Talking Baseball With My Dad

My dad is the smartest dude alive. And I mean that with absolutely no hyperbole, he really is the smartest guy ever. He's a small business owner that has been successful for over 20 years. He was also majorly good at sports, good enough to play college baseball. My dad rocks and the talks we've had over the years have always centered around one thing: baseball.

When I was 10, we had just gotten home from practice. He was on the phone with my mom and they were talking about something that made me really upset (I don't remember what) and I told him he sucked and I ran to my room. While sitting in my room for an hour playing video games, he knocks on my door. 

"What do you want?" I say like a little shithead. 

"I want to talk to you." He replies.

I reluctantly turn around in my sweet ass swivel chair and look this man straight in the eye. He sits down next to me and looks around. He finds a special edition Tony The Tiger baseball and starts tossing it in his hands. He grips the ball like a pitcher would whenever they are throwing a 2-seam fastball. 

"Greg Maddux throws a nasty fastball. It dips." He says, staring at the ball.

I look up from the floor and stare at him and realize what a special moment this is. We talked about Greg Maddux and then we talked about the Reds, and then we talked about Pete Rose and David Concepcion. We never discussed the actual problem and for that I'm thankful because talking about sad feelings only makes me sad, but talking about something interesting makes me forget ever being sad.

Talking about baseball had become a staple in our relationship from that day forward. Those kind of talks about baseball got me through my first break up, my nana's cancer diagnosis, moving away from home for the first time (easily the worst day of my entire life), etc. 

Even 2 months ago, I had come to visit dad one day and I sat on the couch. I had been feeling kind of bummed out and he could sense it. He looked at me and said, "Walt Jocketty, he'll never be Billy Beane." I looked back at him and smiled and we talked about Billy Beane, Joey Votto, The Big Red Machine, and the concept of Moneyball.

3 years ago, I was rummaging through some items and I found something I thought dad had lost. It was the scorecard from the 1976 Reds World Series I had bought him for Father's Day when I was maybe 8 or 9. I smiled, put it back and then sat down with dad and we talked baseball for the next hour.