This past Father’s Day I called my dad in Arroyo, PR and thanked him for teaching me how to switch-hit, hit the cutoff man (although I wound up being a second baseman), how to run the bases and I always remember him telling me “never go down looking, take a cut if you’re going to make an out”. My friends all learned something from dad and applied it to their “game”.

My dad played stickball as a teenager in “El Barrio” on East 103 Street and Lexington Ave, the HILL. He later played for “Los Astros” softball team in the Bronx in the early 1970’s as their 3rd baseman at Starlite Park .