Crunch Time: Nine innings full of father-son moments

You will have to trust me when I say my dad and I do more things together than watch baseball, but I think some of my favorite memories are doing just that.
Whether it was my first game at Candlestick, or freezing in the outfield at Pac Bell (later AT&T) Park the days sitting and watching the Giants have always been a special kind of fun.
Baseball was a thing we could do together—usually just with ourselves—and baseball was a thing we could talk about over breakfast on the weekends. Again, we had plenty to talk about—my dad is a modern renaissance man.
There was plenty of discussions of politics, history, TV shows, current events in the news or a particular pastor’s stance on sin, but there was always time for sports and for baseball.
We were an odd pair because my dad grew up a Yankees fan and I—by virtue of living in the Bay Area—fell in love with the Giants, but my dad always got excited for San Francisco right along with me.
There were plenty of odd Giants games we attended, including a random chant of “Beat LA” after San Francisco dispatched the Diamondbacks or the time the Cubs’ pitching coach was ejected during a visit to the mound, but none was odder than the one we attended in New York.
My dad and I took a trip to the Big Apple during a summer break while I was in college and we got tickets to both the Yankees and the Mets, the latter were playing the Giants. At Shea Stadium, we had great seats, just a few rows up on the first base side. After taking pictures and settling in our seats with hot dogs, we were informed the tickets we had were for the previous day.
Luckily, the game wasn’t sold out, so we went up to the upper deck and watched Mike Piazza go on a tear for the Mets the day he came off the DL.
My favorite game, hands down, is when we got to see the Yankees play the Giants in San Francisco in 2007. Not because the Giants won, but it was a day when we both got to root for our favorite teams.
Like I said, my dad and I do a lot more together than baseball and those memories I will love just as much, but baseball was uniquely ours.
I learned a lot from my dad, all of which couldn’t even begin to fit in a newspaper. What I did learn was this: Never buy meat over the phone, the correct response to “what’s new” is “C/l” and every day in life, to be of good cheer.