Watching baseball with my Dad.....

SlugSports

So I was busting some '83 Topps wax and some of those '82 Topps Cellos (of which I pulled a nice Ripken rookie) tonight from our recent BBCE Rip and a 4 pack of tall Guinness cans and I was thinking back to the 80's when I was a kid and the stuff my dad and I used to talk about when the game was on. Now for one reason or another Morgana the kissing bandit was always a hot topic. Now being that young impressionable youth that I was its easy to see why seeing her running around gets permanently burned into you brain

My dad and I were also lucky enough to be at Anaheim Stadium the day Reggie Jackson hit his 500th homer. We still have the ticket stubs and talk about that game every time we talk sports! I was young but can remember it like it was yesterday!!

How about you guys? Got any good stories?

SlugSports

Sorry to hear that your Dad passed David. My pops and I haven't been to a game for a while now as he has retired and lives in Nevada now but maybe it's time!

zep33

I'll never forget sitting in the basement with my dad while he played the record "The Impossible Dream" about the 67 Red Sox and then later "Super Sox 75". My brother got me the 75 album for Christmas a couple years ago and that proudly sits in a frame on my living room wall now. Someday, I'll find a nice copy of the 67 album to put next to it.

The last game I went to with my dad was the first Diamondbacks home game played after the 9/11 shutdown. I moved back to Mass a year or so later. He was diagnosed in 2004 with cancer and made it long enough to finally see those Sox win it all.

Watching the Fenway 100th anniversary last week brought back some really great and sad memories seeing some of those 1967 players again. For some reason, just seeing Billy Rohr actually made some tears flow


EDIT - just looked on Ebay and bought the Impossible Dream record for $10 delivered Now I gotta get a turntable to listen 1 more time.

SlugSports

Great story Zep! My Dad is responsible for this obsession I have with baseball and especially baseball cards! We started collecting together in the 80's and my passion has never cooled!! It has expanded to all sports over the years and also L.A. Lakers memorabilia!

Brian

Dboneesq

The first game I ever went to with my dad was in 1963. It was a New York Mets game at the old Polo Grounds. That started my passion for the game and I guess my collecting as well, as I still have the Year Book that he bought me that day. I believe the cost was 50 cents.

I am still lucky enough to have my dad around. He will be 83 in two weeks.

jay0791

My dad used to come and watch me play baseball....but he never took an interest in any sports.
I never watched a game on TV with my dad. He took me to one major league bb game.
I managed to get ron santo's and ernie banks autos on a piece of paper. Still have them.

edwardluger4

My experiences aren't with my dad, but my grandfather. The stories he told me growing up about Elroy Face making the Yankees look ridiculous, Satchel Paige throwing a fastball off of a gum wrapper, Bobby Orr being the greatest thing that ever skated on ice, those are stories I heard too many times to count growing up, but I cherish them today. Everytime I see him, I purposely will bring one of those up just because I know how happy and excited he gets to tell the stories.

He is the man that sparked my passion for hockey cards and that is our one great connection still to this day. Anytime I get a big pull or find a great deal, I give him a call and it makes both of our days just being able to shoot the crap about cards.

On the other hand, he is the absolute worst person to try and watch a game with though, because either the other team has paid off the refs/umps, or his team is just a bunch of bums that should be all fired on the spot and never paid again.

EchoCanyon

In the late 90s, I went to a Mets game on Father's Day with my best friend and his Dad (my Dad had passed away in 1988 at the young age of 50). We had great seats for foul balls, down the left field line at Shea. Bottom of the 5th, a foul pop is headed to our section. I mention to my friend, "it's coming this way." PLOP, right in my hand. A bare-handed catch and a gift from heaven. Thanks Dad. :-)

JoeBanzai

Was at a game at Met stadium with my Dad in the late 1960's and Killebrew hits one off the end of his bat into the right field corner. The opposing team had the "shift" on and with the right fielder so far away Killer ends up on third with a triple.

Everyone around is grinning as Harmon had slowed down by then and didn't hit more than 1 or 2 triples a year.

Dad looks down at me and says "They'll probably need to give him Oxygen after that".

Joe

tigerdean

I remeber playing baseball in 1977 when I was 10 and it was my first year of collecting cards. I remember the next year my brain finally got to thinking after watching several Cardinal games on TV that man I would like to actually go to a game. I remember after we had just got finished watching a game turning to my dad and saying would it be possible to go to a game?? I had these thoughts that is must cost a fortune or be impossible to actually get tickets. He said you want to go to a game huh. He said who would you like to see them play if you could go and I said the Astros becuase my Aunt had taken me to Texas the year before and I was digging on those wild uniforms they had. Low and behold a month later my dad had some tickets in hand and I just couldn't believe that I was going. They were ok seats, not nosebleeds but not good ones but I had the time of my life. I remember when I had just turned 16 I drove out to my dad's work and we watched the seventh game of the 1982 world series on a little 9 inch black and white TV. Flash forward to 2007 and I am now 40, I bought some of the best seats I could get right behind the Cardinal dugout and took my dad to see them play the nasty Cubs !!!! We had went to a few other games together in that 30 year gap but he never got to sit in the good seats until he was 63. I think he had the time of his life!! Dad has been gone for almost 4 years now and I am getting a tear in my eye just writing about this but I feel so blessed to have such great memories that some never get to ever have because now I got to take my 13 year old son to game 7 of the world series last year and I hope he cherishes that for the rest of his life. Oh the power of the baseball and the boys of summer.

scooter729

It was a lot of fun and a great memory to go to last week's 100th anniversary of Fenway Park with my dad. He has been going to Fenway since he was a kid in the 1940s, so I was glad I got to take him to the game as he got to see many of the players out on the field that he grew up watching many years ago....

We still go to at least one game a year, but the 100th anniversary one was really special to share. He said it was his best Fenway memory ever, and this from a man who as a 25 year old, JUST missed catching Ted Williams' last home run in his last at-bat (we have photo evidence from the Boston Globe of it!)....

Tabe

As a kid, I attended several games at Tiger Stadium with my dad. Saw a Blue Jays game in Toronto during their first year of existence and a Twins game in '85 at the Metrodome. He took me to Comerica several years ago and we've also gone to a Thanksgiving Day Lions game at the Silverdome. Dad's health isn't so good anymore and he probably couldn't do a ball game anymore but the memories will forever be cherished. He was great at encouraging me to play baseball and was always happy to catch for me after dinner despite having a hip condition that made it painful for him to crouch.

I've also been blessed to have a father-in-law who is a great sports fan. He was a sports editor in Bay City, MI. We've all been living in Spokane, WA for around 15 years during which time we've had season tickets for the Spokane Indians. We've been to a ton of games together and it's always great. He loves telling me about seeing Mickey Mantle hit a homer at Tiger Stadium and just enjoying being at the ballpark.

The fact that my wife loves going to the games probably more than I do - and that's saying a lot - means I am one really, really lucky guy.

Tabe

prthd

This is a great thread. I would like to share a story aswell. My dad and I always enjoyed the Browns and talking Browns. He was never really a huge sports fan like myself, but we shared a special love for the Browns. Back in 2003 My dad and I had a falling out after my wife and I split. We hadn't talked for months. Long story short, he was admitted ot the hospital for heart issues in the latter part of September. I rushed down to Dayton Ohio the next morning and we talked and made peace while watching the Browns / Bengals game in his hispital room. We lost that game but it will always be special to me. You see its the last game we ever watched together, he died 5 days later.
I got up this morning, showered and got dressed like i always do. But this morning I put on his high school ring for good luck tonight in the draft.

His dad, my grandfather had never been to a sporting event. I decided to take him to his first baseball game in Cleveland. We sat in right field and Indians won on a 12th inning game winning home run that landed a few rows in front of us. Afterwards I took him to Dick's Last Resort and the Hooters. I miss those days.

GO BROWNS

Dave

brian26

<< <i>My Dad and I either watched or talked about almost every Yankees game from the time Chis Chambliss hit his walk off home run against the Royals to win the playoffs... until two years ago. We had a GREAT run of Yankees seasons together! I lost my Dad two years ago, and baseball has not been the same to me since. Don't get me wrong, I still LOVE baseball and the Yankess... but its very different now.

Enjoy your Dad... Give him a hug!

I am very jealous! >>



Very cool, but at the same time, you had 30+ years with your dad of great memories. Cherish those. YOU'RE the lucky one here.