It’s a great night for baseball

By Jon Weisman

My dad, who introduced me to baseball, turns 80 today.

It’s not that, without his influence, I might not have discovered baseball or fallen in love with it. And in some ways, I’m a different kind of fan than he is. I’m more single-mindedly devoted to the Dodgers, more sabermetrically oriented.

And yet, it’s impossible for me to separate my baseball upbringing and baseball life from my dad, who took me to my first games, who first showed me the Baseball Encyclopedia and Street & Smith’s, who bought my first All-Star Baseball and Strat-o-Matic games and my Sporting News subscription, who introduced me to “Strange but True Baseball Stories” and “The Kid from Tomkinsville,” who allowed me to make my deal with the devil for what he called a lifetime pass to the Dodgers in 1982.

I still recall riding in the back of our ’76 Plymouth van with a new pack of baseball cards, one of them a historical Walter Johnson card, and I was sure I could catch him in ignorance by asking how many strikeouts Johnson had in his career.  When my dad shot back at me “3,509,” that moment, as much as any other in my life, might have shaped me as a baseball fan. It wasn’t just a game. It was a history. It was a lifetime devotion that would never stop repaying your investment.

All this from a Cubs fan who has been waiting 70 years to return to Wrigley Field for a World Series game, like the one he went to at age 10 in 1945.

By happy accident, something I couldn’t have planned even if I tried, my daughter’s school choir is singing the National Anthem before tonight’s game. On his 80th birthday. So months ago, my dad and my extended family made plans to celebrate his birthday here at Dodger Stadium tonight. It’s been something I’ve been looking forward to for months, a confluence of events so great but so unlikely, almost as unlikely as … mid-May thunderstorms in drought-stricken Southern California.

Sigh …

I’m still optimistic we’ll get everything in, even if there are delays. We’re celebrating a life today, and what is life without delays? As much of a fan as he is, I know my dad is more excited to see all of us together and see his granddaughter singing — even singin’ in the rain — than the game itself.

So yes, it’s a great night for baseball.