Baseball and Memories

It seems like every year in the spring there are all kinds of articles about "Fathers, Sons, and Baseball". (See here for one of this year’s.) As I read these articles, I don’t know whether to scream at these guys for being dumb or pity them for being stupid. What these articles, what these fathers, are missing is half the human race.

Going to baseball games with your son is great, but so is going with your daughter. I have great memories of Cubs games I have gone to with my son, one time waiting out a four-hour rain delay for the game to start – in the bleachers. But I also remember watching almost an entire game with my daughter in a light but steady rain – in the bleachers.

The article I referenced above talks about the father and son getting together to watch the game in which Cal Ripkin broke Lou Gehrig’s consecutive game record. I remember watching the game with my son – and my daughter. And she remembered it herself when she visited Camden Yards 2-1/2 years later on an eighth grade class trip.

I have waited in hours-long autograph lines at the annual Cubs Convention with my son – and with my daughter. And now they both have autographed baseballs signed by their favorite players in their bedrooms.

Going to baseball games with your kids, whether your son or your daughter, is really about memories, not just creating memories for your kids (and yourself), but also reliving the memories you have of going with your Dad.

"Fathers, sons, and baseball" is great; just like "fathers, daughters, and baseball." There’s no difference. … Well, maybe there is one difference. I do have one memory of going to baseball games with my daughter that I do not have with my son.

You see, at Wrigley Field, in the men’s rooms, they don’t have individual urinals. They just have these big, long troughs. And in the upper deck, where I usually sat with my kids, the individual stalls were at the far end of the men’s room. So the memory I have is running my daughter all the way, the entire-length of the men’s room, to get to those stalls – and praying that one of them would be empty. I also remember how very happy I was when she was finally old enough to go to the ladies’ room by herself.

Comments

[Jennie]

As the daughter mentioned in this post, I would also like to include KISS FM night in 2000. Kerry Wood returned from his tommy john surgery, and proceeded to win the game and hit a home run! Just think what you would've missed if I hadn't begged you to take me to that game.