My dad was my hero, and I’ve missed him every single day of the 23 years since he got called up to “The Show” by God Himself. I wrote this reflection in 2003, just a few weeks before he passed away.
Baseball is a gentleman’s game played in bursts of heart-stopping excitement followed by the scribbling of sharpened pencils in thick ledgers. Or at least it used to be. The heart still stops, but some not-so-gentle men swing fists or corked bats. And high-resolution video cameras, computer keyboards, and radar guns have replaced the sharpened pencil. I guess there are still some gentlemen who play the game—a few wide-eyed rookies making it to the “Show” and a few elder statesmen patrolling the green grass of the outfield. And there is still one man who marks his ledger with a sharpened pencil… my dad.
He’s been a baseball fan since he first heard Red Barber’s voice from Ebbets Field on a small Silvertone radio. He’s the greatest fan—and the greatest man—I’ve ever met. He’s partial to the Dodgers, tolerates the Braves, and appreciates hustle, loyalty, and team spirit no matter what color hat the athlete wears.
As I sat with him the other night watching the Braves stretch one out against Seattle, I began to wonder what his favorite season of America’s Favorite Pastime was. I guess I could’ve asked, but I didn’t want to disturb my lifelong tradition of sitting beside him as he analyzed the situation on the field. He’s so much more insightful than the best color commentators.
His favorite season could have been 1948. Western Union didn’t visit Route 2 in Leighton, Alabama, very often back then. When the uniformed deliveryman arrived at the Whitlock homestead, cotton farmers and schoolchildren alike were curious about why William Whitlock was getting a telegram. Death in the family? Draft notice? No. Something far more surprising. The Boston Red Sox wanted him to try out. He left home an eighteen-year-old, right-handed, fastballer with potential. He returned a few days later from Rickwood Field knowing that the “Show” wasn’t for him.
I’m sure it wasn’t 1951. I mean, every red-blooded Dodger fan still cringes when TV retrospectives show the segment where Russ Hodges screams, “The Giants win the pennant!” It was the worst slide in baseball history. My dad was 21 and engaged that year. And then another telegram came. It was his draft notice.
Maybe it was 1953 when he started the first baseball team at Fort McPherson in Georgia. The Korean War was raging 13 time zones away and he must have brought some sanity to a difficult time. That winter, the Army saw something in my dad and shipped him and his newlywed wife from Atlanta to Kansas for officer training. On the frozen plain, he learned how to drink coffee in subzero weather, learned how to lead, and longed for the baseball diamond.
One of the best candidates is 1955, a golden year. The “Subway Series” between Brooklyn and the Yankees lasted until game seven, but the Bums finally beat their cross-town rival. He listened and cheered from the States, having never been deployed. After being honorably discharged, he traded his fatigues for a high school coach’s whistle. (Between football and basketball, he would eventually end his career on the high school level with a record of 201-89.)
The year they tore down Ebbets was probably one of the worst. In 1958, the Dodgers stopped dodging trolleys and started dodging earthquakes at Chavez Ravine. My dad spent the next few years coaching in north Alabama, Dallas, and eventually metro Atlanta. He coached the DeKalb Community College Patriots to NJCAA state and regional titles with an overall record of 172-85. Everybody he knows still calls him coach.
I wonder sometimes if his favorite season was 1974 when The Hammer chased The Babe. My grandparents came to town the week he hit 715. We were all going to go, but they arrived too late to go to the stadium. We had managed to be there for number 700, though. I’ll never forget sitting in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Those uncomfortable wooden seats teemed with more than 51,000 baseball fans and history seekers alike. Every time No. 44 walked from the dugout to the batter’s box, the crowd would stand and roar. I couldn’t see a thing, even when my dad helped me stand on the seat. I may not have seen the swing, but I felt the ocean of history wash over me and heard the crack that meant the worst team in baseball was worth something. We were all Braves fans in 1973 and 1974. Aaron didn’t become immortal that night, but my dad did for taking me there. Why did they have to trade Hank the next year?
The next season, when we sat along the first base side, I was old enough to write my name. We sat about 30 rows back, and Dad taught me how to keep score… with a sharpened pencil. That season was one of my favorites. Is it one of Dad’s? We went to see the Braves host the Dodgers, but every time, we’d leave before the bottom of the eighth inning because the basement dwellers seemed to always pull it out against LA.
Then there was the year he sat along the first base side of a Little League field and watched me catch a fly ball with my face. Probably not it.
In 1976, we traveled west to California because the rest of the country supposedly would be vacationing in our nation’s Capitol for the Bicentennial. I still think everybody had the same idea as my dad and joined us in the desert near the London Bridge. The highlight of that trip was my dad’s first and last home game at Dodger Stadium. We left in the top of the ninth. The Dodgers didn’t win that night, but my Dad and I made a lifelong memory eating Dodger Dogs and keeping score along first base. Steve Garvey, my favorite player, was live and in person about 100 yards away.
The World Series of 1981 was sweet, but when the Boys in Blue won again in 1988, it was sweeter. My dad still talks about Orel Hersheiser hitting his knees in thanksgiving and the way Kirk Gibson hobbled around the bases, pumping his arm, after a pinch-hit home run to cinch it. These pictures are burned in our memories.
We all moved away from Atlanta in 1991. I moved to Colorado Springs but never made it north to see the Rockies. My dad and mom moved back to Alabama. It figures that the Braves would start winning after we left. Oh, to have made it back to the first base stands in 1995 when Atlanta won the Series!
Last year had great promise. But the Dodgers faded, and Atlanta lost in the division series. My dad’s rotisserie baseball club, “The Up and Comers,” sat on top in our league until the last day of the season. Dad lost by one home run! The “Orange Crush” tied my dad in this category, giving them the half-point they needed to pull in front of my dad. Yes, statistics are the true currency of baseball.
Maybe it can be this season. The Dodgers are tied three games behind San Francisco in the West. His “Up and Comers” are in 2nd… behind my team. I’d gladly trade all my aces to him for the injured players on his roster if it meant he’d win. But he won’t have it. It wouldn’t be fair and honest.
But my dad’s favorite season can’t be 2004.
You see, Dad can’t echo the immortal words of Brooklyn fans from the fifties, “Wait till next year.” This is probably my father’s last baseball season. With every passing minute, his body is robbed of oxygen. Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis is a cruel thief—a terminal disease with no known cause that scars the lungs until the patient suffocates.
He watches baseball now, not from the first base side, but from a brown leatherette recliner. The stereophonic roar of the crowd is only tempered by the erratic and constant huffing and puffing of a 73-year-old man with Pulmonary Fibrosis. A clear tube wraps around his ears where an LA cap should be and trails along the ground to an oxygen pump in another room. He rolls his electric wheelchair to the computer every morning to check his fantasy baseball stats. He watches the games every night and pulls for the Dodgers, the rookies, and the gentlemen of the game.
Players, please honor this veteran fan of the game. Don’t be afraid to climb the center field wall to steal a home run. The scabs will heal, so go ahead and dive for that screaming ground ball and turn that double play. When you’re on the mound, and the catcher signals No. 1, breathe deep. You’ve got enough for one more fastball for my dad. And don’t meander to first base after ball four. Drop your bat and sprint down the line. Show a little hustle. Be a gentleman.
Don’t be surprised if the Dodgers make up for their demise of 1951 this year. I’m praying harder than a rookie in the batter’s box for the first time.
So, the next time you step up to the plate, tip your hat to the first base stands. Somewhere, about 30 rows back, there might be a father—a gentleman—teaching his son how to keep score with a sharpened pencil. For them, this is the best season ever.