Baseball guys enjoy few things more than talking baseball, so when a successful former Major League Baseball manager visited campus last weekend, the attention of the Wabash College baseball team was as focused as if the winning run were on third base in the bottom of the ninth.
Holding that attention Friday afternoon in Baxter Hall was Mike Shildt, who spent the last six seasons as a big-league manager with the St. Louis Cardinals and San Diego Padres. In that span, the 2019 National League Manager of the Year guided his teams to five playoff appearances and a .561 winning percentage.
In the 90-minute Q&A session, Shildt didn’t lead off with fundamentals, defensive positioning, or approach. He opened with vulnerability, a quality he believes separates championship teams from the rest.
“A sign of strength is actually admitting you have a weakness,” Shildt told the Little Giants. “The stronger you are, the more vulnerable you are.”
This approach, honed through 30 years of coaching experience at all levels of competitive baseball, was the foundation of Shildt’s message: that mental resilience, focused preparation, and positive team culture matter more than simply talent in determining success.
“Vulnerability is still a challenge for me,” he said. “I have a responsibility to create a safe place where you could do that without judgment. I always tell my guys, ‘I’m not here to judge you. I’m here to love you. I care about you and I’m always going to give you the truth.’”
Ben Henke ‘26 appreciated the chance to listen and take in a lot of good advice.
“This is an unbelievable experience,” said Henke, an infielder from Jasper, Indiana. “He’s been through everything at every level. There is so much good in what he said. From a personal standpoint, I need to ask ‘What can I do to be a good teammate, a good leader, and the best possible version of myself?’”
From his view from the dugout, Shildt has witnessed firsthand how resilience, preparation, and culture separate achievement from something more fleeting. It’s easier to drive those points home when you are sharing stories about Yadier Molina or Chris Carpenter from your days with the Cardinals or of near daily battles with the division-rival Los Angeles Dodgers when you led the Padres.
In college and beyond, physical ability is an attribute, but the separator is “how mentally and emotionally you can begood to yourself and stay in the moment as the stakes get higher,” explained Shildt, now a coordinator of instruction, a teaching position, with the Baltimore Orioles.
Shildt also emphasized the importance of teammates supporting each other through inevitable struggles. “You know a guy struggling, go give him some love,” he urged. “I’m going to remind him how good he is.”
Such support extends beyond simple encouragement. Shildt advocates for a nightly mental reset routine that takes five minutes: reviewing what went well, identifying what needs improvement, creating a plan for tomorrow, then letting it go.
“You go to sleep loving yourself, rewarding yourself, building confidence with yourself, and then giving yourself a plan to correct yourself,” he said before exhaling. “Then, sleep like a baby.”
For younger players entering established programs, Shildt’s advice was clear: be open to change and never hesitate
to ask questions. He shared examples of major leaguers like Tommy Edman and Jackson Merrill who succeeded by embracing position changes they’d never played before.
“If you’re being asked to change position, please be open minded to it,” Shildt said. “It gets you on the field.”
Change requires more than athletic versatility, it demands intellectual curiosity and the courage to advocate for oneself. Shildt encouraged student-athletes to question coaches respectfully, noting that championship players think and do for themselves.
“You have the right to question me if you don’t understand, and you have the right to question me if you don’t agree,” he told the team. “You have the right to do both respectfully, because, ultimately you’re the one out there playing.”
Shildt issued a challenge to the upperclassmen: pour everything into helping the next class, even if it means helping someone take your spot. “That’s how this works,” Shildt emphasized. “Be that upperclassman, be that legacy piece. Bring that guy with you.”
Legacy building and program stability go beyond skill development. It comes down to maintaining team expectations. When veterans hold teammates accountable to those expectations, they’re not being harsh he says. They are sharing the gift of experience.
“He’s not getting on you to be a jerk,” said Shildt, who was on campus as the keynote speaker for the program’s First Pitch Banquet. “He knows how hard this is and he’s trying to help you understand what this looks and feels like so you can have a good experience.”
Shildt’s most essential message centered on intentionality, a focused approach that transforms routine practice into championship preparation.
He contrasted Albert Pujols’s daily 70-75 swing routine with players who mindlessly take 150-200 swings, noting that even the greatest hitter of his generation couldn’t maintain maximum focus beyond a certain point. “Are we really getting better? Can we actually focus for 150 or 200 swings?” Shildt asked.
Intentionality must extend to every moment, every day.
“There was no margin for not taking advantage of what happened that day and growing from that experience,” he said about his teams. “Every single game had the same level of importance.”
The experience wasn’t lost on Wabash Head Baseball Coach Jake Martin ‘03. “I’m so glad he’s here to interact with our guys. I want them to get better from this. I’m excited to have him at practice and pick apart what we do. Any opportunity for us to learn and get better is a good thing.”
What’s the payoff? When pressure arrives, it feels familiar rather than foreign.
“Everything matters. You show up, you get after it, and you get lost in the competition,” Shildt concluded with a bit of encouragement. “Enjoy the heck out of what you’re doing. Show up at that ballpark and know you’ve got something going on. I’m with my boys. I’m playing ball. Go out and have a blast.”