NAT BALLENBERG
ABOUT ME
About Me
"Nat Ballenberg is so weird."
That's what his wife says. That's what his friends say. That's what his coworkers undoubtedly think.
He has a jar in his house. It's a penalty jar for using himself as an example of rational behavior. It holds hundreds of dollars. It should hold thousands.
The jar is a gift from a friend. It's an attempt to bring awareness to his oddities. Because Nat rarely seems to notice his quirks.
He is happy he hid some of these quirks long enough for his wife to fall in love with him. And he's ecstatic she still loves him even as his weirdness multiplies and grows by the year.
He's not getting more normal. If anything, he's drifting further down the path towards crazy. Not in a bad way. He's just realized life is better lived on his own terms. Which are really weird terms.
Here is an incomplete list of things Nat believes in:
Sleeping in
Oats
Walking
Lifting
Running
Books
Lying on the floor
Friends
Love
Baseball
The novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap
He believes in the lizard people (jk), and that skill bordering on magic is the product of years of compounding practice.
He works for the Twins, lives in Phoenixville, and just had a baby.
He is almost three years into fixing up his attic, a project that he planned to finish in a couple of months.
His wife is amazing. His family is incredible. And he has the greatest friends on the face of the earth.
Also, this other more boring stuff:
Nat was the Pitching Coach at Haverford College from 2010-2019. (He was also Haverford's Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach from 2014-2019.)
Nat helped guide the Fords to 3 Centennial Conference Championships and saw 2 pitchers selected in the MLB draft. He oversaw 9 Strength & Conditioning All-Americans. Nat realizes that he didn't throw any of the pitches or lift any of the weights that led to these accomplishments, and he finds it weird to write in the third person.
Although no longer overseeing day-to-day operations, Nat is still passionate about DiverseCITY Baseball, an organization that seeks to use baseball as a platform to create global citizens. The camp brings together kids from all walks of life and uses the lessons of the game to help players learn about being a good person, a good teammate, and a good citizen.
In 2017, Nat served as the Pitching Coach for the Milwaukee Brewers AZL club. Tasked with teaching the young, talented staff about the daily growth mindset needed for long-term success, the club won the Central Division’s first-half championship.
Nat is a proud alumnus of Haverford College, holding his Bachelor’s Degree in Economics. He also has a Master’s Degree in Sports Leadership from Northeastern University. Nat is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and is getting really into PRI and the constraints-led approach to training. He is proud to announce that he recently finished reading Triphasic Training and is starting up week 3 tomorrow.