Fantastic Father's Day Story and Inspiration

I had not heard this story and thought it was worth sharing here at Father's Day...

By Mike Lopresti, Gannett
BOSTON — Fenway Park, Section 21, Row 4, Seats 8-9. Every parent who has ever watched a son play Little League baseball has sat in those seats — if only in their dreams.
The father there this day, with his camera ready, is Don Nava. Next to him, wife Becky. Down on the field, ready to continue his rags-to-Red Sox story, son Daniel — the former student manager who, the day before, hit a grand slam on the first major league pitch he'd seen in his life.
Shock, awe, memories. What family would not have them now?
The mother remembers what she told her son when he was going into the ninth grade at 70 pounds, still thinking he'd be a big leaguer one day, which seemed like a canary planning to become an eagle.
"We'll always believe in your dream."

The father tries to describe his emotions of the weekend.
"Everybody that plays major league baseball, I promise you, had a dad that played catch with him.
"We're a strong family of faith and we're grateful to God for kissing Daniel on the forehead. It's sweeter just because of all the struggles he went through and all the closed doors."
In case you missed it, the Cliffs Notes of Daniel Nava:
•Pint-sized prepster from the Bay Area in California who hardly got to bat until his senior year ... cut at Santa Clara, but allowed to be team manager and do the laundry, using the spare coins to call home as the dryers hummed ... transfers to junior college, when the growth spurt kicked in ... big numbers his one season back at Santa Clara.
•Cut by the Chico Outlaws, an independent team ... back with Chico the next season ... signed in 2007 by the Red Sox for $1 ... a speedy trip through the minor leagues where he hit like a phenom at every stop.
Then came the second inning Saturday, when this 27-year-old valedictorian from the school of hard baseball knocks homered off the Philadelphia Phillies' Joe Blanton, only the second man ever to hit a grand slam on his first career pitch.
Next day, he described watching himself on the highlight shows. "Surreal ... I kept thinking, what just happened?"
More to our subject, what was happening in section 21?
"Praying," Becky says on Sunday. "Just praying for something good. I don't even remember him going around the bases."
"I had thought about the first at-bat forever," Don says. "I turned to my wife and said, 'Becky, he's going to get up with the bags loaded. I'll take a sac fly. I'll be happy with a sac fly.' "
Then his son took one swing.
"I've never felt like anything like that in my life," Don says. "What do you do?"
You think back, of course, to the days playing catch in the backyard, and the nights coaching your tiny knotholer, whose dreams were outrunning his body. Happens millions of times a night in America.
But how often does it lead to this?
"I remember all the struggles," says Don, who made his young son a switch-hitter by never allowing him to bat right or left twice in a row.
"He was too small. He was too slow. People looked at his size, rather than his heart. Every year, he had written goals. He still does."
Don asked his son before ninth grade about his goal after high school. Daniel said he wanted to be a baseball player at Stanford, so Don took him to the Cardinal ballpark and let him run the bases, stand in the outfield and sit in the dugout.
Stanford never called, of course. But Daniel Nava's last college game for Santa Clara?
At Stanford.
Moments like that flash through the minds of two people in Section 21.
"When he was a manager watching the others play, he'd call and say, 'I know I can play. I know I can do this,' " Becky says.
Sunday's game will start soon, and Daniel — now 200 pounds and nobody's weakling — is back in the lineup in left. Don picks up his camera and heads toward the outfield seats for a closer shot. A proud Little League father, like so many of us.

 

Fantastic,,,thanks for posting!