As I write this the World Series is rounding third base and heading for home. And while other sporting events may challenge the supremacy of baseball, in the words of a character in W.P. Kinsella's 1982 novel, Shoeless Joe, "The one constant throughout all the years has been baseball. America has been erased like a blackboard, only to be rebuilt and then erased again. . . ." Yet baseball "is the same game that Moonlight Graham played in 1905. It is a living part of our history."

Kinsella's novel was the basis for the Kevin Costner movie Field of Dreams. I don't have a means of proving this, but I would submit that more American men have cried during the final scene of Field of Dreams than any other movie scene. What is it about Kevin Costner's character meekly asking "Hey, Dad, you wanna have a catch?" that releases the floodgates? Interestingly this final scene isn't in the book. The screenwriters and producers added the scene because they thought it would resonate with fathers. Sociologist Ralph LaRossa thinks it has everything to do with a unique connection that has developed between dads, their children and the game of playing catch.

LaRossa's chapter ' Until the ball glows in the twilight': fatherhood, baseball, and the game of playing catch, is a part of a new book edited by Tess Kay, Fathering Through Sport and Leisure. The book is an excellent contribution to the field of fatherhood studies, particularly how contemporary dads use sport and leisure to engage with their sons and daughters.

Drawing on a range of written and iconographic texts (e.g., newspaper and magazine articles, books, cartoons, films), LaRossa documents the historical link between the institution of baseball and a fleeting but important component of father-child interaction - playing catch. Specifically he considers five basic questions; who plays catch, and where, when, how, and why is the game played.

I lettered in three sports in high school, which probably had more to do with the size of my school than my talent. Baseball was one of but by no means my best sport. Yet it is my grandfather's baseball mitt that sits on my shelf at work and a baseball with three generations of names written between the stitches. I found myself shaking my head in agreement as I read LaRossa's commentary on the transposition of "a seemingly mundane activity into a sacred and memorable moment."

I guess that's what I want you to "catch" in this post. Dads, don't neglect the opportunities the mundane provides. Simply throwing a ball back and forth with your child on a regular basis may someday become a sacred or missing memory. The choice is yours, wanna have a catch?

Originally posted at www.coloradodads.com