Bell works with dad to get swing right over break

This story was excerpted from Christina De Nicola's Marlins Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

MIAMI -- Josh Bell needed to get right at the plate, so rather than take the All-Star break to decompress, he made a call to bring in reinforcements: his father, Earnest.

Though Earnest played football and ran track at Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., he coached Josh in organized baseball from when we was 5 years old until ninth grade. But the mentoring didn’t stop there.

Earnest and Josh talk or text on a daily basis. Dad is available to son whenever he needs him -- even if it’s a FaceTime chat while Josh hits in the cage. And the advice isn’t limited to baseball; sometimes it’s about being a good husband and father.

“He's my oldest coach, he knows my swing better than myself sometimes,” Josh said. “Just having someone there -- it's kind of tough to work out on your own. [Manager] Skip [Schumaker] had said, ‘No one show up to the field [over the break].’ And I was like, ‘Skip, I've got to show up. I've got to figure this out.’ So they opened things up for me, and it was just me and my dad. We worked out for three or four hours every day of the break. Hopefully I'll have something to show for it in a couple of months.”

After taking Josh’s call, Earnest flew from Dallas to Miami with his mechanical hitting machine, and they got to work. It felt like turning back the clock to Josh’s high school days as Earnest videotaped his Major League son hitting while jamming out to music.

Earnest and Josh also lifted weights together, something they’ve done every offseason since Josh was selected in the second round of the 2011 MLB Draft.

“People will often listen to you, but the first thing they do is they watch you,” Earnest said. “So what I've been doing is I've been going to the gym every day. So when he saw me and I'm hitting the weights hard, it's like, ‘Whoa, dad.’ That motivated him to say, ‘You're 62 and you're lifting that much weight! I can't complain.’”

During his early stages as a father, Earnest learned it was better to be a cheerleader than a coach, to always support Josh and provide a dose of perspective. Despite being a nine-year MLB veteran, Josh is hard on himself. This season, in particular, has been a challenging one with his .645 first-half OPS.

“This is just a game, and the key is to have fun,” Earnest said. “It's hard to have fun when you're not producing, but at the same time, have fun on the field and then leave it on the field, and then you go home and then you have fun with your family and your community, so when you come back to the field, it's not all about the sport.”

Father-son time appears to have paid off. Josh entered Thursday batting .300 with two homers and five walks in six second-half games. Earnest beamed with pride as Josh went deep in Monday’s game against the Mets. He flew back to Texas on Tuesday, his work done -- for now.

“He's always like, ‘You're doing it, JB,’ like 0-for-6 with six punchouts,” Josh said. “He's like, ‘You made it, man! You're living the dream. Keep enjoying yourself. Good things are happening.’ So he's definitely a proud father. He was there every step of the way, so happy to have him out and see that homer.”