Beer, Baseball and Family Schatzie Specialties.

I can remember sitting on a couch in a small apartment in Norwood with a big box television showing Big Ted Kalewsky and his sleeveless uniforms.

My father Richard J. Schatz explaining the game in between sips of Burger, Schoenling or Wiedemann beers.

It was Ted Kluszewski but in the mouth of a four-year old Kalewsky was as close as I could get.

Right now I'm sitting in a pressbox in Surprise, Arizona watching my third baseball game in 24 hours.

My father Dick Schatz taken at Johnny Bench's wedding

Around March 1999, my dad's pain told him that the end of his baseball watching days were near. I had made arrangements to go to Sarasota to do some freelance writing about the Reds spring training.  I was going to cancel my trip. My father grabbed my wrist with the strength that he hadn't shown in years. "You go," he said. "I don't know whether I'll be here when you get back or not but you are not going to miss this."

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I was sitting in Hal McCoys' rented condo on the Siesta Key Beach when I got the call. My dad's pain ended 15 years ago today.  I left two days later in time for services.  I left the pressbox that night as the Reds played the Red Sox.  I bought two beers which is not my drink of choice. In fact my dad would say, "Gar is my favorite son because I know he won't steal my beer."  I held to the heavens and drank them both.

It was my father and his friends Dick Blaylock, "Chopper" that started a tradition of following the Reds while they prepared for the season.  The first time I was able to join them, I flew out of Toledo, Ohio to Tampa. It was 1979 and the players went on strike so the Grapefruit League games were canceled.  It didn't matter we went to Al Lang field and watched the minor league players work out for two weeks.

When it was over, we jumped into Johnny Bench's white cadillac and drove it home.  My father, who got to know Bench through his baseball connections, made arrangements to fly to Tampa, stay two weeks and drive one of the players' cars back as the players traveled with the team.

You can guess who did most of the driving.  Yep, the one that is writing this.

As I look around the pressbox, I see Rob Butcher, whose father passed away near the start of spring training. Dick Butcher, like my father, Dick Schatz was outgoing and never met a stranger. They talked to anyone and everyone as if they had known them all their lives.

So soon I am going into the stands; buy a beer, lift it to the heavens and thank my father for teaching me the game in front of that big box TV in Norwood.  You know Kalewski was going deep.