“Daddy when you are done with your call can we have a catch outside?”
Baseball has played a huge role in my life. All sports have if I’m being honest. They were regularly my escape from whatever was bothering me or making me anxious that day as I was growing up. I often joke that my sports fandom was shaped by the Phillies losing in the World Series in 1993 in the heartbreaking way they did, but really it was the time I spent with my own dad bonding over baseball and other sports that shaped me.
Together with my dad we used to go to games in person and watch them on TV whenever we could. When we weren’t on the same page in life (which happened more than I would have preferred when I was younger), we could still find something in common talking about sports or putting on a game and just being fans, together. And while that was fun, my dad didn’t often come to the games I played in when I was growing up. That was something that always bothered me. My mom and Murray (my 2nd dad) were there, but without my dad in the stands something often felt like it was missing. And it wasn’t a void they could fill, no matter how much they wanted to. It impacted me to the point that many years later I told Sarah – before there were even boys to watch play – that when I got my chance as a dad, I would be there.
After playing T-ball for the first time last fall and loving it, Adam began playing coach pitch baseball this spring. I didn’t really plan to coach him, in fact I was looking forward to someone else giving him instructions he had to follow. But there were a few games where the coaches couldn’t be there, so I got the chance to watch my 5-year-old run around the field while helping teach him and his teammates how to hit, throw and do the handshake line at the end so they could learn to show respect to their opponents. I’m not sure which one of us enjoyed having me out there more. For days after the game, Adam told everyone that his daddy was his coach and he got a hit. Then he asked me if I would coach again for the next game.
He wakes up in the morning asking me what happened in the Phillies game the night before. He comes home from school asking if we can have a catch outside no matter the weather. And he goes to bed at night telling us that he is going to dream about baseball. He wants to know everything he can.
While I may get to bond more on the field with Adam, I still get to share special moments with both boys watching baseball (or other sports) either in the stadium or on TV. When we go to the games together, I may not know all of the songs Brandon tells me about on the car ride over, but when we are at the game together we can both sing Bryson Stott’s walkup song together. I can get ice cream in a helmet cup with Adam and watch him eat it while in awe of being in the stadium where I used to eat the same thing (and have those same feelings) with my dad.
I don’t know that I realized how deep the sports connection was with my dad until I started developing one with my kids. Experiencing these moments with my own boys is better and more meaningful to me than I could have even imagined. At least when it comes to this, I think we’re winning.
