He wears number 7 on his jersey. He chose it because he knew I’d like that. Mickey Mantle was my boyhood baseball hero and whenever my son, Richie steps into the batter’s box, I get flashes in my mind of the Mick and his number 7 stretched across the back of his New York Yankee uniform.

Richie is my baseball boy. Ever since he was 6 and he would toss a ball against a net for hours, I knew I had a “baller” in my family as they say. I put up a batting cage in our yard and I’d pitch to him. We’d end every practice session with me saying, “You get one last pitch. Two outs. Bottom of the ninth inning. Bases loaded. Three balls and two strikes. The winning run is on third base. I threw him a pitch and he didn’t swing.

“That’s ball four, Dad. We win!”

We often played catch right through his young teenage years. This is how I described these special moments in words rewritten from my novel.

“The thump of the ball against our gloves resonates like a native drumbeat, a discovery of a lost childhood for me and the emergence of a young man for my son. In between throws, we stand tall, facing each other, lifting our gloves to our noses as if we are raising glasses for a toast. The flight of the baseball brings unspoken love from every sling of our arms. I was tossing along a piece of my legacy, believing that if Richie should become a father someday, he will get up from his urgent duties to the sound of a little voice that says, ‘Hey Dad, you wanna play catch?’”

He knows I cannot watch the final scene of the movie, “Field of Dreams” without tears in my eyes. A man plays catch with his dad who has come back from heaven. I never once played catch with my father so these bonding times with my son had that extra special meaning, a gift to me from a higher power that will remain with me for an eternity.

As his coach, every time he would stand in to hit in a Little League, travel ball, Babe Ruth, Connie Mack, or Jim Thorpe High School baseball game, I’d swing the bat along with him in my mind. Whenever he pitched, it was almost unbearable for me to watch. I’d think I was the home plate umpire. Every pitch he threw was a strike, of course. Every hit he gave up was a bolt of pain that shot right through me.

My son is a fierce competitor on the baseball battlefield. No matter the score of the game, he puts everything he’s got into each at bat, into each pitch he throws and into every play he has to make at third base. He leads by example and you could tell his teammates love playing with him and behind him when he pitches. And every good play or hit by a teammate he acknowledges with a fist pump or a pat on the back.

Baseball is a game of failure. Between the lines, every player drops a ball he should catch, strikes out, boots a ground ball or makes a bad throw. It’s inevitable. Success is fleeting and so is the joy that comes after making a good play.

Outside the lines, baseball is a game of failed adults. Some fathers drive their sons too hard and chastise them far too much, so much that their love for playing the game is gone. I promised myself to be distant from Richie when I was a coach on his teams. After a game some time ago, a parent approached me and asked which player was my son. I took that as a compliment.

Throughout the challenges that come with playing the most difficult sport of all, my son has held his head high. He has had his fair share of disappointments and not one has been the fault of his own. I wrenched in anguish when his broken finger disabled him from half of his junior season, one in which he was the only player unanimously selected by his teammates to be the captain of the team.

Richie never loses. He wins or he learns. No matter what adversity he will face in his future, when difficult circumstances strike him out, he’ll get back in the batter’s box, stare out at life and say, “Give me what you’ve got.” He’s resilient. He’s determined. He lives in the moment. The past is behind him.

He stands nearly 6 feet tall now and sports traces of a beard under his chin. The number 7 glows across his back from the bright afternoon sun as he prepares to take one final swing for his high school team. I blink my eyes. He’s 11 years old again. He’s standing with me in our batting cage. Two outs. Full count. Last inning. Winning run on third. I throw him the pitch.

This time he swings and he hits a home run that rips through the cage and soars high into the sky. Together we watch the ball disappear into the clouds.

Richie will always be my baseball boy.