Michael! Michael! Come Watch the Game!

“Michael! Michael! Come watch the game!”

If I had a dollar for every time my father hollered those words, I could probably buy my own baseball team. It didn't matter what I was doing, where I was going, or whether I had the slightest interest in the game. When Dad called, I was expected to show up.

Back then, I thought he was calling me to watch baseball. It took me more than half a lifetime to understand what he was really asking.

October may be the greatest month of the year for sports fans. Football is in full swing, basketball is just getting started, baseball is crowning a champion, and somewhere somebody is chasing a puck across the ice or kicking a soccer ball into a net. There are so many games, so many teams, and so many championships that a person could spend an entire day watching other people play. But every October, when the baseball playoffs roll around, I hear something more important than the crack of a bat or the roar of a crowd.

I hear my father's voice.

My father loved sports, all kinds of sports. Baseball and boxing were probably his favorites, but if there was a game on television, he was interested. And if he was interested, sooner or later he was going to want me to be interested too. That was just the way things worked in our house.

We didn't have some fancy entertainment center or a room dedicated to watching sports. We had a small living room with a typical couch, a chair, a few tables, and a television that was probably the most important piece of furniture in the room when a good game was on. Sometimes Dad's friends would come over, and they'd sit around drinking beer, eating chips, talking about the players, and arguing about who was the best. It wasn't exactly a luxury sports bar, but to those fellows, it might as well have been Yankee Stadium.

And somewhere in the middle of all that excitement, here it would come again.

“Michael! Come watch the game!”

Now, you might wonder why he was always calling me. After all, there were three boys in our family, and as far as I could tell, the other two had ears that worked just as well as mine. But I was the oldest son, and apparently that came with certain responsibilities, including being my father's designated sports-watching companion. Nobody ever explained that job description to me, but somehow I got the assignment.

My brother Joey was the middle son, and Joey had a rebellious streak. If Dad called Joey, there was a pretty good chance Joey was going to have something else to do, whether he actually had something else to do or not. Then there was Jeffrey, the baby of the family, who could seemingly do no wrong. Jeffrey had somehow mastered the art of being everybody's favorite without having to do nearly as much as the rest of us.

And then there was me.

I was the dutiful son, the one who believed that when your father called, you answered. I might have been outside playing, reading something, or minding my own business, but when Dad called, I usually came. Sometimes I enjoyed the game, and sometimes I sat there wondering how much longer I had to stay. I loved my father, but I didn't necessarily want to spend every available minute watching somebody throw, hit, kick, or chase a ball.

I've always believed that there's a time for watching other people pursue their dreams and a time for getting busy pursuing your own. That's why, even today, I generally pay more attention to sports when the playoffs begin and the championships are on the line. I enjoy seeing who's going to win it all, but I don't feel the need to watch every game along the way. There are too many things I still want to accomplish to spend all my time watching somebody else accomplish theirs.

My father saw things a little differently.

Dad was born in 1930 in New Orleans, Louisiana, into a world that was very different from the one we know today. Baseball was America's national pastime, but America had decided that Black ballplayers weren't good enough to play alongside white ones in the major leagues. Never mind that some of the greatest athletes in the world were Black. Segregation didn't care how far you could hit a baseball or how fast you could run around the bases.

So Black players built leagues of their own, and those leagues produced some extraordinary talent. There were teams like the Kansas City Monarchs and legendary players like Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, and countless others who could play with anybody, anywhere. My father grew up during that era, when Black excellence was on full display but often denied the recognition it deserved. And like so many Black Americans of his generation, he learned to love a game that didn't always love him back.

When my parents moved to Kansas, Dad became a big fan of the Kansas City Monarchs. He knew about the Negro Leagues, the great players, and the struggles they faced. Years later, he even took me to see the legendary Satchel Paige pitch during a Kansas City Athletics exhibition game. By then, Satch was an old man by baseball standards, but there was still something special about watching a legend stand on the mound.

I didn't fully appreciate it at the time, of course. To me, he was just an old fellow throwing a baseball, but to my father, he represented an entire generation of Black athletes who had been denied the opportunities they deserved. Dad knew he was watching more than a pitcher. He was watching a piece of history.

My father also loved going to St. Louis to see the Cardinals play. He and his friends would make the trip to old Sportsman's Park, where the experience of watching Major League Baseball came with reminders of the racial boundaries of the times. There had been years when Black fans were restricted in where they could sit, even though their money was just as good as anybody else's. Yet they went anyway, because the love of the game was stronger than the indignities they sometimes had to endure.

And then there was Jackie Robinson.

When Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's color barrier in 1947, he did more than change a sport. He opened a door that generations of Black athletes had been told would never open. The Brooklyn Dodgers were in the National League, just like the St. Louis Cardinals, which meant that when Brooklyn came to town, my father had an opportunity to see history walking onto the field. I can only imagine what it must have meant to him to see a Black man standing where Black men had once been forbidden to stand.

Years later, I would have the privilege of being part of a celebration connected to the beginning of the annual tradition of Major League Baseball players wearing Jackie Robinson's number 42. Imagine that, a little boy who grew up listening to his father talk about Jackie Robinson would one day participate in an event honoring the very man who helped change the game. Life has a funny way of bringing things full circle. But that's another story for another day.

There was another revolution taking place during my father's lifetime, and I don't think I fully appreciated its importance until I became an older man myself.

Television.

Think about that for a moment. My father was born in 1930, when radio was king and families gathered around a speaker to listen to Major League Baseball games they could only imagine. The announcer painted pictures with words, and listeners had to create the stadium, the players, and the action in their minds. For much of his youth, that's how Dad would have experienced the major leagues, hearing the game without ever seeing it.

Then along came television, and suddenly the world changed.

Now you could actually see the pitcher wind up, watch the batter swing, and follow the ball as it sailed toward the outfield fence. You could see the expressions on the players' faces, the crowds in the stands, and the arguments with the umpires. What had once existed only in your imagination was now right there in your living room, on a little black-and-white screen. To a young boy growing up with television, that might not have seemed extraordinary, but to my father, it must have felt like a miracle.

And he wanted to share that miracle with me.

I didn't understand that back then. I thought he was just interrupting whatever I was doing because he wanted somebody to watch sports with him. I didn't realize I was sitting beside a man who had lived through one of the greatest transformations in American history. A man who had gone from a world where Black ballplayers were barred from the major leagues to one where he could watch Black and white athletes competing together on television.

And while we watched, Dad was teaching.

He taught me about teamwork, discipline, determination, and good sportsmanship. He pointed out players who weren't the biggest, strongest, or fastest but who succeeded because they worked harder, thought smarter, and refused to quit. Being a smaller fellow myself, I always paid particular attention to those guys. Dad made sure I understood that the size of a man's body had very little to do with the size of his heart.

He taught me that talent mattered, but effort mattered too. That sometimes the best player didn't win, and sometimes the underdog surprised everybody. That you could strike out three times and still come back in the ninth inning to hit the winning run. And that the game wasn't over just because things weren't going your way.

Those were baseball lessons, but they were also life lessons.

And then there were the lessons about race.

Dad understood that sports were never just about sports, especially for Black Americans. He had watched talented men denied opportunities because of their skin color, and he had witnessed the slow, difficult process of change. He knew that when Jackie Robinson stepped onto a baseball field, he was carrying more than a glove and a bat. He was carrying the hopes of millions of people who had spent their lives being told to stay in their place.

So when Dad talked about baseball, he was also talking about America. He was teaching me that progress doesn't happen automatically, that courage sometimes means standing alone, and that the people who open doors don't always get to enjoy everything that comes through them. Those lessons stayed with me long after I forgot the scores of the games we watched. In fact, I suspect some of what I learned about leadership, fairness, and perseverance began right there in front of that television.

But here's the part that gets me now.

My father wasn't just teaching me about sports, history, or life. He was giving me something that I didn't know I was receiving. He was giving me his time, his attention, his excitement, and a little piece of the world as he had experienced it. Every time he called my name, he was inviting me into his life.

And I almost missed it.

I was so busy thinking about what I wanted to do that I didn't always appreciate what he was trying to share. I heard an interruption when I should have heard an invitation. I thought he wanted me to watch a baseball game, when what he really wanted was for us to experience something together. He wasn't asking for much, just a little time with his oldest son.

That's the funny thing about getting older. The things that used to irritate us sometimes become the very things we miss the most. The voices that once interrupted our lives become the voices we would give almost anything to hear again. And the moments that seemed so ordinary at the time turn out to have been extraordinary after all.

Today, I'm sitting here watching the World Series as baseball reaches its annual championship stage. Football is still going strong, basketball is beginning another season, and the sports world is as busy as ever. I still believe in getting up, doing something productive, and pursuing my own dreams instead of spending all my time watching somebody else pursue theirs. But when October rolls around, I find myself paying a little more attention to baseball.

Not necessarily because of who's playing.

Not because of who's winning.

And not even because of who's going to be the champion.

I watch because baseball takes me back to that little living room, with its couch, chair, tables, and black-and-white television. I can almost see Dad and his friends sitting around drinking beer, eating chips, and arguing about the game. I can see Joey finding a way to avoid the whole thing and Jeffrey somehow remaining above suspicion. And I can see myself, the oldest son, reluctantly making my way into the room because Dad had called my name.

But I don't see that little boy the same way anymore.

Today, I see a father who was trying to share something he loved with his son. I see a man who had witnessed segregation, watched history unfold, and marveled at a world that was changing right before his eyes. I see a father who used baseball to teach his boy about courage, character, hard work, and the importance of standing up for what was right. And I see a man who simply wanted his son beside him.

These days, when October rolls around and the World Series begins, I sometimes find myself sitting in front of the television, watching a game I might otherwise have skipped. I listen to the announcers, watch the players, and remember a little boy who didn't always want to come when his father called. And I think about how much I'd give to hear that voice just one more time.

“Michael! Michael! Come watch the game!”

Dad, if you could call me today, I wouldn't make you ask twice.

I'd come running.

Because I finally understand something that little boy didn't know.

All those years, I thought we were watching baseball together.

But Dad, you were teaching me how to love.