A Sports Fan's Guide to Fatherhood

This week, the older of my two sons turns ten years old. Which means that last week, he turned the exact same age that I was when my father died.

This would probably be a good opportunity for one of those emotional, heartfelt, gut-wrenching columns, a real Mitch Albom “The Five Morries You’ll Meet on Tuesdays” job. If only I was emotional, heart-feeling or gut-wrenched. Maybe this should be a moment of reflection, of asking the big questions, of putting things in perspective, but I’m a little preoccupied with the NFL playoffs for that right now. A long time ago I settled on one, all-purpose mood. A sort of “one size fits all” emotional state. It’s good for weddings, funerals, christenings, workdays, holidays, birthdays and NFL playoff games. I believe the psychological term for this condition is “uni-polar.”

It’s not that I’m made of stone. I’ve always had a soft spot for father and son relationship stuff. That pretentious, maudlin “Fathers Playing Catch With Their Sons” rubbish always gets to me. I didn’t shed a tear when Old Yeller died, but I cry like Dick Vermeil every time Ray Kinsella asks his dad if he wants to “have a catch” in “Field of Dreams.” And at the end of “The Natural” when Roy Hobbs is tossing the ball to his son in the wheat field, it’s like I’ve been pepper sprayed.

I think every guy who has a son, or wants a son, or was a son, dreams of those golden moments; a dad and his kid, tossing a ball back and forth, bonded by their love of sports. But have you, or anyone you’ve ever known, ever actually experienced a moment like that?

If “Field of Dreams” was about me and my son, the last scene would go like this:
Me: You wanna have a catch?
Him: Um, OK. But can I pause this game and play it when we’re done?
Me: Yeah. Sure. Whatever.
Him: But can we do that thing where you throw the ball up in the air and I make like I’m tagging up from third and coming home and you chase me around?
Me: No. Let’s just play catch.
Him: Pleeease, Dad?
Me: No!
Him: Why not?!
Me (agitated): Look! It’s simple: A guy. His son. Tossing the ball to each other. Talking about life. Growing closer together. A touching moment. Get it?
Him: C‘moooon, Daaaad…
It’s hard to get a kid interested in tossing a ball around the yard when he could be on the couch, tossing Abrams tanks across the desert in “The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction.”

When it comes to raising sons, since my father died when I was young, I don’t really have a template to go by. My dad was a good guy, and I loved him. He worked hard, and he was home with his family every night. But he wasn’t out there pushing me to strive for athletic greatness like some white Earl Woods. He smoked Chesterfields and drank Carling’s Black Label while he read the newspaper and watched Walter Cronkite. He was (as an old Navy buddy described him) a “cocky Irishman” who beat the Nazis in WWII, bought a house, and raised five kids. By the time I came along, the man needed to kick back at the end of the day. He wasn’t about playing catch or tearing up at the end of sappy Kevin Costner movies.

So for ten years now, I’ve been making up this whole raising children thing as I’ve gone along. I’m smart enough to let my lovely wife, since she’s a way better person than me, run the show. But one thing I’ve learned is that ultimately, sons are going to grow up to be very much like their fathers. That is, unless you work really, really hard to stop them.

I think I’m like most guys. I’ve got my good qualities, but on the whole, I’m a mess. I wouldn’t want either of my sons to grow up exactly like me. The world has already met its quota of beer guzzlers who spend all day Sunday watching the NFL and Googling Monica Bellucci. We need more eye surgeons, and fewer guys who own the Season One DVD of “Hogan’s Heroes.”

So you do the best you can. You look for those things you feel good about in yourself, and try to pass them along. Me, I like watching, following, playing, talking about and writing about sports. It’s how I relate to people, communicate with them, and form friendships. I can barely tell you what by buddy Cliffy does for a living. But I know who his QB/WR hookups were eight years ago when I came in second to him in our Fantasy Football league.

I raise my son to like sports and to follow the same teams as me. The Nomar shirts he wore as a toddler have all been replaced by Curt Schilling and Tom Brady jerseys. When the baby wallpaper came down in his room, we put up all Red Sox stuff until now the place looks like Jimmy Fallon’s apartment in “Fever Pitch.” When he had to learn the “Hail Mary” for his First Communion, we watched the locker room scene from “Rudy” so many times that he almost yelled “PRAY FOR US!!!” at the end.

And I want him to hate the same things as well. This Christmas, he and all his friends got paintball guns (glass eyes not included). So I drew some targets and put them in the backyard. In ascending order of points they are: a deer (50 points), a moose (100), a bear (500), all the way up to a Nazi (2500) a terrorist (5000) and finally a New York Yankee (10000).

Sports is a part of the world where a grown man and a ten year old boy can share some common ground. I can only watch so much “Fairly Oddparents,” and I wouldn’t let him sit through two minutes of “The Shield.” But when the Patriots are on (if I can navigate him through the erectile dysfunction ads) we can share three happy hours of common interest. The same goes for when comes golfing with me, or when I coach one of his teams; sports gives us a way to do things together.

At least until he grows up and moves on to other things. But I’m staying like I am. My father grew up, and it’s just not for me.