A few years back, ESPN began running little promotional ads that would always end with "Without Sports....".  There was one in particular, in which a little boy was attached to his St. Louis Cardinals blanket, not unlike Linus of the Peanuts comic strip.  As they show him growing up, in various different situations (playing poker in college, moving out of his parents house, etc.), the blanket is prominant in every scene.  At the end of the commercial, it shows the man, all grown up and presumably married, with his daughter, now carrying around the very same blanket her dad was given as a child.

Though it has been quite sometime since I've seen that commercial (I give it a few months until it re-airs, when baseball becomes the dominant sport until football season), I was reminded of it yesterday while I was talking to my dad.

Every day, my dad, who also happens to be one of my best friends, not to mention my next-door neighbor, picks up my daughter from school and drops her off at my house.  Every day, he will call me when he enters my apartment complex to let me know he is there and to get my lazy butt downstairs so I can talk to him and retrieve my filthy child.

By the time I arrive downstairs, my father has already opened the door for my daughter to get out of the car and is standing there waiting to ask my how my day has been, what have I been doing all day, and am I planning to watch or tivo the NY Mets game.  No matter what, the conversation always turns to baseball, mainly the Mets, between my father and I.  Always. It has been that way from the time I was a little kid.

Yesterday was no exception.  By the time I walked down the three flights of stairs, my father was already standing near the bottom of the staircase with my daughter.  After the pre-requisite "Hi, how are you?", and my daughter clamoring all over me with the dirt that she has procured from the school yard, my father blurts out "So, Florida isn't ready to part with Dontrelle Willis yet, damn it."

Having not even given me a chance to pull a cigarette out of the pack, I gave him a quizzical look, proceded by "What the hell are you talking about??"

"Florida's GM isn't ready to put Dontrelle on the trading block yet, so now we are stuck with good old (Aaron) Heilman probably going back to the starting rotation.  How much trouble are the Mets going to be in now?  Although I'll be happy to see him get out of the bullpen.  He sucks.  He just sucks.  Now the damn team is going to go down the tubes," my dad lamented.

"Oh, they'll be fine.  If (Cliff) Floyd ever learns how to hit the ball again, this team will be fine.  So the Mets will win every three games out of five, because you know they will never win when Trachsel or Heilman pitch.  They hardly ever win when Trachsel pitches...he's not pitching tonight, is he?" I asked.

"No, no, no, Glavine's pitching tonight, so we actually stand a chance of winning," my dad concluded.

"Okay, good," I said.  After taking a pull of my cigarette, I asked, simply "5 o'clock, right?"

"Right.  Okay, well, I have to go home now and go walk the dog.  I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"Okay, enjoy the game, I'll talk to you tomorrow.  Love you."

"Love you too.  Bye Laurie (my daughter), I love you."

"Grandpa, I love you too, but you need to get home or you're going to miss the game and then get mad that you missed it.  I don't want you to be mad.  And I don't want Mommy to be mad either.  So go, go home and watch the game so we can go upstairs and Mommy can watch the game," said my daughter, all of 6 and a half.

It was in that moment that I realized just how much baseball connects the three generations of my family.  It was at that moment how much sports really does bring families together.

So while all us bloggers sit here and rant and rave and analyze every little bit about the sports that we love, remember that it was most likely someone very close to you who developed you into the sports fanatic that you are.  Because while those sports will most likely be around forever, the people who you love won't be.