~Happy Mother’s Day!~

If you didn’t know, KNBR airs “The Bruce Bochy Show” before every game. He’s usually interviewed by Jon Miller, but on those days when Miller’s “on assignment”, it falls to Dave Flemming. This morning, Bochy was in good spirits despite his team being on a 6-game losing streak and one of his best power hitters (Alen Hanson — and the power hitter label was his label) being hurt; Flemming asked him if he had a Mother’s Day message or some story he’d like to relate about his mother.

Bochy went on to tell a very brief bit of background — it occurs to me that Bochy is not a natural storyteller and that he’s more likely to relay facts than tell any one story — about his own mother whom he credits as the person who encouraged him to get into baseball. He thanks for her all the times he played catch with him in the backyard, pitched to him, even managed his little league team when Bochy’s father was stationed overseas for a year.

I’ve always enjoyed how Bochy doesn’t exactly come off like the typical baseball lifer. He’s gotten where he is through hard work and longevity, but it wasn’t the standard path, and it’s not very often you hear professional baseball players and coaches credit t

heir mothers for their baseball careers. There’s no way to top “You’re the real MVP” (KD slander re: this speech will be dealt with quickly, so, consider that), of course, and this wasn’t Bochy making some grand pronouncement, this was just another side of the Good Person he really is and it was really nice to hear a baseball lifer talk about his mom in relation to baseball.

Maybe I’m way off here, but the standard American story about how people got into baseball or just became fans of the sport tends to spotlight ol’ Dad and sideline Mom. That was mostly my story, too. My mom was responsible for hitting me in the face with the ball while playing catch which gave me a fear of catching a baseball for a while, but she wanted to go to the games just as much as I did, and I’m sure most of your mothers were into the game, too. I’m just making that assumption because you’ve read this much of this meandering post.

Finally, it would be nice if baseball didn’t signify / women stuff / with the color pink, even though I really enjoyed Nick Hundley’s look today, which was a direct result of that.