My Love Of Baseball Came From Grandpa

My love of sports had to have been born from somewhere, I think that goes without saying.  But where?  Well, for me, it came from my family.  My older brother Donald loved sports, my father did as well.  But what really put it over the top was the love of sports that came from my uncles and my grandfather Joe DeLuca.

I was surrounded by them constantly, no matter where I went, I was thinking about, talking or playing sports.  It was such a huge part of my everyday life, that there was no question my life would turn out the way it has, so heavily sports orientated.

On that note I decided this morning to tell a story about my Grandfather Joe DeLuca.  Right now, my 88-year-old grandfather is fighting for his life on a ventilator in the ICU.  Sadly, he has Covid, and while he has improved dramatically over the last two weeks, there is no guarantee he is coming out of this thing. He misses my Grandma whom he was married to for 66 plus years before her passing in 2019, and whatever God’s will is I’m prepared to accept.

I’ll never forget being 4 years old and instantly falling in love with baseball.  I loved the game, despite the Indians being horrible at the time.  My Grandpa told me he was going to come over and teach me how to swing a bat. He had coached Little League for years prior so clearly, I trusted his knowledge.  He also raised 3 boys who played baseball.

Visions of hitting homeruns out of Cleveland Municipal Stadium where quickly dashed when Grandpa showed up with a bat and a bag full of shuttlecocks instead of baseballs.  I was confused, but his mission was to teach me bat control, wrist control, swing speed and motion before I hit actual balls, the shuttlecocks where the perfect training tool. He had me hit one after another as he was on his knees tossing them up two feet away from me as I hit them off of a fence. It worked!

Eventually we would graduate to real balls and heavier bats, but I’ll never forget those earlier lessons with Grandpa. We loved baseball so much that we’d even play imaginary baseball with Grandpa inside of his house during the winter. I’ll never forget one epic game when he was pitching and had me down in the count 0-2.  As he wound up and threw the heater towards me, I thought fast and leaned into the pitch, taking one for the team. Again, this was IMAGINARY baseball.  It’s just who we were and how we had fun.

He would take us to the track meets they used to have downtown, and load us up with snacks from Drug Mart before we left.  He is a big Yankees fan, so naturally, I began to pull for them as well. This story is just 1 of 1,000 I could tell today.

No matter what happens from here on out, one thing will always be clear to me, my love of baseball came from Grandpa and I will forever be grateful.