Father’s Day brings memories of baseball trips with my son, with a goal in mind

Somewhere in the middle of Ohio, I took a glance in the rearview mirror to see if my son was asleep yet. We had been driving for almost two hours, and even on short drives around Michigan he would fall asleep quickly.

Not this time.

It wasn’t the way a young child struggles to stay awake on Christmas Eve; rather, it seemed to be more of wondering why I wasn’t driving faster. We were on the way to Cleveland to see the Detroit Tigers play at Progressive Field, and he was alert, ready to get to pregame batting practice.

On that trip in 2015, my son Jonathan was just getting into baseball, playing on youth house-league teams before he worked his way into travel baseball. We had been to home Tigers games and I asked whether he wanted to go on a road trip, just as a way to spend more father-son time. Initially, we started with the ones that were reasonably drivable — Cleveland and Chicago — and branched out from there to Cleveland and Pittsburgh.

Then, we expanded it out to a bigger vision — to visit all 30 MLB parks.

It was an ambitious plan. We mapped out the idea to go to two or three parks each summer and maybe be done in 15 years.

In the past decade-plus, we’ve been fortunate to go to games in 19 MLB parks, from Seattle to Tampa, New York to San Diego. The last 11 on the list: Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, Minnesota, Kansas City, Houston, Texas, Miami, St. Louis, Arizona, Colorado — and whatever we’re calling where the Athletics play now.

On our baseball journey, we’ve also been blessed to go to spring training games in Florida, visit the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, and drop in on a couple of minor-league parks.

On some of our excursions, we expand them into family trips and include my wife, daughter and older son. In Tampa, Florida, we had a group of about 15 that included aunts, uncles and cousins.

Oh, the memories

Throughout our experiences, Jonathan has managed to remember some tidbit from almost every game, such as the starting pitcher, a key play or who hit a home run.

Sometimes, I can’t even remember what I did today or yesterday.

But I can vividly recall the look on Jonathan’s face during an iconic moment on that Cleveland trip when Miguel Cabrera interacted with a young fan two rows in front of us who got a foul ball and Cabrera gave the fan a bat and batting gloves.

Then, there was another time at spring training in Florida when we saw former Tigers manager Jim Leyland, who’s now in the Hall of Fame, and Leyland took time to talk to Jonathan. Or the next time Leyland saw Jonathan and recognized him — and had another conversation.

During batting practice in San Francisco, he and I were among the throngs of fans yelling for the outfielders to throw us a ball as a souvenir — only to watch one of the BP home runs land a few feet from my wife and daughter, who were sitting idly and not paying attention.

Jonathan has some of his more memorable parks — including Pittsburgh’s PNC Park and iconic Dodger Stadium. My favorites are Oracle Park in San Francisco and Petco Park in San Diego because of the surrounding scenery or the Bay, and the fantastic weather.

In every park, though, there are moments where I get to see Jonathan in baseball nirvana, enjoying the game he loves. Whether he was keeping score by hand, asking why a pitcher threw a certain pitch or just enjoying peanuts and a hot dog, those little things will stay with me.

Lasting impressions

On Father’s Day, it’s always good to remember those relationships and special moments. There are still 11 parks to go, and many more memories to create and cherish.

And then, maybe we’ll just double-back and hit a couple of our favorites again.

It could become a family tradition.

Some dads want to play golf, or light up the grill.

Make it baseball for me.

Some years down the road, I might even look forward to going with my grandkids.