There was a time when baseball felt infinite. The innings, the scorecards, even the silences between pitches seemed to stretch forever. My father used to say that was the beauty of it, that baseball had no clock, that it gave you time to think, to hope, to breathe between moments.

We didn’t talk much in those early years. Not about feelings, at least. But every night that the Yankees played, we spoke another language, one built from strikes and foul balls, from curveballs that dropped like secrets, and from the sound of a radio calling a game that felt like it belonged to us. Baseball wasn’t our pastime; it was our conversation.

He taught me everything I know about the sport. The weight of a count. The meaning behind a swing taken too early. The subtle beauty of a well-framed pitch. He’d sit there, remote in one hand, calling balls and strikes before the umpire ever opened his mouth. And he was always right. Every time. He didn’t guess, he saw the game before it unfolded, like someone reading music they’d written years ago.

I. The Sound of Certainty

When I was young, I thought my father had powers. How else could he know? I’d look at the screen, a pitch coming in fast, the batter frozen, and before I could even blink, he’d say, “Strike two.” Then, a moment later, the umpire would echo it. Every correct call made me glance up at him in awe. Every inning reinforced the myth.

It wasn’t until years later that I realized what he really had was patience. He’d watched enough games to know how the rhythm of baseball worked, that every pitcher carried a tempo, that every batter’s stance had tells, that umpires followed habits as much as rules. My father understood the human side of baseball, the quiet predictability behind the chaos.

That’s what he loved about it: the balance between control and surrender. Baseball, he’d say, is the only sport where you fail most of the time and still succeed if you keep showing up. That was his lesson, even if he never said it that way. He didn’t teach through speeches, he taught through innings.

II. Keeping Score

I loved sitting next to him with a notebook, learning how to keep score by hand. He told me that if you really wanted to understand the game, you had to track it yourself.

So I learned the symbols, 6-4-3 double plays, backwards Ks, wild pitches. Every mark felt sacred, like handwriting a story in real time. “Always pay attention to the quiet players, the ones who make things happen before the cameras notice and do more than just hit home runs,” he always said.

That line stuck with me. Maybe because that’s who he was: the quiet player, the one who made things work before anyone saw it and were not just one-dimensional home run hitters.

He worked long hours and never missed a day. We didn’t have much, but he gave me baseball, the sound of the crowd, the smell of a glove, the thrill of a walk-off homer that made you believe anything was possible.

We spent every October together, watching postseason games like sacred rituals. It didn’t matter who was playing: Dodgers, Cardinals, Red Sox, as long as there was baseball, there was us.

But if the Yankees were on, the room changed. He’d lean forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, as if proximity could influence the outcome. Every strikeout by a Yankees pitcher earned a satisfied nod. Every error drew a silence heavier than anger. He didn’t shout. He observed. And when the game was over, he’d turn off the TV and simply say, “That’s baseball.”

Those two words carried everything: acceptance, pride, heartbreak, endurance.

III. After the Final Out

He died on June 7, 2024.

I remember that afternoon clearly, the way the world went quiet, the way baseball suddenly seemed trivial. For months, I couldn’t look at a scorecard without feeling like I’d opened a book I wasn’t ready to read.

The first postseason without him began shortly, and for the first time since I was a kid, I didn’t watch at all. The Yankees played the Dodgers in the World Series later that year, but

I couldn’t bring myself to watch a single inning. I saw the highlights later, as the Dodgers dominated the Yankees but I felt nothing. I also would’ve felt nothing had the Yankees won.

That was our team. Our story. And without him beside me, it felt like reading a box score from someone else’s life.

There’s a strange kind of grief that only sports can teach you. The loss that repeats itself, inning after inning, year after year. A heartbreak that never kills you, but never really heals either. You learn to live with it, the way fans of every losing team do, holding onto the hope that next year might be different.Except this time, next year didn’t bring him back.

IV. The Math of Memory

It took months before I could even open the old notebook I used for scoring games. When I finally did, the pages smelled faintly of ink and dust, of years spent beside him. My handwriting filled the margins with his lessons, tiny notes about defensive shifts, pitching changes, and players I’d long forgotten.

At the top of one page, written: The numbers never lie, but they never tell the whole story.
I must have read that line a hundred times before I understood what he meant. Baseball’s math is precise, averages, ERAs, OPS, win probability, but it only tells you what happened, not why it mattered.

The truth lives in the spaces between numbers: the hesitation before a swing, the breath a pitcher takes before a 3-2 count, the weight of a father teaching his son how to believe in something as small as a strike zone.

That’s where love hides, between the data points.

I used to think our obsession with numbers was about control. But now I see it was about connection. Numbers outlast everything: players, seasons, even people. They’re a record of existence. A way to say: We were here. We saw this.

V. Hope in Probability

When I finally started watching baseball again, I did it quietly. No volume. No commentary. Just the rhythm of the game and the space it created.

On October 10, during the 2025 postseason, I found myself watching an extra-inning game between the Tigers and Mariners, two teams I didn’t care about. The broadcasters flashed the live win probability chart, that jagged line climbing and collapsing with every pitch.

And for the first time in a long time, I smiled.

Because that line, that restless dance between certainty and collapse, was the exact shape of hope. My father used to say the game isn’t over until the final out, and here it was, visualized in real time: a reminder that probability is just another way of saying there’s still a chance.

I thought about him calling strikes from the couch, about the faith he had in reading patterns, about the belief that things could turn around with one good swing. Baseball had always been a metaphor for patience, and grief, I realized, was just another long season.

You lose, you learn, you wait.

VI. Silence in the Seventh

There’s a moment in every game when the noise quiets, between innings, during a mound visit, or when a crowd collectively holds its breath. I live in that silence now.

When I sit alone watching a game, I still hear his voice calling the pitches. Sometimes I answer him out loud. When I see a borderline pitch, I whisper, “Ball.” When the replay proves me wrong, I laugh. When I get it right, I feel like I’ve touched something eternal.

The game keeps going. The players change. The rules evolve. But the silence between pitches, that will always belong to us.

VII. What Remains

I don’t keep score anymore. The pen feels heavier than it used to. But every time I open that old notebook, I trace the lines of the handwriting, the neat columns of innings and runs, the calm certainty in the letters.

There’s one page from a Yankees game years ago that I come back to often. It’s from a 6-5 extra-inning win in Game 3 of the 1999 World Series against the Braves, the kind that exhausts you but fills you with faith. The Yankees were trailing 5-1 in the fifth inning and pulled off the epic comeback. In the notes section, I wrote something he said:
Never leave early. You might miss the comeback.

I think about that every day now, not just in baseball, but in life. How many moments we abandon because we think the outcome is set. How many people we give up on too soon.

My father believed in staying until the end, in giving things one more inning. That’s the lesson he left behind.

And in some small, impossible way, I think he’s still here, in every ninth-inning rally, in every improbable comeback that reminds us that the math doesn’t account for heart.

VIII. The Box Score

When people talk about grief, they describe it as waves. For me, it’s innings.
Some days move fast, three up, three down. Others drag on forever. Sometimes I feel ahead, and sometimes I’m trailing with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. But I keep playing, because that’s what he’d do.

I look at box scores differently now. Each one is a story of choices, of pitches thrown, swings missed, and small victories that don’t show up in headlines. Life is the same. You record what you can, forgive what you miss, and keep turning the page.

That’s the secret my father was teaching me all along: baseball isn’t about winning. It’s about paying attention. I dive deeper into the soul of baseball in my book: Understanding the Sport My Dad Taught Me to Love.

IX. Afterword

The Yankees haven’t changed much since he’s been gone. The uniforms still shine under the Bronx lights. The fans still chant the names of their favorite players, the same way they always have. I used to think I couldn’t watch them again, that it would hurt too much.
But maybe someday I will. Maybe one October night, I’ll turn on the game, keep quiet, and listen.

And when the first pitch crosses the plate, I’ll try to call it before the umpire does.
If I get it right, I’ll smile, not because I guessed correctly, but because, for a moment, I’ll hear his voice again, calm and certain.