Keeping the streak alive: A father, a son and a holy game of catch
By Zack Meisel Nov 26, 2020 15
CLEVELAND — In mid-September, the Indians learned they would be entering a playoff bubble, and Mike Chernoff panicked.
The newest hurdle, perhaps the most daunting in the 33-year history of his monthly games of catch with his father, was a last-minute, league-mandated quarantine. Mike was bound for a downtown Cleveland hotel room, with no access to the outside world aside from his daily trek down the street to Progressive Field.
So, the 39-year-old Indians general manager grabbed his glove — the same one he used when he played shortstop at Princeton two decades ago — hopped in his car and meandered three-and-a-half hours along the Pennsylvania turnpike until he reached a familiar parking lot in a small town dubbed Snow Shoe.
During the long journey, he participated in conference calls and Zoom meetings on his phone. His parents met him at about 11:30 a.m. He and his dad, Mark, now in his late 60s, played catch for a half-hour, completing their obligatory tosses and catching up on the chaos of Cleveland’s postseason chase and the pandemic-related complications that accompanied it.
At noon, Mike returned to his vehicle, joined a Zoom call that included commissioner Rob Manfred and headed back to Northeast Ohio.
“We had to keep it alive,” Mike said.
Their streak dates back to 1987, when a 6-year-old Mike agreed to his dad’s proposal to commit to at least one casual game of catch per month, even during the snowy and sun-deprived New Jersey winters.
There have been close calls, such as the time Mike’s flight home was delayed on the final day of the month. His mom, Sally, identified a Whole Foods parking lot near Millburn, N.J., about halfway between Newark Airport and their residence. They tossed the baseball on the pavement, under the lights, just before midnight — and just before the calendar flipped to the next month and halted their streak.
“That’s the closest we’ve ever cut it,” Mike said.
The pandemic has thrown them a few curveballs, too. They initially had concerns that safety precautions and travel regulations might keep them apart and pause the tradition. But they have preserved it for about 400 consecutive months, so they know how to get creative and make adjustments.
When Mike was young, they would bundle up and stand in the street in their quiet neighborhood in the heart of winter. His parents still live in the same house, so when Mike visits, neighbors marvel at that well-known sight.
“It’s just casual conversation and it’s the best time ever with my dad,” Mike said. “We talk about everything or we talk about nothing.”
If they didn’t play catch on their street, they would head to a local field. In the winter, they cleared snow off the basketball court or they used the baseball diamond, even though the frozen infield was as hard as concrete.
In addition to their self-mandated minimum of 25 throws apiece, Mark mixes in some grounders and popups.
“I’m 39 years old and still taking those,” Mike said, laughing. “I’m such a dork.”
Mark, the longtime boss at WFAN, a New York City sports talk radio station, has purposefully incorporated a two-hour layover in Cleveland on flights to Chicago so they could cross off a catch in the airport parking lot.
“My wife and my mom think that we’re completely nuts,” Mike said. “At the same time, they’re both incredibly supportive and help us facilitate it every time. It would be easy to break this all the time. He has a crazy schedule at work. I have a crazy schedule at work. But that’s part of why it’s so important for us to keep this alive.”
Mike’s parents visited Cleveland in late February and early March, when Mike returned home for a brief reprieve from spring training. Then, the pandemic arrived and MLB suspended operations.
For the first few months, father and son met about halfway at a truck stop in Snow Shoe. Mike quickly learned the location of every poor cellphone-service spot along I-80. They played catch while wearing nitrile gloves and masks. The social distancing part was easy, of course.
“People are staring at us from the gas station across the street,” Mike said, “like, ‘What is going on?’”
Indians general manager Mike Chernoff. (Kyle Terada / USA Today)
In August, Mike’s wife, Sarah, discovered Stern Family Field, a pristine venue in Dubois, Pa., about two and a half hours from their home — and, perhaps more significant, close enough to require only one bathroom stop for their three kids. They leave at about 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning, meet up with Mike’s parents for a couple of hours of catch and batting and fielding practice, then head back home.
And if there’s rain in the forecast?
“Doesn’t matter,” Mike said. “We just do it.”
They have played catch in sunshine, in rain, during the depths of winter and in a parking alcove for mail trucks behind Grand Central Station in Manhattan before dawn in several feet of snow with one of them battling a stomach virus and with temperatures struggling to escape single digits.
“People were saying, ‘Who are these two nutcases out here?’” Mark said.
Mike and his family were once in Philadelphia and Mark and his wife made the drive so they could knock out a catch in an alleyway. Mark once visited his son at Princeton on Halloween, their last chance to squeeze in an October catch. After their session, it started to snow, and Mark’s hourlong drive home morphed into a five-hour, nightmarish commute.
Mike has worked in the Indians front office since landing an internship in the team’s baseball operations department out of college in the summer of 2003. How would the talent evaluator assess his own ability while manning shortstop at Princeton?
“Great on-field leadership. Cut out for a front office,” he said. “Slow feet. I had decent hands. That was the one thing I had, decent hands. I had a good eye at the plate, so I could get on base. I maximized my value. I had zero power, zero speed, very little athleticism. But I was a hell of a teammate.”
His scouting report on his dad is far less critical.
“Super consistent,” Mike said. “And he’s super resilient. Never injured. Can throw, like, 1,000 pitches and not get hurt, but it comes in as a straight meatball. Not a lot of velocity, great command.”
Mark said he always felt that he had a “rubber arm.”
“If I was throwing Shane Bieber fastballs,” he said, “I don’t think my arm would last. But he’s throwing 95, and I’m throwing 60.”
Mike knows a proficient pitcher when he sees one. Not just because he’s the GM of an organization that churns out Cy Young Award winners by the hour, but early in his Cleveland tenure, Mike once caught a CC Sabathia bullpen session during a road trip. His games of catch with his father involve much less anxiety.
They have played catch at Progressive Field and on vacant diamonds at the team’s complex in Goodyear, Ariz. They played catch last year at Yankee Stadium, even though security initially scoffed at the idea before ultimately instructing them to stay in foul territory.
“There’s a silliness to it now,” Mike said. “Whether we do it on Oct. 31 or Nov. 1 shouldn’t matter. But we don’t want to break it because it has kept us so consistently close. Part of us, we’re fearful — if we just give in, that that’ll turn into two months, then three months. Especially during the pandemic. It ensures at least once a month, we see each other.”
The families won’t be reuniting for Thanksgiving dinner this year, so they instead gathered at the field in Dubois last weekend for an expanded version of the monthly catch game. They had weeks to plan the Saturday session. Sometimes, as was the case in September, the schedule is less forgiving. But as long as they find a way to incorporate 25 tosses and some face-to-face conversation, that’s all that matters.
“That half-hour of time is worth an entire day of travel,” Mike said, “if that’s what it takes.”
