Baseball and My Father

[REPOSTING from 4/27/12]

I grew to love baseball because of my father. And not just any baseball. Astros baseball. When I was a young girl in northeast Texas, we always listened to the games on the radio on Sunday afternoons after church and a huge dinner. There was often napping involved, and I remember that whole time through a pleasant haze.

We made a couple of pilgrimages to Houston back then to see some baseball, but I'll admit that the Astrodome scoreboard made more of an impression on me than the games did at that particular point in my life.

We kept following the Astros pretty closely even after we moved away from Texas for a few years. When I moved back to Texas as a young woman, it was Houston that I chose to be my new home and I have never looked back.

Any time my parents visited during baseball season, we always caught a game or two in person (and watched the rest on TV), and we built more and more memories over the years.

After my mother died and my father moved back to South Dakota, I called Dad often and we would talk for hours. I always loved to talk to him during the summer because we often ran out of things to say during the winter. But not during baseball season. We never ran out of things to say during baseball season.

In October of 2005, we were in constant contact by phone or email. I printed out three of those emails and I'm so glad I did. After the Astros took a 3-1 lead in the NLCS, there was this one ~

CONGRATS-------------THE OLD ONE

On the night that Pujols "broke" Lidge and forced a game 6, there was this one ~

I get nervous when Opie or the Beaver get in trouble. Can you imagine what those Astros are doing to me?

And finally, on the night that the Astros won the NLCS and we knew we were going to the World Series, there was this one ~

Thank goodness---------I was running low on heart medicine. I'll get refills before Saturday.

My father passed away four years ago today. I still miss him, but I miss him the most during baseball season. He would have approved of my crazy little blogging hobby. He would be reading this site everyday and bragging to anyone who would listen about it and about me.

Baseball isn't about wins or losses or big bloated contracts or new stadium deals or television rights. Baseball is about family and love and wonderful memories. Baseball is about taking a nap on a lazy Sunday afternoon with the sound of a baseball game playing in the background. May you always cherish your memories as much as I do mine.