Why I Love Baseball

Today, (Sunny, mid-70s) I felt it. Baseball season whistling toward me like a Bob Gibson fastball. I love and have always loved our national pastime. Why? I’m not sure, but perhaps the admiration, through some cosmic shenanigans, was magically passed down to me by a grandfather I never knew. My mom’s dad, who by all accounts, was quite a good baseball player, tragically lost his life in an industrial accident in 1931. While working at a St Louis factory, a crane struck a power line, and … Rufus (Bud) Haynes will forever be 29 years old.

Me & Bud

My mom, one year old at the time of his death, only knew her dad from stories shared by her mother. My grandmother often told the family how “Bud” spent every spare minute he had, playing baseball. One of my mom’s most cherished photos of my grandfather, decked out from head to toe in his baseball uniform, stood proudly on her bedroom dresser. Years ago, she superimposed a photo of me in my Little League uniform standing with him. Mom passed away in 2015 and perhaps is “having a catch” with her dad right now. Thanks, Bud. Play Ball!