What a Win…and Why I Love Baseball
The Boston Red Sox are doing something remarkable. Not long ago, they looked like a team going nowhere. They had fallen 14 games under .500.
Then something changed. They started winning. And watching them fight their way back reminded me why I fell in love with baseball in the first place. I think my first trip to Fenway Park was sitting beside my dad.
I had to look up the details with Google AI tonight, but the humidity, the showers, and the outcome of my first in-person game—with Luis Tiant starting for the Boston Red Sox against Ferguson Jenkins of the Texas Rangers—are as vivid to me as if it happened two months ago.
There I sat on a humid day, eating junk food, wearing an oversized blue glove on one hand and a giant Red Sox hat on my head. Sitting beside my dad. My first real experience watching a professional sporting event was live at Fenway Park.
That's a pretty good introduction to baseball. The game has been in my blood ever since. I pitched pretty effectively and competitively for 34 years, and I still remember the very first time I tried to throw a baseball to home plate.
My dad was catching. I couldn't even reach him. Frustrated, I threw my glove, stomped off the field, and ran to the car. My dad just smiled.
Then he had me come back and throw from 15 feet away instead of 45. That's the kind of coach he was. He was also our Little League coach. And we were terrible. Think The Bad News Bears.
Everybody beat us. Everybody laughed at us. Most games weren't even close. But something happened.
Little by little, we got better. And eventually, something pretty remarkable happened. We started winning.
My dad was an incredible amateur artist. He painted landscapes that reminded people of Andrew Wyeth. But one day, he came up with an idea none of us ever forgot. After a victory, he would draw a funny little cartoon baseball card celebrating the kid who had done something important in the game.
We all laughed. And we competed for those cards.
Major leaguers play for money, contracts, trophies, and fame.
We played for one of Dad's baseball cards. Those little hand-drawn cards became legendary to us. They were treasures. And after the games, Dad had another tradition.
He'd take us for Creamies. Baseball players covered in dirt, grass stains, and sweat, sitting around eating ice cream after the game. We thought we were just having a treat.
We didn't realize we were making memories.
Eventually, we won two regional Little League championships.
My sister led the way, hitting more home runs than anyone in our league before I turned 12. And after our group of kids got too old for Little League, Dad won another championship with the next group.
Years later, I stayed in touch with two of my teammates, Rick and Steve. Both told me they still had the baseball cards my dad had drawn for them decades earlier. Steve eventually founded a successful software company. When he won one of Dad's baseball cards, his parents framed it.
Decades later, it still hangs in Steve's office. Think about that. A silly little cartoon celebrating an ordinary Little League game survived college, careers, moves, and adulthood.
That's when you realize those cards were never really about baseball. They were about being seen. They were about encouragement. Not only that, but they were about believing in a kid who had accomplished something that for all of us was worth remembering.
And I know exactly what my dad would be doing today. He'd be sitting at the kitchen table with a pencil in his hand, smiling, sketching one more cartoon baseball card. Maybe it would say: CALEB DURBIN—WALK-OFF HERO. And somehow, that little drawing would make an unforgettable Red Sox victory even more special.
Because that's what my dad understood. You don't always need a trophy. Occasionally a kid just requires somebody to say, “I saw what you did. That mattered.”
I know baseball isn't relevant to everyone. That's okay. For me, it's one of those life pins—the small moments that quietly stick to the map of your life.
Fifty-one years later, I can still remember sitting beside my dad at Fenway Park.I can still remember throwing my glove.I can still remember him moving me 30 feet closer to home plate.
I can still remember those ridiculous baseball cards. And, apparently, I can still remember Creamies. Maybe that's how a good life is built. Not from the biggest milestones, but from hundreds of little moments that somehow refuse to let go of us.
We collect them almost without noticing. Until one day, we look back and realize they've become the map that brought us here. And that's what I love about the idea of a virtual campfire.
These are the stories we tell when we're sitting around with old friends. The glory days. The ridiculous moments. The people who believed in us before we had any idea what we might become.
Perhaps you have one. Possibly you remember a Little League coach who believed in you. Maybe it was a teacher. A parent. A grandparent. A friend. Or maybe there was just one ridiculous little thing that happened when you were a kid that you can still see perfectly in your mind.
Those are the stories I'm interested in.
Pull up a chair. Tell me yours.