I have been considering writing a baseball blog for a couple of years. Let me preface this by saying I am not a writer. Actually i don't even really like to read...unless its something i need to know or someone says "hey read this its funny". My punctuation will suck. I like throwing in commas and a bunch of the ... symbols because I have too much to add to one sentence. One of my best friends and coaching peers, Coach Craig Snipp, says I like to USE CAPITAL LETTERS TOO MUCH. So if you are going to grade my blog then please close and don't come back. If you want some 47 year old baseball stuff then this is your place to be. I have been around the game of baseball all my life. When I was very small 2-4 years old my Dad (RIP) coached an American Legion team in Roanoke Virginia. I guess this was my baptism into baseball. (Thanks Dad) I remember being at all the games and wondering around trying not to get in the way. My Dad was my baseball mentor. We played catch all the time. I would ask dad if we could pass the ball and his response was always "you pass a football you throw a baseball". I remember him getting so tickled as I would ask questions about the game at such an early age. My earliest memories of playing baseball, before I was introduced to league play, are those with my father. Scrambled Eggs and Baseball is the title of this blog because one of these early memories of playing catch with my dad was early one morning before we went to school. I might have been in the second or third grade, so what like 7 or 8 years old? Anyway i guess for the first time in my entire childhood we were up early and ready for school. Mom had breakfast ready for my sister and I and we gobbled it down pretty fast...like every morning. Well for some reason we were very ahead of schedule and my dad comes into the kitchen with both of our gloves and a old beat up ball that we have thrown with each other a hundred times. My first response was what are you doing with my glove? Yes i was very protective of my glove even then. Well dad say's "I thought you would like to have a catch". My response was..."right, I have school" Dad reminded me that we had a few minutes and thought we could get it in. So i gathered my school stuff, grabbed my glove and outside we went. I don't remember if this happened in the spring or fall but I do know it was nice outside...maybe that's why dad wanted to have that catch. Maybe he just loved the game. Maybe he just loved his son. Maybe all of the above! I am not sure who was more proud of the other. I just know that when the bus pulled up in front of the house and we were playing catch and all my bus mates saw this they were amazed. They all said "man your dad is the coolest". Yes he was. You know that scene in Field of Dreams (if you haven't seen it sorry (Spoiler)) when Kevin Costner's character gets to play catch with his Ghost dad. I start balling my eyes out every time I see that scene. That scene reminds me of all the fantastic times, too many to count that my dad took the time to play catch with me. Wow I miss him! What I would give to play catch with dad one more time. So I guess what i am wanting you all to understand is play catch with your sons as much as you can, or as much as they will play catch with you. I don't know if I was as good a baseball dad as my father was. Well not when it came to playing catch. Yeah Ryan and I played catch a bunch but I'm not sure that I left any life long playing catch memories like my dad did. Maybe we can still create one sometime soon. I know dad and I played catch hundreds of times probably thousands of throws but this one catch is the one that I remember most. So I guess what I am wanting dad and players to get out of this is hey...go play catch with your dad or go play catch with your son!!!
Coach Bale
