What’s Better Than Son Playing for Dodgers? When He Doesn’t

This is partly a story about what it’s like to be a father whose son plays major league baseball. For many dads in America, that would be off the charts for personal satisfaction.

It’s also a story about a father’s respect for a son that transcends baseball and has nothing to do with whether he’s a star on the field or not. It’s about a son who knows there’s more to life than home runs and doubles.

“He was really interested in playing, probably from the time he was 3,” Ira Green says of son Shawn, the Dodgers’ right fielder. “I got him one of those little vinyl gloves, and every day [when] I’d come home from work, he’d be on the porch with a tennis ball and his glove and want to play catch. So we started doing things, and he would amaze me.”

I ask if that was the first moment he thought Shawn had “it.”

“I’d say the very first inkling was when he was 10 in Little League,” Green says. “He made the majors [the highest level] as a 10-year-old and led the league in hitting against 11- and 12-year-olds. That was the first glimpse that he had some ability.”

Green talks in that understated fashion of baseball men, which he is. He runs a baseball instructional facility in Santa Ana and played semi-pro ball as a collegian. Sure, he would have loved to have a son who was a ballplayer, but what were the chances--millions to one?

Shawn Green, now 28, beat the odds. He was signed out of Tustin High School in 1991 and is a certified major league star. He’s wrapping up a season in which he already has hit 48 home runs and kept his average around .300.

I ask Ira, 58, if having a kid in the big leagues ever gets old hat. “It never gets old hat,” he says. How high are the highs? Green chuckles and says, “Life is good; business is good. I’m making all kind of sales; money is rolling in.”

But when the Dodgers and Shawn Green are faltering, as they have been lately, things can be downright depressing.

I ask, then, if Ira is enjoying Shawn’s remarkable achievements. “That’s a good question,” Ira says. “Maybe I should be enjoying it more. They say, ‘Enjoy the journey.’ Maybe I’m not enjoying it as much as I should.”

That isn’t to say it isn’t one heck of a ride.

But that’s the baseball part.

I’m talking to Ira Green not just because I want to meet a ballplayer’s father. It’s because the ballplayer is taking today off--in the heat of a pennant race--to observe Yom Kippur.

Shawn Green announced a few weeks ago he wouldn’t be playing today, against the Giants. A star taking himself out of a potentially key game--as it has turned out to be--wasn’t easy.

It only served to make his father prouder than ever.

“I think it’s a real important thing he’s doing,” Ira says. “Just to show respect for his heritage. [My wife and I] are not particularly religious, and he’s not particularly religious--which is probably our fault--but he’s very spiritual, if that makes sense.”

Yom Kippur--the holiest of Jewish holidays--begins at sundown today and runs until sundown Thursday. It is marked by prayer and fasting and contemplation of the past year’s performance--not on the ball field but on the field of life.

“It was his decision, all the way,” Ira says. “If he had played, I probably would have been disappointed, so I’m obviously proud.”

Ira says the family, which includes a daughter, Lisa, who is two years older than Shawn, probably will meet for a meal before fasting begins. He says he and Shawn will probably watch the Dodger-Giant game on TV.

We spend the better part of an hour talking about the Shawn Green of many years ago--the young boy on his way to becoming a big-leaguer. Ira recalls counseling him not to cry when he struck out in Little League, about respecting his opponents and on how to conduct himself on and off the field.

At the same time, Ira says, Shawn’s mother imbued in him “a sense for feelings and people” that both parents now see flowering.

“What’s he able to do with his money and his fame?” Ira says. “Can he do good with it? I’m sure he’s going to do good things. He’s already doing that. He’s putting things in motion to help people that he doesn’t want a lot of notoriety for.”

I wonder if those traits are as obvious early on as the ability to throw and catch a ball. “Are you asking if I could see some of the personality things?” Ira says. “Yes, I could. Let’s just say there are a lot of good people in this country that, given the opportunity, would do the same thing. They have the same values and moral foundation. And Shawn has that. He’s just another one of the good guys. I think there are millions of them out there.”

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821; by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626; or by e-mail at dana.parsons@latimes.com.