A few weeks ago we celebrated Father's Day.
This week, baseball gives us another tradition: the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Later this month, the National Baseball Hall of Fame will welcome another class of legends to Cooperstown.
For most fans, they're milestones on the baseball calendar.
For me, they're reminders of something much bigger.
When I think about baseball, I don't first think about batting averages, championships or statistics.
I think about my dad.
I think about my sons.
And now, I think about my grandson.
This year, our family became four generations strong. My father turned 92 and my son Drew is a father. And my first grandson has joined the Appleman lineup.
He won't remember this year's All-Star Game or Hall of Fame induction ceremony. He won't know Aaron Judge from Babe Ruth for a while. But someday, I hope he'll understand why baseball has meant so much to our family.
Because baseball has never just been a game for us.
It's been the backdrop to some of life's most meaningful moments.
When I was about to turn 13, my father gave me what may have been the greatest Bar Mitzvah present I ever received. He took me to Fort Lauderdale for Yankees Spring Training. We played catch outside the stadium, and I was thrilled to get Yankees pitcher Mel Stottlemyre's autograph.
Neither of us knew it then, but we were beginning a family tradition that would span more than 50 years.
Years later, Michael and Drew caught the same baseball bug.
While I grew up cheering for Horace Clarke, Rubén Amaro, Jake Gibbs and the Yankees of the late 1960s, they grew up rooting for Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte, Paul O'Neill and Mariano Rivera.
Thanks to my career as a sportswriter, producer and sports executive, they experienced baseball in ways few kids ever could. Together we attended Opening Days, Spring Training, All-Star Games, playoff games and World Series games during the Yankees' remarkable championship run.
But some of my favorite baseball memories happened far away from the bright lights of the major leagues.
They happened on Little League diamonds.
I coached Michael and Drew through Little League and Babe Ruth League and watched them play on summer travel teams. One unforgettable season, Drew's Clippers team won the Little League championship in Westport, Connecticut.
I can still picture those games as vividly as I remember Yankees World Series victories.
When I wasn't coaching, I was simply Dad—the loudest fan in the stands.
And my own father was usually there, too.
He rarely missed one of his grandsons' games, just as he rarely missed a Yankees postseason game.
Perhaps our greatest baseball adventures came when each of my sons turned 13.
To celebrate Michael's Bar Mitzvah, we set off on a father-son baseball road trip through two countries, eight states and more than 3,000 miles. We visited six ballparks, three halls of fame, chased batting practice home runs, collected autographs, compared stadiums and consumed enough ballpark food to last a lifetime.
That journey became the inspiration for my book, Dad, Are You Pumped? A Father-Son Baseball Odyssey.
One of the highlights was attending the National Baseball Hall of Fame induction of my friend, legendary sportswriter Joe Falls. Later, after the book was published, Michael and I returned to Cooperstown to speak at the Hall of Fame about our journey together.
Three years later, it was Drew's turn.
Our California baseball adventure included games in San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Anaheim and San Diego. Along the way we went white-water rafting, spent hours body surfing in the Pacific Ocean and created another collection of father-son memories that still make us smile today.
As the boys grew older and life took us in different directions, baseball remained our connection.
For the past 15 years, my father and I have often lived more than 2,500 miles apart. Yet through countless Yankees games, we've never really been separated.
We'd watch together while talking on the phone, discussing every pitch, every hit and every managerial decision as if we were sitting side by side in the same room.
Distance disappeared for three hours.
Looking back, I realize baseball's greatest gift to our family was never the game itself.
It was the conversations.
The road trips.
The coaching.
The laughter.
The victories and heartbreaks.
The afternoons playing catch.
The traditions passed from one generation to the next.
Now there's a new player in our lineup.
My grandson is still too young to throw a baseball or wear a glove that's anything but oversized.
He doesn't know what makes Cooperstown magical. He doesn't understand why Yankee Stadium feels like home to so many people in our family. He can't yet appreciate why his great-grandfather, at 92, still follows the Yankees with the same passion he did decades ago.
But someday, I hope we'll play catch together.
Maybe we'll make a trip to Spring Training, just as my father and I did so many years ago.
Maybe we'll watch an All-Star Game together.
Maybe we'll walk through the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and tell stories about the players, the writers, and the family members who came before him.
As I look across four generations of Applemans—from my father to me, to Michael and Drew, and now to my grandson—I realize the greatest legacy we've shared hasn't been our love of the Yankees or even of baseball itself. It's the time we've spent together.
Baseball simply gave us the field on which those memories were made.
And if I'm lucky, someday I'll be standing in the backyard with my grandson, glove in hand, continuing a tradition that began more than half a century ago with a father and his almost-13-year-old son playing catch outside a Spring Training ballpark.
That may be baseball's greatest gift of all.
Thanks for reading!
I'd appreciate you sharing The Appleman Playbook with someone who enjoys looking beyond the headlines.
See you next time.
Marc Appleman.
P.S.: I advise sports and media organizations on growth, partnerships, audience strategy, and what comes next. I’m also available for keynotes and executive workshops. Feel free to reach out!