History Repeats Itself

It was early in the 1988 baseball season that I took dad to his last Reds baseball game. Dad had been suffering for some time, off and on, with Leukemia. And, remembering that dad, Bobby and I had attended together the first ever game played at Riverfront Stadium, and later a World Series game against the Baltimore Orioles I thought he might enjoy getting out of the house to, once again, see a live game.

Dad had enjoyed sports as a young man; playing city league football, baseball and tennis. While, genetically, the Gauselman men were not of major league stature, dad enthusiastically enjoyed all sports as an amateur (he also played golf every week) or as a spectator.

One of my fondest memories is sitting on the floor in the family living room, in front of dad's easy chair, watching professional sports on television while he scratched my head. It was in this manner that I became a fan, to this day, of the Green Bay Packers and the Cleveland Browns long before the Cincinnati Bengals were ever formed.

But, getting back to the baseball game --- It was at this last Reds game together that I learned that dad had attended the first ever major league baseball night game with his father on the 24th of May, 1935 at Crosley Field.

In hindsight, I later realized that we had each attended our fathers' last Reds baseball games; dad with his and me with mine...53-years apart!