SPORTS: Take Me Out to the Ballgame...Zzzzzz

In honor of Father's Day I'll take this time to write about a recent experience that is one of my favorite moments as a father.

Hot dogs, apple pie, Chevrolet, and baseball. Baseball...is there anything more American, more father-son bonding, more memorable than this wonderful game of ours? That is, unless, you're a two-year-old who hasn't had his nap yet.

We recently attended the Long Island Ducks baseball game (it was part of an Autism Speaks fundraising). I'm a life-long baseball fan so going to a ballgame is second nature to me. But this game was the first I attended as a father and the first with my son. My own father never took me to a baseball game so I was happy that I was able to take Mikey to his first game at such a young age. His next game, if I can get his mommy to say okay, will be a New York Yankees game at Yankee Stadium. Go Yanks!

It was a beautiful day for a baseball game (but most days, in my opinion, are) and we had decent seats (Mikey wasn't required to have one so he took turns sitting on mommy and daddy's laps). We were concerned for a bit how Mikey would react to the noise and crowd and everything because autistic children can get overwhelmed by those things and Mikey had shown signs in other situations of being upset by loud noises (but, curiously enough, at an air show we went to he was loving it and totally not phased by the noise of jet planes screaming overhead). But Mikey made me proud and was fine with the whole environment. He was looking around the stadium as he sat on my lap and I couldn't help but wonder what was going through his head.

I was feeling so happy and proud that I was at a baseball game with my son. My son. That was incredible! I used to sit and watch other fathers at games with their sons and be secretly jealous. But, now, here I was with my little buddy Mikey sitting on my lap and there was no other place in the world I would rather have been at that time.

At one point I took Mikey for a walk around the stadium so he could see things from different angles and take in the whole experience. I know that when I go to a game I still love to see it from as many viewpoints as I can and just let the whole atmosphere engulf me. At age 40, when I walk into Yankee Stadium, I still get this rapid heartbeat and feeling of awe.

By the sixth inning Mikey was asleep on my shoulder. Now I know that some think baseball is sleep-inducing but I'm chalking Mikey's stadium snooze to him missing nap time. I hoped he was dreaming of baseball because, although I was awake, my dreams were flashing in front of me and coming true.