FATHER’S DAY AT THE BALLPARK

I remember the exact moment when my dad sat down with me and explained how a player’s batting average is calculated. I was just a kid at the time, my love of baseball in its earliest, uninformed stages. He patiently walked me through all those weird numbers next to my favourite sluggers’ names, going over the simple stats in a way that was easy for a child to understand.

“So if a batter comes up to the plate ten times…”

In retrospect, my dad was probably still learning about how baseball works himself. As a British transplant who immigrated to Canada in 1977—incidentally, the same year the Blue Jays played their first matchup at Exhibition Stadium—he started going to the ballpark as a way to understand his new North American home. Given my mother’s relative indifference toward the game, I was my father’s default stadium companion from the time I was still in diapers. As he became enthralled with the sport, he shared his increasing wisdom with me until I was old enough to read the rule book for myself.

I know it’s stereotypical and clichéd, but it’s nearly impossible for me to watch Father’s Day go by each year without thinking about how my love of baseball was nurtured by my dad. He was my very first teacher and seatmate at the ballpark—beginning on those shiny silver bleachers at Exhibition, with their haphazardly spray-painted black numbers, and then at the newly minted SkyDome, with its then awe-inspiring amenities. (When the building officially opened in June 1989, we marvelled at its five restaurants, the in-stadium hotel, what was at the time the biggest video board in the world, and, of course, the revolutionary retractable, rotatable dome roof.)

When I became an adolescent, my dad was the reason I got to see the Blue Jays through exciting playoff runs and two victorious postseasons, and how I still get to brag that I was in attendance for Devon White’s glorious catch in Game Three of the 1992 World Series. During my angst-ridden teen years and unfocused early twenties, my commitment to the game wasn’t always consistent, but I continued to enjoy the quality time spent with my dad in the stands, away from all the distractions in our lives. A nuclear physicist by training, he devoted his busy work life to science and was governed primarily by logic. I was the more emotional one, fascinated by narrative and in love with the written word. Baseball was a perfect combination of our disparate passions and interests—chock-full of romantic feeling and myriad storylines, yet reliant on the measurements of complex statistics and the velocity of a ball travelling through space.

The game became a simple and necessary point of connection between us—a place where our interests aligned and we could communicate easily. While we didn’t always agree, we could at least agree on baseball, if only on the fact that it was a really good way to spend an afternoon.

The experience of watching a live game with him also provided a rare window into who he was beyond just “my dad.” A man of reason, he was always so cool and collected outside the ballpark that when he had a minor sports-related outburst in the bleachers, it reminded me that he had the capacity to care about things and, in turn, that he cared about me. His heckling of a bad call or his rejoicing over a home run was a reassuring thrill during my teenage years, when I was convinced he didn’t understand me.

After I left home for good in the late nineties, the stadium became a place for us to reunite a few times a year and keep each other apprised of whatever was happening in our lives. “I’ll meet you in your seat” was a common refrain. I usually arrived first, and then we’d sit side by side through nine innings, just like we’d always done. Around the fifth inning, one of us would ask “want to go for a wander?” when there was a lull in the on-field action, and we’d do a complete loop of the concourse together. On that walk, we’d buy a couple of hotdogs and some beers, check the score and the replays when necessary, and share stories from the months we’d been apart. He’d tell me about how his weekly darts league was doing, update me on our family back in England or on the vacations he and my mother were eagerly planning. I’d tell him about the literature and art classes I was taking at university, how my writing “career” was going, and the details of whatever demoralizing dead-end job I happened to have at the time.

The game ultimately kept us in touch, no matter how far away I’d roam, or how infrequent the phone calls became. A visit to the park gave us the time to just be a father and a daughter again, regardless of how selfishly caught up I was in the complicated minutiae of my own life. It also facilitated important and sometimes difficult conversations in a way nothing else did: the stadium was where I told my dad that I was thinking about getting married, and later, much to his barely concealed excitement, that my husband and I were thinking about starting a family. It’s also where I finally confessed that we were having trouble conceiving, and that I needed his support. And there, among the cheering roar of baseball fandom, he gave me the parental hug I needed in the face of hardship. For us, things have always been easier at the ballpark, even when life dishes out its worst.

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Maybe it’s not surprising that my dad taught me a great deal of what I know about the game, but what is more important is that he did so in a way that always made me hungry to learn more. Never condescending or patronizing, he generously imparted his own growing understanding of all the plays and endless drama. He taught me about the ground rule double, the infield fly rule, and how the umpires’ complicated schedules work. He never once pressured me to love baseball; instead, he gave me the knowledge and the space to discover my own unique brand of fascination. In fact, I credit him with not only helping me find a place for myself in baseball culture, but with fostering my own impulse to lay down the welcome mat for anyone who shows an interest in the game.

It was also my father who first instilled in me my now signature lack of worry when my team isn’t on top—his love of the ballpark experience, combined with his patient, near-ambivalent view of the outcome, was always soothing, even when I didn’t entirely understand the complexity of the rules or the stakes of any given matchup. “It was a good game,” he’d always say on the way out of the stadium, whether it had been or not. For him—and then for us—baseball wasn’t about competition, standings, or even winning. It was about being at the ballpark together, despite the sometimes less-than-perfect details. All that mattered to him was that we were there, an inheritance I’m grateful for.

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At its core, baseball is a reliable community ritual in a constantly changing, secular world with fewer opportunities for real human connection. As we feel more and more isolated, and move further away from our families both physically and mentally, many of us are increasingly looking to spaces like ballparks to bring us together. So many baseball devotees I know have shared beautiful stories with me about the relationship between their fathers (or any kind of parental figure, really) and the ballpark. Those with more distant dads talk about the time spent there as special and sacred, the game bridging divides and providing a common love that is otherwise hard to find. Those who have lost their fathers remember days in the sun with a mixture of nostalgia and grief, their memories treasured more and more as time goes by. New dads speak enthusiastically about introducing their kids to the game they love—they buy tiny jerseys and ball caps, and strap their babies to their chests as they stroll the concourse, hoping their kids will find the same passion for it that they did.

So what exactly do you give the man who gave you the gift of baseball? More baseball it would seem. Last June, when the Jays decimated the Phillies at home, 11–3, via some hot bats and a Josh Donaldson grand slam, my dad and I did an early version of our annual Father’s Day at the ballpark. I’m old enough now that I can buy the tickets and the beers myself, and the fact that he’s retired means a noonday “businessman’s special” game is a nice, relaxing way to spend an idle afternoon. As we usually do, we reminisced about games past, about heckling Oakland A’s pitchers from above the bullpen in the 1992 ALCS, and of course about Devon White’s legendary catch. We shared stories, worries, jokes, and three or so hours of the quality time that baseball always delivers.

I know that when it comes to fathers and baseball, I really lucked out. Even if the exclusionary world of sports didn’t always make me feel welcome, my dad assured me that the ballpark was a place I deserved to be, and that I had a right to talk about this game. Our phone calls now often begin with him commenting on how my baseball team is doing, and when I get frustrated with the sports community and the abuse it can foster, he’s there to remind me to keep pushing on.

Baseball is a game that many of us love to pass down to family members and friends; one that joins generations, and allows for long afternoons where seemingly disparate people can come together. A day at the park can act as a bonding exercise for many fathers, mothers, daughters, sons—whatever family you’ve chosen, or whatever family has chosen you.

And when it’s at its very best, baseball can help us relate to one another—through victories, disappointments, and even a poorly belted out rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”—regardless of how different we can be.