Another one of my favorite childhood memories is playing baseball with my father:
There I sat in January 1968. I was in the same position that I had been in for endless hours. I was in the midst of a scene typical in any hospital: the close relatives expressing their deep concern, the nauseating odor lurking throughout the hospital wing, and the scenic pictures, with good intentions of comfort, hanging in the waiting rooms and hallways. The doors leading to the operating room were the dominant, central feature of my view. They seemed not only to symbolize, but to actually be the gates separating heaven and hell, life and death. I stared at the door as intently as a hawk stalks its prey, only I was not searching for prey, but for anyone who was the bearer of good news. At any other time, those "gates" would have been just another set of doors to me, but it was different now because my father was inside those "gates"; he was fighting for his right to re-enter the gates of life after suffering a fatal cardiac aneurysm attack.
Even though I could not see my father through the doors, I had formed a very clear silhouette image of him lying on his hospital bed, attached to numerous machines and surrounded by a team of doctors.
My mind began to focus on just my father's face. As I looked down at him, the vision of his face began to make me remember all the good times I had experienced with him. As my mind shuffled through the memories of birthdays, holidays, family outings, it came to a quick stop when remembering the afternoons of baseball with my dad. Since I was a youngchild, my father had always enjoyed not only playing baseball with me,but also discussing and sharing his opinions of the game with me. Because my father and I shared a great love of baseball as a common bond, the memories I have of playing baseball with him on those sultry summer days at Cherry Park, working with him at the gas station, and sitting with him endlessly, at his job as a security guard at Elizabeth Park are some of the greatest memories of my childhood.
"Growing up in Downriver Detroit, many years ago, my father and I watched many Tiger games on our small black & white TV. When he took me to my first game at Briggs Stadium in Detroit, we emerged from the iron columned concourse to the upper deck seats to see the brilliant green of the outfield grass and the stark white and blue of the fresh home team uniforms and I exclaimed, "Hey Dad, it's in color!"
My dad was a good baseball player, an old timer, when baseball was a game played in the sunshine. He played on teams in town when he was younger. When he was older he took up GOLF. He was the one that taught me the importance of competition, practice, adversity, stats and teamwork. More importantly – anyone who's spent a substantial amount of time playing baseball or shared a similar relationship with their father, understands that the game is about so much more. It's a connection to past generations. It's an analogy for how we learn. It's practice for developing character – and as a way for me to tell my father in Heaven that I appreciate all he's taught me.
''Keep your eye on the ball,'' my father told me. To me, baseball is a game that provided a connection to my father. And to the relationship that I shared with him growing up.
A game of catch with him was a great communication factor. Dad had the stronger arm, the surer hands. I remember in the alley behind our house, we used to play catch. His curveball was awesome. For me, I had the enthusiasm, a passionate, a hope, to play ball with him was a definite moment for me in my life.
Quite often, when we went to 'Cherry Park' near our home, he would hit me fly balls. Now that was a special treat for me. We would take our bat and balls. He had his old Ted Williams glove and had my trusty Harvey Kuenn mitt. With our equipment in place and my heart racing excitedly, our batting practices would begin. Positioned in the grass out in the field, I eagerly waited to hear the crack of his bat signal to me that there was another baseball in play that I could dive after or run down.
My father and I were dreamers also. I was the idolized right fielder Al Kaline for the Tigers: .Dad had a speech that he would recite each time his bat connected with the ball. His exact words are etched in my memory: "He steps up to the plate. The pitch. He swings. There it goes!
My father began fly-ball drills with soft, arcing tosses, gradually increasing height and range. The fly ball was another kind of dragon. A child's first tendency is to run at a ball in the air; the heartless baseball then sails over your head. Although this causes no physical pain, it can raise another cry, "How come you're standing over here, when the ball bounced over there?" The psyche grimaces. For judging fly balls, he used to tell me, ''when a baseball carries long, you want to turn. You should not run backwards; that is both awkward and slow. You spot the ball, turn and run to the point where it will descend --and when I did succeed in running down a long one and taking it over my shoulder, my father beamed and said, "Good catch." The praise spoke banners, I worked harder to win those words, "Good catch," But I was not afraid of a baseball.
The passion to play dominated my spirit, that, and the distinct but overlapping passion to win the good opinion of my father. He hit hundreds of grounders at me in the adjacent dusty sandlot diamond. The governing discipline was severe. To subdue a grounder you have to watch the ball, watch it from the bat, watch it skim and bounce, watch it right into your glove. But that exposes your face and a baseball can glance off a pebble and zoom into your teeth, like a micro version of one of today's smart bombs. You see it suddenly, mouth-high, and feel the ball at the same instant. The baseball feels like a concrete punch. After a few of these blows, you may want to lift your face as a grounder approaches. Except ... except ... that way you lose sight of the ball. You'll miss it then, sure as the ball is round. You have to keep your glove low and you have to look the zipping baseball into your glove, or else you'll hear the teasing cry: "You played every bounce right except the last one." You need equal measures of concentration and courage. When I stayed with a nasty grounder--and my father saw me stay with its final, hostile hop--I felt I had achieved something worthy of pride.
Then after we were walking home down the lonely dirt road on Pine, we are talking of summer evenings ... in the time, that I lived so successfully, disguised to myself as a child. My father followed my eyes and touched his bald head briefly. "As you grow up," he said, "you learn to live with disappointments." I asked him, ''do have disappointments,'' he answered me quickly, ''yeah Danny, I've had some disappointments.''
Thanks – to my father sharing the game of baseball with me a very early age.
I WANTED TO BE LIKE MY FATHER!
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Source : articlesbase.com
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