My Kid Hates Baseball and it Baffles Me
My best father-son memories happened at baseball games. So why does my kid refuse to care?
It was a perfect summer night, and I was at Wrigley Field in Chicago, one of my favorite places on earth.
At the bottom of the first, Nico Hoerner came to bat for the Cubs. He hit a homer on the very first pitch, straight into the left field bleachers. The crowd was on its feet, and I nearly spilled my beer from cheering.
I turned to Charlie, my 13-year-old son, who was sitting next to me in the stands. “Did you see that?” I asked, still laughing with glee.
He didn’t. He was preoccupied horking down a $10 hot dog. And with his meal finished, he was ready to leave.
“Are you kidding me?” I asked, disbelievingly. “The game literally just started.”
Charlie exhaled miserably and slumped in his seat, as enthusiastic as a middle-aged man waiting for a colonoscopy. “I’m literally going to die here,” he moaned.
The new baseball season officially kicks off today in the U.S. On April 4th, I'll be in the stands at Wrigley for the Cubs home opener just like I am every year, drinking in the sights and smells of baseball; the cheering crowds and the freshly cut grass, the organ music and the vendors hawking peanuts and cold beer. And, of course, the low-pitched sighing of a surly, impatient teen who just wants to go home already.
My son hates baseball. Well, maybe “hate” is a strong word. He tolerates it for the snacks. But the sport itself, he could take or leave. And it’s devastating to me.
I feel for the kid. Growing up in the ‘70s and ‘80s, I wasn’t a fan of baseball, either. But every spring, my dad would drag me and my brother to Wrigley Field for opening day to watch his beloved Chicago Cubs (invariably) lose yet again. It was a yearly ritual that always felt like an obligation more than a fun outing. I was never a sports-loving kid, and baseball in particular seemed like the most boring spectator sport ever invented. If it weren’t for the hotdogs and soda, it would’ve been pure torture.
I remember one game in the late ’70s, when the Cubs lost 21-3 to the Cardinals. We were in the bleachers, and the game was laughably bad. On a scale of formidable competitors, the Cubs were somewhere between the Washington Generals and Paris in 1940.
But my dad didn’t care. He just sipped on his warm beer, ruffled my hair, and said, “We’ll get ’em next time.”
I don’t remember much about what happened on the field during those childhood visits to Wrigley with my dad, but I remember everything about him, and how much happier he seemed, more relaxed and peaceful than he was during a typical work week. My dad wasn’t good with stress, but during a baseball game something changed in him. Maybe it was the sun on his face, or nursing a cold beer in the afternoon, or the slow, predictable rhythms of the game.
It took a few years for me to come around and appreciate my dad’s favorite sport. A few decades, actually. I was not a teenage baseball fan. I was 32 before I learned that RBI meant “Runs Batted In” and not “Really Big Inning!” It wasn’t until I reached my 40s that baseball evolved from a chore I pretended to tolerate just to make my dad happy into one of my favorite summer pastimes.
I’m sure at least some of it is nostalgia. My dad died a few decades ago—way too young at age 60, of a massive heart attack—and baseball was my main tether to him. When a parent dies, the big fear (at least for me) is that they’ll fade away. Every year, their memory gets a little fainter and hazier. But when I go to a ballgame—and on opening day, in particular—I can almost feel my dad’s presence.
I’m a big believer that sometimes you find things when you need them. I didn’t need baseball when I was younger. It felt like a big waste of my time. But as I got older, baseball was an escape. It was a few hours during my day when I didn’t have to check my phone, didn’t have to worry about bills or doctors appointments or how the hell I was paying for my kid’s college. The adult worries that follow me everywhere disappear during a baseball game. It’s the closest I’ve come to meditation.
Depression is always on the horizon for me—it’s baked into my DNA—but I feel that same sense of relief when I’m at a ballgame. I still only have a vague idea of the rules. I’m just happy to be there, where nothing happening in the outside world matters, at least for a few hours.
At 50, I’ve turned into my dad. And my son has turned into the teenage me.
“Can I just go sit in the car?” Charlie asked during our last father-son date at Wrigley.
“You want another hot dog?” I asked. As with my dad, I wasn’t above bribery. I ate a lot of saturated fats as a kid just so my father could watch the rest of the game.
“No, my stomach hurts,” Charlie growled, sinking into his seat. “Why do you even like this game? It’s so booo-ring.”
He’s not wrong. Baseball is boring. And to be honest, I still don’t entirely understand most of it. But the game has never been the entire point, any more than a sermon is the entire point of church. It’s the whole package—the majestic architecture of the chapel/stadium, being part of a congregation, the singing (“Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh-inning stretch is basically “Amazing Grace” with a beer buzz), the chance to be quiet with your own thoughts. Both church and baseball have organs, which can’t be a coincidence.
In 2016, I got tickets for Game 2 of the World Series, which would (spoiler alert) become the first time the Cubs won a pennant in over a century. I brought Charlie. It was (for me, at least) a life-changing game. When Kyle Schwarber, who’d been out for most of the season with a blown-out left knee, hit an RBI single in the third inning, I screamed myself hoarse. But Charlie missed it all. He was fast asleep in his chair.
I know I’m being unreasonable. Our kids don’t have to like the same things we do. But I don’t mourn the loss of baseball. I mourn the connection with my dad. I don’t tear up watching Field of Dreams because I want to talk to athlete ghosts in a cornfield. Every guy who cries at that movie is crying about his dad.
I needed help. And being a journalist, I did what I normally do: I reached out to somebody smarter than me. In this case, Jim Taylor, a sports psychologist and author of Positive Pushing: How to Raise a Successful and Happy Child.
“He may just need more time as a spectator to see that this is about father-son bonding,” Taylor assured me. “Or he may just not be into watching sports.”
Et tu, Brute? I wasn’t into baseball when my dad started dragging me me to games. Why should I give up on my own son?
“Meet him where he is now,” Taylor tells me. “What does your son love to do? If you can identify that, then perhaps you can find a way to be a part of what he loves and you two can have the same experience as you and your father did, just in a different setting.”
I’m not enthused by this idea. And I have no idea what it’d even look like. It’s not like Charlie is giving me any clues. He’s a fucking teenager. I don’t even get intel about what happens in a school day beyond “It was fine.”
But then we’re driving through the city and Charlie bursts out screaming.
“Joywave!” he shouts. “Oh my God!”
We just passed the Metro, a local rock club, and Charlie saw the name of his “favorite band of all time” on the marquee.
“Can we go?” he pleads. “Please, please!”
“Of course,” I nod, like I have any idea what the hell he’s talking about.
I get tickets (which are considerably cheaper than World Series tickets, BTW). The show is, well … It’s a show! The band dresses like math nerds doing auto mechanic cosplay. The Metro is a sea of teenagers, and I’m the sole guy there over 50. But I’m OK with that. I just sit in the back, sipping on warm beer, watching my boy have the time of his life.
At some point, I guess one of the Joywave guys does an especially wild guitar solo or something. The crowd erupts in cheers and Charlie turns to me.
“Did you see that?” he asks, still laughing with glee.
I smile back and ruffle his hair, like my dad used to do. It’s another perfect summer night, even without the baseball.