Whenever I hear someone talk about how baseball “was the only thing my dad and I could talk about together,” it doesn’t make me think of baseball as some great coming-t0gether thing. It makes me think of how sad it must have been to grow up in a house where you didn’t have anything else to talk to your dad about.
Or mom. Let’s not forget mom.
All of which is why I nodded my head as I read Lindy West’s piece in Jezebel yesterday in which that “baseball is all about fathers and sons ...” rebop is shown to be pretty empty. It may apply in one’s own circumstance, but as a means of explaining the appeal of baseball to others, it’s really, really hard for most people to relate to and makes you sound silly after a while.
