For several, hot nights on a Jersey beach during our family vacation in July, '88, we tossed the baseball after dinner. Dad was trying to teach me how to throw a curveball, with hopes of using it as a pitcher during my upcoming senior year of high school. Night after painful night, he laboriously tried to show me how to make the ball change direction with topspin. But, for four straight nights until it got dark, none of my throws did anything but go straight.
Then, on the last night, with the sun down and darkness setting in, my frustrated father received quite a pleasant surprise. I delivered a pitch that started out like all the other (hundred or so) ones, but then took a sharp turn downward into the sand. The "curveball" I had finally hurled bounced off the sand and directly into Dad's shin! Immediately, blood began to squirt out from his tired, sandy leg. We both rushed down to the ocean to wash it off, and danced in the knee-deep water, celebrating this monumental feat.
Two weeks later, my father, George W. Shaffer, Jr., died of a sudden and severe heart attack. For our family, who had never had to deal with any kind of tragedy to that point, it was a crushing blow. In time, however, I would come to appreciate the seventeen years that I had had with my father, rather than dwell on all that I would miss without him. I still miss him but feel enormously blessed to have had such a great man as my mentor, role model, educator, cheerleader, friend, and father. He formed me in so many ways, but mainly to be a good man who loves God and neighbor. His love for me as my earthly father has helped me so much to know the infinite love of my heavenly Father. For that, Dad, I am eternally grateful to you.
In the summer of '01, I took the mound in a (DC men's league) baseball game for the first time since sophomore year of high school; I didn't pitch my senior year because of the emotional strain it would have caused. In the first inning, the catcher gave me the sign to throw a curveball. Taking a deep breath with immediate thoughts of my Dad on the Jersey beach, I reared back and tossed an impressive pitch that curved about a foot just as it approached the batter. Strike three, inning over. Thanks, Dad! Over the course of the next seven innings, I threw a constant supply of fastballs and curveballs that fooled the opposing hitters and brought our team a victory. One of my teammates said later, "I have a message from your Dad: 'Good job, son. I was with you all the way'".
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