Published: June 14, 2008 09:39 pm            

Mark Bennett: This holiday, celebrate the successes of fatherhood

My Little League and Babe Ruth League teammates assumed I copied my batting stance from Pete Rose.

With a thin-handled 34 cocked right behind my shoulder, parallel to the ground, it seemed to be an obvious imitation of Charlie Hustle. It also didn’t help that I was a diehard fan of the Cincinnati Reds — the Big Red Machine fueled by Rose’s relentless play.

But I learned to swing a baseball bat from a guy who earned the nickname “Slugger” before Rose was born. My dad’s oldest friends still called him that into his 60s, when we’d visit his hometown, Aurora, Ind., across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. From my boyhood days on, I’d heard them tell stories of Dad’s hitting prowess.

That’s who I copied my batting style after.

On this Father’s Day, I realize I was lucky. My dad gave me plenty of reasons to copy his life. He worked hard at his job, cooked dinner when Mom had to work evenings, built a homemade go-kart with his kids, played catch endlessly, and set an example as a faithful, loving husband.

So as I was growing up, I called a few pro ballplayers “favorites,” but not “heroes” or “role models.” I already had that, right under my own roof.

It’s been 14 years since my last Father’s Day with Dad, but I often see subtle reminders of him.

One came last week, thanks to, coincidentally, the Cincinnati Reds. Veteran Reds outfielder Ken Griffey Jr. hit his 600th career home run, putting him in an elite group with Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays and Sammy Sosa. A story by John Fay in the Cincinnati Enquirer recapped Junior’s life, from his boyhood, running around the Cincinnati dugout when his dad played right field for the Big Red Machine, to Griffey’s own career and that celebrated move from Seattle to the Reds in 2000.

After 11 seasons with the Mariners, Griffey left Seattle for Cincinnati, which paid the future Hall of Famer less money than other clubs had offered. The Queen City was not only Griffey’s hometown, but it was also much closer than Seattle to his new home in Orlando, Fla.

“Sometimes, it’s more important to be a dad than a professional baseball player,” he said.

When the Mitchell Report on steroid use in baseball was issued last December, nine of the top 10 current-era players on the all-time home run list were named. Griffey was the only one not tainted. “I take a lot of pride in what I do,” he told the Enquirer. “I wouldn’t do that to my team or my family. That’s the big thing. I’m not going to cheat them or myself.”

And after Junior hit his 600th home run, he made it clear who he’d tried to emulate.

“My dad was the guy I wanted to be like,” Griffey said of Ken Sr., who hit only 152 big-league homers, but had footspeed and a .296 lifetime batting average. “If you look at his career — he had a pretty good career. That’s the guy who looked like me, acted like me, took care of me.”

Looked like me, acted like me, took care of me … the guy I wanted to be like …

Granted, Ken Griffey Jr. grew up in extraordinary circumstances, the son of a major-leaguer with two World Series rings. But as a youngster, Junior was surrounded by his father’s more famous teammates — future Hall of Famers and superstars such as Johnny Bench, Rose, Tony Perez, Joe Morgan and Tom Seaver. The Kid had his pick of heroes.

The guy he wanted to be like, though, was his dad.

In an America that, for decades, did its best to minimize the value of a responsible father in the family they helped start, recent parenting studies show the exact opposite, that dads actually make a great impact. The statistics revealing higher rates of poverty, substance abuse and premature death in father-absent households are so voluminous they’ll cause eye strain. For dads who doubt their influence over their daughters, consider that 58 percent of female prison inmates grew up without a father at home, according to a Department of Justice survey.

But this holiday observance shouldn’t be about worst-case scenarios. It should celebrate fatherhood successes, large and small.

Father’s Day 2008 offers many of those stories, right here in the Wabash Valley. Since the June 6 rains turned into the largest flood in decades last weekend, dads performed some pretty Herculean feats, with their kids watching. Many bailed out flooded basements, with sons, daughters and wives manning the Shop-Vacs and buckets right alongside them. They dragged out muddy, soggy carpets together. Mopped floors together. Made trips to the home-repair stores together. Helped out neighbors, friends and relatives together.

Many of those dads probably figure their efforts were just something that had to be done. Their families wouldn’t see anything spectacular in that, right? After all, TV shows are filled with more beautiful people living more exciting lives on the greener grass of the other side, right?

Like the spring of 2008, the winter of 1977 exposed the Wabash Valley to nature’s most powerful forces. One keepsake from that year is an old calendar planner my dad kept on his desk at work. It includes his brief descriptions of our family’s activities that cold, harsh winter. One entry details our January trip to visit an ailing, hospitalized relative — one of Dad’s closest buddies, a guy who knew him since his “Slugger” days. After leading us through a long, sad day and shouldering nearly seven hours of difficult driving, Dad wrote, “I was very proud of my family today.”

He was proud of us.

Dad may not have realized it, but his family was very proud of him that day, too.

Mark Bennett can be reached at mark.bennett@tribstar.com or (812) 231-4377.

        

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