Happy Father’s Day

Happy Father’s Day!

To celebrate this Sunday, I thought I’d post pictures of the Red Sox with their dads, and stories from the Sox about their dads.

Terry Francona and his dad Tito:

Picture this scene. Tito pulls into the driveway after a long day at the office. It’s one of those steamy St. Louis afternoons. Before he can even get in the door, Terry, with a baseball glove handy for both father and son, is pushing him back out.

“I’d have my glove waiting and a glove for him,” said Terry Francona. “And he’d go out and play catch with me or hit me fly balls. Then when I got older and I started playing, I remember thinking, ‘My goodness, my dad came home from the ballpark, he was exhausted, and he would play catch with me.’ I waited for him on the doorstep. I never knew if he had played good or played bad when he got home. I hope that taught me a lot of lessons with my children.”

As tired as Tito might have been some days, how could he say no to such a well-meaning request?

“I remember coming home after a doubleheader and he’d be sitting there with his glove and say, ‘Let’s go Dad.’ I couldn’t turn him down,” said Tito Francona via telephone from his Pittsburgh home.

Sean Casey and his dad Jim:

His freshman year of high school when his dad pulled him out of class for a few days to go down to Spring Training in Florida. The two went to Bradenton and Winter Haven to do a little scouting of the Bucs, though Casey remembers the trip just as much for “the bunch of father-son things” they did.

“It was just an awesome time,” Casey said.

From their breakfasts at a local diner, where Jim laughingly recalls Sean ordering a plate of sausage and biscuits “big enough to feed seven men” to playing video games together at night.

“I tell you what, that’s one of the greatest memories I have of my dad,” Casey said. “Looking back at that time, I just thought it was so great that we could spend a whole week doing that “And the great thing about baseball is that it is a father-son game. A lot of the good memories I have of my dad are with baseball. It brings the family together.”

“And to me, that’s the definition of baseball,” said Jim, Sean’s father.

Mike Lowell, and his dad Carl:

The truth is, Lowell gets flooded with happy emotions when he thinks about the type of example his father set for him, and how much of an impact he’s made on his life.

“I could easily say he’s been the most influential person for me, not just baseball-wise,” said Lowell. “I think as you get older, you might appreciate more what he did. I think he just always put family first and I’d love to feel like that molded me because I try to say that there’s more to me than just the guy who goes on TV and plays baseball.”

Sure, Lowell is the one who has gone on to great success in Major League Baseball, playing big roles in championship runs for two different franchises. But what means the world to him is that Carl Lowell is equally proud of all four of his kids.

“When they ask him, ‘Are you proud of your son and all that,’ I think he always says, ‘Which son?’. I get choked up on that,” said Lowell, tears welling up in his eyes. “He says, I’m the public son but he’s got four kids. He loves us the same, so that’s huge.”

Jed Lowrie’s dad

Jon Lester’s dad

Dustin Pedroia’s dad