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If Paul, as a youth, was an athlete of any sort, it is not evident

It was perfect. Paul had arranged the tickets. He knew.

If Paul, as a youth, was an athlete of any sort, it is not evident. Paul loved, and loves, sports. He was, and is, a fan. You don’t need to have been a former player to run a major league team. But you do need to love sports, because you do need to understand why kids and fully grown people love their team and spend all kinds of money buying tickets, t-shirts and bobbleheads, to say nothing of all the time and soul-deep passion they give for a bunch of guys who often play like millionaire losers and crush their spirit.

Paul got it.

He didn’t go on radio and talk about players as “assets,” about “bottom lines” and “EBITDA.” He talked with the excited, always hopeful, always believing voice of the fan. He cared, and cares, as much as we do, and for the same reasons. (Once I said to him I thought he’d sounded in an interview a little too much like a GM rather than a fan, which isn’t good because fans want their GMs to be a lot smarter than they are even when they think they are a lot smarter themselves. I don’t think Paul ever forgave me for my comment).

Our kids have grown up. My wife, Lynda, and I like to spend about 10 days each summer drifting around the U.S. Midwest. It’s America at its best — college campuses, back roads, and baseball. And before we go, I call Paul. I tell him where we want to go; he calls his buddies and sets up the tickets. It’s time he could spend doing other things, it’s trouble, but I think he enjoys all this as much as we do. Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cincinnati, Kansas City (Lynda’s favourite ball park), Milwaukee, and St. Louis, where baseball matters most. And along the way, steel towns, mining towns, Primanti’s, the Warhol Museum, getting sideswiped by a drunk cyclist, the Iowa State Fair, Montgomery’s (again) for ribs. We argue, we laugh, we talk about who knows what. And every year we can’t wait to do it again. A few years from now, our son, Michael, will take his two sons on their own baseball trip. That I know for sure.