The Game That Connected Us

As a little girl—and the only child of a stern Italian father—there weren’t always a lot of things for us to talk about. But we had sports. Baseball, in particular. I was a tomboy growing up, and baseball became the one real bond between us. On Sunday visits, we could watch a game together, talk about the scores over breakfast at our favorite diner, or make a trip out to the Bronx to see the Yankees. Sometimes we even drove further to Shea Stadium to see the Mets. Looking back, I realize how much of our relationship lived inside those small moments. Honestly, I’m not sure what my father and I would have talked about when I was eight years old if we hadn’t had baseball in common.  

I played softball my first year in high school. I didn’t have a mitt so my father gave me his. I honestly don’t know why a 6’2” man would give his 12-year-old daughter his baseball glove. It was huge!  I will never forget that day. It was the last inning of a close game and I was in the outfield  (always praying the ball wouldn’t come my way). Sure enough the batter hit a fly ball to centerfield. I ran backwards…back…back… I reached my arm high up into the air and I didn’t feel anything. Dejected, I brought my glove down and looked inside. There was the big yellow softball in the webbing of my dad’s massive mitt!  Elated I took the ball in my left hand and raised it up high for everyone to see. OUT! My teammates threw their arms up in the air, cheering. Everybody was jumping up and down. I jogged off the field feeling  proud of my catch and what my father would say when I told him. My mom was in the bleachers that day and she remembers another mom sitting nearby who said, “That little girl didn’t even realize she caught that ball”. And how could I with a glove that big?

There may be someone out there reading this blog that can relate to my experience – bonding with someone over a shared interest.  For me it was baseball.  Even when my father would wait until the last minute to take me to a game and by the time we got there from Jersey it would be the third inning and the only tickets left were up in the nosebleed seats. Or forgetting to give me lunch and having to wait an hour for the hotdog vendor to make his way all the way up to our level with the hotdog box around his neck. If I was lucky, another vendor would come up with a bag of cotton candy. Then we would make the long drive back home.

Even as an adult, my father and I often resorted to baseball talk to fill the awkward silences. He passed away a year before we opened the baseball museum but I would give him regular updates and it was the highlight of our phone calls. We also did a lot of reminiscing in those last six months about our visits to the ballparks and the players that have come and gone. Baseball really is more than just a sport. It’s an experience, it’s a memory, it’s a connection. If baseball has been part of your story, too—connecting you to a parent, a friend, a place, or a moment you’ll never forget—I’d love to hear it. Message me and share your story.