A new fan
We were back on Long Island by 1971. My father opened his own barber shop – later a second, and thrived. And he had a new, more willing partner to attend games with.  He taught me to keep score and to appreciate the game’s finer points.

He loathed one-dimensional players (like Dave Kingman) or those who never got the most from their talents (too many to list).

His favorites were players who, I realize now, had something very much in common with him. They were hustlers, over-achievers.  Scrappy players like Jerry Grote, Bud Harrelson, Len Dykstra and Wally Backman. He insisted I play the game with the same work ethic. He even forgave Pete Rose, the ultimate hustler, after he picked a fight with Bud Harrelson in the 1973 playoffs.  

Once after a game was called because of rain, we went for sandwiches to the Diamond Club, the restaurant/bar at Shea Stadium. When Brooklyn Dodger great Roy Campanella  

came in and spent some time chatting with my Dad about glory days at Ebbetts Field, my father was a kid once more, transformed before my eyes. 

Sometime in the late 1970’s, I was on hand for the last game my father played.  He was in his mid-40s by then, and he could still hit. But his legs were shot, and his lungs weren’t far behind.  He hit a gapper, and had rounded second base when his legs gave out.  He was tagged out crawling into third base, and when he walked off the field told me “That’s it. I’m done.”   

By the early 1980’s, my parents had divorced, and my father re-married a few years later.

In 1986 the favored Mets were down three games to two in the World Series to the Boston Red Sox. Losing by two runs and down to their last strike with no one on base in game 6, they were in need of another miracle.

Courtesy John Baiata John Baiata with his father John at his New Jersey home, 2006.

They got it (with a little help from Boston first baseman Bill Buckner) and went on to win game 7.  This time it was me who had to celebrate from out of town, from my college apartment in Arizona. My father, of course, was the first person I called.

Looking good in orange and blue
By 2000, the year the Mets and Yankees squared off in their first “Subway Series,” Dad had retired to Florida. I called him from Shea Stadium after game three, the only one the Mets would win. The Yankees disposed of them in five games.      

We began a new baseball tradition. An annual family visit to Florida was booked only after carefully checking the Mets spring training schedule to make sure we could get to a game or two together in nearby Port St. Lucie.  

Whenever we spoke by phone he would always pump me for the latest Mets news, grousing that the Florida papers gave short shrift to his team. 

A couple of weeks ago my four-year old son Luke surprised me with a hearty rendition of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.” I immediately called my Dad, said “listen to this” and handed Luke the phone.  When I took the phone back, my father was raving about his grandson’s bravura performance.  It would be the last words he spoke to me. 

The following week I got a frantic call from my stepmother. Dad had fallen and fractured his skull. Things didn’t look good, and I was on the next flight out.  He hung on for a few days, but this time there would be no miracle. 

On the day he died, the Mets suffered their worst defeat ever at the hands of the Yankees, 15-0.  I couldn’t help but think how, at least he didn’t have to watch that. My stepmother wanted something very specific to lay him out in for the wake, and I insisted on having the honor of doing the shopping. All things considered, he looked pretty good in the orange and blue.