Les Jacobson
As a kid I had a troubled relationship with my father. Now I cherish our time together and wish things had gone better. But he had a volatile temper, and I was sometimes the object of his strong disaffection, expressed with the palm of his hand pounding away on my butt.
One thing we had in common, though, was baseball. He had played semipro ball as a young man (he’s on the far right in the photo), and we would sometimes go outside and “have a catch.” My throws were often wide, which irritated him no end, so the catch didn’t always go well.
He was a season-ticket-holding Giants fan and took me once to the Polo Grounds. His seats were maybe 20 rows behind first base, and before the game my dad’s idol, Willie Mays, started signing autographs at the railing directly in front of us. “See if you can get Willie’s autograph,” my dad said, handing me his scorecard and a pen. I tried, but the clutch of kids at the railing kept growing. “Hey Willie, over here,” I piped up, and when that didn’t work, shouted louder, “Willie, how about this way?” Willie abruptly left. I guess I had pissed off the great No. 24.
My idol was Mickey Mantle, and I went to a lot of Yankee games, sometimes with Dad. He took me to my first World Series game at Yankee Stadium in 1956. Mantle homered and the Yanks won 6-2. I was in heaven. Dad had tickets for the next game too, but it was a Monday and he said he had work and I had school, so we couldn’t go. He gave the tickets away and Don Larsen pitched the perfect game, still the only one in World Series history.
A couple of years later he took me to a Sunday doubleheader at Yankee Stadium against the Orioles. We had seats behind home plate in the upper deck. Just before the third out of the first game, Dad handed me a few bucks and directed me to pick up a couple of hot dogs for us.
I stood at the portal, waiting for the last out, when Brooks Robinson fouled a Whitey Ford pitch straight back at me. Without thinking I reached up and speared it with one hand. I ran over to my father and yelled, “I caught the ball! I caught the ball! Did you see it? Did you see it?”
He smiled and said yes, but somehow, even at the clueless age of 12, I knew he hadn’t. But that was alright. I handed him the ball and went back for the hot dogs.
What happened to the cherished object? My friends and I started tossing it around and then use it in games. Like all baseballs that get batted around, it started to unravel and eventually found its way into the garbage.
But ball or not, the memory is vivid as ever.