Broken Baseball Bat

Group:

Sure, I wanted to be like him, but it didn't happen. I guess this is the closest I will get to that goal. This is a picture of my grandpa’s old baseball bat.  Both sides of my family adored the sport when the concept was first made into a reality, especially the Italian side. As residents of Brooklyn, they all were emphatic Yankees fans. As a result, my grandpa grew up playing baseball all of the time and eventually got called up to the minor leagues. Furthermore, he played for the farm team of the San Francisco Giants and went around the country playing for many year, and even had the opportunity to actually play for the Yankees. He even went to army bases to play for members of the military. He broke his bat while hitting and managed to keep a hold of it. While rummaging through his basement, I found the bat in a room where he kept other baseball related objects. Anyway, as he aged he told me crazy stories about how he stole home base once, how he played through games with broken fingers and how he had to slide on concrete. I will never know if those were true or not, but I will take his word for it. Subsequently, as a kid, I have always played baseball, hoping I would be as good as him. However, since he passed away, however, I stopped playing. I guess I felt a loss of connection and passion. But still to this day, I will sit down, turn of the television to the Yankee game, and sit in his spot on the couch, with the bat straight across from me.

Place(s): Brooklyn, New York

– Kevin Moran

Relationship:  Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more