1. MORE THAN A GAME
Partners Bat Away Life’s Curve Balls
With
Lessons of Pure Love
By Alisa G. Welch
Small, scuffed shoes sidle up to the pitcher’s mound signaling the start of the young
boy’s weekly lesson. Anxiously kicking at the stiff, green, artificial turf carpeting the batting
cage, he waits for his coach’s familiar chant.
“Up. Go. Throw.”
Like a square dance being called, “Up” and the boy raises his left knee to create balance;
“Go” and he raises his left arm perpendicular to his body, his right pitching arm behind him, ball
held high, elbow even with his shoulder; “Throw” and he steps forward toward his coach,
bringing arms around snapping release of the ball.
The catcher in this dance is Kyle Rigsby, 30, co­owner of Baseball Dynamics, a new
baseball training facility in Franklin. His partner is Keith Brown, 37. Baseball Dynamics
offers private lessons and clinics like the spring hitting league. They teach tikes as young as
seven and teens as old as 19.
Both Kyle and Keith pitched professional baseball. Both had those dreams prematurely
bunted down.
“Remember what we talked about. Bring your arm around and down. Act like you’re

2. gonna elbow your little brother.”
Attempting another pitch, the boy catches himself making a mistake in the familiar but
not quite rote dance. Frustrated, he grabs his head with both hands as if to cram the coach’s
creative cue into his head. Then he resumes the proper stance to try again. Kyle claims
repetition is the key to learning in baseball, “making good habits instead of bad habits.”
The boy begins the synchronized dance once more, systematically applying the lessons
he is learning.
“I’m impressed. It’s like you fixed your arm in a week,” Kyle praises the boy, Will
Ballard, 11, as the lesson ends.
“I worked at it,” Will proudly informs his coach. These lessons require homework.
And not just for the student.
“I try to teach the parents as much as the kids because I want them to get reinforced at
home,” Kyle stresses. “I want the parents in the cage with me while I give the lesson because I
want them to listen as much as the kid does.”
Keith agrees, “I try to teach the father. I tell the kids ‘listen to your dad.’ I try to get
them communicating with each other.”
The brightly lit white room is partitioned by two large batting cages, each a 20­by­70
rectangular box that creates a “better hitting atmosphere, almost as if you are outside,” according
to Kyle. Plastic netting keeps stray balls from knockin’ the noggins of watchful parents.
Benches line the cages, providing parents a place to learn their lessons.
The room is filled with excited boys in shorts and tees waiting their turn at bat. Their
nervous chatter echoes off the tall ceilings. A boy positions himself across from the jug, the

3. ball­spitting machine run today by parent Billy Walker. With a loud pop, the boy smacks the
ball, but it flies low and downward.
“Take your time.”
Billy Walker’s son, Cody, 9, started lessons with Kyle late last fall. Cody plays with the
amateur travel team, the Tennessee Copperheads. Last year, the team (then called the Grassland
Grizzlies) went to the AA World Series in Florida for “10 days of Disney and baseball,”
remembers Billy.
“Cody started (lessons) not being able to hit. They listen and really respond to what Kyle
says. They are teaching fundamentals and fun,” Billy remarks.
Another swing, another pop, a stronger connect.
“That is much better, my friend.”
Kyle has been playing baseball as far back as he can remember. A native Nashvillian,
Kyle and his dad watched the Cincinnati Reds on TV every Saturday. His older sisters tell him
by age five he never went anywhere without a baseball in his hand.
Asked what he loves about baseball, why he chose baseball, Kyle simply says, “I don’t
know…it’s just in me, it’s just a part of me.”
Indeed, his innate obsession paid off. He received a scholarship to Belmont University
where he graduated with a degree in exercise science and wellness. Drafted by the Minnesota
Twins, he began playing for their farm club at Ft. Wayne, Ind. Before a year was out, Kyle tore
a rotator cuff in his shoulder, ending his professional career.
“I couldn’t scratch the top of my head without my arm falling down. I’ve had three
surgeries on it. But I don’t regret it one bit. I’d do it all over again,” asserts Kyle. “I gave it

4. everything I had. I lived and breathed it while I was doing it.”
Kyle came back to coach at his alma mater, Belmont, for four years before moving on to
the University of Tampa for a year. He then taught at a private school in Madison before going
to work for the Franklin Special School District where he’s now the physical education teacher at
Franklin Elementary.
“I was pretty … depressed for about eight months (after the shoulder injury ended his
career). Then I really got into coaching. I’m probably a better coach than I was a player,” shares
Kyle. “And I can help a lot of people.”
These partners have learned to bat away the curve balls life can throw at dreams and
aspirations. Keith knows as well what it’s like to be on top only to have your body bottom out
on you.
He discovered he had non­Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer in 1993.
“Everything’s going great and it can be taken away from you just like that,” Keith
demonstrates by snapping his fingers. “I was with the Kansas City Royals’ AAA team when I
was diagnosed. But God had a different plan for me. Having cancer, it changes your life.”
Looking at Keith now, it’s hard to believe he underwent chemotherapy, radiation, and a
bone marrow transplant in his fight with cancer. He’s a soft­spoken, gentle giant at 6 foot 4
inches with an easy smile and kind brown eyes. A bit of gray highlights his brown hair. He
wears his 1990 Cincinnati Reds World Series ring and a simple wedding band.
Keith says he did the “yo­yo action” in his baseball career from 1988 to 1992 bouncing
back and forth from the Reds to the Sounds. In 1988 he found himself with the Nashville
Sounds.

5. “One day Keith calls me at work saying, ‘I got the call. I’m going to the big leagues.’ I
screamed, almost flipping my chair over,” recounts Vicky, Keith’s wife of 13 years. “I told my
boss I couldn’t come to work the next day because my husband was going to pitch for the Reds.”
Family and friends came to see Keith’s first game with Cincinnati. By mistake, Keith’s
college coach found himself in team owner Marge Shotz’s seat. When he apologized, explaining
he was so overwhelmed by Keith making the big league, she invited the entire group to sit with
her.
“I’m sitting next to the owner the whole game and I’m dying. I’m thinking if he does
bad, this is going to be terrible,” Vicky recollects with a nervous laugh. But Keith did Vicky
proud, pitching the Cardinals a 4 to 1 game, a good start to a good season.
Keith spent the next few years bouncing up and down from the minor to the major
leagues. But it was in 1993 while playing for the Royals against the Sounds that life, as he knew
it, came to a halt.
“The team doctor for the Sounds met me at the gate,” Vicky remembers. “He said the
bump that Keith had on the back of his neck should be checked. He told me it could be a
Hodgkin’s. I asked the girl I was sitting next to if she knew what a Hodgkin’s was and when she
didn’t, I just forgot about it.”
But when they returned home, Keith did get an appointment with the doctor. After
examining Keith, the doctor called Vicky into the room.
“I thought this is like Marcus Welby. When they call the wife in, it’s bad news,” Vicky
shares.
The doctor told the couple that Keith needed to see the specialist across the hall, saying to

6. them “no matter what, we’ve got a battle on our hands.” While Vicky remained in denial, Keith
realized it was serious, worrying about Vicky. The specialist scheduled a biopsy for the next
day.
Following the biopsy, Vicky dropped Keith at the ball field. Later, when she called the
doctor’s office to get the results, the nurse said she should make an appointment to see the
doctor, following signs to the oncology department when they came in.
“What? Does my husband have cancer?” a stunned Vicky asked the nurse when she
heard the word oncology. “My aunt was an oncology nurse and that’s the way I found out Keith
had cancer.”
As she drove to pick up Keith, the radio announcer for the Royals broadcast to the world,
“The Royal pitching staff has suffered another blow…Keith Brown has just been diagnosed with
non­Hodgkin’s lymphoma.”
Keith pitched all the way through September while undergoing chemotherapy.
“The last pitch was in slow motion. I was in tears,” recollects Vicky.
They moved to California so that Keith could receive a bone marrow transplant from
Stanford. Keith was the 38​th​
patient at Stanford to receive a transplant for non­Hodgkin’s
lymphoma. Thirty­eight was Keith’s big league number.
“The good Lord was looking after me,” chuckles Keith, “a little sign saying you’ll be all
right.”
It was a long ordeal. The treatment destroyed Keith’s white cells, leaving him with no
immune system.
“Basically, they do everything but kill you,” explains Vicky. “Then they bring you back

7. to life.”
But before Keith could go home he had to learn to give himself shots. When Keith found
he couldn’t do it, Vicky took over; sure the desire to bring him home would give her the nerve.
Sure, until the needle hit his skin.
So once again Keith tried with the nurse teasing “you wimp, a big guy like you wimping
out.” As he chanted to himself “here we go, here we go, here we go” he took a deep breath and
finally gave himself a shot.
Keith came out of the hospital determined to “get his life back.” Once home he not only
faced a fight for recovery but a financial battle to boot.
“We were rock bottom. I couldn’t work because of chemo. Vick was working but it
barely paid for childcare. In the beginning, the insurance paid only 80 percent,” Keith
remembers. “Everything we’d saved from baseball was gone.”
Then one day Keith’s pitching coach from the Reds called with an “unbelievable
blessing” – information about the Baseball Assistance Team (BAT), an organization that assists
members of the baseball family who are in need. They applied for help.
“My dad called saying we had a message on the answering machine from Joe Gargiola
that BAT wanted to help. My dad kept the tape,” Vicky laughs. “It was such a relief. They said
my job was to be with my family. They’ve helped more than we would have ever dreamed.”
BAT kept in touch with the couple, helping them to get on their feet and relocate to
Nashville. Now, Keith is a wholesaler of children’s toys in addition to being coach and
co­owner at Baseball Dynamics.
“To start a new life, that’s basically what we did. That part was real tough,” shares

8. Keith. “I’m happy with what’s going on now. No regrets.”
Partners Keith and Kyle are content to “grow their business slowly, doing it right.” But
one day they wouldn’t mind having a sports complex including weight training, football,
baseball and basketball.
“A Sports Dynamics,” suggests Keith. “It would be great to include kids who don’t
normally have the means. Some free baseball camps, and football camps.”
These days Keith spends his time finding ways to make learning baseball fun. “When it’s
fun, they listen. When it’s boring, they drift. I try to do everything so they feel it. If they don’t
feel it, they’re not going to learn it,” explains Keith.
Jeffrey Seeman’s son, David, 9, has been working on his throwing with Keith. Seeman
says, “Keith knows how to get it out of him. I really like the relationship between them. He
understands him as a person.” Turning to his son, he grins, “Keith’s got you tuned in.”
This pair seems to specialize in tuning into kids. It’s an atmosphere where parents, kids
and coaches can all focus on the fun of playing well.
“I hope more than anything that they enjoy what they are doing. I don’t care if they go
out and hit 50 home runs as long as they like playing the game. I think a lot of what we’ve seen
in the major leagues…is it’s starting to get more of a business than a game. I’d like to see it get
back to the old school days,” says Kyle. “Back when they played just for the love of the game
and not for money and not for fame or for fortune. I’m a purist.”
A pure love for the dance, for the game of baseball.
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