BY: JOE KONZE JR
June 11, 2005, I sat on an aluminum bench at Thomas E. “Bill” Farrell Baseball Complex in Henrietta, NY.
Beads of sweat gathered where my baseball hat met my forehead and dripped off of my nose and onto my already drenched Kelly Green Nike Dri-FIT t-shirt.
“Are you ready to hit another bucket of balls?,” my father said to me as I took a swig of water from my water bottle.
It was 3 p.m., and my Babe Ruth Baseball team, the Rush-Henrietta Royal Comets 15U team, was playing in a weekend tournament against other local area teams. We were set to take on the Hilton Cadets 15U team in a 5:30 p.m matchup. My dad and I were trying to tweak my swing because I was an abysmal 0-for-10 in the tournament’s first three games.
As I approached the field to get ready to take my hacks, my dad asked me if everything was OK. I lied and told him it was just a slump I was in, but little did he know there was something wrong, and it wasn’t my swing; I had lost my love for the game.
Growing up, baseball was all I had ever known.
There is a strong baseball lineage . My father, Joe Sr., was an All-City Second Baseman for East High School. My uncle Rick is a United States Speciality Sports Association (USSSA) Softball Hall of Famer. He played professional softball for the Rochester Zeniths and Mazzola Castle. My cousin, Rick Jr., played four years at St. John Fisher College and for the Geneva Red Wings of the New York Collegiate Baseball League (NYCBL). My cousin Nick Palmiero was an integral part of Monroe Community College’s (MCC) quest for a Division 1 JUCO Championship in 2007. My cousin Bri was one of the best softball players Section V ever saw. She was so good she walked on at Elmira without breaking a sweat and dominated.
We all shared the same passion for it. Some of us wanted to play professionally, and others wanted to prove they could play at the collegiate level. But for me, baseball was a language. It was something I used to communicate with the man who taught me most of what I know; my grandfather.
My grandfather, Thomas Anthony Palmiero Sr., was my best friend. We were inseparable. Wherever he went, I went. Whatever he ate for lunch, I ate for lunch. If he was watching the New York Yankees, I was watching the New York Yankees. I wanted to be just like him.
My grandfather had suffered a stroke in his mid-50s, and he had a difficult time speaking. But when we talked about baseball, I could understand him loud and clear.
“Runner on first. One out. Double play,” he’d say to me slow and carefully just to make sure I was paying attention.
For most kids 7-8 years old, you’re still figuring out the game. You haven’t got the slightest clue what situational baseball is. You need everything explained to you. But I didn’t need an explanation. To me, this meant the Yankees needed a double play to get out of the inning. The more time I spent with him the more my love for baseball grew. I couldn’t get enough of it. It’s all I talked about, it’s all I wanted to do.
When I started to play organized baseball, my mom would bring around “Grandpa P,” as we called him in our family. Since I was a catcher, Grandpa P wanted the best seat in the house. He tried to sit right behind the backstop, but the umpires wouldn’t let him. He had to back himself up and sit off to the side, but he always made sure he could see the game from the catcher’s point of view.
From the time I started t-ball at five years old was until I was 14 years old, he’d sit behind a little to the left of the backstop. I could see him before I took my place behind the dish or whenever I stepped up to the plate. He was so engaged in the game he would wave to me like he was on the airport tarmac to let me know which way an infielder was shifted and where to try and drive the next pitch. I was never nervous. I always had my baseball guardian angel behind me. He was my juice, and my secret weapon.
When I wasn’t playing baseball, I was at his house watching our beloved Yankees. What a magical franchise they were from 1996-2004. Four World Series titles – three in a row– and a lot of postseason memories I shared with him that I’ll never forget.
One, in particular, was, in my opinion, the greatest sports series ever played, the 2003 American League Championship Series (ALCS) against the Boston Red Sox.
Yes, the Yankees most hated rival and the team I can’t stand the most in sports. Grandpa and I talked about this series a bit the best we could. Slow and steady like he always did, he said to me
“We will win. Pedro? Asshole,” He said in disgust.
He was talking about Pedro Martinez, the Red Sox eight-time all-star and three-time American League Cy Young Award-winning pitcher. If you’re a Yankees fan, Martinez is by far the most hated Red Sox player. Not only because he was cocky, arrogant, and could throw untouchable, heat-seeking missile of a fastball. It’s because, in that series, he threw the late great Don Zimmer, who at the time was a bench coach for the Yankees, to the ground when Zimmer charged at him. Zimmer never cared for Martinez. He thought he was unprofessional.
Well, we Yankees fans thought so too.
The series seemed evenly matched. Yankees fans were on a quest for their 27th World Championship (they would reach this feat in 2009) and the Red Sox were looking to break the “Curse of The Bambino.” It was a back and forth affair. Boston took a series lead early on, then the Yankees took the lead. Then the Red Sox forced the series to a full seven games.
Game seven was nerve-wracking. I couldn’t stomach it. The game went to extra innings and left the Yankees chances of another World Series berth in the hands of the third baseman and now manager Aaron Boone. Boone was 1-for-10 against knuckleball pitcher Tim Wakefield in his career and all of us Yankees fans were sitting there going “come on, Aaron. You got this.” He took the first pitch of the 11th inning deep to the left to send the Yankees to the 2003 World Series.
I still get chills watching this highlight. The sound of Joe Buck’s call “Boone hits it to deep left,” sends chills down my spine and the sound of my grandpa shouting Boone! at me the next day still lingers in my brain.
The Yankees would go on to lose the World Series four games to two to the then Florida Marlins. The following year, the Yankees blew a 3-0 lead to the Red Sox in the 2004 ALCS. It was over. the “Curse of the Bambino” was over and the Yankees chokehold they had on the Red Sox was over. But that wasn’t the worst part of it all.
The cut that hurt the deepest. The one thing that still to this day burns me to the core is not the downfall of the incredible Yankees dynasty, it was the loss of the one man that I always thought was invincible.
On Dec. 21, 2004, just days before Christmas, my grandfather, passed away.
I was crushed. At 14 years old, I lost my best friend.
Nothing mattered anymore. The thought of gripping a baseball made me sad and depressed. I didn’t know what to do. For one whole year, I moped around. Every time I stepped up to the plate I thought I saw him sitting in his wheelchair slightly behind the backstop, but it was just my imagination.
Strike One. Strike Two. Strike Three. HE’S OUT!
I would watch pitches go right by. I was a mess. For those that have ever lost someone close to them, the hardest part is moving on without them. I felt like every game I played, I was doing it without my friend. I was having fun without my best friend.
So, when my dad asked me on June 11, 2005, if I was okay, I wasn’t. I was tired and burned out. Ping. Reload. Ping. Reload. Each swing meant nothing.
But when we took the field to take on the Cadets that night in the semifinals, and I took my rightful place behind the plate, there was a different type of feeling. I looked out at the diamond. The grass was perfectly cut, the infield dirt was as smooth as silk, the foul lines were painted perfectly, and there was a slight breeze– the kind that gives you just enough carry on a flyball to send it over the wall.
It was a perfect evening for baseball and as the sun started to set behind me that feeling of emptiness that I once felt about the game for the last year slowly started to change.
We battled the Cadets for seven innings (a full game based on Babe Ruth League rules). We would score a run, and the Cadets would score a run. When we reached the bottom of the seventh inning, we were tied 5-5. I was batting third in the bottom of the inning, and I’ll never forget who was on the mound for the Cadets, lefty Gavin Black.
Black threw dead red. His fastball was clocked at 80-83 MPH fastball, which at the time was pretty darn good for a 15-year-old, and his curveball would leave hitters completely frozen. He was so good that years later, he helped propel the Hilton Cadets high school varsity team to a Section V title and later played a few years at the University at Buffalo.
I knew that it was going to be a battle and well, I hadn’t had a hit the whole tournament. I was 0-3 on the day and the odds were stacked against me.
After the first hitter grounded out, our third baseman, Brandon, hit a double down the line. With a runner on second base, the stage was set, and the scenario that every little kid that loves the game of baseball dreams of was right in front of me; with one hit, I could end the game.
When I walked up to the plate, I looked down the first baseline at my father, Joe Sr. He looked at me and nodded. By the way, Joe Sr. is the coolest guy you’ll ever meet and an amazing father. I still think he’s one of the greatest baseball coaches I’ve ever played for. He made me earn my playing time, he didn’t hand it to me. But he was just as nervous at that exact moment as I was. He just didn’t want to show it.
When I dug into the batter’s box and looked out into the field, I started to replay the broadcast of the 2003 ALCS in my head.
Joe Buck: This is quite a night.
Tim McCarver: Clearly, time is not an ally of the Yankees.
Brett Boone: I’ll tell you what, I’ve just enjoyed watching it.
The first pitch was thrown. It was a ball in the dirt and Brandon advanced to third as the Cadets catcher was not quick enough to throw him out. I stepped out of the box and took a deep breath to regain my focus and dug in again.
Buck: I would imagine that’s the sentiment throughout. Although the Boston Red Sox and the fans through New England will tell you they were five outs away in the eighth leading by three.
I started my cadence in the box and waved my bat, and got into my stance. Black threw me a pitch up in the zone, and I swung as hard as I could and connected with the fastball and sent it high and deep to left field into the pink night sky. As I watched the ball travel and started to run towards first base, I could hear the famous call from Buck.
Buck: Boone hits it to deep left. That might send the Yankees to the World Series. Boone a hero in Game 7.
As I rounded first, I could see the ball sail over the left field wall, and my dad pumped his fist. Game over. I hit a two-run walk-off home run. I threw my helmet up in excitement when I reached second, and when I took my first steps toward third and saw my coach making his way towards home to congratulate me, I felt all of this weight fall off of my shoulders.
The sights and sounds of the crowd erupting rounding third put a giant smile on my face. When my foot touched home plate, and my coach and my teammates tackled me, I felt this aura lift me. I had goosebumps. The sport that I loathed for one whole year while still grieving my grandfather’s loss was once again filled with so much joy. It was as if he was still right there with me, just in a different form.
That day he was sending me a gentle reminder that no matter where I go in life, baseball would always be my way to communicate with him. I still believe this is true today.
Whenever I hear the crack of a wooden bat or the sound of a baseball hitting a leather glove, I’m brought back to that moment in time. I can feel the beads of sweat gathering where my baseball hat meets my forehead. I can feel the sweat dripping off of my nose and onto my shirt. The sound of “Boone hits it to deep left” plays inside my head and I see that baseball I crushed fly so effortlessly into the pink night sky.
It’s my grandpa sending me that friendly reminder that he’s always near.
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