My Daddy

24 years....24 years ago my daddy passed away. I will never forgot the day. I was only 9 years old, but I will never forget. Oh how I wish I could. I remember waking up that morning and my Aunt Dawn being there. She said my mom was at the hospital and that my grandma(my dad's mom) and my grandma and grandpa(my mom's parents) were coming. I went to school and all was well. Came home and my mom wasn't there. She finally came home and took me in the house and sat down on the couch and told me and Wadsie(our dog) that dad had gone to heaven to be with Grandpa Duffy(his dad). I don't remember crying. I remember going to the funeral home to see him. I remember the funeral, "Take me Out to the Ballgame" was played at the end. I remember going back to the grave site later that day and my mom and aunts cracking up. I remember the people being at our house. I remember the food, omg! the food was unreal. I remember my daddy being buried in exactly what would have made him happy, his Kansas City Royals 1985 World Series T-Shirt and jeans.


found on flickr by WisDoc

My dad was a baseball FANATIC! He had dreams like most American boys do of being a professional baseball player, except that he wrote an article that was published in the paper about his dream. He was a Yankees fan, but that was when the Yankees weren't the Yankees they aren't today. He was a Royals fan. But most of all he was a baseball fan. He had this game that he made up that he would play with his baseball cards. He would sit in our living room, with his card table up, usually a bowl of radishes or some other veggie, a Tab pop(he was diabetic) and be watching a baseball game and playing his baseball game. I wish every single day that he could have experienced baseball today. With the Fantasy game, my mom would have been a baseball widow for sure. He would have been glued to ESPN, ESPN.com, and every other baseball site out there. I can only imagine the cell phone he would have had, I'm sure his ringtone would have been "Take me out to the Ballgame." His screen saver on his computer some baseball stadium. He would have switched cable companies if the one he subscribed to didn't offer the MLB Network. He would have loved every second of it. I wish he could have lived to see the Red Sox finally win a World Series, to see George Brett kiss home plate in his final home game, to see the wonder that is Albert Pujols, Zack Grienke, and even Derek Jeter. He would have hated the steroid mess, the 94 strike, a World Series game being suspended in the middle of a game because of weather, and I'm pretty sure the New York Yankees.

I am also pretty sure that at some point a family vacation would have involved a trip to Cooperstown to see the Hall of Fame, The Field of Dreams(for him it would have been Heaven), and a tour of the ESPN campus. He would have marveled at the shrines called stadiums today.

My dad had a passion for baseball like no one else. He handed it down to me, and I hope I'm handing it down to my son. To this day I can still stop and watch a baseball game, doesn't matter who's playing, if it involves 9 men on the field, with 3 bases, home plate, a bat and a ball I will watch. People complain about the game being too long, but for me I'm always sad to see it end. There is something magical to me about the game, the sound of the bat hitting the ball, the roar of the crowd as a guy stretches a double into a triple, a walk off home-run and just knowing that at any given time in the game anything can change. Baseball is one of the few sports where being down by 7 at the end of the game isn't a death sentence. One ball up the middle between the short stop and the 2nd baseman can change everything. In what other sport can a player have a "perfect game"?