Meeting the Mets

Part III: New York Baseball, Dad, and Me

By Joe Rini

My father took me to my first Mets game in July 1969 when I was six-years old after I asked/pleaded/whined my way into being included with him and my older siblings when we drove to the advanced ticket window at Shea Stadium to buy tickets. As the years progressed, given my Dad’s heavy work schedule, we’d go to a game or two a year when he was on vacation. We’d get to the game early to see batting practice and he always kept score though I must admit, his method of keeping score was too complicated for me (eg. three horizontal lines for a triple?) so I learned to keep score from my boyhood friend Rocky (one of three Rocky’s on my block if you’re keeping score at home.).

It’s funny what I remember about those trips to Shea Stadium with him. I remember pointing out to Dad that there always seemed to be someone crazy behind us like the guy yelling “Chico” all game or the family behind us who seemingly spent the game feeding Luigi as in, “Hey Luigi, you want a hot dog…Hey Luigi, you want popcorn…Hey Luigi, you want a beer…” Of course, my Dad pointed out to me that the people in front of us might be saying the same thing about us!

We always remembered going to Shea Stadium and being amazed at Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Gibson hitting home runs in batting practice from the left and right side of the plate (sadly we also saw Gibson injure himself on the mound in 1973 and he was never quite the same pitcher). Perhaps the most historic game we saw was September 1, 1975 when Tom Seaver set the record with eight consecutive 200 strikeout seasons. My Dad memorialized the record setting strikeout of Manny Sanguillen with a circled “K” on his scorecard (that scoring notation I could understand). In later years when my teen friends and I would go to games, he was good enough to drive us to the game or pick us up, to spare us the commute of multiple trains and buses.

Because even the great Joe DiMaggio couldn’t make Dad a Yankees fan, World Series championships by our teams – the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Mets –  were few but memorable. As a first grader, my sister and I arrived home from school in time to watch the Mets win the 1969 World Series with Mom, Dad, and my siblings from our parlor TV (in our house, it was a “parlor” not a living room). I’m sure I would’ve always become a baseball fan, but watching your team win the World Series, seeing the ensuing ticker-tape parade plus the team’s appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show singing “You Gotta Have Heart” turbo-charged my baseball fandom and by next spring, Mom and Dad bought me my first baseball glove and Dad demonstrated a pitcher’s motion for me.

A decade and a half later, my mother, father, two sisters and I were home seemingly about to watch the Mets lose Game 6 and the 1986 World Series to the Red Sox. I was in despair as the bottom of the tenth inning approached. My Dad and the rest of my family watched from the same parlor (remember, a parlor, not a living room) while I anxiously walked within ear and eyeshot of the kitchen, parlor, and bedroom TVs. I’ll never forget when Mookie Wilson came to bat with the tying run on third base, my Dad called out to me, “Hey Joe, maybe the pitcher will throw a wild pitch,” to which I responded, “Yeah, but knowing Mookie, he’ll swing at it.” Well, you know what happened, the pitcher threw a wild pitch in the miraculous “Game 6” and the Mets won the World Series two nights later. Thirty three years later in 2019, I had the pleasure of telling Mookie Wilson that story in the Mets dugout before a game and we had a good laugh about it.

Dad wasn’t able to see too many of my games while I played CYO baseball but when he was able to attend, it meant a lot to me, whether it was the game I doubled twice or the game where my glove oddly repulsed the baseball away from me every time it approached my glove in leftfield (I’m not making excuses but the webbing on that old glove was shot). He never pressured me to play and while he never said it to me, I think he was happy I played the game he loved. Looking back, I wished I’d tried out for baseball in high school but I ran track instead, a sport where I didn’t need to reach first base to run.

The years went by and life happened. My father was able to quit one of his two jobs in the mid-1970s after my brothers married (he joked that a 40 hour work week was like semi-retirement to him) and eventually he retired as he and my Mom became wonderful Grandparents while for me grammar school became high school then college then a career, my own apartment, marriage to my wife, Carolyn, and our two daughters, Alison and Amy. 

However, baseball was a constant connection for us. Whether we discussed last night’s Mets game, or the upcoming season, our connection through baseball flowed like Tom Seaver to Dwight Gooden to Jacob deGrom being ace pitchers for the Mets. He enjoyed hearing about my experiences covering the Mets for the Rockland County Times in the last decade, especially my encounters with beloved former Mets like Ron Swoboda, Rusty Staub, and Jerry Koosman. Yet in the background, there were always the memories of the long gone Brooklyn Dodgers, Ebbets Field, Dexter Park, and The Bushwicks which lived on in him.

Funny, even in the thirty years or so after we no longer lived under the same roof, I loved calling him up to talk baseball especially after a particularly dramatic win or devastating loss. It was especially after a bad loss when I’d call late at night and he’d pick up the phone and knowing it would be me, he’d automatically answer, “Hello Joe” and I would respond in some variation of “What the heck was that manager thinking of leaving that pitcher in the game?” My father handled those losses better than I did but looking back I laugh at those exchanges between us.

Final Innings

Part IV: New York Baseball, Dad, and Me

By Joe Rini

Early this May, the Mets had a long slog of a Sunday night game against the Phillies where closer Edwin Diaz gave up an apparent game-tying ninth inning home run that became a double after replay review allowing the Mets to escape with a win. I wanted to call my Dad during replay review to vent about the game but I didn’t; old age was catching up to my Dad and I figured he’d be resting since it was late, about 11:00 pm. I’d talk to him during the week.

My wife Carolyn, daughters Alison and Amy, and I celebrate Dad’s 95th birthday in 2019 – Photo from Rini Family Collection

I called my family on Monday night to say hello but Dad didn’t come to the phone; my sister and Mom told me my father wasn’t feeling well. A few hours later, my sister called to say he was in the hospital. Two days earlier, he and I had laughed that he was sharp enough to pick the longshot winner in the Kentucky Derby while I wasn’t sharp enough to place the bet and now he was in intensive care facing surgery in a matter of hours. 

Surgery was performed and while the doctor was hopeful initially about my father’s prognosis, it became apparent in the following days that my father was dying.

When I saw him in the hospital, he couldn’t speak and wasn’t very responsive, except for one eye that opened a slit at times. I was there with my sister and brother and later my wife. What do you say in such a situation? I said things that were mundane and profound; I laughingly said things and choked up saying other things; I reminisced about things we had talked about for years and said other things you’d only say the last time you were seeing someone. While he wasn’t so responsive, I’d like to believe he heard everything I said.

I mentioned Ebbets Field to him and said maybe we’d get to go to a game at a stadium that had been torn down for sixty years. Before seeing him at the hospital, I thought of those Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s and I leaned towards my father in his hospital bed and said: 

“Welcome to Ebbets Field…at first base, number 14, Gil Hodges…at second base, Jim Gilliam…at third base, number 42, Jackie Robinson…at shortstop, number 1, the Captain, Pee Wee Reese…in left field, from Cuba, Sandy Amoros…in center field, number 4, the Duke of Fallbrook, Duke Snider…in left field, the Reading Rifle, Carl Furillo…behind the plate, number 39, Roy Campanella…and on the mound, the pitcher, left hander Johnny Podres…and here’s the pitch…it’s a ground ball to shortstop, Reese fires it to Hodges and the Dodgers win the 1955 World Series!”

My father died on a Monday, the Monday after I called to say hello.

I discovered that it’s easier to be mentally prepared versus emotionally prepared for the death of an aged parent. Intellectually, I could see his physical health had been failing in recent years and knew this day was inevitable; unfortunately, I didn’t appreciate it was also imminent, perhaps because he was still sharp mentally. I was blessed to have him in my life for so long. When you’re the youngest of five siblings born in your parents’ fifteenth year of marriage and then you have both parents in your life until you’re in your late 50’s, then you’re a lucky guy. I’m not only lucky; I’m blessed.

Due to circumstances, it was a small wake and funeral. I must admit, as sad as I was to say good-bye to my father, I was happy to see my four siblings, my nieces and nephews, cousins and friends I hadn’t seen since before the Covid-19 pandemic. My father loved family gatherings and this farewell was appropriately, a family gathering.

The night before the funeral, it occurred to me because my Dad was such a baseball fan, perhaps I’d have everyone at the final viewing sign a baseball to my Dad that I’d leave in the casket with him. My siblings went along with the idea and everyone signed this baseball. My sister-in-law joked to me about what my father would’ve said and I could picture him joking, “Sure, give me the ball. I have a game today.”

As a World War II veteran who served in Europe, my father was buried with military honors, and when the color guard soldier presented the flag to my family and said “On behalf of the President of the United States, the US Army, and a grateful nation…” I really felt their gratitude for his service.

Present, Past, and Future

Part V: New York Baseball, Dad, and Me

By Joe Rini

It’s now July and my father’s been gone for two months. His birthday passed and Father’s Day has passed since he passed away in May. He was a young baseball fan when the first All-Star game was played in 1933 and the first All-Star game since his passing  was played this week. My Mom, his wife of 72 years, survives him and she still watches the Mets on TV every night with my sister. Sometimes when my Dad would watch the Yankee games, she’d joke to me, “I think your father’s becoming a Yankee fan,” but if the Mets aren’t on TV, she’ll watch some of the Yankee games, too.

My father was blessed with a long life and he was a blessing to the lives he touched. He was grateful for whatever good fortune came his way, whether it was something big like his longevity and family or something small like a really good dish of linguini.

When I think of something that symbolizes the connection baseball had between my father and me, I think of a baseball; not the autographed baseball in his casket but a baseball I haven’t seen in nearly a half century and probably wouldn’t recognize if it was on this desk with the laptop I am typing on.

It’s a baseball that’s barely a speck in a photo in the Rini Family Archives (aka, the closet downstairs with the photo albums). It’s a photo that was taken on the shores of Lake Ontario when my parents took my sister and me to see Niagara Falls in the early 1970s (to quote my Dad, “When Niagara falls, it falls!”) My Dad and my sister swam and played in Lake Ontario while Mom and I stayed on the shore; I wasn’t much of a beach lover as a kid and much to the chagrin of my beach-loving wife, I’m still not.

But after my sister and Dad came out of the water, my father and I “had a catch” on the shores of Lake Ontario. In a photo snapped by my Mom on a 110 Instamatic camera, the photo captures my father, Joe Rini, in his tan bathing suit completing his follow through in the foreground while 90 feet or so away his youngest son’s knees are bent slightly as I track the speck of a baseball in flight between us.

I like thinking of that speck of a baseball, forever in flight between us, as symbolizing the connection between us, linking us forever, in this world and the next, regardless of mortality. I’d also like to think that someday, perhaps in some heavenly realm, my Dad and I will finally get to see a game at Ebbets Field together, and maybe bump into one of the Dodgers as we share a pizza at Tex’s.