According to this article from espn.com (8/26/10), fifty-one year-old Tom Morrison took a long, 29-hour train ride last week from his home in Louisiana to New York City. This would be a long trip for anyone, but for Tom, it was probably even harder. You see, despite being an active chief petty officer in the Coast Guard, Tom was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer in April and has spent most of his summer in a Louisiana hospital. On his doctors’ advice, he is prevented from flying, but not even cancer, or all the radiation and chemotherapy he’s been through, can stop him from sitting in the stands at Citi Field to watch his son, Logan, play big league ball.
On Wednesday night, August 26, 2010–his twenty-third pirthday–Logan Morrison, the rookie outfielder for the Florida Marlins, singled twice, tripled and scored two runs in the Marlins’ 5-4 victory. And, despite all the obstacles, his father was right there for all of it.
Logan was quoted last week as saying, “Baseball has kind of brought the family together,” and “He’s the reason I’m here,” while his father commented that watching his son was “probably the best recreation I have,” and “I made him wave at me.”
Tom, who apparently played college football at Kansas, is said to watch Logan’s games on his computer when he’s at home and is planning to go to Florida for the Marlins’ final series of the season early next month. He says he wants to spend his remaining time on Earth attending all of Logan’s games in person after obtaining a special all-inclusive train ticket that would take him from city to city.
While this is probably a birthday that Logan Morrison will remember for a long time to come, it is the special relationship he has with his father, Tom, that made last Wednesday night and so special. Logan credits his father for influencing his “all-out style of play and perfectionist personality” and notes that “Anytime he’s in the stands I kick it up a little bit.”
In a culture that sometimes forgets how important that fathers are in the lives of even their grown children, it’s nice to see that a Major League baseball player like Logan Morrison understands how much they need their dads.