Dad loved baseball

 

Dad loved baseball, and on at least two occasions, it made him the happiest man on earth.

The first was when my cousin Dave came down from Canada for the summer to help on our South Dakota farm. He was my mother’s nephew, a big strapping 19-year-old who grew up on a farm and was a big help to my dad. Better than that. He had a great pitching arm.

I can only imagine the thrill Dad felt when he discovered this fact. From then on, every night, as the summer light faded from the gold wheat fields, he and Dave threw baseballs, honing the young man’s pitching skills for Saturday nights.

On Saturday nights the small towns in southeastern South Dakota flooded their baseball fields with bright yard lights and pitted their home town teams against each other. Farmers, merchants, teachers, ministers…everybody went to Saturday night baseball games. Once cousin Dave—the new Canadian pitcher—started winning, his reputation brought in even more fans.

Dave played for the Freeman team, and they won a lot that year. I was a child and didn’t pay much attention to the games, being too busy running around under the bleachers like everyone else, but I too, got caught up in the excitement. It was hard not to when the umpire called Strike Three and it was my cousin who walked off the field as the triumphant pitcher.

Dad loved it all.

But summer ended and Cousin Dave moved on. We moved to the city and a new life, but Dad kept baseball close to his heart. He listened to and watched Major League games, and became rather famous in my circle of friends since he relaxed by lying on the living room sofa in his shorts, watching games.

The second time baseball made Dad the happiest man on the planet was in 1961 when Major League baseball came to Minneapolis. The Washington Senators became the Minnesota Twins.

One of his favorite activities was attending games and taking out-of-town relatives to the old Met Stadium. Cousins, now middle aged, still tell stories of Dad’s antics as they remember the fun they had when he took them to see the Twins.

Players such as Rod Carew, Tony Oliva and Harmon Killebrew were the guys Dad loved to watch whether from his sofa or at one of many visits to the stadium. I was a teenager by now and could have cared less about baseball other than the embarrassment it caused as my friends gawked at Dad on the living room sofa in his shorts watching the games. Didn’t matter to Dad. He stayed a baseball fan for the rest of his life.

I’d never professed to a love of the game, but the years of growing up with a diehard baseball aficionado must have soaked into my subconscious. Several years ago I tuned into a Twins game and was surprised at the nostalgia passing over me at the sounds of baseball announcers and cheering crowds.

I was hooked. I watched the entire game and have been a fan ever since.

This Father’s Day, in memory of Dad and with thanks to him, I’ll tune in the Twins as they play Detroit and hope to heck they win. (They’re doing better this year.)