They’re all trying to tell them different things,” says Basham. “It happens quite a bit.”

As Basham’s playing career was winding down, he became a coach. He was an assistant to Jim Nohos at Hanover Central High School in Cedar Lake, Ind. He knew Nohos through the Hammond Chiefs and Hammond Seminoles travel organizations.

Basham was an assistant to Mike Kahirsky at Robert Morris University in Chicago.

At 13, Basham was an original member of the Playmakers travel team fielded by Dave Griffin. His instruction career began at Dave Griffin’s Baseball School in Griffith, Ind.

He has also worked with Justin Stone of Elite Baseball Academy, and former major leaguers John Cangelosi, Dean Anna, and the legendary Bo Jackson at the Bo Jackson Elite Sports Dome in Lockport, Ill.

Ryan and Jessica Basham (both 35) moved from Plainfield, Ill., to central Indiana in 2013, landing first in Whitestown then last winter in Zionsville. Jessica, who is also from Lowell, is a human resource business partner for Sales Force. The couple has two daughters — Emelia (8) and Clara (5).

After the move, Basham was an instructor at RoundTripper Sports Academy in Westfield, Wheelhouse Baseball Academy and Zionsville Little League. He coached the Indiana Mustangs prior to his current role as 16U coach with the Indy Titans, an organization that has Justin Kamm as president.

Basham was with the same group in 2019 when they competed in 15U events.

“I love work working up through high school — 15U to 17U,” says Basham. “The continuity year or year is important in their development process.”

While the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic has everyone separated and training on their own right now, the Titans hope to have a 2020 season.

“We want to try to play as much as possible through June and July,” says Basham. “We usually play 6-8 tournaments.”

The tentative schedule includes appearances with Bullpen Tournaments at Grand Park in Westfield and Pastime Tournaments out-of-town.

“I’m going to reach out to families to see comfort level in traveling in a couple of months,” says Basham, who has been communicating with players via email with suggestions for workouts. “It’s almost like going back in time. They have to learn how to train on your own the best you can with what you’ve got.

“You can hit a bucket (of balls) a day if you have the resources.”

The youngest of Jerry and Janice Basham’s four children (following Laurie, Doug and Mike), Ryan fondly remembers spending hours as a kid having Doug throw batting practice on a field in Lowell.

“Throwing and sprinting are the things you can be doing and can do without anybody else there.”

Basham says if this had been a normal year, his team would have been six weeks into training together six days a week.

This quarantine also offers a chance for players to focus on recruiting by reaching out to coaches with notes of interest and videos.

Ryan Basham, a Lowell (Ind.) High School graduate, played three baseball seasons at Michigan State University (2004-06), twice earning all-Big Ten Conference honors. (Michigan State University Photo)

Ryan Basham, a graduate of Lowell (Ind.) High School and Michigan State University, swings for the independent professional Windy City Thunderbolts. Basham played five pro seasons and is now a baseball instructor and coach based in central Indiana. (Windy City Thunderbolts Photo)

The Basham family of Zionsville, Ind., includes Jessica (35), Ryan (35), Clara (5) and Emelia (8). Ryan and Jessica are both graduate of Lowell (Ind.) High School. Ryan is a baseball instructor and coach.

Ryan Basham, a graduate of Lowell (Ind.) High School and Michigan State University, offers baseball instruction. He was a three-time all-state player in high school and twice named all-Big Ten Conference at MSU.

Ryan Basham, a graduate of Lowell (Ind.) High School and Michigan State University, demonstrates the baseball swing to a young player. Basham was a three-time all-state player in high school and twice named all-Big Ten Conference at MSU.

Ryan Basham is the owner of Basham Baseball LLC in Whitestown, Ind. He is a graduate of Lowell (Ind.) High School and Michigan State University.

Ryan Basham is the owner of Basham Baseball LLC in Whitestown, Ind. He is a graduate of Lowell (Ind.) High School and Michigan State University.

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Glover helps Hobart baseball change its culture

By STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Culture.

It is a buzzword that’s popular these days in high school athletics.

Can a team change to a culture of dedication and winning?

In the case of the Hobart Brickies, the answer is a resounding yes.

Bob Glover Jr., who in his 11th season as a baseball coach at his alma mater (the last eight as head coach) has witnessed a positive change in the Hobart diamond culture.

The year before Glover took over as head coach, the Brickies went 9-20. In 2014, Hobart set a school record for victories, going 26-6 and earning the program’s first sectional championship since 1993.

“It was all about culture from the very beginning,” says Glover, who saw his career coaching record move to 137-72 with a season-opening win against Merrillville. “We had some battles trying to get kids to take the game more seriously.”

Glover, a 2001 HHS graduate and son of Hobart athletic director Bob Glover Sr., and others wanted to make baseball more than a hobby or springtime time-filler.

For the first time in years, the Brickies won more games than they lost in Glover’s second season at the helm and with that achievement came the raising of expectations.

“That was a big step for us,” says Glover, the seventh head baseball coach at the school since 1956. “We proved we could do that.”

Then it was time to aim for the next level. Not satisfied with just being good, players wanted to max out their potential as a team and as individuals.

“We had to convince them they were good enough to get to that level,” says Glover. “The more success we had, the more they believed they could.”

But it wasn’t just an attitude change. Hobart’s rise coincided with an improvement in facilities. Midway through the 2008-09 school year, an entirely new school complex opened. That included a fieldhouse, two side-by-side baseball diamonds and a turf football field that could be utilized by baseball on days that their fields were unplayable.

“I’m proud of what we’ve done in the improvement of our won-loss record and overall standing of our program,” says Glover. “But (the facilities upgrade) is definitely a part of the story.”

The 2014 team was full of three- and four-year varsity players, many of whom went on to play college sports. Brandon Murray was drafted in the 30th round by the Philadelphia Phillies, but the right-handed pitcher opted to go to the University of South Carolina. He is one of the top prospects in NCAA Division I.

“You’ve heard it said, ‘no animals; no zoo’?,” says Glover. “You have to have great players to be successful. We’ve had a lot of talented, dedicated and hard-working kids.”

A number of team and individual hitting and pitching records have been established the past three seasons.

Like in past seasons, the Brickies will be looking for leadership.

Glover says that can take many forms, but is usually most effective at the high school level when shown by example or through performance and effort.

“Kids these days don’t respond as well to (vocal leaders),” says Glover. Good leaders show consistency and how business is conducted and the others will fall in line. “The good part of the last five years or so is once we had that established, we had really good continuity.”

Graduation took 10 players from that Hobart team. There are just two seniors on the ’17 squad.

The Brickies are coming off a 2016 season that saw them go 21-9 overall and 10-2 in the always-competitive Northwest Crossroads Conference (other members are Andrean, Griffith, Highland, Kankakee Valley, Lowell and Munster).

The NCC plays home-and-home games against the same opponents on Mondays and Tuesdays. The league adopted the format in recent years after playing two rotations with conference contests on Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays one week and Tuesdays and Thursdays the next.

“We didn’t like the way that was playing out,” says Glover, speaking for his fellow NCC coaches. “This is more like true baseball. You get to see the depth of the pitching staff.”

Speaking of pitching, Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association district representative Glover addressed the new pitch count rules.

The Brickies had been tracking pitches at all three levels the past few seasons, noting the number of pitches and days of rest. There were no times the past two seasons at the varsity level that the team would have been over the new limit and few times the JV would have risen above its ceiling.

In talking with other coaches, Glover has come to the conclusion that the pitch count rule with its rest requirements is going to have its biggest impact during the IHSAA state tournament series, especially in the sectional where multiple games are played in a fairly short span of days and the regional where teams play twice in the same day.

“Our sectional is pretty difficult with large 4A schools and a lot of parity,” says Glover. “I believe in the last couple of years that (some teams) have used their No. 1 pitchers in all three games in the sectional (start first game, relieve in second game start third game). That won’t be an option anymore.”

Glover has six assistant coaches — Jim Nohos and Tony Curatolo with the varsity, Jesse Smith and Bobby Wineland with the junior varsity and Nick Roberts and Tom Anderson with the C-team. Nohos is also a well-known coach of area summer teams. Curatolo and Anderson played for Glover. Smith (Griffith) and Roberts (Merrillville) are former players at Region schools. Wineland has a son in the program.

An associate scout or “bird dog” for the Atlanta Braves since last summer, Glover reports to an area scout on players he sees while coaching for Hobart and also checks out some players in the fall.

“I keep my ear to the ground, so to speak,” says Glover.

Head coach Bob Glover Jr. has helped changed the baseball culture at Hobart High School.