Writing
Notes from the other side of a hip replacement
Most of this was first written on hipreplacementdude.com between 2016 and 2023. It's been restructured and cleaned up, but the experience behind it hasn't changed.
September 5, 2026
What a Blocker Is
It's a word from software. I learned it building CageList and then started seeing it everywhere — in players, in parents, in my own career. Most people aren't stuck. They're blocked, and those are different problems.
September 5, 2026
Two Summers in Victoria
A Hall of Fame-argument manager, the best offensive numbers I ever put up, and a coach who decided my career didn't match my talent and quietly went to work on it.
September 5, 2026
The Fifty Dollars Tom Novak Made Me Ask For
My first professional contract. Novak made me call the manager and ask for fifty dollars more a month. I didn't get it. It's still one of the most important things anyone ever made me do.
September 5, 2026
The Bash Brothers: Kyle Nyhart Caught Me at Twelve and Again at Thirty-Nine
He was my catcher growing up. He sent me to the surgeon who cleared the path to my hip replacement. And in 2024, twenty-some years later, he crouched behind the plate for me again.
September 5, 2026
Paul Laxalt Was the One Example
He had the same Perthes I had. He'd had his hip replaced at twenty-five. And he was so plainly happy about it that a nineteen-year-old went and got a second opinion.
September 5, 2026
My Aunt Pam Is the Reason the Surgery Happened
There's a version of this story where the operation never takes place. Not because a doctor said no — because of insurance. She fixed it, and she has never once mentioned it.
September 5, 2026
I Went to Turkey for Stem Cell Treatment on My Shoulder
In 2024 my arm hurt every single time I threw. I had a SLAP tear. At the start of 2025 I got stem cell treatment in Turkey, and I've been pitching great ever since.
September 3, 2026
Why I Built CageList
I coached in three states without a facility, and every single time the hardest part was the same: finding somewhere to actually put a kid and a bucket of baseballs. The cages existed. You just couldn't book them.
September 3, 2026
The Twenty-Three Artists on the Other Side of the Page
The same notebook where I listed everyone who got me here has a second column: musicians. Four of them have stars. Here's what was actually in my headphones through the rehab.
September 3, 2026
Twenty-One Years on a Chromium Cobalt Hip
Mine has outlasted the number I was quoted at nineteen, and I still throw a hundred pitches a game. Here is what I actually do, what I stopped doing, and what I don't know.
September 3, 2026
The Surgeon Who Wouldn't Tell Me No
December 2004. I was nineteen, home from my first semester at Washington State, and I went to get a second opinion on my hip. Dr. Michael Wilmink is the reason there was a career after it.
September 3, 2026
The MADEisms: 132 Things I Say to Kids, and Why
I've been keeping a list on my phone for years without meaning to. Reading it back, they do four different jobs — and the strangest ones turn out to be the most important.
September 3, 2026
I Found a List I Made of Everyone Who Got Me Here
Written in a notebook around 2011. Almost nobody on it is famous. That turns out to be the whole point.
September 3, 2026
Legg-Calvé-Perthes Disease: What Happens When That Kid Grows Up
Every page about Perthes is written for the parent of a child who has it right now. Almost none are written by the child, thirty-four years later. I had it at seven, a total hip replacement at nineteen, and then I pitched seven professional seasons.
September 3, 2026
"Keep Throwin'" — What I Wrote at Twenty, Eleven Months After They Replaced My Hip
A page of verse dated 9 July 2006, 11:30pm. I was a year out of surgery and nobody would clear me to play. I'd forgotten I wrote it.
September 3, 2026
I Got the Visa That Afternoon. That Night, the Tsunami.
Four months of work, $2,000, a trip to the consulate in California, and one phone call left to make. Then 11 March 2011 happened and I went to Winnipeg instead.
September 3, 2026
How to Build a Baseball Lesson Business Without Leasing a Facility
The lease is what kills most coaches before they start. I ran MADE across three states without one, and the thing that nearly broke it wasn't demand.
September 3, 2026
How Long Does a Hip Replacement Last?
Every page answering this quotes an average. I'm twenty-one years into mine, seven of them spent pitching professionally, and the averages were never built from people like us.
September 3, 2026
"Good Luck, Kid" — The Two Minutes I Spent on the Phone With Bo Jackson
I was twenty-two, two years out of a hip replacement. He was the only man alive who'd taken one back to the major leagues. Here's everything that was said.
September 3, 2026
Every Offseason, Doc Was There
Dr. Robert Larson was my throwing partner for years in Phoenix. He's in his sixties and still pitches. I texted him today, which is most of the point of this.
September 2, 2026
A Hall of Famer, 414 Home Runs, and Six All-Star Games: The Men Who Managed Me
Nobody in affiliated baseball would clear me to play. Meanwhile I was writing my name under Tim Raines, Darrell Evans and Willie Randolph. Here's every manager I had.
August 29, 2026
They Asked Me to Coach. I Still Wanted to Play.
In 2024 I was a pitching coach in front of sold-out stadiums. I spent the whole year forty feet from where I actually wanted to be standing.
August 29, 2026
The Summer I Pitched in Mexico
Diablos Rojos, then Oaxaca, at twenty-four. I found the email I sent home at three in the morning, and it says more about that year than any box score.
August 29, 2026
I Asked an AI a Hundred Times If I Was Right. It Said Yes Every Time.
I made a consequential decision with an AI as my only real consultant. It agreed with me at every step. I was wrong, and the agreeing is exactly why.
August 29, 2026
Eight Months After My Last Shot at the Majors, I Took a Commission-Only Job Selling SEO
February 2011 was the last real chance. By October I was cold-calling small businesses. Everything I do now started in that gap, and I didn't notice for years.
August 28, 2026
What Sports Can You Actually Do After a Hip Replacement?
Twenty-one years on a replaced hip, including seven professional seasons. What I do, what I gave up, and why the standard list is written for a different patient.
August 28, 2026
I Signed With the Padres. Five Hours Later They Called It Off.
A physical, not a scout, ended my shot at affiliated baseball. The players' union and one of the largest law firms in the world spent months trying to fix it and couldn't.
August 28, 2026
The Man Who Rebuilt Bo Jackson Taught Me How to Use My Hip
Mack Newton had both his hips replaced, rehabbed Bo Jackson back to the major leagues, and then spent two months with a broke 22-year-old. Everything I say about champions started on his voicemail.
August 28, 2026
I Founded Hustle Ball Because Little League Is Dying
Little League has lost participants nearly every year since the late 1990s. I don't think the answer is another tournament circuit. I think it's the format I built at MADE Baseball.
August 28, 2026
Hip Replacement Recovery: The Timeline Nobody Gives Athletes
My actual milestones after a total hip replacement at 19 — cane, mound, hundred-pitch outing. Not a prescription. A data point, with the caveats stated.
August 28, 2026
Gamify Everything: How I Actually Run a Youth Baseball Practice
Kids don't quit baseball because it's hard. They quit because it's boring. Here is the method I built over years of coaching — every skill turned into a game with a winner.
August 28, 2026
Four Championships in Seven Years of Pro Ball
Three of them came in my first three professional seasons — two years after a surgeon replaced my hip. Here is what actually happened, and where you can check it.
August 28, 2026
Fire in My Belly
My dad taught me one thing that outlasted him by twenty years. I found it written down in a note I'd forgotten I wrote.
August 28, 2026
The Championship Program: Spiritual
The sixth and final pillar. Inner peace is a competitive advantage — gratitude, stillness, and the practice that changed my recovery more than any exercise did.
August 28, 2026
The Championship Program: Relationships
The fourth pillar. How you treat people is a habit — trainable, repeatable, and the one that decides whether anyone shows up when it gets hard.
August 28, 2026
The Championship Program: Nutrition
The third pillar. Exercise is king, diet is queen — together you have a kingdom. What I actually eat, and why it matters more after surgery than before it.
August 28, 2026
The Championship Program: Movement
The second pillar. Physical mastery builds mental mastery — and after a joint replacement that stops being a metaphor and becomes the whole job.
August 28, 2026
The Championship Program: Mindset
The first of six pillars. Mindset isn't a mood you wait for — it's trained the way you train a body, and it's the one you build before you need it.
August 28, 2026
The Championship Program: Daily Ops
The fifth pillar. The small things done consistently are the big things — and champions don't get bored with the basics, they master them over and over.
August 28, 2026
Can You Run After a Hip Replacement?
Twenty-one years on a replaced hip, seven of them pitching professionally. The honest answer about running — including the part where I tell you what I don't do.
August 28, 2026
Athletes Who Came Back After a Hip Replacement — And Why the List Is Shorter Than You Think
Most of the famous names you'll be shown had hip resurfacing, not a total hip replacement. The distinction matters, and it changes the whole list.
August 28, 2026
Am I Too Young for a Hip Replacement?
I had mine at 19 and pitched seven professional seasons on it. Here's how I'd think about the age question — from the patient's side, not the surgeon's.
February 23, 2023
Six Exercises to Prepare for Total Hip Replacement Surgery
Six simple pre-surgery exercises — quad sets, gluteal sets, straight leg raises, heel slides, clamshells and hip bridges — with how to do each one.
November 10, 2017
Does My Total Hip Replacement Feel Good EVEryday??
People ask whether my hip replacement feels good all the time. My answer, and why I refuse to let a statistic decide what I'm capable of.
November 8, 2017
Perthes Disease: Advice for Parents and Kids
I had Legg-Calvé-Perthes at 7 and a total hip replacement just shy of my 20th birthday. What I wish my parents and I had known in between.
November 7, 2017
Three Nuggets of Hip Replacement Advice
What I'd tell anyone facing a total hip replacement, from someone who had one at 19 and pitched professionally afterwards. Two of the three are mental.
December 1, 2016
The Best Hip Replacement Exercises for Active People
Three exercises that kept me moving after a total hip replacement — plus why the mindset you build before surgery matters more than the surgery itself.
December 1, 2016
The Best Diet to Prepare for a Hip Replacement
There are no secrets to food — eat the good stuff. The shopping list I actually use, and why sorting your diet out before surgery makes everything after it easier.
August 8, 2013
What MADE Stands For
Motivation, Appreciation, Dedication — EVEryday. I wrote the acronym down in 2013 and I've built everything since on top of it.
November 4, 2012
Invest in Yourself
A paragraph in a book changed how I treated my body at 20, two years after my hip replacement. Three concrete things I've done ever since.
July 13, 2012
The Summer I Played Professional Baseball in the Czech Republic
Eight teams in the whole country. Games on weekends only. I left the Atlantic League to go, and it taught me something about the big-league dream I couldn't have learned at home.
May 26, 2012
Velocity vs. Command: Strikes Beat MPH
Written from the dugout in my sixth professional season, watching guys throw 85 and dice up hitters who couldn't touch them. The lesson has only gotten truer.