My grandfather spent all eighty four years of his life as a die hard Red Sox fan and at one point, every player on the team was a bum. Every manager was no good. If the Sox were down by a few runs, regardless of inning, it was over. Down three-to-one in the bottom of the 2nd? Game’s done. Down four-to-two in the fifth? Forget it. Of course, he spent the bulk of his life in the midst of the 86-year “Curse of the Bambino”, where the Sox always choked and never won a title. But still, his pessimism was legendary:

Pedro Martinez? Great pitcher. Bum. David Ortiz? Amazing hitter. Bum. Jason Varitek? Incredible leader. Bum.

He hated every manager from John McNamara to Grady Little (really hated Grady, as we all did). He tolerated Terry Francona. Yep, World Series winning, curse-breaking Terry Francona.

But all this negativity about his favorite team?

It brings a huge smile to my face. 

And to the face of my dad, his son (now 74). And to my brother’s face. And to our kid’s faces (12, 11, 9) as we reminisce about Papa Finkel, my grandfather, who died before my kids and my brother’s kids were born. He was a funny guy. Great storyteller. Hard ass. Big forearms. Sold meat for a living. Old school.

While sitting in a row at Sunday’s Red Sox vs. Mets Spring Training game with my dad and my brother and our kids  in Fort Myers, doing impressions of my grandfather (he really hit the ‘B’ hard when he said bums), it occurred to me that this Spring Training trip in 2025 wouldn’t have happened if in, say, 1938 or so, my grandfather didn’t fall in love with the Red Sox and make them his team. 

Because if he wasn’t a fan, maybe he wouldn’t have raised my dad to be a fan and maybe my dad wouldn’t have raised me and my brother to be fans and now, nearly one hundred years later, maybe we wouldn’t be raising our kids as Red Sox fans.

It’s insane to think about the length of time we’re dealing with here. 

 

We’re talking about a near century-long family bond across four generations because 13-year-old Donald Finkel in Roxbury, Mass was mesmerized by Ted Williams’ swing.

And sure, some like to dismiss this stuff with a trite, “it’s just sports.”

And if you say that, you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Because when it comes to favorite teams passed down from dads to kids through the years, sports are almost certainly about way more than sports. They’re part of the fabric that unites generations.

Take a walk around a baseball stadium during a Spring Training game. Any time. Any town. And what you see is the best of what sports can be.

You’ve got fathers and adult kids sitting in the seats reminiscing about the games they went to over the years. You’ve got grandfathers explaining the game to their grandkids, filling out scorecards. You’ve got grandparents and parents and young children wrapping their arms around each other to sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

You’ve got joy. You’ve got happiness. You’ve got lifelong memories happening in real time. And it hits every generation simultaneously. 

If you’re a nine-year-old kid who loves baseball, what could be better than going to the ballpark with your dad and grandpa?

If you’re a grown man and you have a kid who likes baseball and a father who is still alive who likes baseball, what could be better than going to the ballpark with your dad and your kids?

And if you’re a grandfather who loves baseball, like my dad, is there a more guaranteed good time in your seventies or eighties than heading to the ballpark with your sons and grandsons?

This is why tradition matters. This is why sharing passions with your kids matters. This is why intentionally making time to create these kinds of moments matter.

We talk about maximizing the middle a lot here at Midlife Male. And in the case of your family, if you’re lucky to have parents still alive, you are literally in the middle of two generations: your kids and your parents.

This time period does not last forever, which is why it’s so damn important to DO THINGS.

Maybe the thing you share with your dad and kids isn’t baseball. Maybe it’s hunting. Or restoring cars. Or woodworking. Whatever. 

It really doesn’t matter. What matters is that you nurture and have a thing. Or several things. Because the middle goes by far faster than any of us want. In the blink of an eye. Poof. It’s over… And before you know it, if you’re lucky, you’ll be the grandfather taking your kids and grandkids to a game, sharing stories about your dad, who may not have met his great grandkids.

And the next phase is… Well… You know what it is. It’s when you’re long gone and your kid is now a grandfather, sharing stories about you. So get busy making these memories while you’re still here. Do. Not. Wait.

As for our awesome day at the ballpark, we watched the Sox beat the Mets, we stuffed our faces with hot dogs and peanuts, we ate ice cream out of mini-baseball helmets and we regaled the youngest generation of Finkels about Donald Finkel, the once-great left-handed pitcher from just outside of Boston who, family legend has it, had a Major League pitching contract on the kitchen table prior to World War II, but couldn’t play because my great grandmother wouldn’t sign it, telling him baseball wasn’t a “real profession.”

Instead, he became a lifelong fan of the game. And he passed that along to his son, my dad. Who passed it along to me and my brother. And we’re passing it on to our kids, bums and all.

Jon Finkel is the Editor-in-Chief of Midlife Male.