Their Son Wants to Be the Greatest Ever. Are They Pushing Too Hard? | Rylee & Dallas Baldri

Oh, so the answer would be though you would do it.

I mean, if they say we're in

Like I said, I'm 150%er.

I already went this far.

We don't, we don't quit.

I'm not backing down now.

And I win.

What about… I know you can't speak for the other families, is

there a sense that everybody's all in?

Is there anybody that has apprehension?

Think a couple, might.

Back out?

There's a couple families that don't wanna do it again.

It's, it's a rough road, man.

It is.

The reality show's no joke.

I mean, you're putting yourself out to the world.

Hey, listen.

I've had family call me and just tell me how disgusted they are.

And I'm like, "You know what?

I'm glad you revealed yourself now

Oh, man.

Mike Lindstrom, my man, Scott Leese.

Check out my shirt, man.

You see this?

Three up, three down.

Three up, three down.

You know what sport that is?

Baseball.

Baseball?

Or softball.

Soccer guy.

You know baseball, huh?

Yeah.

Well, you forget.

I played baseball, a long time too.

We have a reality show in Scottsdale.

Do you know that?

I only recently learned.

Paramount Plus.

Executive producer, Kim Kardashian.

Kim Kardashian calls you up and says, Hey, we're gonna do a reality show.

We want you as a parent to be featured." You in?

Yes or no?

I have to pause.

I'm not sure.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I'd have to think about it.

She's one of most influential people on the planet.

I know.

I would probably say yes, but I'm, I'm pausing a little.

And then the cameras roll and then they do editing.

then I'm in trouble.

And then you're in trouble.

So we're gonna find out about this because the, the couple that we have, the Baldri

family, so Dallas and Rylee we got them.

We got them.

We got them.

I can't believe we got them.

The stars of the show.

We're really pumped to get them on the show.

So without further ado, we bring our guests in here, beautiful Rylee,

Dallas, they just look so dapper.

Coordinated outfits and everything.

I love it.

Amazing.

I love it.

All right.

So we always start off each of these interviews with "What's Your

Story?" Take it where you want.

Couple two-minute version.

Sure.

give us the timeline.

Talk about the family

- Dallas Baldri: Sure.

…how you got involved.

And we're gonna get into the rabbit holes, the show, how you got, all that stuff.

So let's get the, what's your story out first?

We'll get into all the good stuff.

Let's go.

and it's an honor and a pleasure to be here.

Thank you for having us.

Absolutely.

So Dallas and Rylee Baldri, better known as "the high

definition couple", the HD couple.

we have two very different stories.

Mine, I grew up in an entrepreneur family, was a lifelong entrepreneur

from selling candy at school, the trading cards, the pagers, if

anybody still knows what those are.

I had a pager.

Yeah, I had one too.

but when I was 16, my girlfriend at the time,

found out she was pregnant.

So I had a kid at 17.

I graduated high school on the day my daughter turned one, but I used that

as motivation to try to do something big in my life, to make sure that I'm

taking care of my beautiful little girl.

So I put myself through college, went to Temple University in Philadelphia.

I went on to law school, Widener Law.

ended up getting an MBA and, just continued to become an entrepreneur

and worked for my uncle, did very well.

And then everything crashed, came down in 2008 2009.

Lost my house, was sleeping in my car.

My sister said, Hey, come up to Utah where she was living at the time and you

can come at least crash on my couch." So I did that and met this beautiful lady.

[laughing]

Oh my.

[laughing]

So I have totally polar opposite

Okay.

…upbringing as Dallas.

I come from a blue collar family.

And college was talked about, but it wasn't like a serious conversation.

It was more of like the grind, right?

Like in just working.

And my dad and my parents always instilled in me like hard work always pays off.

Yeah.

And he really instilled in us like 150% Both

of my parents are military.

and so my mom did 20 years, retired at 60.

Wow.

She went to Camp Fallujah.

So the woman is amazing, but

Really is.

I'm from Utah.

The culture there is you get married really young.

Yep.

And you have kids very young and that's exactly what I did.

And I had my first son at 18 years old.

And, he actually, at one was diagnosed with cancer.

Oh, man.

And his father, amazing person, really good heart.

But we were both so young.

We were both kids and, it just didn't work out.

The stress for him and this, the way he handled it we just ended up separating.

And so I was doing it on my own.

And, got through that.

Thank God.

Thank you, God.

[laughing] And, I actually did really well for my son and I bought us our

first house when I was 23 years old.

Wow.

And I just did what my dad said.

he always instilled in me, we give 150% and how you do anything

is how you do everything.

And so I really try to do that with my kids now.

And then, with him when the crash happened, I had lost my job

at the time that was providing the finances for my house.

And so when I met him, I actually was in kind, like the worst part of my life.

Wow.

Like it was just a really, really bad time.

And I met him and what's funny is that he didn't, he was in the same situation.

Staying on his sister's couch, but he had this lot of cash in his pocket.

And I'm like, oh, this guy has money.

It was all I had.

It was every dollar to my name because I couldn't get a bank account.

Yeah.

I had no idea that was all the money that he had.

And so we had a pretty rough start because

Wow.

I got pregnant within three months and, I wasn't working.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

And what I love about this man, I don't think it's shared enough.

Like I love him because of his integrity, because of his passion

and what he did at having a child at 17, still putting himself…

He paid for all of his schooling.

Yep.

But at the time, it was just so hard.

So hard, And we fought really bad.

It was a very… But what I think we both knew, because he had two kids and

I had one, what we both knew is that we're not making this child grow up

without both parents in the same house.

And through hell and high waters, we were gonna make it work even though

it was hell for the first two years.

And then something just clicked where we started thriving, right?

and A lot of prayers.

Yeah.

A lot of prayers and

Love it.

Here we are today.

I love it.

I love it.

Yes.

So why don't reality shows tell that story?

See, this is the stuff that's left on the editing floor.

they only want the drama.

They want the drama.

They want all the nonsensical

- Scott Leese: they want the negative drama, I should say.

This is what you wanna hear.

Yeah.

This is the stuff.

Yeah.

But which is why we wanted to bring you on the show, by the way.

As you can see in this next, hour, it's all good.

We wanna hear your story.

The good, bad or indifferent, but the things that are authentic.

Yeah.

Yeah,

that's the, the hard part about reality.

People say it's a reality show.

I'm like, no, no, no.

It's scripted in a certain regard and you're giving the reality

of what the producer and Kim Kardashian, God bless her, man.

She's done amazing things.

Genius.

Icon.

Yeah.

So

She really is.

So we have, we're gonna start off with that.

I gotta get right to that question.

So tell us the story about how this came to be.

You, like

- Scott Leese: Yeah.

…somebody calls you out of the blue.

Who gets the call?

Tell us the story.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, how'd this happen?

Yeah.

So I wanna say it was about a year and a half ago, maybe a little bit longer.

we get a call from a friend of ours at the time who went to the school,

Legendary Prep Academy in Scottsdale.

Yep.

First baseball school in, in Arizona.

And it would, the school was pretty new.

There wasn't a lot of kids there.

he had said, Hey, do you wanna get interviewed for a TV show?" I said,

"About, what are you talking about?" He said, "Well, I got interviewed for,

they wanna do a real or a docu-series at the time on the kids in baseball.

And they asked, do we know anybody who needs to be interviewed?"

And he's, he referred us.

I said, "Sure, we'll do it." we found out also how he got invited was,

another individual at the school.

They had been following his son through the Little League World Series.

Gotcha.

And so he was on their radar.

Mm-hmm.

And so we got interviewed.

We said, "Why not?

We'll do it.

is this a YouTube deal or whatever?

let's just do it."

Yeah.

what do we have?

we're always open to opportunities." So we got interviewed.

it was ITV, which is, you start looking them up, the kings of reality TV.

Okay.

Well, at, at first

- Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

…it was like, I didn't believe it.

Yeah.

[laughing] I'm like, this is not real, And Salvatore,

of course, was like, "I get to play base the sport that I'm like, I love

- Dallas Baldri: Yeah, be on TV.

…and being on TV.

Please, mom and dad, please let's do this." and I didn't believe

it. I'm like, "This is not real.

Whatever.

Okay.

I'll believe it when it actually happens."

Right.

Yeah.

So, so it was interview, then another interview,

then brought in more people.

It, it was a lot of different interviews, right?

And finally we're, they're like, "Okay, we'll get back to you."

I think after the third interview, we're like, "I think this is

- Dallas Baldri: Yeah.

Actually serious." We start Googling these people

and we're like, "Holy cow."

Yeah.

Those are like big

- Dallas Baldri: I mean, these are the top of ITV.

Yeah.

These are

- Dallas Baldri: People have had a lot of success.

Yes.

And so let's see what happens.

They were gonna try to go pitch it.

Mm-hmm.

Now that they had who they wanted to feature, I think

it was five families at the time.

Yeah.

And, they pitched it.

It was very quiet for a while.

Cause a lot of time goes by, right?

And then the holidays start coming.

Yeah.

And, and I guess in, in that world, it's

like everything shuts down.

Yeah.

It's dark.

Yeah.

there were rumors like, Oh, we're gonna start filming." So it was

like before holidays started

- Dallas Baldri: Yeah.

…there were rumors, we're gonna start

filming, but we'd heard nothing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We're gonna start filming, but nobody has before.

So had Kim Kardashian's name come into play at this point?

No.

They told us a celebrity.

An a-list celebrity who had kids in youth sports.

Yeah.

So we're like, who could it be?

We're like

We though Alyssa Milano, a J-Lo

Yeah.

Like we're trying to Google because they wouldn't tell us anything.

Nothing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

And so then it all ha - after it was dark for a

while and quiet, it went quick.

So we got the announcement, "Hey, congratulations.

The show is going to be on Paramount Plus." And they want eight episodes,

one hour long, which to them was, they said, "This is unbelievable." Because

usually they want a pilot or something.

That's right.

So Paramount Plus, huge in sports especially, right?

I mean, it's a great place to be.

Still didn't tell us who was involved.

Kim works privately and she does not, you know, the way that

she works, it's like, I understand it.

I get it.

and they had to keep it top secret.

Yeah.

Like so they were very like tight-lipped on who it was gonna be.

They kinda gave us hints, but they wouldn't come like

all the way out and say it.

Yeah.

And so we knew it was gonna be someone big because

they're like, "This is someone who's like an icon in the industry."

And we're like, Who could it be?"

Yeah.

I didn't… The last person I actually though was Kim.

Didn't even think of her

Not because I don't think she's icon because I thought

No way she would do it.

Yeah, exactly.

Like she kind of above

She's not known for

- Rylee Baldri: She's above this.

Yeah.

She's not known for like her baseball mom or whatever.

Yeah.

I can see that.

and so they let us know right, pretty

much right before the filming.

Filming started, I think in end of February.

March.

Yeah,

beginning of March.

March 4th.

They start… they said, Hey, by the way, it's Kim Kardashian and,

we're filming basically in two weeks.

Get ready.

Wow.

She's seen all your interviews.

Yeah, she was a part of it from the beginning.

You had two weeks to mentally prepare.

But that you're like on the show, filming's gonna start.

You like, I got

Roughly.

No, October they did say… So they

It would be in the beginning of the year.

Sure.

Yeah.

But just, yeah.

But they said January.

And so January came and we're like

Nothing happened.

Nothing.

Nothing's going on.

And then February, they said February and then nothing happened.

And then they're like, okay, we're for sure starting in March.

Okay.

Because that was the beginning of the

season.

So did the school, were they kind of the anchor first and then the families?

Or were the families the anchor and then the school?

How'd that

- Rylee Baldri: I think that it was the families and they became

intrigued with the school.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

So it had nothing to do, like they didn't call the school and say, "Hey,

we're gonna find five families at your school. We wanna do it here."

It was more about the families.

It's my understanding that it was based off of one family.

Yeah, gotcha.

And then when they found out about the facility, they were like

It was perfect.

This is

Gotcha.

Yeah.

Like, yeah.

It just fit perfect.

Yeah.

Cause they were looking all over the country at different places.

Yeah.

But I thought, I think they found this was like a perfect scenario.

Yeah.

And then they wanted families at the school, obviously.

I mean, the facility is incredible.

Yeah, yeah.

You walk in and you're just like, "Holy cow."

So how did you guys get tied with the school?

How'd that happen?

So we've been, day oners.

Oh, wow.

yes.

OGs, yep.

Yeah.

We had, we followed a couple of other baseball players.

you get to know people in the valley and

Of course.

Really good players.

And he was friends, with a lot of the dads and stuff.

And he saw that one of his friends

- Dallas Baldri: Had posted.

…had posted about it.

And we were like,

- Mike Lindstrom: Ok.

…"What is this?" And we

We went in

- Rylee Baldri: …showed Salvatore and we said, Do you wanna go

check it out?" And he's like,

Yeah."

We walk in.

I'm like, There's no way he's not gonna wanna go to the school.

you wanna go to this?"

Like, we know what we just did.

Yeah.

We, we had no choice.

Yeah.

There was no choice once we went there.

Does he play baseball and other sports, you say?

Yeah.

So baseball's his main sport, we'll say, but he's an athlete first.

Okay.

So he just finished up soccer.

He was all state junior high in soccer.

That's great.

Yeah.

he plays basketball very good.

He'll say basketball's his second sport.

He played football up until this year.

Yeah.

and then trains with track.

We have him starting to do that because our daughter is a

Yeah.

National track star as well.

And track's great for any sport.

Oh

yeah.

It translates.

And so we keep him focused on being an athlete first, but baseball's

his big dreams, his goals.

Well, he chooses.

Yeah.

He really chooses.

Yeah.

he chooses to, he wants to do.

When he has downtime, he doesn't know how to chill.

yeah.

He's like, I want, can we do this?

Can we do that?" I'm more like, Don't you just wanna chill and

He's trying to take up golf.

For my sake, because I

Oh yeah?

Cause my stepdad's a big golfer.

Okay.

Yes.

Yeah.

[laughing]

Now he started golfing.

I'm just like, for my sake

He wanted to

box for a while.

So because I'm the taxi driver

Yep.

Can we chill for a minute?

But no.

So interesting, you said that you know this one speed, 150%

Uh-huh.

Because that's what you were taught.

Yes.

So I did, I've watched the episodes.

And Scott had, we had, we both have two sons that have, been athletes.

And we talk about how much do you push, how much do you not?

And we actually, he had a conversation with his son and your son said to you

Yeah, I actually, we were having a conversation and I

said, Hey, do you think I pushed you too hard or did I not push you

hard enough?" And my son actually said, "I wish you pushed me harder."

Hmm.

And I was like

Which is surprising.

We had that.

And it's like, wow.

You know why?

And then I thought I blame his mom.

Okay.

How old?

[laughing]

Of course.

[everyone laughing]

That's a good one!

I have two boys.

One's 18 and one's 16.

Okay.

This is the 16-year-old that I'm talking about.

And, and this conversation was maybe a year ago, so he was maybe 15 at the time.

Yeah.

With that being said, that's exactly why we are the way we are today,

because of our oldest were guinea pigs.

Yeah.

And my

We were young parents.

Yep.

Yep.

And my son tells me now.

He grew up with him.

I wish that I would've listened to you.

Mm.

And that breaks my heart because I'm like, I wish

I would've pushed you harder

- Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

…because

- Dallas Baldri: We just did wanna battle.

…you just don't know what you don't know.

That's right.

Yeah.

I think I'm so thankful that Salvatore actually hasn't had

the same, issues that my older son.

Yeah.

We've done a better job at protecting that.

Sure.

because you wanna protect your kids when they have

like a gift and you wanna protect who they're surrounded by, right?

Yeah.

Like good coaches.

That's right.

Good.

Like and that is something that we

Insulate them with great people.

Yeah.

Same mindset.

Yeah.

So I think because of the first experience that made my son

hate his sport, we learned we need to be more protective of who we allow.

Yeah.

You, you learn a lot.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think for me, I mean, I'm 53, my dad's in his mid 70s, and he grew

up very, middle, lower middle class.

That's the way they grew up.

And he was that same way.

He didn't go to college.

if I ever lied or stepped on the line, I got spanked.

Yeah.

Every once in a while it only took me two or three times to

figure out that I didn't want that.

Mm-hmm.

That's just how I was brought up.

I coach and I work with a lot of, parents in the executive world coaching.

And I think a lot of parents become soft.

Yeah.

and it's they're worried about what everyone thinks,

and then social media exacerbates it.

Yeah.

And now And the feelings now you're on a

reality show on top of that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So when you're sitting there, for example, in the episode where

you're saying, "Hey, we're gonna be on this spring break trip in Sedona," and

we're like, "No, I'm gonna go take my son.

We're gonna go hit some balls."

Yeah.

And the other families are like, [blows raspberry]

What's that about?" Like,

- Dallas Baldri: Yeah.

…let the kid be a kid." How do you toggle that though?

Like you, you wanna be the one that's gonna press.

You don't want

- Dallas Baldri: Yeah.

…maybe that situation where your kid's coming back to you

later in life going, "Gosh, dad, I wish he would've pushed me harder."

how do you guys talk about that?

Or what's your coaching belief about that with kids?

So I think we're both gonna have two different answers, and

I'm gonna go first, if you don't mind.

Sure.

there's been comments made, one that just sticks out in my head.

This guy said, My son, wanted to be in, in the NHL." And I said, "Hell no.

You're going to college." And I'm like

You're not gonna make it.

You're t you're telling me I'm the worst parent in the world because

I wanna provide every outlet for my kid to get the goal that he wants in life.

And you told your son, "no, sorry, you're going to college." Can

you imagine how that kid feels?

I will never be that parent.

And what you see in the show is me saying there will be sacrifices.

Right.

And that's what I'm teaching my kid.

When you make… It's not that my sacrifice, I didn't commit to the sport.

You committed to the sport.

So therefore it comes with sacrifices because you decided to make

that decision and I'm gonna make sure you follow through with it.

Yep.

Because it just teaches so many lessons throughout life.

And, I'm not gonna let him… I don't want him to be like a quitter.

It's so easy to give up when, or when you

don't feel like doing something.

Exactly.

And I tell my kids, like, the easy thing to do is what everybody else is doing.

That's easy.

it's hard being a leader, being a standup citizen.

Being different.

Being a good person.

Being different, showing up to work because you have a goal.

That is hard.

And so for me, when I'm talking about that scene and I'm

saying there will be sacrifices

- Mike Lindstrom: uh-huh.

It's because to me, it's important that we instill in our

kids when you've made a commitment, you're gonna follow through with it.

Yeah.

And I'm gonna make sure of it.

And, and we are different, and I'm okay with that.

Yeah.

You know, the negative comments, so to say, are

people that don't relate to us.

Yeah.

And I'm fine being unrelatable because to be successful,

whether it's sports, business, whatever it is you wanna do, you wanna be the best pod

I mean, there's sacrifices, like she said.

You gotta do things even when you don't feel like doing it.

You have to make commitments, stick with it.

You have to have a consistency.

All those things.

We use sports, as like she said, so he can be the best husband,

father, business guy, whatever.

Yes, will he make it to the MLB?

We believe so because we also believe in you can't achieve

it if you don't believe it.

I agree.

If you don't speak it, it's not gonna happen.

So you can call us delusional and crazy and bad parents, whatever, but

we're doing what I know successful people do because I've been fortunate

to have great, successful people who have done much better than us

- Rylee Baldri: Yeah.

Who have, who have kinda mentored and guided me.

The thing, one thing is that, that people put their own… They project.

Oh, big time.

And, and so, you know, they, that's, this comment

you're talking about, that person is squashing somebody else's dream

Their own kid.

Without - their own kid's dream without even

giving it a chance to breathe.

Mm-hmm.

And, and the… I think the projection is like,

this is not your son's dream.

This is your

- Dallas Baldri: Yeah.

…dream.

And they think that it's like

- Dallas Baldri: Yeah.

…y'all pushing it.

But they're not with you

- Dallas Baldri: Yeah.

…365 days a year that God knows how many conversations

you've had with your kids.

Mm-hmm.

All of them, but Sal in particular about how

bad do you actually want this?

Yeah.

Do you really wanna play or not play?

Or when he's coming to you and saying, I'm so bored, can we go hit

the ball or can we go play catch or whatever?" Like, they don't see that.

Yeah.

And they're not gonna put that on TV really.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cause he doesn't get the right soundbite.

Even opposite when he doesn't wanna hit and we suggest, "Hey,

buddy, you got a tournament this weekend. You should go hit." We don't force it.

Yeah.

If he chooses not to and then he shows up that weekend and he's

not doing well at hitting, we're like

Yep.

Told you so.

Natural consequences.

This is what happens

- Scott Leese: Yeah.

Yeah.

…and this is why we do it.

And I do wanna add, you asked, like, how do we

Yeah.

Toggle with dealing with people who don't understand.

We usually surround ourselves with people who do understand.

Yeah.

And so this

The show is unique.

The show is unique because it's not everyone

- Dallas Baldri: Our normal crew.

Yeah.

…has the same mentality that we do.

So I think that's the misconception that

people have of reality shows.

So when I was talking about Housewives of Orange County, Vicki Gunvalson does not

hang out with those people all the time.

I mean, professional acquaintances is what they are.

Yeah.

They're not best friends.

It's work.

They don't go sit there and have cocktails every Thursday

and Friday and talk about life.

Yeah.

This is work.

Yeah.

So I think that's when you watch the show, you can see like

the, the forced, you're in this one home in Sedona, everyone's together.

I'm like, I, I don't even know if I would go hang out with five or six people.

They force conflict.

Yeah.

And you know on the kayak scene, here's something interesting.

So first off, oh, you have your, it's your dream.

I, I was a, I like basketball.

That was my sport and she didn't play baseball.

This is my son's dream.

My dream's to be on the beach, FYI.

[everyone laughing]

She was just saying, Hey, when are we going to the beach?

But I just posted my son's journal that I found eight years old.

"My name is Salvatore James Saldutti Baldri. I'm eight years old and I'm

going to be the greatest baseball player in history. I wanna be the number

one." this is him riding on his own.

That's great.

This is his goal.

Love it.

But I'm not having him go out and dig ditches.

This is a game he's playing, right?

This is something fun where if he does reach it to the pros or

makes money with it, he's literally getting paid to play a game, right?

That he loves.

that's a good thing.

And then on the kayaking, we would've let him do it, except for

two days before a big tournament.

We did let him do it.

95 degrees.

Like all the things that go against what we normally would do, that was the reason.

He ended up getting to do half and half, which was the best of both worlds.

yeah.

But the one asterisk is he did not wanna go.

Yeah.

It wasn't until we got there and then he saw

his buddies like, "Well, maybe I do…" He was dead set on dead.

I'm not going kayaking.

I got a tournament.

He did say

- Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

…he's very conscious of dangerous things that he could

- Mike Lindstrom: sure.

…get hurt.

And so he's like, If it's dangerous and it, the waters

are crazy, I don't want it."

Yeah.

And so he is conscious of that and he's like, I don't wanna not

Yeah.

Be able to play this weekend."

And the daughters did wanna go kayaking.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

And she shouldn't have.

The older one, Sophia, she's track freshman.

She wants to do everything.

She's a daredevil.

She had a quad injury that kept her out.

She had the Nike Rotary, the biggest one.

Wow.

Okay.

Yes.

And she was hoping to get healthy for it.

It was in two days.

And I'm thinking like, I'm not a kayaker, but you're doing this stuff.

I know when you do something that you don't normally do, you feel it

for the next two, three, four days.

Yeah, you're gonna be sore.

Maybe because I'm an old guy, but

- Mike Lindstrom: I get sore from bowling, man.

[everyone laughing] My bi my biceps hurt after bowling.

Yeah.

So she was trying to get healthy for this race.

I'm like, "You can't go kayaking. that's craz- you can tweak."

Yeah.

So I think I had some validity there.

Yeah.

But at the end of the day, she went, Stella went,

and Sal gotta go and do both.

Yeah, it turned out fine, but they, again, creative editing.

Yeah.

They get the angle of Sal looking disappointed

and they show the daughters.

oh man.

You been around, you've been around parents in lots of different sports.

Yeah.

Yes.

I, I played baseball, basketball, soccer, and tennis.

Okay.

Up through high school.

I played two sports in college.

Wow.

And I've, I was there.

I've done the thing with my kids where I had two baseball games in the

morning, a soccer game in the afternoon

Yeah.

And three basketball games at night all in one day.

Yep.

And then you go do it again on Sunday, and depending on how they do

- Dallas Baldri: It's your life.

Mm-hmm.

I might be there till 10pm, 11 p.m. I've done all

Yeah.

Done all of that.

my question is, for you all, which set of parents, as it pertains to which sport,

are the most wacky and the most bonkers?

You think about

- Mike Lindstrom: Of all sports.

…baseball parents

Yeah.

Versus soccer parents versus basketball parents.

Versus hockey versus…

So we don't have the hockey experience.

We've heard a lot about that.

Yeah.

Even though Sal did say

- Rylee Baldri: Hockey does sound fun.

…he wanted to play hockey one year, and I'm like,

Okay, sure." But they made him do the learn how to skate first.

Yeah.

He was like, "I wanna play hockey. They're… Teach me how to…

Well, you gotta learn how to skate."

That is a part of hockey.

That's a big deal.

But, I would say, maybe because we're around it the most.

I think baseball

Baseball.

and it's the younger

Baseball's the only sport that I've seen a dad's, artery

look like it was about to burst.

But it was the younger kids, not even like the 14, 15-year-olds.

Losing his mind.

That's usually, like the 8U.

Yeah.

Yes!

8U.

That's the craziest

8U parents

it was.

In baseball are like, the nuttiest.

We had this one team that used to taunt the heck out of our team.

they were just known.

They were from… Where are they from?

Area.

Was it, Tucson?

Oh, gosh.

Tucson was fr

You remember the screamers, like the

Oh,

yeah.

That's I think it was Cave Creek, I think.

The coaches?

no.

It was not Cave Creek.

It was somewhere, West.

Okay.

But they would

go Glendale or Peoria.

Their mouths were really bad, but they would scream.

They would yell.

Oh, my gosh.

They would bang cans, stuff against the fence.

Yeah.

Like, really try to intimidate the kids.

Taunt the kids.

It would get really bad.

Parents were screaming that we didn't ever join in on that.

Yeah.

I think one day I did have a beer, and I think I might

have yelled out because they said something about Sal and I'm like, "That

wasn't an even call or something."

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I never… I actually… They scared me

a little bit because they were

- Mike Lindstrom: Oh yeah.

…so aggressive, but

that's a challenge.

We have these beautiful parks.

Yeah.

And these, these big facilities where there's like four

or five diamonds right in the middle.

Guess

- Scott Leese: It's the same

what's in the middle?

A bar.

…same in Texas.

A bar, bro.

And you're there all day.

Right.

We're partying it up.

And it's 100 degrees.

7:00am until 10:00pm.

It was Mother's Day.

That's why I had a drink that day, because it was a Mother Day weekend.

It's like

Happy Mother's Day.

You're spending the day at the field.

The bars at the thing.

Yep.

And that's normally actually something we don't join in on.

Yeah.

Special occasion.

She earned it.

I mean, it's a pretty terrible idea when you think about it.

Yeah.

You, you get

- Mike Lindstrom: Oh, It's stupid.

…thousands of people who are competitively charged up.

but you notice that

- Scott Leese: …around kids

- Dallas Baldri: at those types of fields

- Scott Leese: …this is a bad idea.

Come nighttime when it's like, the, the bracket play where you

can play three games in a day, it's much louder, much in more interesting

- Rylee Baldri: Yeah.

…because people are feeling nice.

Yeah.

So it can, it definitely can be interesting.

I think that team too, the coach was drinking and

- Mike Lindstrom: What?

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Oh,

that's against the rules.

I know what team you talking about.

Yes.

I won't mention

a little bit of Wild west.

We won't mention the team.

But, yeah.

All right.

I, I'm 90% sure.

Yeah.

I forgot about that.

The coach was drinking.

That was 9U.

9U.

Wow!

9U.

Golly, party it up.

Their team was really good though.

8U, 9U, it's like, that's where the most chaos is.

Yeah.

so how has this affected your business life?

you're an entrepreneur.

Yeah.

You, you got a brand out there.

Yeah.

How's this impacting that?

for us, it's been good.

Yes.

So we struggled a little bit where, with the negativity, right?

And, and we've always had some negativity, but it's been much more

positive because, you know, one of the things we've done, we, we

surround ourselves with entrepreneurs

- Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

…business owners

Everyone we do business with is someone we've

been, we've known for years.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, and, and we've been through ups and downs.

Yeah.

Trust me, we've learned

- Rylee Baldri: Yeah.

…who not to do [business] with.

It's caused it.

But with this

- Rylee Baldri: I think this has been really good for us.

Yeah.

That's great.

Business-wise, it's been amazing.

I think it's more… It's harder mentally.

Yeah.

because we were, we're the kind of parents

that just stick to ourselves.

Mm-hmm.

And so really, putting ourselves out there

and putting our lives on blast.

I, I expected it, but I though I would be stronger

Yeah.

If I were to be honest.

So what about social media?

Do you read the comments?

I do read the comments.

That's the worst thing you could do.

Yeah.

Can't do

it.

I actually have stopped.

I stop mostly because it's just, it's the same stuff.

Don't read them.

After three, four days, it's like the same stuff.

You're the worst people, you're this, you're that.

Yeah.

I, I have somewhat significant following on a couple

different social media platforms and a long, long time ago, somebody

said, "Never read the comments."

Yeah.

it's hard though at first because all of a sudden It is.

your comments are maybe 50 times, like it's cra everywhere you look, in the,

the feeds, it's you being talked about.

But, I got some advice from some people that, very high level people in the public

and they all said the same thing, the old adage, "All publicity is good publicity."

It is.

Yeah.

I agree with that.

Just, you're never gonna reach the next

level unless you can embrace it.

But what about this?

What about that?

Love it.

Does that mean the wines, the wine sales are growing a little bit?

Hey, the wine is, the wine is gonna be huge and I'm excited about

that because that's something that we

That's great.

It's been a

- Rylee Baldri: It's been a hobby.

Yeah.

A 10 year project.

It's more of a hobby for

us.

But w e've held it off to release it officially until the show.

Yeah.

Now you got time, you have momentum.

So we understand business a little bit.

Of course.

So yes.

I saw where you were going with that.

Yeah.

It's smart!

Yeah.

I held it off knowing the show was gonna be filmed.

I'm like, "We waited this long."

what I love about the producers is they

actually wanted to include it.

And they're like

And that's what I was gonna tell you.

Kudos to that because I know a lot of my reality show friends that are,

they have certain things they're not allowed to promote at all.

Can you tell everybody about the brand real quick?

Yeah.

Yeah.

so it's called Collezioni Divini, collection of wine.

It's pretty simple.

But the reason being is, so without giving you the two hour version that

they portrayed me giving on there

- Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

…at my wine experience.

I saw it, I saw that.

I'll give you the condensed version.

Oh my gosh.

my grandfather was my best friend in the world.

I named my son after him.

His name is Salvatore Saldutti, my mother's father.

We did genealogy back 20- something years ago, went back to our village.

There was no Google Maps.

It was up in the mountains.

Went there, found old relatives, all this stuff.

I just wanna clarify.

When he says "our village", he doesn't

- Dallas Baldri: We don't mean we own it.

We own the village.

Yeah,

because people say all they claim they

The village is like a town.

Oh yeah, of course.

1800 people.

It's like saying "my town".

Yeah,

I got it, i totally get it.

Yeah.

And

- Scott Leese: I didn't take it that way.

No, not at all.

Some people do.

They said "he said he owns villages in Italy." Not yet.

I would like to.

Yeah.

- [laughing]

…so

- Mike Lindstrom: [still laughing]

…would go back there.

Fast forward 2016, I brought the whole family.

We actually documented the whole thing.

I have a, a two, a one-year-old with us, a two-year-old.

They were all little.

And we went around all of Italy, but we went back into my villages

in Irpinia, Southern Italy.

it's about an hour and a half from Amalfi Coast.

Most people know that.

Yeah.

But it's up in the mountains, dirt roads, beautiful.

and people kept saying, "Well, why are you here?" I said, "Oh,

my family's from Avellino." "Best wine." I'm like, "Best wine?

I thought that was Tuscany, Piedmont, whatever." Cause we drank wine, but

not… So every time you go into somebody's place, it's do you want wine?

They make their own.

So she'd had an idea of we gotta get in the alcohol business.

And she talked about that for years.

Because it's

- Dallas Baldri: Well, we kind of put…

Okay,

wait, my family… So we're drinking the wine over there.

We come back to the States.

You go to Total Wine or wherever these huge… They don't have

any wine from that region at all.

So wait a second.

They do, they do now, but they didn't at the time.

Maybe like three or four.

Yeah.

It wasn't very much.

And so it was hard for us to drink the wine we would

normally drink because it was so good.

Yeah.

So we said, We need to bring… There's…

It's supply and demand."

Yep.

Some of the best wine in Italy, which is the best in the world.

Not here.

Let's do this."

Yeah.

But we had other stuff going on, didn't really pursue it.

COVID, we went back, shut down pretty much all of my businesses across the board.

I was doing a lot in Asia, Latin America.

We went to Italy and that's when we decided, hey, this is a recession proof,

COVID proof, whatever proof business.

Yeah.

We need to act on it.

And so by this time we'd been to Italy enough times in my villages.

We knew who the… We're friends with the producers.

Yeah.

When… Also, when he says his villages,

just because his family's from

Yeah.

A few different villages.

Three different villages.

Yeah.

And you talk to the people there, you get to know them and they

invite you in as if you're family.

Yeah.

And we actually, he still does have family.

He's only third generation.

Yeah.

So their biggest concern is they're phasing out.

Yeah.

Kids are leaving and no one's there to harvest.

And so they're like, "Immigrants are gonna take over our town"

- Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

"So we need money." And so to us, we're like, "How can we help?"

Yeah.

How, how can we

- Rylee Baldri: like what can we do?

And they're just like, "Bring more people."

Wow.

So how do we bring the people to these villages?

Well

- Rylee Baldri: By introducing

- Dallas Baldri: …introduce the wine.

Yeah.

So the real goal with the wine is bring the best wine, but

share the experience and the story

Yeah.

Where people want, when they go to Naples or when they

go to Amalfi Coast or Sorrento where everybody goes, let's get them up an

hour and a half into the mountains to experience the real Italy.

Great to tourism there.

Yes.

You go back in time.

It feels like you're

- Rylee Baldri: And we've actually, we've, we've sent a lot of people there.

Yeah.

So the whole scene from the show

Yeah.

The wine was really more to share just a piece of our lives.

Yeah.

And it was more just to share like what we're passionate about.

And not once did we try to sell anybody the wine.

They actually asked if they could buy and

said I'm not selling it to you.

We said no.

Like this is actually our collection because we only have 600 bottles

made of this particular bottle.

But this was just more to share because we were really open to the friendship.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We were trying.

So the reason why it made it look like… First

of all, he is long-winded, okay?

he's a businessman.

He's this professional speaker.

I'm detailed.

Not long-winded.

[laughing]

Detailed.

He spoke on many stages.

Sure.

It's who he is, but it's also where his family's from.

He's passionate about it.

And here we are thinking like we're giving this heartfelt like

Yeah.

Showing them and, and giving them a piece

of our lives and it really got

they showed a scene where… Who's the gal that

you're explaining the wine to?

Who was the woman?

Mel.

Huh?

Melanie?

Yeah.

So she said, and they made it look like she was bored.

Like she was like

Oh… no, Melanie liked it.

It was probaly, Trina.

Trina.

Yeah.

They made it look like she, that he was sitting there talking

and talking and talking and she was bored.

I think one.

I'm excited to watch the show now.

But I did.

Compare and contrast what I know about y'all now

to what I see on the show.

He's the opposite.

See, I always wanted to go out and watch the shows and then

do that and he's the opposite.

He'll go watch the shows, get to know you authentically and then watch the show.

But in all fairness

- Rylee Baldri: I actually like the way you do it because I don't know if he

had reservations when I walked in.

[laughing]

No.

Nope, he did not.

I'm just teasing.

No, no, not at all.

But in all fairness to them when they came over, it wasn't a dinner.

It was a wine experience.

And what I tried to replicate is when we go back to the villages

This is how they do it.

This is what they do.

You don't just drink it

- Rylee Baldri: You sit for hours and they're telling you this story.

…cultural difference though as, as well, yeah.

So different.

It's hard to get people from here to adapt to that.

…tried to replicate.

And so after, how did it go?

I think it went phenomenal.

Like it was amazing.

…everything about it.

And then you see them and they're like, "I just wanted to drink."

"That sucked."

Yeah.

"Why didn't they have more wines?"

Yeah.

"All we wanted to do was drink."

I'm giving them samples because I actually opened up sample

bottles I'd had of other future wines.

So we released Salvatore, the first one.

I mean, they drink $5 bottle of Costco Prosecco.

We should have known that.

Yeah, you should have known.

I should have done that

- Mike Lindstrom: Gotta read your audience, man.

Yes.

They're over there drinking Two Buck Chuck.

Yes!

Yeah.

It's like, come on, man.

Yeah.

I opened up my samples of future wines we're gonna bring out after.

I opened my high end one, three or four of those, and there's only 600 made.

It's like

- Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

That's my, that's one of my biggest regrets from the show.

let's talk about Sal.

how's this impacting him?

Now I'm gonna tell you this, full authenticity.

My son, 18 and 16, they watched the show.

And my 18-year-old goes, "Man, I wonder what that, the pressure

that kid must feel now." I'm like, Oh, that's a good point, right?

I never thought from that viewpoint." But he brought it up

as a teenager. I was like, "Dad, I wouldn't want, I wouldn't want that.

I wouldn't want people… I would go b going to high school." He goes

to Brophy, Brophy Prep, and people would be talking about him going,

"Hey, what's going on with Ray?

He struck out," or whatever.

Yeah.

He goes, "I don't want that attention on me." He's

very much a introvert, by the way, so that, that explains part of it.

But I understood his point.

Speak to that a little bit.

Like, how's it impacting him in that regard?

So we had… All of our kids wanted to do this, by the way.

Yep.

it was a family talk.

It was not a parent talk.

Yep.

I was against it.

I was a hard no for not doing this.

And Salvi begged to do it.

And the girls did too.

They were like, "We can be on TV.

Like

-" Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

"It sounds amazing." And I know that even as much as we explained,

I know they don't fully understand.

They seem to be dealing with it really well.

Yeah.

To be honest.

And they… We really try to limit their online, them getting online.

Exposure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, yeah, their online exposure and what they see.

And we just… And honestly, I think we're all getting used to it and ignoring it.

And Salvatore's probably the strongest and the wisest.

And he's like, "Mom, who cares? We don't even know these people." Yes.

He's built different though.

Good.

Yeah.

He is.

We do have… Our three kids that we have together are… not

just the three we have together.

Yeah.

All of our kids are amazing.

Yeah.

Our oldest daughter is a nurse, and she's married to a

fireman, and we have a grand baby.

Yep.

Wow.

And our son, he works, on base in Utah.

they're doing well, you know?

Yeah.

but our three youngers are athletes.

And so they have… They are just built different.

Different mindset.

Yeah.

They are so different than… They're so strong.

Like, they're already getting so much heat.

Like Salvatore, started putting himself online when he was about five years old.

we were… When we were traveling

Yeah.

This first trip he was talking about, we woke up.

We were… You know how you do those flights, and I think we

took an, we had, like, a layover.

It was a took 23 hours to get there.

Wow.

And, we woke up, he took one of our phones and built a YouTube channel.

But we didn't… We, how we found out

No idea.

I got a notification, like, a week later.

Yeah.

You have a subscriber.

Salvatore James was his channel.

I look, I go watch the video.

He's five.

And he's talking about how to make money as a kid.

How fun

And he's talking about sports.

Yep.

Bitcoin.

This is almost 10 years ago, Bitcoin.

Yeah.

A five or six-year-old talking about it.

He'll buy bitcoin.

To buy stuff, sell stuff.

He's watching Gary Vaynerchuk.

I think that kid's gonna be just fine.

GaryV.

Yeah.

I think that kid's gonna be just fine.

Yeah, he'll be fine.

So, so with him, he's built different.

He's been doing this,

All three of them are just…

it kinda set him up where

Yeah.

This is nothing for him.

He's had

- Rylee Baldri: He's already had online.

…negative comments.

Yeah.

He has kids reach out to him that are, like,

talking crap, you know, about

- Dallas Baldri: …cuz you, you see his drip?

he stands out.

Yeah, I like the drip.

He's always been that way.

Yeah.

Love the drip.

Eight years old, seven years old, same way.

That's what I love about him is he's unapologetically him.

Yes.

And he doesn't change for anybody.

Love it.

And he shows up, and he carries himself

very confidently, not cocky.

He's the sweetest kid you'll ever meet.

I have… He went to the school before LPA, and I still have moms calling me

saying, "We miss Sal so much," because he was the kid who would stick up for

the kids who were getting bullied or

Love it.

and I… He's just a… He's an incredible kid.

So here's three tips on this one.

One's his and the other two are ones I borrowed.

So he loves the one haters.

Just push the clown face.

Clown face.

I, I use that often.

Just do the clown face over and over.

He does it over and over and over.

It drives people crazy.

Emoji.

Yeah.

They don't even know how to respond to them.

They're like, "What do you mean clown face?"

It agitates them more.

And sometimes you do a double or triple one depending

on how stupid their comment was.

So I ripped one from him.

The other one is, you say, "God bless you." And the other one

is, "Appreciate the feedback."

Yeah.

Appreciate the feedback.

Well, then you're onto something.

Hey, you do those two, it drives people crazy.

The southern way to say it is "bless your heart."

"Bless your heart."

"Bless your heart."

That's a southern charm, right?

Yeah.

That is true.

That's the ultimate passive aggressive F you, right?

Yeah.

All right.

So I don't know if you can say this or not.

I know there's contracts involved with this.

So where do we sit here?

So we have season one in the can, eight episodes, discussions

about the next season.

Nothing yet.

Nothing yet.

We have no idea.

And I keep saying as soon as I find out, I will let all of you know too.

Yeah.

I mean, who knows?

You might find out the same time we do, so…

Did you watch the, all eight?

The final… I've waited for… I waited for the final one.

Haven watched the final one.

Okay.

So, so

- Mike Lindstrom: That's the only one I haven't seen.

Seven.

what I think is special about this show is you

got Kim Kardashian, an icon.

Yep.

Paramount Plus, Huge, ITV, The Kings of Reality.

You got those three together, right?

And then with, as far as the audience, it's going to attract the reality people

- Rylee Baldri: uh-huh.

…which it's done phenomenal on.

Yep.

But it's also attracting a different audience of people who may watch

it like us because of the sports aspect.

Mm-hmm.

So I think it's really a perfect storm.

And I'm seeing a lot of people say, "Hey, I watched the whole thing. I watched I

need a season two. I need a season two."

I need a season two.

Yeah.

whether they're talking positive about us or not, they're still

saying, "We need a season two." And my, one of my business partners, I'm like,

he was on a trip for a couple weeks.

He just got back, last week.

He's like, "I'm gonna sit down and watch it with my kids, the first

one. Okay, let me know. Let's talk about it as you're watching it."

Yeah.

3:00 AM, he says, "Just finished all eight." [laughing]

He doesn't watch reality shows.

So it's, that's what I'm seeing.

He was pissed.

Yeah.

He was mad.

He's… I mean, our really good friends are like, "I'm so mad what they did."

I'm sure people stick up for you that know you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So dude you can't give away eighth episode.

Yes.

I don't know what happens.

Okay.

I did this on purpose because I knew I

was gonna be interviewing.

[laughing]

And I wanted to meet you all.

And then