Fathers. Sons. Gibby.

 And now Bob Gibson, and again I am thinking of my father.

This is the DNA strand we are all supposed to have -- fathers and sons and baseball -- but it was different with my dad, because he was pretty much indifferent to baseball and had only a nodding acquaintance with sports in general. But he knew his son was a sports nerd, and so one day in the fall of 1968 he penned a note in his small precise hand that observed the Tigers were down 3-1 in the World Series, and they were "really going to have to hustle to pull this one out of the fire."

His note also said he was doing fine, considering he was in the hospital and all.

He was in the hospital for back surgery, and he was indeed fine. In a few days he was home. And yet, weirdly, because my mind courses through those channels, it's his line about the World Series I remember most clearly from the whole business.

Bob Gibson becoming the latest heirloom this thieving year has stolen from us brought it back again. Because he died 52 years to the day that he struck out 17 Tigers in Game 1 of the '68 Series, and struck out 10 more to beat them again in Game 4 -- when the Cardinals, yes, went up 3-1 in the Series.

So I read that Gibby has passed, and I think of my dad, and I should be grateful for that. But loss is still loss. And now this crud of a year has taken Gibby and Lou Brock and Al Kaline and Tom Seaver, and, really, 2020, what did baseball ever do to you?

Maybe you've got a mad-on for it because your dad never sent you a note from his hospital bed, saying the Tigers were down a deep well and they were gonna have to do some serious climbing to get out of it, and darned if they didn't do it.

Yeah. I'm guessing that's it.