My favorite memory in baseball isn't any particular Yankee win (although there has been some amazing ones) or any game in high school, instead my favorite baseball moments happened in the front lawn. The first memory happened at my fathers house when I was 8 years old. At that time my parents had been divorced for almost 3 years and subsequently I didn't see my father all that much. Whenever I did see him our interactions almost centered entirely around sports, especially baseball. As a young boy, like most other boys, I idolized my father, everything he liked I liked. This was doubly true about sports. I like the New York Giants because of my father, I liked Syracuse basketball because of my father and most importantly I liked the Yankees because of my father. I remember memorizing the line up and pitching rotation and then demanding a quiz from my dad to show him how much I knew about the Yankees. Whenever we played a game I would always try to emulate the different batting stances of Yankee players. We played in a lot next to his house owned by our elderly neighbor, there we would play games with just the two of us. Any ball hit on the ground by the pitcher was a single, a ball hit in the air 100 feet was a double, 150 feet was a triple. About 200 plus feet away was a parking lot of a nursing home, any ball hit in the air into the parking lot was a home run. Now being an eight year old I never even got close to a home run, in fact I was lucky if I hit a single. All of the games where close, mainly because my dad didn't want to discourage me from playing. He wouldn't throw hard, he mostly threw change ups, but he did have a particularly nasty knuckle ball that was impossible to hit. I was lucky if i could manage to foul off that pitch most of the time I would swing widely at it, hoping to make contact.
This brings us to that memorable day. The year was 1998, the Yankees were in the middle of a historic season and Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa slugging it out for the home run crown (with a little bit of help). It was the dog days of August, just weeks before school started up and baseball games would be replaced by soccer practices. My dad and I set up the diamond like usual, setting up the backstop and placing the bases, just in case anyone hit a home run. We played with ghost runners, but the rule was if you hit a home run then you had to take your victory lap. Up until that point I hadn't even sniffed a home run, but I was feeling confident that day. It was the third inning and I was down 5-3 with two ghost runners on. Looking back I realize that my dad was going easy on me that day, a couple weeks before I struck out four time in my first Little League start, and was throwing mainly meatballs. With a rare swagger I loudly proclaimed that I wanted heat. My dad laughed and obliged me throwing a fastball right down the center of the plate. At that time he could probably throw around 75, but to an 8 year old it seemed to be traveling the speed of light. I swung about two seconds to late and ended up falling over. With my dads laughter ringing in my ear I dusted myself off and stood up, defiantly looking at him. With anger and humiliation coursing through my veins I yelled "Is that all you got?" My dad reared back and threw again, this time harder. I watched it go by trying to get the timing down in my head. After I threw the ball back to him I dug in at the plate. I chocked up on the bat and tightened my grip, gearing up for another fastball. Whether it was fate or pure luck I managed to connect with the ball and I sent it flying in the air. It seemed to keep rising and rising, going farther and farther. After what seemed to be an eternity it landed in the parking lot of the nursing home, bouncing two times before nestling under a red car. The second the ball landed I took off, not to first but to where the ball had landed. The excitement was overwhelming, it was my first home run. After finding the ball I demanded a tape measure for my blast, the final distance was 235 feet. We decided that it would be best if it was a walk-off home run so we called it a day.
I never hit a real home run in any game I played in high school and never turned out to be that good of a ball player. That doesn't matter to me at all though, because even though my greatest baseball moment came over a decade ago I still remember it like it was yesterday. This is the what makes baseball truly great. Baseball is so cemented into our culture, especially that of the father and the son. What really matters isn't who wins, but instead its the bonds that the game makes. I may have not seen my father as much as I would have liked growing up, but I will always have that memory and countless others that we shared watching the game that we both love. Someday I will buy a glove for my son or daughter and the tradition will be extended. As I enter the adult world many of the things I used to love have fallen by the wayside. This isn't a bad thing, its just growing up. but I always find solace in the fact that no matter where I end up baseball and those memories will always be there reminding me of what's important.
This is what it's all about. Thanks for the great post, looks like I have a lot of reading to do on this blog!
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