With Father’s Day fast-approaching, consider Will Leitch’s smoothly-written memoir, Are We Winning? It’s a brisk and funny read. Will is really in his element here, flourishing. Ya heard?
And while we’re talking fathers and sons, do yourself a favor and check out this post by Glenn Stout:
Most of my memories of my father are somehow wrapped around a baseball – playing catch, him taking me to games or watching me pitch. It was the one way we really connected. But in high school I tore my rotator cuff and had to stop playing. We didn’t have as much to talk about after that.
Almost twenty years later my shoulder healed and I joined an adult league, one in Boston and later, another in Worcester County, where I then lived. For three or four years I was in both leagues and played fifty, sixty games each summer, usually pitching and playing first or third.
I’d call home every week and for the first time since I was a kid my conversations with my father were wrapped around baseball again. I sent him the ball after I won my first game since I was sixteen years old, and a t-shirt I got for making the league all-star team. I was as proud of each as of any book I’ve ever written, and so was he.
Fine work by Glenn, as usual.
I also still play occasionally and rehash every game with my dad (and mom and brothers) like it was high school or little league. It never gets old. In fact, it's one of the essential elements of the experience.
What I liked about Glenn's piece was that it revealed a lot about Glenn's character, and his relationship with his old man without ever becoming maudlin.
[2] Exactly, we know why he stayed in and played through pain, he doesn't have to tell us. Great story.
That's right. Less is more. We can fill in the blanks. And you can see where Glenn's drive comes from, having a dad who worked those kinds of hours. It speaks to the ability to endure physcial pain and keep moving...