A Death in the Family

I'm not much of one for reading memoirs, biographies, or autobiographies. Non-fiction, murder mysteries and police procedurals tend to make the night stand.

But years and years ago, I did read Molly O'Neill's 2006 memoir of growing up with her five brothers, one of whom was playing right field for the New York Yankees, Paul O'Neill.

In the '90's I always saw Molly's byline in the New York Times, writing about food. Then, perhaps as an excerpt from her book, or just an article, she wrote about sports in her family. The piece appeared in the Sports section of the Times, and was so well read that readers expressed interest that Molly be reassigned to the sports beat.

Of course Molly became a famous food writer,restaurant owner and chef. She wrote cook books and ran cooking schools. Her writing was compared to the giants of the genre. She has now passed away at 66.

Anyone who ever followed the Yankees in the '90's and early '00's knows that Paul O'Neill was a major contributor to the Yankees' four World Series titles. The cover of the book is a clue that even though there aren't as many O'Neills as there were Gilbreth's of  'Cheaper by the Dozen', you know you're going to read a heart warming tale of a family coming of age.

The O'Neill family was headed by a father who had been a minor league player who was running an excavation business. Thus, the family photo of Molly and her five coltish brothers—all skinny arms and legs—loaded into a front loader. It speaks volumes.

Dad wanted a baseball team, and after Molly, he got five male youngsters he could put through the paces. He built a baseball diamond on the property. How could he miss grooming a professional player? And of course he did.

Molly, the oldest, was mom's lieutenant. And Paul was the youngest, the baby of the brood, who always gets more attention than the others. Molly tells of the family's devotion to following Paul as he played for the Yankees. In the pre-Internet, cellphone era, they made sure they had a radio handy to listen to Yankee games.

The one aspect of the book that to me was the most endearing was the story of the neighbor who returned all the baseballs that had been blasted onto his property (mostly by Paul) when the family moved. He made a point of coming over with an arm full of hard balls and wishing the family well on their departure from the neighborhood.

I still laugh at this because in my garage is a small collection of baseballs, softballs, and tennis balls I've found nestled in the shrubs, or ivy that I never tried to find who they belonged to. Our property in Long Island suburbia is not anything large enough to be next to a homemade baseball diamond, and if a ball was visible, I did throw it back over the fence as it landed. But the ones I've found otherwise are stacked in the garage.

All I know is, a young Paul O'Neill didn't whack them over the fence.

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