Baseball - Father's Day

I was planning to write a blog about my dad for father’s day, and as all my writings do, it rambled on and took on a life of its own. I do not apologize for that. Those who read my words regularly have grown to expect me to stray and stay off topic. That is more a product of my ADD and OCD quirks than by design. If you saw my weekend housecleaning begin in the kitchen and up at Hooters, you would understand. I will immediately lose any readers who know nothing about baseball. I will divide this into two separate blogs as I know from my own experience that long blogs don’t get read.

I have always been a baseball fan. I came by it naturally, as my dad loved the one game a week that was televised when I was growing up in northern Idaho. Since, in the late 1950’s, the New York Yankees were a dynasty, the “game of the week” usually featured them. Later in his life, dad became an Atlanta Braves fan. This was equally due to WTBS televising all of the Braves games and the fact that dad grew up in Georgia. He was also a loyal Georgia Tech fan, though I don’t believe he ever had laid eyes on the Atlanta campus. Even though WGN broadcast all the Chicago Cubs games, dad never became interested in that hapless franchise. Who could blame him? Dad never got a chance to play sports as his dad considered such things frivolous and dad was forced to quit school quite young to go to work. He used to play catch with me but by about the age of 10 I threw too hard for him to catch me. That, in itself, made him proud.
My sons became New York Yankee fans by a lifetime of intense brainwashing. So much so, that my oldest son, Rick Jr. named his daughter Maris. I was delighted with that. My daughter’s son, Carson, will become a Yankee fan once I have him fully programmed. Maybe I will nickname him Mickey, Hanna-Barbera probably has a copyright on Yogi..

My love for baseball increased during my youth, as I showed an aptitude for it. But as I pitched my way to some local acclaim, dad seldom watched me play. He felt that he was bad luck as the few times he was in the stands I performed poorly. He would listen wide-eyed as I came home and gave play-by-play accounts of no-hitters. I always knew he was proud of me and only when I had kids of my own playing sports did I realize how painful it must have been for him to stay away from my games. Outside of military service commitments, I don’t think I ever missed any of my children’s sporting events. Sometimes, when all three were playing at different levels, the logistics got very difficult. Watching those games will always provide some of my fondest memories. I coached their teams for several years and those experiences will result in future blogs.