SkyKing162's Baseblog



A fan of the Yankees, Red Sox, and large sample sizes.


6.22.2004
 
HAPPY BELATED FATHER'S DAY

My obsession with baseball started with my dad's obsession with baseball. Our relationship is pretty much the epitome of the male bonding cliche.

Dad was my Little League baseball coach - check. Dad took me and my friends to a minor league game for my 8th birthday - check. Dad and I stayed up way past my bedtime watching the Yankees win the World Series - check. Dad organized the world's coolest neighborhood trip to a weekend of baseball up in Toronto - check.

Our Little League baseball team was a dynasty. In the International League, we finished first or second every year. Those were the glory days - sponsored by School Pictures, my short, skinny, non-imposing friends and I destroyed other teams with our coordination and competence. I threw the slowest pitch of anybody in the league, but since I could throw strikes and half the other kids couldn't hit, I didn't give up too many runs. We pulled the hidden ball trick at least once per game, and I even picked a kid off of second base from centerfield one time.

As most relationships go, there came a point when I realized my dad actually wasn't the second-coming of Babe Ruth (although he did beat out Dale Berra for the second base job as a sophomore in high school). It's a rather fuzzy point, though. It may have been a couple years after he proclaimed, "Bernie Williams in centerfield? That guy will never amount to anything." Or it might have been during my college days when I came home to hear him saying stupid things at the TV, like "ugh, we need more veteran leadership."

But it doesn't matter. The most important part of any parent-child relationship is that the child learns from the parent and takes things a step further. Hell, that's the most important part of any relationship.

Thanks for the baseball education, dad.


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