Using baseball as an escape from real life and bonding with my father

Please allow me this brief reprieve from writing about the Guardians farm system to tell you a story about bonding over baseball with my late father, John.

(Warning: This article contains references to depression, mental illnesses and other potentially triggering crisis matters. If you are suffering from depression, you can call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-622-Help or if you are in an immediate crisis, dial 988)

If you will allow me the deviation from writing about Cleveland Guardians prospects, I’d like to tell a story about an unlikely life of baseball fandom, life’s butterfly effects, and my father, the reason I even write about baseball today.

My earliest memory of my experience with baseball was blowing dandelions in the outfield in t-ball. My dad’s first and only time coaching ended after I asked “If we get hurt, do we get to go home?”

My dad, a lifelong baseball fan himself, turned to my mother and was worried that I wouldn’t like baseball.

29 years later, my dad didn’t ever really have to worry.

Looking back, I don’t really understand how my dad ended up a fan of baseball and the Cleveland Indians. He was born in 1957. By the time he got into baseball, the team was comically, miserably bad. There wasn’t much to cheer about. They weren’t even on TV. And he didn’t have a chance to go to many games growing up.

But his sister taught him how to play and he made friends with her friends and others from his neighborhood in Cleveland growing up, playing the game.

My entire interest in baseball probably rests on growing up and getting into baseball at the same time Cleveland’s mid-90s were dominating after decades of follies so comical that Hollywood made a movie to give fans a happy ending for their team.

And I have my dad (and by proxy, my aunt Rose) to thank for that. My dad never got to go to many games with his dad as a kid, though there were always good seats available then at Municipal Stadium. 

Despite that, and the fact tickets weren’t as easy to score by the time the mid-90s team got rolling, both my parents worked hard to have enough extra income to take me to games a few times a year. Every year when tickets went on sale, my dad or I would get on our landline phones to call the team's ticket office, trying for hours to get through to score a few tickets. Every year after an hour or so of calling, we’d get through and get tickets to three or four games.

He took me to my first home opener in 1998, where I told him before the game that Jim Thome was going to hit a homer to win the game. And on April 10, 1998, against the Anaheim Angels, Thome ended up hitting a three run homer in the 10th off Troy Percival to win the game. Maybe we should have played the lottery on the way home.

As I got older, we started a tradition to go to every home opener for the team that we could. In 2005, we gutted out a cold, lowing scoring loss to Freddy Garcia and the Chicago White Sox, when he warned me not to wear shorts and I just barely made it to the end of that game. I learned a valuable lesson.

We went in 2006 and I sat through the Snow Opener with a friend in 2007, but from 2008-2022 (save for 2020), we went to every home opener together.

He was especially proud of that streak. 

My dad worked a lot of hours in busy kitchens at restaurants and food establishments all day. But I can’t recall any time he ever missed one of my baseball games or was ever too tired to play catch, and chase down all the balls I threw into the street over his head or at his feet, or take me to the park to hit fly balls to me.

When the Indians used to do their annual local mall tours in the mid-late 90’s, my dad would get up early to get down to the Great Lakes or Euclid Square Malls to get a spot in line to meet the players and get autographs while I slept in and my mother would bring me up later. 

Whenever a player would have an autograph signing at a local business or card shop, we always went. He took me to see my favorite player growing up, Jim Thome.

He taught me my first words in Spanish to say hello to Bartolo Colon while he signed a card for us (and responded probably knowing we had no idea what he was saying).

Because of my dad's love of baseball, and Cleveland’s great 90s teams, we read the newspaper a lot. Every Sunday we’d rush to grab the News-Herald sports section to be able to read Hal Lebovitz and Jim Ingraham first. If you grew up in Cleveland at this time and you were a sports fan, everyone would always ask “Did you read Hal?”

He took me to meet Hal at one of his book signings when I was a teenager, and by that time I was self-aware enough that turning doubles into singles wasn’t going to get me to the big leagues. But I wanted to write about baseball in the paper like Hal. So he asked Hal to give me some advice (never stop writing, and read good writers, is what Hal wisely said). Hal even signed the book “Don’t fight over the Sunday paper.”

Because of all of this, I got to accomplish a lot of dreams. I got to write about the team we grew up watching together in the same paper as Hal and Jim. I got to broadcast some games in college, and somehow even convinced enough people I knew what I was talking about to appear on TV and the radio a few times. 

Just like when I was growing a kid, my dad was always there to read my writing, listen to, or watch my appearances talking about the Indians/Guardians.

As he got older, it got harder to take him to games due to his mobility, but we always made it to Tribe/Guards Fests and the home opener. During the player introductions every year at the home opener, I’d look over as he watched, seeing his eyes fill with tears of joy from the opportunity to experience it together, something I know wished he could have had with his dad growing up. And I’m glad he did it for me, and I could do it for him as we both got older.

Without my dad’s love of baseball, I probably wouldn’t have met the wonderful woman I’m going to marry this summer, Grace, who I also bonded with over baseball. I always think of my mom as my rock and the woman who did everything for me. And she truly has. But my dad shaped my life a lot more than I ever thought about.

My dad passed away this past Sunday. This will be my first home opener without him since 2007. Watching baseball without him won’t ever be the same. I could always count on messages from him throughout the game, being excited about the good times, and getting grumpier about the losses as he got older.

I know I’m very lucky for 34 years with my dad and all of those games we watched, the games of catch or the autographs. Some people don’t get that long or that many memories. Baseball brought him and us a lot of joy.

Baseball was my dad’s escape from some pretty dark battles with depression. It affected him for a long time. Depression can take people from our lives a lot sooner than they have to go. Even sooner than the 34 years I had with my dad. 

Like too many others, he tried to hide it from everyone and struggled to ask for or accept help. He certainly never wanted me to know or talk about it with me. I tried, though now I ask myself if I tried hard enough, or often enough. In the end, his battle with depression caused him to not want to fight or take care of himself anymore. It broke our streak of home openers together. He’s going to miss my wedding this summer, more chances to see Cleveland win a World Series, and making more memories.

I’m trying to find peace and comfort that he is also at peace and comfort now, not battling depression anymore. But the reason I am writing this is that if you or someone you know or love is battling depression or mental illness, do whatever you can to find help. My life was better for having my dad in it. The people who care about you are better off for you being in their life. And there are people battling mental illness who we should let know that we are better for having them in our lives. 

I’m very lucky for 34 years with my dad. The memories we made shaped my career, helped me live out some of my dreams and led to meeting my soon-to-be wife. Without any of that, I’d be writing a very different story.

I hope that reading this, and hearing about my dad’s battle will help someone else to get the help they need so that they can make memories with their loved ones, and maybe live out their dreams. 

And I hope that when Cleveland finally wins that World Series, my dad knows it happened.