Note: This happened on July 20, 2003
When my family came down to visit me in Saint Petersburg, I always tried to plan something beyond the theme parks. One Sunday, I took my dad, mom, sister, my niece and nephew to an afternoon game at Tropicana Field—the Tampa Bay Rays against the Texas Rangers.
We got there early, settled in on the visitor's side, maybe fifteen, twenty rows back from the field. The Rangers were doing batting practice, and one of those lazy practice swings sent a ball sailing up into the stands. It landed a few aisles away, but the stands were mostly empty—we'd come early—so my nephew walked over and got it.
"I want to get the guy who hit it to sign it," he said.
I looked down at the Rangers bullpen, at the one man sitting there, and smiled.
"No," I told him. "You want that guy to sign it."
It was Orel Hershiser.
My father had watched him pitch on television for years. I'd learned how to throw watching Hershiser work—his mechanics, his focus. My dad had shown me, had me study him. And in our Atlanta Braves market, we'd watched Phil Niekro the same way. These weren't just ballplayers to us. They were icons and examples of doing things the right way.
I took my nephew down to the field and asked Hershiser if he'd sign the ball. While he was signing it, I told him the story—how my dad and I had watched him pitch, how much we'd learned from him.
Hershiser looked up at me, then back at the stands. "Is that your father back there?"
"Yes."
He pointed to the usher, then gestured to the seats right behind the bullpen—the reserved family seats that weren't going to be used.
"Have your family move down here," he said.
My dad, my nephew, and I moved down to the front row, right behind the Texas Rangers bullpen. And during the pregame hour—while the Rangers were still preparing, still loose, still just being themselves—my father got to sit and talk baseball with Orel Hershiser.
Not as a fan asking for an autograph. As someone who understood the game, who'd spent years watching him work, who had sons and daughters of his own who he'd passed that knowledge to. Hershiser treated him that way. They talked baseball. Real conversation. The kind you don't forget.
I watched my dad sitting there, shoulder to shoulder with a man he'd admired for years, a man who'd unknowingly been a person we idolized on television, and now was sitting right next to him, talking about the game they both loved. Hershiser could have signed the ball and sent us on our way. That would have been enough. But he saw something in my dad—the respect, the genuine knowledge, the love of the sport—and he made room for him.
That's the kind of thing that stays with you. Not because some famous person signed something. But because someone with the character to match their talent took the time to see my father, and gave him something you can't buy a ticket for. A conversation. A moment. The recognition that the game matters, and so do the people who love it.
One of the nicest guys I've ever met.