![]() We’d play catch, and he’d throw his wicked Wiffle Ball curveball there as I imitated George Brett. In our backyard in Virginia, there was a perfect space for a baseball field, and trees for first and third base. I think of my burr-infested T-ball field in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where my team - the Bears - was terrible. I have a glove about half the size of my body and a Red Sox hat. I think of a picture of my dad and me in our backyard in South Carolina. That space where Votto and his father played catch is perhaps the most sacred space in his life. It’s really eerie how much the movie allowed me to look back on that experience.” I wish I could bring him to tonight’s game, we go out on the field and do something that we did from when I was 8 or 9 years old. “For me, watching the movie is something that my father and I shared,” Votto concluded. In that movie, I think playing catch represented that. Whenever I think about playing catch, I think about a bond between two people. It’s much more one than it is two separate parties doing something. ![]() “I have to catch the ball so we don’t pause the action. “I have to throw the ball well, so you don’t have to chase it down and we can continue this back-and-forth together,” he continued. “I think that moment at the end, where it was something as simple as - I’ve said this before, playing catch is different than any action in any other sport because you both share a ball, you can go barehanded or with a glove, but you have to do everything to support your partner,” said Votto, who thinks in a way unlike any baseball player I’ve ever been around. I thought about my dad here and teared up. “Their father-and-son relationship was kind of split, and I think all he wanted was to love and support his father and vice versa.” “Well, the movie is built around relationships, what either party wanted them to be,” Votto said. Joey Votto shares why playing in the #MLBatFieldOfDreams Game is so special to him ❤️ | /JE7pRJ7qeVĪfter talking about his love of the movie in the pregame news conference, he was asked if it hit him differently because his father had died almost 15 years ago. Votto, who posted a Twitter thread with his feelings, spoke more eloquently on the subject before Thursday’s game. Reds first baseman Joey Votto lost his dad 14 years ago. He noted it was just different this time. Like me, he hadn’t watched it since his dad died. I talked to a friend who was at the game, and he said he’d watched it again this week in preparation. It’s that, the regrets, the feelings of longing for connection, that hit me as I watched the movie again. I’ve not said things I regret to this day. It’s a relationship that is rewarding and hard. We had the time, and I left those things unsaid. It’s what we talked about when neither one of us knew what else to say. Through the years, no matter my problems or my issues or my selfishness, I could always talk baseball with my dad. My dad could always talk baseball with his dad. The author at the 2022 Field of Dreams game site. It wasn’t easy for my dad when my grandfather died. There’s the growing up, the petty problems, the immaturity and just the things you can’t understand when you’re 14. When you’re 14, especially in 1959, you don’t have the most complete picture of your parents. I played them all, but baseball was always my love. Because of that, my dad always supported every sport I wanted to play. He’d played freshman football and got the crap beat out of him, but after his dad died, he had to work to support the family. Wayne Rosecrans died in 1959, when my dad was just 14. “He thought Ernie Banks was what baseball was all about,” my dad told me two years ago. Louis, Chicago or elsewhere, and they’d always try to catch a game. ![]() A preacher, he took the family to conferences in St. My grandfather was a big Cubs fan, growing up part of his time in Illinois. Tuesday was the first time I watched it since my dad died in February. He loved it from the time it came out, and every day since. “Bull Durham” always had a bit too much non-baseball, and when I was a teenager in the early 1990s, my angst caught up with my passion for “Field of Dreams.” I’d watch that, “Major League,” “Bull Durham” and “The Natural.”Īs I grew older, “Major League” was the movie I’d go back to time and time again. ![]() We got the videotape when it was released. I remember going to see it with my mom and dad when we lived in Texas. ![]() I’ve seen it plenty of times, but I probably hadn’t watched it in years. I watched “Field of Dreams” again Tuesday. ![]()
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