MADE Story

MADE Baseball was formed by Isaac Hess around an attitude and a lifestyle. MADE...Motivated, Appreciative, Dedicated...EVEryday....was founded by Isaac Hess, a left handed pitcher with 6+ years of experience in professional baseball around the world. (Isaac will never put the words “ex-professional” in his description regardless of where he stands in life...that is because he is and will always be a baseball player at heart.) Isaac created the MADE program to help facilitate change in the way we approach the game, as well as life, holistically and to help teach parents and youth coaches key fundamental thought processes and approaches towards the game as well as the proper mechanics, drills, and character development for their players. In creating this program, Isaac aims to serve and guide youth baseball players that have infinite hunger to succeed in baseball as well as life towards a path of positive fulfillment and achievement.

MADE was born in 2005. When Isaac was 19 he experienced a year of his life that forever changed his perception and approach to the actions he takes EVEryday. In the span of just 9 months Isaac lost both of his parents, his father, Rod, to colon cancer in September of 2004, and his mother, Eve, to a freak and sudden heart attack in May of 2005. There soon after in July of 2005 he also received a total hip replacement on his left hip due to a degenerative hip condition known as leg-calve perthes disease. He received the rare surgery for a 19 year old with the full intention of getting back on the field become only the 2^nd player in history(Bo Jackson is the other) to ever play professionally with a total hip replacement. In order to get back on the field Isaac had to go into the unknown without any map. During August of 2005 Isaac enrolled into the UofA and began a year of self-driven and self-taught rehab due to the constraints of not having the finances to afford any professional rehabilitation at the time. His hunger to get back on the field was infinitely present because he had always wanted to make it to the major leagues so he could one day buy his mother a house in Northern Arizona, which is what she always said she would love. This was something he dedicated himself to still achieving, but Isaac never wanted to just make it to the big leagues, he had an accute focus about what he wanted – to be a significant contributor to a world series championship team in the big leagues, preferably the D-Backs due to his love and loyalty for Arizona.

Upon the decision he made that he would ultimately come back to playing the game Isaac had to get creative in order to defeat the mental and emotional obstacles he had faced during this very trying time in his life. He knew that he had to make the choice to be ruthless about being positive, he had to be relentless in cultivating his ability and tactics to deflect the negative, and he had to figure out a way to do what everyone was saying he couldn't and shouldn't do. He decided that he was going do things his way with his own internal faith and guidance and that he would stick to his program of positivity and daily thankfulness for all the blessings that still remained in his life...thus was born “EVEryday Counts” and the principal attitude of “Get Better EVEryday.” Isaac coined this phrase in order to maintain tunnel vision on what it was that he knew he needed to do in order to get back on the field, as well as a means of reminding him EVEryday that he had a greater purpose for his life and that baseball was the vehicle which would help his fulfill it. Amongst the death of 2 parents, a total hip replacement, a transfer to a new university, and a world of confusion, question, and uncertainity, Isaac used this phrase to cope with these adversities and to ultimately accelerate towards something positive. This creation of this phrase was monumental in Isaac's life, and it has literally guided him throughout his entire professional career and beyond and it has helped to make him the motivator that he is.

EVEryday is the 100% core value that MADE is based upon. It is an approach...from how we put on our socks to how we bulldog a fastball by you when its 3-2 with bases loaded and the game is on the line...because we know we can. The reason we know we can is because we work EVEryday in all we do to earn the right to this knowledge. We embody what it is to be a winner by taking pride in the relationships that we have with ourselves, with our family, friends, teammates and even acquaintances, and lastly in our ability and competence to respect the game of baseball.