Grandpa

When I thought about this topic, I was not sure where to go with it. I am not an extremely cultured person when it comes to my culture, I have never been to Italy or the Netherlands. None of my family speaks Italian or Dutch, that being said I do still carry traditions and have something comparable to an very tight knit Italian family. So, I did not think that was interesting enough to write about. I really wanted to write about somebody in my family that has changed my life and choose somebody I considered not only a grandfather, but a best friend.

My grandfather George Spero was a true role model for me. He was a little rough around the edges, but man did he push me and show me what it was to be a man. The stories he would tell me about growing up in Brooklyn and having nothing was nothing short of inspiring. It made me realize how spoiled I was to have such an ample amount of opportunities and how much tougher life could be. The main thing me and my grandfather bonded over was baseball. My grandfather was always extremely generous to me, he would buy me baseball bats, helmets, gloves etc. My grandfather was a baseball coach for fifty years, he not only coached me and my father, but numerous sets of cousins.

I still remember going to the old Yankee Stadium and him buying me ice cream at the end of the game. Now you may be saying how did going to Yankee Stadium change your history. The relationship me and grandfather had fostered my love for baseball. If I have one passion in my life it is easily baseball, if you have not been able to tell by the fact that most of my posts are about baseball. My grandfather is what instilled baseball into my father's blood, and my father pushed me to enjoy baseball as much as he did. Not even joking, when I was a kid all I did was eat and sleep baseball. A normal kid might watch cartoons in the morning, I used to watch baseball tonight reruns looking for the scores of the previous games. I played on three different teams during the spring baseball season and two teams during the fall ball season. My grandfather would always be at the games no matter what, my dad coached most of those teams, so personally I feel baseball is what made us so close. I still remember my grandmother hollering at me, my father and grandfather at dinner because we would non stop babble about baseball. Whether it was Yankee baseball, Little League baseball, or private baseball leagues I played in. Man, if I had a bad game, I had to deal with more then just one father haha. I would get what I did wrong from my father and then my grandfather would be waiting to tell me what I did wrong. Sadly my Grandfather passed away years ago suddenly. Sadly this really made me appreciate what he was and meant to me. He was someone I could always turn to for help and really taught me right from wrong. I always write about my grandfather when I get the chance because I do not want him to get lost in history.