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Bazaar is virtual, but prizes are real

My dad would have been 98 yesterday, Nov. 21.
				To me, he lives forever.
				My dad passed on Nov. 13, 1995. He was eight days short of his 73rd birthday.
				He was a great guy. He was my hero. My role model. My inspiration. My friend.
				Dad was a huge baseball fan. He loved the New York Yankees and passed that on to me.
				Dad would take my mom and I and my Aunt Betty and Uncle Joe to New York for weekend series. We would stay at the Yankee Motor Lodge, which I think was not far once you got off the George Washington Bridge.
				Back in the 1960s, most of the Yankees and their broadcast team would stay at the Yankee Motor Lodge. We would have dinner with some of them &mdash; Mel &ldquo;How about that&rdquo; Allen, Clete Boyer, Johnny Blanchard, Tony Kubek, Bobby Richardson and more.
				As I have said before, my mom and I had a truly memorable breakfast with Joe Pepitone in the hotel breakfast restaurant.
				Dad worked for Leslie Fay, which was headquartered in New York City. Dad would drive his boss, Sherman Gilbert, into the big city for meetings. Mr. Gilbert always got my dad great tickets for Yankees games.
				We saw many games at the original Yankee Stadium. We witnessed many super stars do super things, and we saw Mickey Mantle &mdash; the best there ever was as far as dad and I were concerned.
				Dad took us to games at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia and to Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. In 1964, we went to Shea Stadium to see the Mets play, stopping at the World&rsquo;s Fair on the way to the game.
				And dad and I would sit together and watch baseball games from start to finish. He taught me how to appreciate every nuance the game offers. Dad knew baseball. He would have been a great manager at any level.
				I was thrilled when I had the opportunity to take dad to Cooperstown, New York, to visit the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
				It was special to see my dad&rsquo;s eyes widen when he saw a display of one of his favorite players or teams. Usually, they were Yankees.
				But dad appreciated all the greats, and he took time to pause and read many of the displays about players and events of many different teams.
				It was special time spent with a special guy &mdash; my dad.
				Dad and his friend Joseph &ldquo;Shep&rdquo; Chepulis, co-founded the Plymouth Little League in 1950. These two guys shaped that league and that field into one of the finest in the region. And the league shaped the lives of many, many kids from Plymouth.
				Dad served the league as its president/player agent from 1950 through the early 1970s when he got sick. He stepped down from those offices when I played for my four years to avoid the appearance of any favoritism.
				That was my dad.
				If I had a vote, he would be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. I&rsquo;ve always said that those guys and gals who have volunteered over the decades to bring baseball to millions of kids in hundreds of thousands of communities should have a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame. I await that day. I will even attend the ceremony and make a speech on behalf of all of them, like my dad.
				So here comes the tough part.
				Jim Martin, the president of the Luzerne County Sports Hall of Fame, called me this week to let me know that my dad was unanimously elected for induction. When Jim called, I think he might not have realized how the news hit me.
				I was happy, trust me. And I was emotional. I cried when I got off the phone.
				I have always known the kind of man my dad was, and I have also known that he deserves this honor.
				What made me so emotional was that I realized that other people know that as well.
				My dad went off to war, ran off a boat onto a beach in Northern France in World War II. He ran up a hill, under fire from the enemy and he charged into battle. He didn&rsquo;t get too far. He stepped on a land mine and ended up in a mobile military hospital with one less leg.
				Dad returned home. He got fitted for an artificial wooden leg and set out to re-build his life.
				He got a job, met the love of his life &mdash; my mom, Elizabeth Kraszewski &mdash; and they got married. They managed to produce a son, me. Together, they set the best possible examples a kid could ever hope for and the fact that I realize that gives me great comfort.
				Mom left us in May of 1968. Dad left me in November 1995. But they have never really left my heart and never will.
				Thank you Jim Martin and the Luzerne County Sports Hall of Fame. You made an excellent choice by inducting my dad.
				Happy birthday to my Hall of Fame dad.

Beyond the Byline: A perfect way to remember Dad on his birthday