FanPost

FPF: When My Dad Didn't Take Me to Memorial Stadium

My dad was a huge baseball fan. He grew up in New Jersey in the 50s, a Yankees fan. He skipped school to go to the World Series in 1961. He raised my sister and I to enjoy the game (yes, as Yankees fans--hey, we were in New Jersey, and the 1980s Yankees were hardly the bandwagon draws they would later be), bringing us to games from a young age. However, 2-year-old me was apparently less than enamored with baseball.

Flash forward to sometime in the late 80s. My family and my aunt, uncle, and cousins are all visiting my grandparents in Baltimore. My dad decides to take my older sister and my two older male cousins to an Orioles game at Memorial Stadium. Did he take me? No. "You didn't like baseball!" he said later. "...When I was 2," I pointed out.

I don't know who the O's were playing; I don't know who won. I know they all had a great time, and I know that I never made it to Memorial Stadium. My first Orioles game would be at Camden Yards. I never let my dad forget this.

He did, however, bring me to numerous games later, particularly when we lived in Great Falls, Montana, home to the Great Falls Dodgers, an advanced rookie league team. There was little else to do in Great Falls, so we went to a lot of games (aided by getting free tickets from my dad's employer). That's where I learned to keep score.

He was thrilled when I starting getting interested in baseball after college. (My mom was thrilled I became an Orioles fan more than a Yankees fan.) He loved calling me after Orioles-Yankees games if the Orioles lost to rub it in, or if the Orioles played the Mariners (my parents lived in Portland, Oregon for a while), and took advantage of one of my visits to take me up to Seattle for a game at Safeco. In 2013, he and I took a trip up to Cooperstown.

My parents moved back to Baltimore at the end of July, 2014. We made it to a Mariners game and an Orioles game that September. (The Orioles won both, to my dad's disappointment.) I remember the 7th inning stretch of one of them, when there was time for "Twist and Shout" after "Thank God I'm a Country Boy." My dad was dancing away--horribly, mind you--having the time of his life.

Dad called to congratulate me during the Tigers series that year, and called to console me after the ALCS. A few weeks later he was in the hospital, where he passed away unbelievably quickly (leukemia, which apparently can work quite fast). One of the things I was most excited for, having them in the area, was going to Camden Yards. I got a couple of games in.

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