“Baseball is life:” How FSU’s College World Series run set the stage for a Father’s Day to remember

“Baseball has been very very good to me.”

“Baseball is life.”

Two phrases that I grew up around, an essential part of my bringing. My parents, Florida State alumni, are season ticket holders to Seminoles baseball and I spent many hours at the ballpark when I was young.

I’ve grown up now and it’s hard to make the time to be able to watch baseball games. I have two kids of my own (three and five) and between gymnastics, dance, soccer, the pool and all of the other social commitments we push on our kids, it’s hard to just sit down and find some time for myself.

I’ve realized this season, especially in the past week as Florida State put together its run to the College World Series, that it doesn’t have to be that way. After hearing their daddy whoop and holler in glee, my kids wanted to watch James Tibbs III’s game-winning no-doubter over and over again until the bottom of the 12 inning. They kept doing the chop (my mom had made sure they knew how to do that) while commercials played and Connor Whittaker warmed up to bring it home from the mound.

Eyes glued to the TV, they asked where Granna and Pappa were sitting — you can’t see them on the broadcast, I explained, but showed how to find where they are based on if they stood on the pitcher’s mound.

For a whole 20 minutes I sat and watched baseball with my kids: My son chanting “Conner! Conner!” and my daughter sitting on my lap asking who “C-Whitt” was.

It’s the best Father’s Day gift I could ask for.

My kids were invested in my passion. I got to explain what a ball and a strike were. It was a full-circle moment of following in the footsteps of my parents, who were hundreds of miles away experiencing the same thing I and their grandkids were. We all shouted and chopped and watched a much-deserved and long-overdue dog pile on the mound a Dick Howser Stadium.

As a parent, you try your best to get involved in the things your kids like while not trying to push your own interests onto them. I want to see the world through their eyes. For one moment they got to see the world through mine.

Thank you, James, Connor, Link, Jamie, Jammie, Marco and all those involved with Florida State baseball for giving me that. Thank you for making baseball the best sport to watch and pass down to your children, so that one day they can do the same for their own kids. The next time you hear a N-O-L-E-S chant, you might not hear my kids but they’ll be chanting as loud as their little voices can go. They’ll be chopping with all the passion they can muster — and that’s because you gave their dad something to cheer about and something to be proud of in the sport he loves most dear.

My children will never know what that night meant to me, but that experience was everything.