My First: Coach

Illustration by Claire Manning

Baseball is still the only team sport in which the coaches dress up in the same uniforms as the players. Trivial? Yes. And for some body types quite unflattering, but who knew how powerful the moment would be when I first donned the uniform of the Oakville A?s to coach my 12-year-old son after having worked in or covered the game of baseball for the previous 24 years.

For the first 12 years after my wife Debbie and I started our family, we lived in Montreal where I worked in media relations for the Expos, the city?s major-league baseball team. By the time we moved to Oakville in August of ?95, Matthew was 12, Kelly was 10, Shannon was 5 and Patrick, 3. Until leaving the Expos to join The Star, I did not realize how much of my older children?s growing up I had missed, including coaching them.

What I did realize early on in Toronto, however, was that instead of 12-hour workdays, seven days a week during the six-month major-league season, plus all of spring training and playoffs and the World Series as a member of the Major League Baseball volunteer PR staff, with The Star I now had a flexible schedule writing baseball columns ? and even getting a couple of days off per week. For home games, mostly played at night, I was driving to the SkyDome at two in the afternoon. Hey, who are these urchins living in my home?

The first 12 months, Debbie took full advantage of having me home all morning. I was responsible for driving the kids to their activities and making sure they got home. One Saturday morning, I drove Matt to his first baseball tryout for a peewee select team in Oakville at a small diamond near the lakeshore on Ford Drive. As usual, I took a seat down the first base line, alternating between laying on my back and getting some sun and propping myself on one elbow to watch. It didn?t get much better than that.

One thing I noticed was that the tryout, with some 30 kids, was being run by one man, a hooked-on-coaching volunteer named Joe McFadden. After the second tryout, I asked Joe if he needed help and explained that I had a background in baseball. After the third tryout, when it was clear Matt was going to make the team, Joe approached me and asked if I wanted to be on his staff. I agreed, not knowing it would turn into a 15-year passion.

The uniform went on for our first tournament in late May. I don?t remember the opponent and I don?t remember the final score, although I do know we won. What I most remember is seeing the 12-year-old boys celebrate their victory, shaking hands with Joe and fellow volunteer Ren Gulliver, then looking down at the name on the front of the uniform and realizing how much I had missed of my children?s early life in Montreal. I turned away from the celebration with tears in my eyes.

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