WHEN FATHER DOESN'T KNOW BEST

Andrew Merton

On November 25, 1983, the prizefighter Marvis Frazier, 23 and inexperienced, was knocked out by the heavyweight champion of the world, Larry Holmes, after 2 minutes and 57 seconds of the first round. Holmes pretended to come in with a left punch and Frazier went for it, leaving himself open for a right. Frazier managed to stay on his feet while Holmes rained down 19 blows in a row. Finally, with three seconds left in the round, the referee stopped the fight. At that moment, Marvis Frazier's father and manager, the former heavyweight champion Joe Frazier, embraced his son and repeated over and over: "It's all right. It's all right. I love you."

Later, responding to criticism that he had overestimated his son's abilities, Joe Frazier said, "I knew what I was doing." In the face of clear evidence to the contrary. Joe Frazier was unable to give up the notion that Marvis would succeed him as champion, that he would continue to hold the crown through his son.

It is a disturbing business, this drive for immortality, usually much more subtle than thrusting one's son naked into the ring. Often it is simply a matter of expecting the boy to repeat one's own boyhood, step for step.

In July 1983, my son Gabriel was 4 and extremely conscious of it. In fact, he defined and justified much of his behavior by his age: "Four-year-olds can put on their own clothes." Or "I can run faster than Mike. That's because I'm 4 and he's only 3." A 4-year-old, I thought, was ready for a major-league baseball game. So on Saturday, July 16, I drove him to Boston to see the Red Sox play the Oakland A 's.

It was a clear, hot day—very hot, in fact, setting a record for Boston on that date at 97 degrees—but, rare for Boston, it was dry. I had packed a bag with fruit and vegetables. Gabe slept through the entire 90-minute drive to Boston, a good sign: he'd be fresh for the game. Another good sign: I found a free, legal parking space. And as we entered the ball park, Gabe seemed excited. Gravely he accepted my advice to go to the bathroom now, so we would not have to move from our seat during the action.

As we walked through the tunnel beneath the stadium, I remembered my own first game, in Yankee Stadium in 1952. As my father and I emerged into the sun, I was overwhelmed by the vast, green outfield. A pitcher named Vic Raschi fired strike after strike, A Yankee named Joe Collins hit a home run and the Yankees won, 3-2. The opponent had been the old Philadelphia Athletics, direct ancestors of the Oakland team. I felt joy and anticipation as Gabe and I now emerged into the sun for his first look at the field. Gabe said nothing, but he must have felt the excitement.

We found our seats, on the right-field side of the park. Good seats, from which we could see every part of the playing field. We were about a half-hour early, and we settled down to watch the end of batting practice. Gabe said he was hungry. I gave him a carrot stick, which he chewed happily. When he finished that, he asked what else I had in the bag. I gave him some grapes, then an apple. Within 15 minutes he had polished off most of the contents of the bag. And then he said: "I think I've had enough baseball. I want to go home now."

"But the game hasn't started yet," I said. "You haven't seen any baseball."

"Yes, I have. And I want to go home."

"That was only batting practice. Don't you want to see the real game?"

"No."

I considered staying anyway. It was my day with my son that was being ruined here, wasn't it?

But I knew better. I knew now that if I insisted on staying, it would be his day that would be ruined so Dad could watch a ball game. In a rotten mood, I carried him out of the park on my shoulders just as the Red Sox took the field.

"Daddy? Can I have an ice-cream?"

Without much grace, I bought him an ice-cream. Then we got in the car, and I drove away from my precious parking space, still in a bad temper. He was well aware that I was upset; I could see the troubled look on his face, a combination of fear and pain. I hated that look. But I could not shake my mood. I was not looking forward to the drive back to New Hampshire.

Then on Storrow Drive, I spotted the Boston Museum of Science, just across the Charles River. Gabe had been there before, and he had loved it, although he still referred to it, quite seriously, as the "Museum of Silence." Still angry, I managed to say, "Gabe, would you like to go to the museum?'

"Yeah," he said.

We had the museum nearly to ourselves. As we walked through the wonderfully cool exhibition halls, I acknowledged to myself how much I wanted Gabe to be like me. He was supposed to like the baseball game, not for his sake, but for mine, and I had gotten angry at him when he didn't measure up to my expectations. It was those expectations, and not Gabe's actions, that were out of line. And it was those expectations that had to change.

I also thought about the competition between us: what had happened at the ball park was, after all, a battle of wills. He had won. He had stood up for what he thought was right.

We spent three quick hours at the museum, viewing the life-sized tyrannosaurus rex from different angles, trying out the space capsule, making waves and viewing exhibits on everything imaginable. And I was excited.

Son and father, together, had saved the day—he by holding out for something he enjoyed and I by having the sense, finally, to realize that he was right, and to let go of my dream of how things should be.

This time, anyway.

And then I remembered something else. When my own father took me to Yankee Stadium, I was 6 years old, not 4.

Maybe in a couple of years ….