Orange County high school baseball all-stars get advice on future from local expert

Nathan Kindstrand (right) talks to players before the OC All-Star Baseball Game. Business partner Jason Manalili (center) and Guy Lemmon of the Ryan Lemmon Foundation were also on hand. (PHOTO: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone).

Players competing in the 58th annual North-South Orange County All-Star Baseball game received some advice for their careers earlier this month from Nathan Kindstrand, owner of MANKIND Physical Therapy and Sports Medicine, who was worked with a number of Major League players.

Kindstrand, who owns the business which has locations in Santa Margarita, Irvine and on campus at UC Irvine, talked to the players before the all-star game at the Great Park Stadium.

“We see about 900 individuals a month, beyond that we manage roughly 50 Major League baseball players and professional baseball players each off-season, upwards of 70 or so and counting Major League baseball players who have gotten to the Big Leagues, three of the four who are on the {game} program {Paul Skenes, Pittsburgh, El Toro; Gerrit Cole, New York Yankees, Orange Lutheran and Freddie Freeman, Dodgers, El Modena} are or have been clients of ours,” Kindstrand said in an interview.

“We’ve had an opportunity to reach a lot of folks and it’s been an exciting adventure.”

While his organization works with all athletes from all sports, Kindstrand said:

“We have probably 50 percent of our case load is the youth, high school and collegiate and professional baseball athletes.”

His message to the high school baseball all-stars:

“….. About what it is to come from a background of being one of the better guys within the group of the kids you’re coming from and what’s out in front of you where at the collegiate level every person who gets there with you was the best of their group,” said Kindstrand, who was joined by his business partner Jason Manalili before the game.

“It’s a new adventure for a lot of these kids moving on from the high school to the collegiate setting and looking at this next chapter, how do you best prepare yourself to set yourself apart. Once again, with as much success as you’ve had, everyone at that next level has had similar success.

“So, how do we go about making sure that we continue to work on the development piece that got us to where we are currently and continue to move in the direction of setting ourselves apart going forward?”

Kindstrand said he works with athletes helping them to achieve their goals.

The all-star baseball game was sponsored by Guy Lemmon’s Ryan Lemmon Foundation. Lemmon listened as Kindstrand talked to the players and answered their questions.

—Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com