We could go over the list of all the things that ail us, and sadden us, and confuse us, and infuriate us. That, it seems, is a part of every day now, isn’t it? A personal accounting of how we miss our old lives, our old habits, our old hobbies. We wallow in that plenty.
Let’s take a day off from that today.
Because today is Father’s Day.
And it is hard for me not to wake with a little broader smile this morning because it allows me to remember how fortunate I was to have a relationship with my own father that was so strong, and so affirming, that the memories I keep of him are as strong and as vibrant as they were when I lost him nearly 17 years ago.
So, yes, I am a sucker for fathers and sons anyway, but especially on Father’s Day, even though I have no children of my own and instead enjoy the status of “funcle” for so many friends’ kids, as well as my niece and nephew. I relish whenever I see the reflective joy in those fathers and sons, enjoying each other’s company, expressing their mutual devotions.
And on Father’s Day I enjoy to remember so much:
— The first time I saw “Field of Dreams” — and the 700th time I saw “Field of Dreams” — when Ray Kinsella finally approaches his father in the cornfield and asks: “Want to have a catch?”
— The telephone call I made to my father on the first day of November 2002, telling him that 27 years after first bringing home the New York Post and tossing it to me after his commute home on the LIRR, I was actually going to write a column for his paper. He thought I was putting him on at first. But the first day I appeared in the paper, Nov. 11, he went to the newsstand in Fort Pierce, Fla., and bought all 10 copies. I still have a few of them.
— Watching Archie Manning’s face the bone-chilling afternoon in January 2008 when Eli had walked into Lambeau Field and beaten Brett Favre and the Packers. Archie was always available during Eli’s time with the Giants — and Peyton’s time with the Colts and Broncos, too — but that day he’d walked with a crowd of heartbroken Packers fans still possessing some basic Midwestern manners, and all of them had congratulated him. “My heart,” he told Eli after hugging him, “is bursting.”
— The first time I held Ben Wojnarowski, my only godson, understanding the awesome and beautiful tasks of the job, so filled with wonderment at what he could be, and who he would become, and every day since when I’ve watched him blossom into this amazing young man. I’ve never known a greater privilege.
— For all the ancillary stories that dented what never was exactly a fairy tale, the way Tiger Woods embraced his kids, Sam and Charlie, after winning last year’s Masters, which so perfectly mirrored the joy he had once shared with his own father, Earl. Be as cynical as you like about the rest of the Tiger canon. That one is hard to forget.
— Watching the relationship my brother-in-law, Paul, has with Gavin and Audrey, his two kids, and hoping that if it had been in the cards for me, I’d have had the exact same kind of bond with mine.
— Listening to tough-guy Terry Collins tear up in the remarkable weeks that the 2015 Mets made their journey to the World Series, whenever he talked about his old man, Bud, who had died not long before his boy finally tasted postseason champagne. And seeing Joe Girardi, minutes after winning the 2009 World Series, cradling his then 8-year-old son in his arms while talking with deep emotion about his own father, in the final throes of Alzheimer’s disease.
— The memory, seared forever, of British 400-meter runner Derek Redmond pulling up in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, his hamstring shredded, but wanting to complete the race, able to do so because his father, Jim, emerged from the stands to help him across the finish line.
And more … so many, many more. Happy Father’s Day. Please enjoy your own storehouse of memories today. We can go back to the other stuff soon enough, starting tomorrow.
Vac Whacks
I can absolutely get behind the Twins removing the statue of Calvin Griffith from in front of Target Field, but I’m also sort of curious why they thought it was OK to build it in 2010, when Griffith made his appalling comments in 1978 and they weren’t exactly hidden or anonymous.
Even if it’s a brief renaissance and even if the reasons for it are too depressing to recount, it is good to see the Sport of Kings return to its throne at Belmont Park if only for two minutes or so.
It worries me when my TV tour guide Alan Sepinwall is so unenthusiastic about a show, but I can’t wait to see the new “Perry Mason” series on HBO anyway.
No sport seemed to be gathering more momentum than college football, so the news out of Clemson, Texas and Houston is like an instant cinder block wall appearing on the Autobahn.
Whack Back at Vac
Michael Diamond: At this point, I’ve found better things to do with my time than baseball. Not sure I have the patience to watch a three-plus hour game with multiple replays. If you’re keeping score: airplane food over hospital food.
Vac: What’s also interesting is how many baseball fans I’ve heard from who are finding life about 20 percent more enjoyable without the daily agita following a baseball team brings.
Lou Fanzini: I remember it well when “New York, New York” started playing at Yankee Stadium. As much as I loved it in later years for big wins, I always felt it was a jinx at the time — 103 wins, get swept by the Royals, lose a World Series the next year and spend the ’80s in second or third every year.
Vac: I’m not sure any letter I’ve ever printed in this feature better defines the nature of fanhood better than this one.
@DZoneDraw: “Sweet Caroline” in the middle of the eighth inning at Fenway is only about a million times better than “New York, New York.”
@MikeVacc: I mean, if the odds are becoming slimmer and slimmer that we’ll have actual Yankees-Red Sox fireworks, we can at least start an old-fashioned barroom debate about this, right?
Tony Gianetta: Manfred’s 100 percent guarantee was not his Namath or Messier moment, but one of shrunken and weaselly credibility.
Vac: That observation, I can assure you, is 100 percent.