More Than a Game

Baseball season isn’t just the beginning of a wonderful game for me. Baseball held me close to my dad. Daddy was a huge baseball fan and I wanted to be just like him. It’s true that I have wonderful memories of my dad playing in my hometown of Winston-Salem. But one of the memories I reach back for is one of a nine year old girl from North Carolina and her dad traveling the subway to the old Yankee Stadium. The train clacked over the wooden trestle as it burst out of the tunnel. It was an August day and I was with my best ‘fella’, my dad.

Some memories blur to black in fifty five years, but the memories of this day, this trip, are just as sharp as when they were new. Daddy loved the New York Yankees.  Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, and the rest of the team he called ‘the October boys.’  Daddy had a host of phrases he used while watching baseball. That splendid day he used some of them: “throw the good wood to it”, “he’s got a hole in his bat” (that’s what he yelled when one of his Yanks struck out.)

We didn’t have the best seats in the house, but the important thing was being together. We watched while these players, destined for the Hall of Fame, shellacked the Boston Red Sox. Daddy was always saying something about the umpire like, “are you blind? or “that’s criminal” when the ump made a bad call.

I tried to match my dad’s stride as we left the ballpark. As we approached the outside door of the stadium, I looked to my right. The blonde tousled hair and bulging muscles were unmistakable. Mickey Mantle was signing autographs. I wanted to go, but I was much too shy. I begged Daddy to go in my place, but he said I needed to get over my timidity. Neither of us went and as we grew older, we both regretted not having him sign a program. It was all good that day though. I ate peanuts, drank soda, and had my dad all to myself.

At the end of that long ago August day, Daddy and I emerged from the subway into Times Square. “Don’t ever forget this day, and tell your children and grandchildren about it.”

Sometimes when baseball season begins I get very nostalgic. There is a longing to be with my dad in still another ballpark. The smell of anything leather reminds me of his worn baseball glove.

This is why I love the crack of the bat, a stolen base, and the ump dusting the diamond. It’s not all about a game, but a special dad who taught me how to love. I pray that lesson never grows old.

Dedicated to my grandchildren and their dads—make every day count!