My dad grew up in Scarsdale, New York
– but, as he’s quick to point out, that was before it became “Scahsdahle.” 
His dad told him always to root for the underdog, and my dad took that
seriously. 

All his friends were Yankees fans,
but Dad loved the Brooklyn Dodgers.  A perfect Friday night for
him, when he was a young teen, was to go up to his room with a Faygo
Redpop, a Boy’s Life magazine – he was on his way to becoming an
Eagle Scout – and listen to Red Barber reporting on the Dodgers’
game.   He wouldn’t say something so prosaic as, “the
bases are loaded,” but “the bases are saturated with humanity.”  

Dad was a decent athlete – baseball
and golf – but he didn’t make his high school team.  He did
have a star turn as the short stop for his fraternity softball team,
which won the championship when he pulled off a perfect squeeze play. 
You never forget those moments.  

My parents raised three kids, and
spent most of their weekends schlepping us to swim meets and hockey
games.  My dad had to wake me up at five in the morning, then pile
me and my hockey bag into our 1965 Volkswagen Beetle – which had no
radio and a heater only in theory.  I’m sure I complained every
time he woke me up.  He didn’t complain once.  

My dad didn’t play hockey, but he
taught me the important things: Play hard.  Play fair.  Losing
is okay.  Loafing is not.  And hot-dogging after a goal was
unacceptable.  You’re better off not scoring than doing that.  

My dad and I spent countless hours
together watching George Kell do the Tigers’ games on TV, and Ernie
Harwell on the radio.   

In high school my brother and I both
made the hockey team, and played together for one season. My dad is
not one to brag, but he gushed to us about seeing his two boys standing
together on the blue line for the national anthem.  It didn’t
matter to him that that was all the ice time we usually got.   

When I became a sullen teen – at
least at home – we didn’t have a lot to talk about.  Still,
like Daniel Stern’s character said in City Slickers, we always had
baseball.  That kept us connected, when it seemed like few things
did.  

After I left home, we started becoming
good friends.  As Mark Twain said, “It was amazing how much my
father had changed.” 

We formed another bond when I took
over my old high school hockey team, Ann Arbor Huron, which had not
won a game in a year and a half.  Assessing my team’s situation,
my dad said, “Well, when you’re on the floor, you can’t fall out
of bed.” 

I gave my parents a schedule, but
I didn’t expect them to see them at the games.  But they came
to every one of our home games.  And the games in Trenton, and
Muskegon, and Traverse City, and even Culver, Indiana.  They became
valued members of the hockey parents’ gang.   

When we won our first game, they were
there.  When we finally beat Pioneer in my third season, they were
there.  The lobby crowd was loud, but not my dad.  He didn’t
say a word, but I’ll never forget his glassy eyes as he reached out
his hand to grasp mine, and he held it, firmly.   

He knew how much it meant to me. 
And I saw how much it meant to him.  

When I asked him a couple months ago
what I could possibly get him for his birthday, he said, “Just your
friendship.” Consider it done.   

And that’s what he’s getting for
Father’s Day, too.