July 19, 2011
Some day you will read this and hopefully I will still be alive to read it to you. As I am writing this, you are several years away from being born and being old enough to hear about our trip. I am writing this to you to let you know that when your dad turned 11 years old, we took the most amazing trip and got to spend seven weeks together traveling the country and into Canada to see a baseball game in all of the major league baseball parks.
We had the time of our lives. We had no cares or worries. We saw the whole country. We left Arizona on May 21st and drove to San Diego. We went to Disneyland. We drove up the Pacific Coast Highway and saw some of the most beautiful sights along the Pacific Ocean. We stood on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco where other friends of mine joined us for a Giants game. Your dad caught a ball at a Mariners game in Seattle with my college roommate. We drove through the Rocky Mountains. I let him drive for the first time in our car around an empty parking lot at Coors Field in Denver. We learned about the Negro Leagues in Kansas City with my close friends. Grandma Helen and Aunt Andie joined us in Chicago for a week where we saw my home town and the neighborhood where I grew up. We drove from Chicago to Milwaukee for a 7pm game, drove back to Chicago that night, and then got up the next morning to drive to Cincinnati on your dad's birthday so we could see a 12:30pm game later that morning. Your dad met his uncle and family in Detroit and your dad and I sang "My Girl" in the original Motown studios. We saw what became our favorite ballpark in Pittsburgh. We went to Canada and saw Niagara Falls up close in a boat from 100 feet away. We drove to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and learned more about the history of baseball. We played catch at the hotel there. We spent Fathers Day at Fenway Park in Boston where I taught him how to keep score. We saw New York City where your grandma and aunt Andie joined us as we took the subway to Yankee Stadium, we spent a day in Central Park and then they came with us to Philadelphia where we ran up the Art Museum stairs just like Rocky did, and then on to Washington DC where we saw the President's children play on the White House lawn and your dad pitch in a major league ballpark bullpen. We saw family and friends in Atlanta, we drove to Florida and met with your dad's friend Chris where they fed alligators after playing goofy golf. We had a great time in New Orleans on the Fourth of July where your dad got to eat his favorite beignets, and we finished our trip in Texas 11,000 miles later where I threw your dad a touchdown pass on the field at Cowboys Stadium. And we ended our seven week trip back in Phoenix where we got to see all those players we saw on the road play in the All-Star Game. We bought a team hat and team ball from each park we visited as a souvenir so that we could have something to remember the trip by. We wrote to our blog diary every night after seeing a game and we ranked the ballparks after each visit. We took tons of pictures and videos so you could see them on whatever piece of technology that exists when you read this and see what your father looked like when he was 11 and what I looked like as a young man of 44.
We visited family and stayed with some of my friends along the way. We watched Ken Burns' documentary on Baseball. We watched the best baseball movies ever made: Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, Fever Pitch, and The Rookie. You should have seen how much your dad laughed when he saw the Bad News Bears for the first time and how much he thought Tanner Boyle was so funny. I taught him about the history of baseball and how I thought that Jackie Robinson may have been as important to the civil rights movement as Martin Luther King was. He learned about Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, and Ted Williams. I introduced him to The Three Stooges and Who's on First? I shared my philosophy on life to him on many subjects including girls.
We ate lots of fast food and put on a few pounds more than we wanted. We stayed up late in hotels and got up early the next day. We met some great people along the way who sat next to us at ballgames and told them of the story of our trip. We got interviewed by some reporters, and the story of our trip made the Seattle Times and the front page of our hometown newspaper.
We did all of that and so much more. Mostly, we smiled for seven straight weeks and we became as close as we ever had been before. It was all because we both loved baseball and in going to the games, we talked, we laughed, and we compared players to each other and your dad asked what it was like going to games with my father when I was a kid. And seeing the games and the ballparks on our trip allowed us to share memories that will never be forgotten and that we will always have between us. I hope that you will pass on the game of baseball to your children and that it brings you closer to your sons or daughters as it did for me and your father and for me and my father as well.
We did all of that and so much more. Mostly, we smiled for seven straight weeks and we became as close as we ever had been before. It was all because we both loved baseball and in going to the games, we talked, we laughed, and we compared players to each other and your dad asked what it was like going to games with my father when I was a kid. And seeing the games and the ballparks on our trip allowed us to share memories that will never be forgotten and that we will always have between us. I hope that you will pass on the game of baseball to your children and that it brings you closer to your sons or daughters as it did for me and your father and for me and my father as well.
Here is a video that I created especially for you so that when you watch it you can see how much fun we had and to know how much I love your father.
With all my love,
Your Grandfather Lance
