As you'll read in the about me section the Yankees are a large part of my
life. It has been a cornerstone of a relationship between my father,
brother and I and the three of us have even taken the women in our loves and
made them Bleed Yankee Blue (thanks for the phrase Robert Casey). In a
house where talking wasn't our forte the Yankees always gave us something to go
back to when it came to connecting. Really, baseball in general has done
that for us, but our love of the Yankees and their rich (yeah that could be a
double pun) history are at the core of it.
To give you a little background, growing up my grandfather (we call him Papa
Buck) was a baseball fan, and in the days of black and white TV, and no large
MLB TV contracts the only team that seemed to be consistently shown on the tube was the
famed New York Yankees. My grandfather grew up in the golden era of
baseball and has even passed down awesome items to us such as a Mickey Mantle
signed biography (given to my brother). He also arranged a meet up for us
when we were younger with a famed Negro League ball player (Saul Davis) in
which we still hold a signed baseball of.
As Papa Buck passed down his baseball love to my old man (Papa Shags) the
second generation started. As a kid I spent many hours at a softball
diamond watching my Papa Shags play. The old guy could play the
game. In fact one of my favorite softball memories is the first game I ever played against him. I was out in right field and our right center
fielder asked where my dad would hit it. Knowing my dad was a smart
player (he's a left handed hitter) he was able to hit it to all parts of the
field and suggested it would be a hit to the opposite side of the field.
Instead, he decided to show off to his son (yeah that's me) and put one in the
right field porch. We had a good laugh about him hitting that homerun
after the games and I vowed to not let it happen again. Papa Shags started the tradition of naming us
after Yankees by giving me the name Lucas Thurman and I have continued that
tradition with my son Eli Gehrig. It
took me starting a Facebook page and an email campaign to get the job done but
my wife eventually caved. She has grown
to love the name and learning about the greatest man to dawn the
Pinstripes.
I hope this journey of a blog allows me to take you and I through the world
of not only the New York Yankees but also the sport of baseball. I had another blog started and will slowly
transfer some of the information back to this blog as I feel there is good
content to be brought over. The beauty
of a curve ball, the force of the heater, all aspects of the game are worth
appreciating and I hope we can share the adventure together, and maybe I can
spread a little Pinstripe Fever!
