Saturday, June 14, 2014

SNGF: What Did Your Father Love To Do?


Randy, at Genea-Musings, challenged with this latest edition of Saturday Night Genealogy Fun:

Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):

1) It's Father's Day in the USA on Sunday, so let's talk about our fathers.  


2)  What did your father really like to do in his work or spare time?  Did he have hobbies, or a workshop, or did he like sports, or reading, or watching TV?

3)  Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook or Google+ post.

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The favorite past-time of my dad, Paul R. Orshoski, Sr., seen at the far right in the picture above, was to coach Little League baseball, most often at the "atom league" level. He and several friends from Bay View, Ohio helped to raise funds to get a baseball field started in Bay View, Ohio in the early 1960s. Here is a picture of one of his teams from 1963.

 














The assistant coach was dad's cousin, Frank "Sonny" Orshoski. My brother Todd, and cousins Scott and Craig Orshoski were all on this team. Little brother Matt Orshoski is in the front row. Matt used to try to carry bat when he was not yet two years old! A family friend told me that Dad was considered the "pied piper" of baseball in Bay View. If he saw a youngster in Bay View who was not signed up for a ball team, he did his best to persuade that youngster to sign up! I think he felt that a busy young person would not have time to get into trouble, so he saw baseball as a positive force. Later on, Dad even coached a girls' team, with baby sister Kellie on it! 

I miss Dad so much each Father's Day, but he gave us lasting and wonderful memories! Even though I have never been on a ball team, and have no athletic ability, I was at more ball games than I can recall, and I loved holding the Cokes of some of the players as they sat on the bench, and rooted enthusiastically for the team.  Dad had teams that played very well, and some that were not so great, but he saw to it that each player learned the fundamentals of baseball, and had a good time, and learned to work together with others on the team. Miss you Dad!!










 

2 comments:

Bob Cline said...

Great job Doreen. I have plenty of memories with your family at the park.

Bob Cline

Dorene from Ohio said...

Growing up in Bay View was magical!