Opportunity Isn’t a Stick in the Eye : Some lessons learned at the knee don’t fade away.

My father died last Friday. On the same day, the Los Angeles Dodgers signed my younger brother Casey to a triple-A contract with the option to play in the major leagues with what are euphemistically called “replacement” players. In a less genteel but more honest world they would be given their rightful name: scabs. My father is rolling over, even though he’s not yet in his grave.

Dad was an old-fashioned union man and a solid Democrat. But he was a Democrat of the old school, an F.D.R. man who embraced a philosophy that has been thoroughly repudiated by the avatars of a new and not-so-improved version of a once-proud party. He essentially felt that the first thing any President should do upon entering office is to put people to work, not immediately attempt to make gays feel more comfortable in the armed services.

And his union was not, as many people feel, just a necessary evil. It was an institution that helped people like him advance as a group. His social calculus was fairly direct. No union, no sick pay. No union, no vacations. No union, no chance at college for his kids.

That’s why I wish he could have held out a few more days. I would have called him to let him know about the great “opportunity” the Dodgers were giving Casey to cross a picket line. I can hear his sardonic laughter and probable response. “That’s like giving someone the opportunity to poke themselves in the eye with a sharp stick.”

He never embraced any political isms, like those I was exposed to in college. His formal education stopped at the seventh grade, long before exposure to subtleties of labor history or how socialism was going to save the working class. But his education lasted long enough for him to learn the meaning of dignity. If there was one rule that was inviolate in our household, it was “never cross a picket line or take another person’s job.” Anyone with a minimum of dignity and self-respect simply would not engage in that kind of behavior. It wasn’t “don’t cross a picket line unless the workers are making good money.” Just don’t do it.

There are five boys in our family. That family was the primary means of our socialization, our first contact with a world beyond our individual selves. For good or ill, all of us “boys” were indoctrinated to respect working people and to treat others as equals until they proved themselves unworthy of those egalitarian impulses. The family was where enduring principles and values were passed along.

Casey was the only one of us talented and driven enough to make it to the big leagues. He’s played seven years with Montreal and Houston, gaining a reputation as a team player, a guy who would run through a fence to catch a ball.

My father never found out that Casey became a Dodger, but I believe it would have made him happy. I grew up in Lompoc, three hours north of Los Angeles, and the Dodgers were our team. On the rare occasion when we drove down to watch Koufax or Drysdale, we always stayed after the game to roam the parking lot for autographs, even though it meant we wouldn’t get home until the early morning. No arriving in the third and leaving in the seventh for us.

Imagine if our father could have seen Casey in Dodger blue: his son, a blue-collar player joining a franchise remembered as a winner when they had teams of guys like Casey, tough and scrappy. “No prima donnas,” he would say, just a bunch of players with hustle and guts.

I remember his words and embrace his legacy, even on this day when everything feels like it’s dying: baseball, the union movement, family and basic values. All that was once-sacred is being profaned. To remember everything may be a form of madness, but remembering the values he gave me is a gift of liberation.

As for the Dodgers’ offer of the “opportunity” to play in the major leagues as a “replacement” player, Casey told them politely that he would not tarnish his father’s memory in that way. He remembered our dad’s words well.