My Baseball Ancestry

Post ALCS Victory Hugs, with my Dad

 I have been wringing my brain, to write a preview of Game 1.  I have have had 29 years to come up with something.  Now, I fear, I have so much to write about, and so many emotions, feelings, and match-ups to unpack; I may drown in my my own research and information.  That's okay because my father, wrote a very moving post that he put on the heathen Facebook, for the commoners to view.  With his permission I am editing it and re-posting it here.  

More gratuitous father/son hugging

It's so moving for me, because my father is the man who taught me the game of baseball.  His story is about the man who taught him the game.  

So this post is half-baseball romanticism, half-World Series preview, half-Royals history, and half-baseball heritage. Wait, that may be two wholes.  Nevertheless, please read this post from our Guest Blogger, My Father, and life-long Royals Fan (since the beginning), Kevin Oeth. Enjoy.
-AO

Dad and me on my birthday this year, at our favorite place on the planet, Kauffman (Royals) Stadium

By Kevin Oeth

I hope and pray, that you all know, and I think most of you do, that what I say about the Cardinals (or Angels) is all in good fun. When discussing this topic, First and Foremost, I am a baseball fan, yeah, I'm the guy that will stop and watch a bunch of kids play in an empty lot just because I love the game. I may not know any of the kids, but I know they're playing the game that I love.

 I remember the day I fell in love with the game almost as well as the day I fell in love with the love of my life, Barbie. It was a fall day in Marshall, MO after my long brutal day of morning kindergarten at Benton Elementary in 1968. I walked home, deftly avoiding the yapping little dog down on the corner, to our house on Morgan St. All I wanted to do was relax, maybe have a snack and prepare for the rough evening ahead full of playing outside, fighting with my sister and all the other things a six year old has to deal with.

My hope was to be denied.

As I got home, I saw my mother was deeply engrossed in something on TV. Normally, when I got home, she might have been watching "As the World Turns," or the sands of the hourglass flowing through "The Days of our Lives," but today, today was different. She was watching baseball! It was the St. Louis Cardinals and the Detroit Tigers in the World Series! Now keep in mind, kids this was no High-Definition TV. This was, maybe, a 19-inch Black and White. There was no remote, just me or my big sister occasionally being told to change the channel to one of the three (that's right, THREE!) channels we received. Anyway, I could tell, this was something special!

I sat and watched as my mom explained some of the things that were going on, like why they drove one of the players in from around the outfield area in a little golf cart then some kid came out and took his jacket and ran off with it. I learned so much that day I'm sure I thought my head would explode. I didn't want to go to school the next day, because my mom told me there would be another game!

The love affair had begun!

The following spring (1969), over in the American League, the Kansas City Royals played their first season ever, being an expansion team they fared better than anyone ever expected as they finished second in their division, but first in my heart. Being the rebellious seven-year-old that I was, I knew these upstart Kansas City Royals were the team for me. You see, back in those days you couldn't watch every game on TV like we do now. In Marshall, you could generally only watch if the Royals were playing out of town on a Saturday or Sunday. So you just didn't get to see "your" team as much as you wanted to but you relished every moment that you did.

Sometime in the early seventies things got a little different in my life, as my Grandma and Grandpa moved to Marshall. You see up to that point, pretty much all of my baseball influence was from my mom, as my dad, just didn't care much for sports, but when Grandpa moved to town, I had a guy that could help me, sure mom knew most of the general things one needed to know about baseball and to be honest, she's probably forgotten more about baseball than most people ever know, but a boy needs a man to explain to him just exactly how the infield fly rule works, how to throw a curve (I never could, but I know how), and how to lay down a sacrifice bunt, something my middle son came by naturally.  Grandpa moved to town and my life changed. (He also showed me how to roll a cigarette, a skill I never used for myself, but you can imagine this skinny little 11 or 12 year old rolling a cigarette for his grandpa, yeah, I was a real man about town.)

By that time, "cable" TV had come to Marshall. You could watch more than just the weekend games. Marshall had gone big time, I remember being very excited by the fact that the Royals announced they were going to show 41 games on TV. I'm not sure what was so magical about 41 unless it was the fact they were being shown on Channel 41 out of KC? All of these games were road games with the exception of the last televised game of the year, the "Fan Appreciation" Game in KC.
While this was great for me, Grandpa was a dyed in red Cardinal fan so, living in Marshall, the only time he got to see the Cardinals play was when they were on NBC's Game of the Week or ABC's summer counterpart to Monday Night Football, Monday Night Baseball. Unfortunately, for him the Redbirds were not all that good in the early “70’s, never finishing higher than second in their division the entire decade, so they didn’t make it on those games very often.

I think Grandpa nurtured my love for the game itself, as well. He too loved baseball even more than just the Cardinals, based on the fact that just like me with the Royals, he’d watch games that had nothing to do with the Cardinals. Soon, he and I would spend many summer hours watching the Royals together. Some of my greatest memories with him were watching the Royals.

Sometime before 1974, Grandma and Grandpa started running the Marshall Hotel, a horrible little place that probably in it’s day was a pretty nice place, but I think it’s day had passed. On a regular basis, since Grandma and Grandpa didn’t drive, my Mom or Dad would take us kids up to the Hotel to hang out with Grandpa, while one of them took Grandma to the store. This was baseball time, for Grandpa and I. This is where I learned how to keep score, read a box score and see that even if you didn’t get to see the game, you could look at a scorebook, or the box score and tell what happened.

Our greatest moment in the early ‘70’s occurred on June 19, 1974. We were sitting in the living room of the apartment they lived in, watching Steve Busby pitch against the Milwaukee Brewers. As the game progressed, I noticed Grandpa had gotten pretty quiet. I’d ask him questions, and he would answer, but the answers were quiet and short. Soon it became obvious even to this 12 year old that he was becoming very involved in this game. You see, to my knowledge, my Grandpa had never seen a no-hitter. Of course, neither had I. What a thrill to see your first no-hitter, thrown by a pitcher from your favorite team, with your baseball mentor sitting beside you. After the game, we were thrilled to have seen this young guy throw a no-hitter. He also explained his quietness to me by telling me that when a guy is throwing a no-hitter, you don’t say anything about a no hitter for fear of jinxing it. That day, I learned, often times, baseball is full of superstition.
In September of ’75, my dad passed away. That’s when my mom and I started watching a lot of baseball together, but still, as much as Mom loved the game, and as much as I loved (and still love) watching the game with her, the thrill of watching with Grandpa was special. His love and knowledge of of the game, was surpassed by no one. He KNEW baseball.

In the late ‘70’s my Royals got hot.

Amos Otis, Cookie Rojas, Hal McRae, Frank White, John Mayberry, Clint Hurdle and oh, yeah some kid named George somebody, made the Royals the talk of western Missouri. They may not have been big names around the country, but they were our guys. In ’76, ’77 and ’78, they won the American League West, losing every playoff to those “Damn Yankees”. Yeah, we despised those guys and they were not real fond of us, either. Thurman Munson, Reggie Jackson, Graig Nettles, Rich Gossage, Sparky Lyle, that stinkin’ Chris Chambliss and Billy Martin: We were all sure, lived to make our lives miserable…and they did their jobs very well.

During this time, I believe in ’77 or ’78, my Grandpa fell and broke his hip. I’ve noticed over the years that oftentimes the breaking of a hip is more like a death sentence for the elderly, and this was true in Grandpa’s case. For several years, he hung in there, but he was never the same. For the most part he was bedridden, with help, he could get up and go to the bathroom or dinner table early on, but as the years passed, the ability to do that did also. Every Saturday, though, no matter what else might be going on, I would go to Grandma and Grandpa’s house with my mom and stay and sit with Grandpa while mom took Grandma to the store. This was usually, not a fun time for me. There I was, just a high school kid, wishing I could hang out with my friends, but instead looking after my Grandpa.

The great part was, that sometimes during those summers, we’d have those perfect moments, those moments when Grandpa was himself and recognized what was going on around him. Moments when he wasn’t using his sheets as rolling papers to roll imaginary cigarettes, or calling me by names of people I didn’t know. Moments when the Royals would come on and he’d see baseball, and we’d talk about it, and I’d be a kid again, and he’d be my mentor…no, he’d be my friend. The friend that I needed. He didn’t care who was playing, he just knew it was baseball, he loved it, and someone that he loved, and that loved him was with him, watching. 

I remember, watching the Bucky Dent Game, in Grandpa’s hospital room. I remember going away to college, and the Royals beating the Yankees in 1980 and going to their first World Series. I don’t remember getting to watch any of it with Grandpa as I was in south MO for most of it, but I remember Mom telling me that he did watch some of it. KC lost in six games that year to the Phillies. That’s what happens when you hit a buck eighteen in a four out of seven series.

In the fall of ’81, we lost Grandpa but I think of him often. I remember in 1985 when the Kansas City Royals and the St. Louis Cardinals played in the World Series. My first thought, when the matchup was set was not of “I hope the Royals win,” but ”boy, Grandpa, would love this one!” THEN, it was, “I hope the Royals win!”

I’m sure he was thrilled when the Cards have won Championships over the years, because I believe that so many of the things we love will be with us in heaven, so I’m sure we get to watch baseball. 

I’ve never told anyone this, not even my beautiful bride, or my sons or my grandchildren, but when Grandpa died and we had the funeral …well, you know how there’s an area at the bottom of the coffin where you can’t see the deceased’s feet? Well, when we had the visitation, I kind of hung out when no one else was around, and slipped a baseball down there, and jammed it down between the pad and the sidewall of the coffin so it wouldn’t roll around. Just a little something I wanted to share with my Grandpa.

So, God, next Tuesday about 7 pm central time, when you’re looking around heaven and see a guy holding a baseball like Rex Hudler, that’s my Grandpa, getting ready to watch our Royals in the World Series. Would you give him a hug, and tell him I miss him? Would tell him, I love him?