A VERY SPECIAL GAME

What a blessing and honor to have this amazing man still be a part of our lives and the lives of my children. I think my dad wrote it best...the story of this very special game! So here is what he wrote in Monday's column in the Clinton newspaper:

Friday evening, across from the grounds of the Ford Plant in Claycomo, there were four generations of family members present to view Jonathan Kazmaier, 4, play in a T-ball League game. The most senior family member on hand, Great-Grandfather W.T. MacCarthy, 88, began playing baseball in the late 1920's as a youngster in Massachusetts, competed all through high school and went on to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, on a football and baseball scholarship where he graduated with a degree in Aeronautical Engineering in the early 1940's. This was just in time for WWII. Now a resident of Villa Ventura located on Wornall Road in Kansas City after a career as an internationally recognized Wind Tunnel Engineer and consultant with Conviar, General Dynamics and Boeing, this gentleman knows more about the techniques and history of baseball than probably the accumulated knowledge of the rest of us who were present for Friday's game. And, as is his custom, he wore a Boston Red Sox baseball cap. Also on hand were grandparents, parents and Jonathan's brother, Nicholas, 3, and sister Kate, 2.

The United Auto Workers Baseball Complex itself was well manicured and maintained. Only American made vehicles were permitted to park on the lot. Those of foreign manufacture had to be situated on the lot of a bank just down the highway. Hey...point made. There was a definite family atmosphere to the T-Ball game with sets of parents, grandparents, youngsters and other relatives on hand in the stands and along with area in folding and sling-type chairs. It was humid but there was a nice breeze in the area. The younger children, of course, played in the area while their brothers and sisters enjoyed T-Ball as the adults behind home plate viewed the baseball action itself. It was interesting to watch the parents running the T-Ball game. The game was patiently emphasized through sportsmanship, proper batting techniques, fielding, running, stance and rudimentary outline of regulations...although fun trumped the rules at all times. It was apparent many parents, since the game began at 6 p.m., had shortly before gotten off work, made a flying journey home, changed clothes, packed the kids in their vehicle and made the baseball field just in time for the start of the game. Even if you raised youngsters long ago..doesn't this sound familiar?

With two teams present, the game lasted about 1 hour and 25 or so minutes. Every youngster had their chance to bat and positions were switched from time-to-time. Jonathan acquitted himself well in the eyes of his great-grandfather who had to be thinking of baseball games when he was a youngster in the 1920's and 30's with his parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles present to watch him play. "Grandpa Mac" continued his affiliation with baseball through coaching in youth leagues, particularly in San Diego, for many years. And it was through this affiliation, at the end of the T-Ball game, he suddenly turned and rattled off the t-shirt numbers of some 8 of the players who he felt already understood the game, even though this was only the second one scheduled for the youngsters. He also allowed he had hoped to see his grandchildren one day but never, in his imaginings, believed the opportunity to watch a great-grandchild play T-Ball would one day be presented to him on a June evening in 2010.