A game of catch was no easy task for my father.
He’d broken his back in a car accident as a young man, and every throw after that became a dagger between the shoulder blades.
And yet, he never needed a special occasion like Father’s Day to be inspired to toss the ball around with his kids. A game of catch was Dad’s favorite way of catching up.
“How’d you do on that math test?” he’d ask. “Don’t leave your bike in the driveway — I nearly ran over it the other day,” he’d interject. “You sweet on any girl at school?” he’d add for the simple amusement of watching my face contort in disgust.
He’d make sure to throw in plenty of advice. He’d extol the virtues of such things as loyalty, integrity, responsibility, humility and charity … And he’d also tell me to stop mimicking that sidearm throw of his.
“I only do it this way because of my back,” he’d say. “It’s better for your arm if you come over the top.
“So don’t do it like me.”
But I wanted to do everything like Phil Patton, the sports editor of Santa Barbara’s daily newspaper. I was determined to major in journalism, become a sportswriter, and eventually ascend to the throne of his sports editor’s chair.
He never encouraged me to follow that path. He warned me about mediocre wages and marathon work shifts. But he also never discouraged my tagging along on his assignments. Those times were like our games of catch. They were his classroom.
Math had been my worst subject until I started keeping Dad’s statistics at the minor league baseball games he covered. I perfected long division by updating the batting averages of the Santa Barbara Dodgers (hits divided by at-bats).
I moved on from there to the more complicated formula of determining a pitcher’s earned-run average (earned runs allowed times nine divided by total innings pitched).
But most of all, I learned that nothing nurtures a child more than your time.
My father was diagnosed with cancer when I was 15. Our family of seven kids lost him just two years later. He would’ve celebrated his 96th birthday on this Father’s Day, but he didn’t even make it to 46.
It taught me that no time was better invested than that which I spent with my own four kids. They were all daughters — Amy, Kara, Megan and Caitlyn — and they all loved a game of catch.
They did make it challenging for their old dad, demanding that I throw high flies for them to chase. If they didn’t have to dive, they’d claim that I wasn’t trying hard enough.
Megan spent a good part of her softball career as a pitcher, and I was her practice catcher. She wouldn’t quit her daily workout until she’d thrown 100 strikes. She threw hard and spun a nasty drop ball. It wasn’t easy to catch after the sun dropped below the horizon.
When dusk turned to dark, I’d beg her to stop risking her father’s life. She’d merely turn on the porch light and tell me to suck it up. And then I’d remember my own dad’s painful, sidearm throws and soldier on.
Our form of father-and-child bonding was hardly uncommon. This year’s Dos Pueblos Little League has plenty of its own examples involving real baseball coaches, like Westmont College’s Robert Ruiz, as well as Andrew Checketts and Donegal Fergus of UC Santa Barbara.
“Coach Ruiz had an incredible run at Westmont and now he’s quietly doing the same at Dos Pueblos LL,” said Dr. Dan Brennan, the league’s executive vice-president. “He helped coach his son’s 8U All-Star team to the District 63 championship.
“We also have coach Checketts involved when his schedule permits — his son, William, is on the 11U All-Star team — and coach Fergus has been a board member and volunteer for our league.”
Jacob Pepper stepped away from coaching a San Marcos High baseball program that he’d brought to the cusp of Channel League greatness so he could spend more time with his own son, Jonah. They are now plotting their course with the DPLL’s 12U All-Star team, which will play host to the district tournament beginning next Sunday.
Their ultimate, dream destination is Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and the Little League World Series.
That international tournament actually turned one of my dad’s games of catch into our first real debate. I had just watched ABC’s Wide World of Sports show the highlights of a California team winning the 1963 event when I asked a favor from my dad:
“Why don’t you write something about starting a Little League program here in Santa Barbara?”
He wanted no part of that. He considered the pressure of regional and national competition to be as unhealthy for a kid as a sidearm throw.
“You’ll have plenty of chances for that kind of stuff when you get to high school,” he said.
Our spirited discussion actually prompted him to write a column about the advantages of Santa Barbara’s low-key, recreational youth leagues. They are run, he crowed, “without the pressures from regional or state tournament objectives and adult interference.”
I could never sway him from that stand. He would drill me on baseball fundamentals during our games of catch — and even umpire the neighborhood games we played — but he refused to join the flock of parents who circled our league games like hawks.
Except once.
I was 11 during the summer of 1965 when my Pee Wee League team — a collection of Mesa and Westside kids called the Saints — advanced to the City championship at the Santa Barbara Dodgers’ Laguna Ball Park.
I asked Dad to come, but he frowned upon the whole, gaudy spectacle.
“Kids your age should play for fun, not glory,” he told me. “You’re not ready for everything that comes with that.”
I do remember how small I felt in that big, minor-league stadium. I looked up at the press box where I normally sat next to my dad and my world view flipped: Playing baseball was suddenly more difficult than its mathematical equations.
My knees knocked when we took the field with a small lead in the bottom of the last inning. My pounding heart seemed to stop altogether when a ground ball bounced my way with two outs and the bases full. And then it restarted in relief when my buddy, Joe Peinado, scooped my errant throw with that big first baseman’s glove of his.
But most of all, I’ll never forget the sudden glimpse I got of a familiar figure lurking in one of Laguna Park’s tunnelways. He threw a celebratory fist into the air — bad back and all — and then just as quickly disappeared down the tunnel.
Dad never said a word about being there, and so neither did I.
At the dinner table that night, all he said was, “Mark will lead the prayer since he’s got so much to be thankful for.”
And after we’d finished our meal and cleared the table, we headed into the fading light of the summer evening for another game of catch.
— Noozhawk sports columnist Mark Patton is a longtime local sports writer. Contact him at sports@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk Sports on Twitter: @NoozhawkSports. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook. The opinions expressed are his own.