New Jersey will be hosting the 2026 World Cup and this morning on Jersey Magazine here at 105.5 WDHA and 1250 WMTR, we welcome back Mike Ham from Greetings from the Garden State to talk about it.

JIM MONAGHAN – Mike you and I both have a baseball background but this morning we’re talking soccer world cup soccer specifically.

MIKE HAM – Yeah yeah we’re talking World Cup and it’s really exciting Jersey, I mean technically New York-New Jersey, but we’re all about Jersey here and it’s gonna be in New Jersey so we’re gonna just gonna say New Jersey coming to MetLife Stadium in 2026 and it’s very exciting you know huge event and the finals are gonna be here too which is which is pretty incredible.

JM – I noticed on the FIFA website that they list the stadiums by the city like it’s a Boston Stadium Philadelphia Stadium and at first I’m looking at wait what? And then I saw New York-New Jersey Stadium saw the picture and go oh I listen at least we’re finally getting some name recognition thrown in there it’s not yeah the New York Giants or the New York Jets we’re actually getting New Jersey in that title.

MH – Yeah I mean listen it’s, we’ll take it. You know I think the more that people see what we’re doing and what we have to offer the more respect gets put on our name so to speak and you know I’m pretty excited that, I mean not that I really have anything to do with it but I think it’s really exciting for the region and the state to have something like this because you know not only do you have the World Cup Games being played at MetLife, Philly is also one of the host stadiums so it’s almost kind of this really incredible moment for the northern part of the state and the southern part of the state to have this huge economic impact for what is coming to us in a couple years.

JM – And three host countries of which the United States is one Canada and Mexico the others and I think they’ve increased by 16 teams the number that will be competing in 2026 if I’m not mistaken.

MH – Yeah I think you’re right I forget they told me how many teams are going to be playing it’s like 36, 42 or something. I forget the exact number of teams that are going to be participating but I think in the state or in the country, excuse me, that I think there’s 11 host cities in the United States so you know all over the place but it’s all going to culminate in the finals here in New Jersey in East Rutherford.

JM – So you when the episode drops what do you have for us with regard to World Cup?

MH – Yeah so we got to sit down with a few different people so it’s a little bit different than what we normally do. We actually got a chance to go out to MetLife and sit down in one of their suites and talk to Lauren LaRusso and Bruce Revman who are the co-host city managers so they essentially run the World Cup host committee here in the state and then we sat with Steve Sansonese who’s the VP of Operations and Events at MetLife Stadium just to kind of get a glimpse into what’s actually you know taking place within the arena and kind of how they’re setting it up to meet both FIFA requirements and make sure that they’re giving the guests and attendees the same level of experience that they’ve come to expect from MetLife.

And then finally we sat down with Jim Kirkos who is the president and CEO of the Meadowlands Chamber of Commerce and also the Meadowlands Tourism Traveling Tourism Bureau, I think I messed up that part of his title but that’s a really important piece of it because you know you remember 10 years ago we had the Super Bowl come to MetLife and that was obviously a huge event and one of the things you know we they learned a lot from the big event like a Super Bowl coming through but this is I think they said something like 3 billion eyes are going to be on the World Cup games especially the final so it’s the biggest event in the world really, and making sure that the economic impact in that region is both prepared for and then realized in the best way possible by the local businesses and communities that surround MetLife Stadium and all the things that are going around that.

JM – You mentioned how popular the World Cup is around the world and it is really really huge, you know other sports may take precedence here in the United States for the most part during the regular course of the sporting year but once you get to the World Cup it’s incredible. Did they give you an idea of the economic impact that they’re expecting here in New Jersey from this?

MH – I think they’re still trying to figure that out numbers wise I think, but you know one of the things that we talked about and this is a really interesting piece and why I think the area in the region became such an integral part of the World Cup here in the United States and then ultimately hosting the final is the economic impact or the societal impact of how much this means to communities in this region.

So you look at that part of New Jersey obviously New York City as well and you could theoretically fill MetLife Stadium with people from the different countries that are going to be playing in MetLife Stadium with just the people that live in this immediate area, so it’s one of the most economic geographic socio-economic diverse areas of the world really and bringing it all culminating in this one place is going to be really exciting.

And they’re working on a lot of ways to help activate attendees and guests that may not have tickets to the games or matches I guess we got to call it a match um tickets to the matches but also being able to kind of host host parties in different parts of the region and the state and in New York City as well and just trying to maximize not just what’s happening within the stadium but in the communities around it.

JM – I am generally a casual fan of the World Cup, of soccer, but once the World Cup comes around I really kind of get glued to it except I still I just cannot wrap my head around extra time.

MH -Me neither, so if you’re looking for an explanation of that I can’t help you, but I just know it goes it’s 90 minutes but it goes a couple minutes longer you know and then you just got to deal with it.

JM – And you know who decides how many minutes and all that that’s the one that really throws me.

MH – Yeah well we got a couple years to figure it out because it’s not coming until 2026 so you and I can sit down and we’ll kind of you know iron out what extra time is and all the other rules that we don’t quite understand and we’ll we’ll be experts by the time the World Cup gets here.

• Talking Youth Baseball With Coach Ballgame

  As you may know, I am heavily involved in youth baseball and I’ve worked with players from T-ball to the Major Leagues.

  A couple of months ago, I’m scrolling through Instagram and I come across Coach Ballgame.

  He’s wearing a fedora and a baseball glove and I’m thinking to myself, well, this is an interesting look.

  So I look at the video and I go, Hmm, this guy makes some sense.

  I start scrolling through more of these videos. This guy really makes some sense.

  James Lowe is a former Division 1 college baseball player who now goes by the moniker Coach Ballgame and he is joining us on Jersey Magazine as Major League Baseball heads into the All-Star Game break to talk baseball.

  Coach Ballgame On Youth Baseball

  Coach Ballgame Interview Excerpts

  JIM MONAGHAN – Where did the whole coach ball game persona come from?

  COACH BALLGAME – Well, uh, I was Jimmy Ballgame in college. I went to Brown university, uh, played four years there. Absolutely loved it, but I was, uh, I wasn’t the most talented guy there.

  So I figured, well, I’ll be the grittiest, guttiest, craziest ball player there. So I was the guy diving into, uh, fences and jumping over tarps to try and catch fly balls and, uh, just always a head first slide kind of a guy. So I got the nickname Jimmy ball game.

  Uh, not to didn’t get drafted. Thought I’d be a major leaguer. The rest of my life didn’t get drafted.

  So I had to figure out what to do with my life.

  And at age 22, I moved to California. A teammate of mine at Brown was starting. It’s baseball camps. And so, uh, instead of calling me Jimmy ball game, he just said, well, let’s call you Coach Ballgame.

  And, uh, 20 years later, here we are and it’s taken a life of its own.

  JM – You are a youth ambassador for Major League Baseball’s Play Ball program, and in fact, you were just in London. The Mets and Phillies played a two game series in London. What was that experience like for you?

  CB – Let me tell you 500 kids playing on a, uh, a football pitch, uh, what we call soccer. They call football. And let me tell you, it was proper.

  It was keen as they say over there, the kids, a lot of them had never held a bat or held a ball, didn’t know how to stand, didn’t know how to run the bases.

  And I just love that. I love being the introduction to the game for any kids. And the first thing I do is I ask them, “Hey, what do you love to do?”

  And whether that’s 500 kids or eight, well, it doesn’t matter how many I’m coaching, I want to get a nickname for every kid based off something that they love.

  So, uh, gathering those nicknames in the UK, listening to those accents, so many smiles. They were so eager to learn this new, fresh game.

  What I found out is, uh, Chase Utley is now the ambassador for MLB Europe, uh, bringing the London Series over the past few years. There is a momentum shift in the game of baseball. It’s not just rounders. It’s not just cricket anymore.

  I’m getting messages and emails from, uh, people in Sweden and Austria, uh, all over Germany and the UK – “Hey, I started this T ball team… I started this youth baseball team and would love for you to come over and help us learn more about this game.”

  JM – A couple of videos that caught my eye recently and I wish I had seen them when my kids were younger. One was how to teach a T baller, how to throw and how to teach a T baller, how to catch – two of the most daunting tasks I think a young coach has.

  CB – That’s no joke. I’ve met many a major leaguer who have won World Series and MVPs, and they are the best of the best.

  But when it comes to teaching a five or six year old how to catch a baseball or throw a baseball, that’s a different ball game. It’s like apples and oranges and over the 20 years, in my, my first few years of the rookie coach, it wasn’t good.

  But I learned from those mistakes. I learned from me being a passive aggressive or trying to teach them like they were 18 or maybe teach them like they’re a five year old version of me who absolutely love baseball.

  Once I learned to meet every child on their own playing field, get to know them, then I realized, you know what?

  I’ve been listening to you kids and you love animal references. You love poetry. You love songs.

  I try and implement all of that into every skill that I teach and they go home and they start singing these songs to their parents and they’re like, Hey, mom, dad, let me teach you what I, what I learned here about catching.

  So, um, all the catch raises, all the things that rhyme. It’s memorable. It sticks in their brain and they laugh. That’s the biggest thing. If they laugh at something, then they remember it better.

  So took a while, but I figured it out.

  JM – Kids having fun in sports is such a huge part of them learning how to love a sport, whether it’s baseball, that you and I, both coach or whether it’s basketball, football, whatever the sport may be, they have to have fun.

  Sticking with baseball, I think sometimes we forget just how hard this game is to play because it looks easy to quote Bull Durham, “You throw the ball, you hit the ball, you catch the ball.”

  It’s simple, but it’s not. It is such a difficult game to play. And I think we forget that too many times.

  CB – I learned it from doing it wrong. At age of 23, I’m coaching an eight year old. I’m hitting ground balls and they’re not doing what I’m asking them to.

  They’re not getting their glove down. They’re not moving their feet.

  There were moments where they were lacking effort and it looked like they didn’t want to be there.

  So me as the coach, as an insecure rookie coach, I went into, well, I’m a failure mode. I’m failing at this or they’re disrespecting me.

  Either way, that translated into a path of aggressive tone. And sometimes it would even get militant and angry.

  Luckily, I had a mentor put his arm around me and say, ball game, you have the energy of 500 camels and 3000 humans. But that kid does not love baseball anymore because of the way you spoke to them, because of your tone.

  They’re walking away and let’s be honest, none of these kids that you coach are going to make it to the major leagues. The math says that, but they’re all going to be teenagers one day. They’re all going to be in college. They’re all going to be adults. They’re all going to be fathers and mothers one day.

  So how about you just try and mentor them to be a good human and baseball is the vessel.

  That’s what happens.

  I do think it’s just not being equipped, not educated on how to engage kids and then just that insecurity of, man, I don’t know what I’m doing here. So I better yell.

  And I’ve heard enough of those stories of kids wanting to quit baseball because of a bad experience with a coach that I said, all right, I got to go all in on this. I’ve got to teach people what I learned from my mistakes.

  I really leaned into that as I quote my friend Kirk Gibson, who I ran a Sandlot with in Detroit, Michigan just a few weeks ago, he said, “Ballgame, you got to coach the coaches.”

  So that’s what I’m doing as I travel around the country.

  JM – I think you also have to coach the parents too.

  CB – 100%. They like to, they like to sit in those bleachers, sometimes stand and sometimes wrangle the fence with their fingers and micromanage everything that their child is doing.

  And nobody’s trying to sabotage their own kid’s career. They think they’re doing the right thing. They’re getting them ready for the next level. They’re setting them up for success.

  But what happens is when you get a kid swing and miss and then look at their parent for approval, you notice something, you notice there is a fear of failure.

  So what I try to do is I try and create this culture where 0-for-4, I don’t care. O-for-12, that’s okay.

  How can you respond? Can you bounce back? And can you be, can you fall flat on your face, be it be okay with that, but not be afraid to fail?

  I say, hey kids, is it okay to strike out? Yes, is it okay to be afraid of striking out? No.

  So what I talk to the parents, I say, hey, I love your energy and I’m so glad you’re present. A lot of parents, they don’t even show up. You’re here, you’re very present.

  But so there’s the positive reinforcement. Go ahead and let them know what they’re doing right. But now this is what I noticed. That kids afraid to fail because they really want to do something good for you.

  They are afraid of the car ride home if they messed up. We’ve got to make sure that car ride home is joy. We’re not talking about baseball. We’re not talking about what you did wrong.

  I loved the big moment and I was very clutch.

  I only batted like 240 at Brown, but I batted 500 with runners on scoring position because my dad sat beyond the left field fence in a Hawaiian shirt, sitting in a lawn chair and he would smile at the 0-for-5’s. He’d laugh at the 5-for-5’s. Nothing was life or death.

  So I’m just trying to get parents to eat a little more popcorn, smile and clap and just enjoy watching their kid play. That’s the best thing you can say to your kid before a game – “I love watching you play the game.”

  Period.

  JM – You’ve mentioned the sandlot and you actually have two dates coming here to New Jersey in September on the 10th in Union County at Scotch Plains and then the day after September 11th up in Bergen County in Allendale. What goes on on one of these sandlot tour dates, Coach?

  CB – Well, you know, you could think of it as a three hour baseball camp, but I think of it as a birthday party and an experience.

  They’re going to show up and we just sold out who 100 kids sandlots in North Carolina in 24 hours.

  People are getting pumped about this, but they show up as soon as they get there, they get a nickname.

  I’m greeting them and I’m asking them questions about who they are. Paint me a picture of who you are, John, Samantha, Billy, and let’s get you a nickname.

  We’ve got volunteer coaches who we’ve prepped and equipped that are ready to run a bunch of skill stations and we split the kids up into small groups by age and they’re doing all sorts of things.

  We’ve got batting stations, throwing catch stations, outfield, infield. I like to run a base running station so I can rattle off those nicknames as they run around the bases.

  We have different kinds of sandlot games going on across the space as well. We use tennis balls. We use volley balls. We use real baseballs, but there’s a lot of different ways to play this beautiful game.

  I think sometimes we think, oh, we need a dugout and we need a real bat and we need a beautiful baseball and we need a beautiful glove.

  No, I want to open people’s eyes and let them know it’s just as easy as soccer. Soccer, you need a goal and a ball.

  Here you need a ball. You need some sort of stick and maybe a brown paper bag as a glove.

  We just have three hours of joy where I tell some stories about some heroes of mine – Roberto Clemente, Jim Abbott, just to name a few.

  And then at the end, we unpack it with all of the coaches and parents that would like to stay and we talk, what did we do?

  How can we make youth coaching and youth parenting better?

  That’s actually my favorite part because those coaches and parents, they’re going to touch hundreds of lives that I’ll never meet. That ripple effect becomes real.

  JM – Once again, the Sandlot Tour coming to our area, Scotch Plains on September 10th and the next night, Allendale on September 11th up in Bergen County.

  You can get all the details online at coachballgame.com.

• Rock N Ruff

  Rock N’ Ruff this week features “Itty Bitty” !– What a great girl! From the Denville Animal Shelter

  https://vimeo.com/968306762?share=copy

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8AgNJrIqw4

  About Itty Bitty

  

  Itty is such a sweet dog. Very people-focused, affectionate, and friendly. On Rock N’ Ruff, we highlight all types of animals. Dogs, Cats, we’ve had chinchillas and rats! And of course, those that have special needs. Itty Bitty was found wandering a local park/woods, sweetly following walkers desperate for someone to pay her attention. She was also found with a collapsed trachea and is being evaluated by a local vet working with The Denville Animal Shelter. Itty makes a “strange” noise, which makes her very unique. Itty’s challenges don’t get her down AT ALL. She is the happiest, most joyful pup, so anxious to make friends, and has great energy. She is a real love bug. We would love a quiet home for Itty, because it helps with her condition, and she is so people-focused, she’s perfect as a best friend.

  

  TC Collection

  Check out the Denville Animal Shelter’s Facebook Page for more info- Friends Of The Denville Animal Shelter

  About The Denville Animal Shelter

  This shelter is run by Meredith Petrillo the Denville Animal Control Officer and shelter volunteers to promote community involvement to identify, help, and adopt Denville animals. They have a passion and compassion for all animals. They do not charge an adoption fee, however, welcome donations and do their best to pair animals and their humans to find a great match. I have adopted twice from The Denville Animal Shelter- (My Rosie and my late pup Star) and so have many of our WDHA staffers. You can reach out to Meredith @mpetrillodenvillepolice.org or call 973-983-7538.

  

  Photo Credit- Joe Frazz

  

  Denville Animal Shelter

  Check out more Pet Related Stories on the TC Rock N’ Ruff Roundtable page

  • • TC’s Rock N’ Ruff Roundtable  

  • • Rosie’s Amazing Rescue Story –  Roșie Carr’s Rescue Story

  • • And how to help a local rescue group when you drink your morning coffee – The Boonton Coffee Shop Helping A Local Rescue Group

  Opt To Adopt!

• Coach Sheets Ride In

  Jeremy Sheetinger is the head baseball coach atGeorgia Gwinnett Colleg where he led the Grizz Gang to the 2021 NAIA National Championship.

  These quick hits may, on the surface, be geared toward his fellow baseball coaches, but his motivational message can easily be applied to the classroom, workplace, and your personal relationships.

  This week, Coach Sheets reminds us to take care of ourselves, especially when it comes to dealing with exposure to the sun.

  🚘 HOW ‘BOUT THAT RIDE IN? 🚘
  
  🥳 Happy 6th BDay Charlee!! 🎂
  
  We love & protect our children… Do we protect ourselves?
  
  Please wear your sunscreen! Mix in a bucket hat!! Maybe some sleeves!
  
  ☀️ is awesome… but be smart!
  
  Love you guys!
  
  ⚡️ Positive Vibes Only!
  
  #👊 pic.twitter.com/GPrUAq1LDu

  — Jeremy Sheetinger | Sheets (@CoachSheets3) July 11, 2024

• Local Look

  Looking for something fun to do in the area? Chris Swendeman has you covered with this week’s Local Look.

  There are always so many fun events happening in our local communities.  Check out what’s in store for this week in New Jersey.

  • Stop by Hackettstown for their West End Farmers Market. Small and privately run, they’re all about the community and small business. The market runs today from 9.30 a.m. to 1 p.m. For further details, check out their Facebook page.
  • Love music and cars? Then you need to head to Fanwood today for the Summer Fan Jam from 11 AM to 7 PM. There’ll be live music, food trucks and a classic car show. Visit fanwoodnj.org for further details.
  • And you could drop by Maplewood today for its annual celebration of community music and art. It’s Maplewoodstock. Come dance, eat and have a great time from noon to 9 PM. There will be food vendors, live music and so much more throughout the day. See Maplewoodstock.com for more info.

   

  And that’s your Local Look for this week on The Jersey Magazine.  If you’d like your event to be featured on The Local Look, you can email us at [email protected].  See you next week on 105.5 WDHA.

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