Playing ball, playing dad
The object of baseball is to get home. Father’s Day reminds players how good that can be after the game
Brian T. Smith notes Astros players relish their double roles as fathers and athletes.
How do you change the life of the best hitter on the best team in baseball?
By making him a father for the first time.
Since 2011, Jose Altuve has seen almost everything the game has to offer. A slow, massive rebuilding project and 100-loss seasons. Minute Maid Park reborn during the playoffs, batting titles, All-Star Games, Silver Slugger awards and a Gold Glove. Then Melanie was born. Altuve and his wife, Nina, had a daughter. And if you want to see Altuve’s eyes light up, just ask the Astros’ second baseman about his new world with his baby girl.
“To have my first daughter is life-changing, and it seems like you have a new purpose to go out there and do everything you do,” he said. “It’s different. I would like to describe how it is, but it is difficult. Before, you always had a purpose to help your team. But now it feels like everything you do is for her first and then for the rest of the people. It’s great. I love my daughter, and I hope to be a good dad.”
Natural association
Father’s Day has long been intertwined with so many things that are beautiful about baseball. Dedication and devotion. Patience and perseverance. Watching, learning, growing and loving. Fathers and sons. This week, a photo was tacked to a bulletin board in the Astros’ clubhouse. Dallas Keuchel and Collin McHugh stood next to smiling, proud men. A message above the image opened a path to another lifetime memory.
Will your dad be here for Father’s Day? Do you want him to throw a first pitch to you?
Many of the best memories of my youth are wrapped around my dad and the game that never goes away. T-ball, the backyard and small fields where everything felt so big. Playing catch over and over, oiling a new glove, baseball cards, Hank Aaron stories, and watching the rise of the 1990s Braves on a backporch TV.
“My own dad, having lost him at a young age, I think of him often,” said Astros manager A.J. Hinch, whose father, Dennis, died at 39 from a heart attack. “I certainly will think of him on Father’s Day. Especially because I’ll be at the ballpark. I’ve always associated Father’s Day with baseball.”
Family-friendly skipper
The Astros’ homestand finale Sunday against Boston created an opening for Hinch. The road and another extended trip away from Houston awaited. But since the game became a nationally televised night contest, he was set to spend Father’s Day with his daughters, Haley and Kaitlin, then have his girls watching the Red Sox play the Astros at the ballpark while their dad went to work.
“You miss a lot as a dad with the schedule,” Hinch said. “We also get a huge benefit of having a few months off at a time, too. So you try to focus on the positives. You try to provide for your kids and show them, to be honest with you, things in this life I never would have dreamed of being able to show them. There’s huge upside in what we do. There’s also some moments that you miss that you can’t get back.”
Astros players are regularly seen with their children at Minute Maid after games. Since he took over the team, Hinch has maintained an “open clubhouse,” where family is welcome and star athletes are allowed to be loving fathers away from home.
“If you can’t share this with your kids, who can you share it with? The sons and daughters will always be welcome while I’m the manager here,” Hinch said.
Balancing act
Brian McCann struggled with missing out on things when he first became a dad. His children, Colt and Colbie, were born 14 months apart. McCann would fall asleep in the early morning after winding down from another late-night game, then always be on the verge of another road trip during a season that never seemed to end.
“Early on, it was really hard. You’re trying to find that balance of newborns waking up in the morning,” the veteran catcher said. “You feel like you should be waking up, but you’re not going to sleep until 1 or 2 in the morning, and then you get up and play a game that night.”
Altuve is still adjusting. He tries to wake up with his daughter. But on road trips, he says, it’s still “a little hard for me to stay away,” which means there are calls to make sure everything is all right. When the Astros are home, the hours between 9 a.m. and when he leaves for work at Minute Maid are precious.
“I try to keep it balanced. I want to have a personality outside of baseball,” Altuve said. “I forget everything about baseball when I get home. I try to spend time with my wife and my daughter. That’s a good therapy for baseball, especially when you go 0-for-4. You go home, and you truly forget about everything, and you come here the next day just fresh in your mind and try to have a good game.”
McCann credits the constant dedication of his wife, Ashley. As his kids grew older, the balance between fatherhood and baseball began to make more sense.
“You only get to play baseball for so long, so you need to get everything out of it that you can,” McCann said. “But I think about it all the time: taking my kids to school every day, being there 24/7.
“At the same time, my son gets to come here and watch me go to work. He’s 4 years old, and he knows everybody’s name, everybody’s number, and he’s got to know what color uniform I’m wearing. He’s all in. He loves it. So that side of it is priceless.”
No save can compare
Like Altuve, Ken Giles kept coming back to one term: lifechanging.
He’s the Astros’ closer, living off fire and a nasty slider, normally getting only one inning to prove his worth — and that’s if he even takes the mound.
Then Giles and his wife, Estela, had a son, and the Astros’ closer became a dad to Brody. Baseball and fatherhood. Life-changing. “It’s the greatest thing in the world. There are a lot of things I’m proud of throughout my life, but nothing beats being a father,” Giles said. “It’s just the greatest feeling in the world to know that you have a little person next to you that you helped create.”