I missed the real story, the first time. It was right there in front of me, and I let it go by, like a fat hanging curve over the center of the plate.

This is a story, I thought, about the games we play, baseball in this case. I "saw" the black-and-white photo as a mystery to be solved, and then when I solved the mystery, I considered it as little more than a relic from Wellsville's bygone era, when young prospects, some destined for the Major Leagues, made short but memorable stops in the village for stints with the town's minor league teams.

I was wrong.

This is how I began my first story on the subject: "Wellsville once had a field of dreams. Tullar Field."

This story was really about fathers and sons, and an American game that in its purest form, has the ability to bridge the wide gulf that separates generations. A father's generation and one usually much different, a son's.

Now, 20 years have passed. Two decades exactly. I understand, I think, why one day in 1988, Pat O'Donnell, a tavern owner in Andover, clandestinely left a photo of his late father, ball player Joe O'Donnell, in the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y. Six years later, by chance, a museum curator discovered the hidden photo, which showed the elder O'Donnell in a Sinclair Refinery baseball team uniform. When the curator read the message on the reverse side, he knew he had uncovered something special.

"You were never too tired to play catch," the message began. "On your days off, you helped build the Little League field. You always came to watch me play. You were a Hall of Fame Dad. I wish you could share this moment with me. Your son, Pat."

The Hall of Fame official passed the photo along to Steve Wulf, a writer for Sports Illustrated. In early April 1994, the magazine published the photograph along with a piece by Wulf, describing the anonymous tribute hidden in the ultimate shrine to our national pastime. Wulf, I recall, had no interest in identifying the player in the photograph or the writer of the special message on its reverse side. But I certainly did.

I was leafing through the magazine in the Wellsville David A. Howe Library on a Saturday morning, when I came across the photo. The backdrop, rolling foothills, and the name on the uniform, Sinclair, told me this shot was taken in Wellsville, N.Y. I began showing the magazine around town, asking old-timers especially, if they recognized the man in the photo and if they might know who "Pete" is.

You see, for several days, I was sure the scratchy handwritten note was from someone named Pete. It was only after a colleague at the Wellsville Daily Reporter enlarged the image on an office copier, that it could clearly been seen as "Pat."

Back in those days, Walt Shine of Wellsville would frequently stop by the Daily Reporter newsroom to chat. Well into his 70s, Mr. Shine was a sports fan without equal, and he had a near encyclopedic knowledge of Wellsville athletic lore.

"That's Joe O'Donnell who was a great hitter for the old Wellsville Sinclair company team," Walt said without any hesitation. "His son, Pat, owns the Blarney Stone in Andover."

I cold-called Pat. I don't think I am exaggerating when I say the conversation changed his life.

"I'm looking at an old photograph of a baseball player, holding a bat over his shoulder," I said to Pat.

"Yes," he said slowly.

"It was found at the Hall of Fame and it was published in Sports Illustrated," I told him.

"It's my father," he said.

Better writers than I, journalists from Readers Digest, Sports Illustrated, the Boston Globe — from literally hundreds of newspapers across the country — picked up where I left off, and before long, I was part of the story, a bit character to be sure, playing a small, supporting role. The "Hall of Fame Dad" story pops up annually, oftentimes around Father's Day. Pat's simple, heartfelt tribute to his father, who died at age 50 in 1966, was a reminder of the power baseball holds over our collective imaginations. And it served as a reassurance that memories of something as simple as a game of catch in the backyard after dinner, will endure for decades in the recesses of the heart.

I was interviewed by a Japanese television network, Readers Digest, ESPN and I even sat down once for a long interview session with a Hollywood screenwriter who was attempting to develop a movie project out of the story

In 2009, ESPN's Outside the Lines did a segment on the O'Donnells, and then Pat threw out the first pitch in Cooperstown at the first-ever Hall of Fame Classic. It was on Father's Day.

"Before we leave, we’re going to stop down to the cemetery, I have a copy of a picture — the one I had behind the bar of dad in his Sinclair uniform," Pat O’Donnell told The Spectator back in 2009. "I’m going to put one of them on his grave and one in the palm of the glove to have when I walk out on the pitchers mound."

Joe O'Donnell remains where his son put him, in the Hall of Fame. The curator placed the photo near the spot where Pat originally left it, and he included a note, explaining how the photo was found and the feelings it stirred.

I still run into Pat from time to time. It's usually while pumping gas or buying a pack of smokes downtown in Andover. Usually we don't say much, just a nod and quick hello. Last fall, I was walking out of a store with The Boy, as Pat came strolling in. We both paused, a little longer than usual it seemed, locked eyes, then he looked at us both, smiled slightly, and walked away.

"Who was that man, dad?" Lou asked me as we walked toward the truck.

"Someone I used to know," I said. "Someone special."

I gripped my boy's hand, maybe a little too hard.

"Hey, that hurts," he said.

I loosened my grip, but just a little.

"I love you, Lou," I said.

"I love you too, dad."

Then we got into the truck and drove away.

Neal Simon is the city editor of the Evening Tribune of Hornell.