Happy Father's Day

It's not worth it's own thread, but is it agreed the greatest father-son combo in sports is the Griffeys or do you go with the Mannings?

 

I'm not an NHL fan, but do the Hulls belong in this conversation?

 

What's nice is having a son who is able to take Dad out for a steak on Father's Day and have the son pick up the check.

This son was also in Iraq this time a year ago, so that made it even better.

 

Didn't get taken out to dinner, but my son and girlfriend made me spaghetti, by request, last night.

 

Highlight of the day for me: One of my sons was actually paying enough attention that he bought me something I actually needed for Father's Day. This is a rite of passage, I guess, much more pleasant than, say, finding your razor all gunked up with Axe shaving gel.
He bought me a cover for the grill, but still, I was touched.

 

I posted this here a couple years ago, and thought about it yesterday, missing my dad. Hope no one minds if I repost it, not because it's such a great post, but just because he never gets into the Thanksgiving threads.


My father died at the age of 52, almost twenty years ago. My mother still suggests that it was the stress of his daughter choosing sports over law school ('Really darling, it's not your fault, you couldn't have known'), but I suspect it had more to do with the cancer.

He knew nothing about sports. His father came to Chicago from the Old Country, selling sandwiches and coffee from a pushcart at construction sites, scraping by enough to support his family, but not enough for luxuries like Cubs games. When the old man died, they found a dozen big boxes stuffed with cash. Turned out Grandpa had been working for Al Capone and the boys who followed, but was too scared to spend the thousands of dollars he had made doing God-knows-what.

I took my father to his first and last Cubs game, eight months before he died. I had two great seats over the Cubs dugout, on a Tuesday afternoon in May; the Braves were in town. It was Floppy Hat Day, and he wore that ridiculous hat until he died, maybe to hide way the chemo had cost him what little hair he had left, or maybe so people would ask him about the Cubs.

Dale Murphy hit a home run over the left field wall, and my dad leaped out of his seat like a little boy. Didn't matter to him that we were supposed to be cheering for the Cubs; he had just seen a home run in Wrigley Field. I think he hi-fived the lady sitting next to him, but I was never really sure....it was hard to see through the tears in my eyes.

He died the following winter. He never got to see what I accomplished in my life, but after that day, he never again asked why I was wasting my time in sports. I think he conceded that there couldn't be anything wrong with a world where a father and daughter could sit together wearing floppy hats on a beautiful spring day, as if life could go on forever that way.

 

Thanks for re-posting that one, 21. I hadn't seen it before.

Now you have me thinking about my father taking me to football games when I was a kid. When I was little, he had to drag me. Here he was with tickets to see the Steelers' great teams in the '70s and I wanted to stay home and watch monster movies on TV. WTF?

By the time I was 14, he was getting the tickets just because he knew I wanted to go. The man just couldn't sit still and watch a game. He had to roam around and talk to people, not that we ever talked much anyway. Those days were perfect examples of our relationship. We didn't always get along or have much to say to one another, but he always made sure I had what I wanted or needed. That was the only way he really knew to connect with people.

Sounds like our fathers were very different people, 21, but yours and mine were about the same age when we lost them to cancer. Too damn young.

 

so sorry to learn of you losing your dad so young, 21. beautiful tribute.

i'm bless that both my folks are still around as my biggest fans. i broke their hearts, too, when i sat them down for the "i'm-shooting-for-sportswriting" deal over law school when i was a junior in college. but they sucked it up and did nothing but support me to pursue what i loved from the get-go.

it didn't hurt that my dad raised me to be a huge sports fan and also schooled me on good sportswriting, turning me onto reading the n.y. times and n.y. post at its best in the '60s-'70s. but i'm not where i am today with my dad's influence. and i mean that literally. he worked in the n.y. garment district but was a colleague of a neighbor the the head of personnel at the n.y. daily news.

well, right after college graduation in '78 there was a huge newspaper strike in n.y. during the three month strike several of the copyboys at the news quit. lo and behold, my dad's friend asked him if i'd interested in one of the jobs as a go-fer working nights and weekends for 165 a week.

of course i said sure, so i got an interview, in which the chances for promotion from within was painted beyond nil. but i jumped at it anyway, naively thinking i could buck the odds.

the rest is personal history. but it all happened because of my dad.