(Kathy Gardner/The Journal News)

Obviously, Parents Place is a general parenting blog, with capable dads AND moms in the mix. So, we’re more inclusive and take a wider view of parenting.

But I’ve always felt that there’s a need out here for more of a voice from fathers, whether it’s dads in traditional homes like my co-bloggers Jon and Len, or myself,  a father building a blended family. So it’s reassuring to see a list like this out there, especially with more dads involved in hands-on parenting.

And remember, there’s no shortage of good dad blogs on our blogroll, including Crazy Computer Dad and David Mott’s Dad’s House.

Here’s the catch: My son wants to go with just me and his mom — the former family unit.

I have some mixed feelings on this, and it makes for some awkwardness. I’ve always felt fortunate that my ex and I were able to maintain a friendship, and that we are all able to get along. My girlfriend and I had my ex and her husband over for Christmas Eve dinner (it’s a feast we call Noche Buena in Cuban culture, and it’s a big deal for us), and I had Easter brunch with my ex, her family and her husband last month. As I’ve blogged before, we all went trick-or-treating together last year as well.

To be fair, I can see how my son might simply view an outing to a Yankee game as an extension of the friendship his mom and I maintain. But at the same time, I feel like excluding his mom’s husband and his dad’s new partner is a sign that he may be clinging to something. Obviously, he wouldn’t be the first child to want his parents together, even if it is just for a baseball game.

But are we letting him mislead himself if we go along? Or is it just his wish to have an outing with his parents?

Or am I just making too much out of it?

The people who run the Yankees and the Mets are smart people, so how they came up with these schemes is beyond me. Baseball draws more people every year, while New York City and its suburbs are growing. So what do our baseball teams (with the approval of New York City and state officials) do? They shrink the size of the ball parks.

The new Yankee Stadium will hold about 52,000, down from the current 57,500. The Mets’ new Citi Field will hold 44,000 people compared with Shea Stadium’s 55,700. This is a bad for baseball fans and terrible for parents, kids and grandparents, too.

A baseball stadium is a place where lasting family memories are made. I won’t forget the first time my father took me to the stadium in the Bronx one sweltering August night when I was seven. The Yankees beat the Kansas City Athletics 4-0 in a game that didn’t last two hours. And then there was the first game I took my oldest son to: He chanted “Let’s Go Mets” so loud I feared he had been permanently imprinted a fan of the city’s National League team rather than the Yankees.

Not only will these ball parks have fewer seats, but the ticket prices will be shocking. If you are planning a game or two next year, start saving up by skipping lunch now. A low-cost ticket will go for about  the price of Broadway show ticket.  A top-priced field-level seat at Yankee Stadium will cost $2,500,  about the price of a used car. Ouch.

Don’t get me wrong. The new ball parks look beautiful, especially Citi Field. They will be better places to watch games – much better than the upper deck seats at Shea. Pilots landing at LaGuardia are closer to home plate than my seat near the foul pole a few years ago.

Yankees Chief Operating Officer Lonn Trost recently told our sport writer Sam Borden that the new stadium could have had more seats, but they would have been further from the field. “We didn’t want to do that. We wanted to make sure that each fan had a great view and could truly enjoy the new park as much as possible.”

No disrespect meant, Mr. Trost, but Yankees fans – and Mets fans, too – won’t be able to enjoy their new stadiums if there are too few seats and if the tickets are priced far beyond their means.

Do you think you’ll take your kids to see the Yankees or the Mets as often in their new stadiums? Do you remember first game with a parent, or with your own child? If so, tell us about your memories.

Well, tonight I heard former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell announce his long-awaited report on performance-enhancing drug use in major league baseball. The debate on this will go on for some time, and the report will be discredited by some, over-hyped by others.

But what hit me most about all this was the call I got in the midst of Mitchell’s press conference today. It was my son. He was watching at his mom’s house and couldn’t believe that some familiar names from his beloved Yankees were named.

Now, the rest of us will debate that list and the players on it for months and years to come. We’ll go on at the water cooler at work about Mitchell’s Boston ties and the high percentage of current and former New York players on this list—along with the lack of ties to the Red Sox. We’ll comment on how most of the players named were on the steroid radar anyway. We’ll speculate on the names that should be there but weren’t. We’ll even defend a player or two on the list, primarily if they play for our team.

But the bottom line is that a kid’s heart was broken today, and that just sucks.

Now, I love that he’s an avid reader, with a particular attraction to non-fiction and “fact books” like encyclopedias and atlases. He’s also read a number of childrens’ series, including Dan Gutman’s series of baseball biographies. When he was younger, he also read an abridged version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain and enjoyed it.

But I think there’s great value for a child to read classic literature, and I’ve been nudging him and his mom for months to get him to try out some of those. Last week, he started to read Stephen Crane’s Red Badge of Courage, which I thought would tap into his interests in American history. Here’s the short follow-up list I put together for him:

• Call of the Wild by Jack London

• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

• Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne

I figure that’s a short enough list, and I’m waiting to assess how he does with Crane. I’d also like to hear some other suggestions out there, particularly from parents who have older children. Let me know.

This is a little irregular, but I ask the indulgence of Parents’ Place readers. What follows is of urgent importance for a group of deserving children and for the newest member of Westchester’s unemployed.

Dear Mr. Torre,

Now, for the purpose of this posting: I read of your interest in exploring future employment. As a board member for the youth council of an area church, I am prepared to offer you the job of manager/president of our baseball program.

 I am not at liberty to identify the organization because this is not a formal offer – that must wait until the youth council’s next meeting in November. I am confident, however, that we can offer you a salary somewhere in the high two figures. This would be a multi-year contract and it would be negotiable, thereby addressing two of the concerns you raised at your press conference on Friday. Furthermore, our contract would not include insulting incentive features. 

We also are offering Don Zimmer the chance to resume his duties as your bench coach. And since several of your coaches also could soon find themselves unemployed, we are offering the position of pitching coach to Ron Guidry and appropriate coaching jobs to the others. (We don’t have a budget line for their salaries, but if you chose to share some of yours with any or all of them, that’s fine with us.)

To provide a Major League Baseball amenity, the youth council purchaser already has picked up a 10-gallon vat of sunflower seeds at Costco. One caveat: We do have a strictly enforced no-spitting rule on the field and on the bench.

As a sign of my sincerity, I point to a profile of you that I wrote several years back. I held up to public ridicule a Daily News headline that had scoffed at your hiring, calling you “Clueless Joe.â€?  In that same report, I referred disdainfully to similarly misguided comments by the then-sports columnist for this publication. He remained nameless then only because it didn’t seem wise to pick a fight with my employer, a position with which I’m sure you can sympathize.

Finally – and I hope this is not out of line - once you join our organization, would it be possible to bring along some Bigelow teabags, especially for those chilly early spring practices? We will supply the hot water.

Len Maniace,

Director,
St. xxxx of xxx Youth Council

Attention Harrison residents: I need your help. Since recent events are likely to have disrupted Mr. Torre’s reading routine, he might miss this job offer. If you see Mr.Torre out raking leaves or at the supermarket, tell him about this opportunity. Thanks for your help.

Now, my son is not an avid athlete, but does love to play baseball. As a fan, he roots for the Yanks and the football Jets, largely because his mom and dad do. And as an avid fan myself, sharing the game is a strong bonding tool with my son. It brings me back to baseball championships from when I was a kid, an experience that provided one of the few bonding times with my own father. So, naturally, I want to share the experience with my son as well.

This year, we’ll catch a break in the first round of playoffs, the division series, which begin today. Of the 20 potential games in those four series, 12 start at 6:30 p.m. or earlier. All of the scheduled Yankees games — our rooting interest — are at 6:30 or earlier.

But by the time the World Series rolls around, all scheduled seven games are slotted for nighttime. My 9-year-old will be lucky to catch the end of the fifth inning. We all know the why: There’s advertising dollars at stake, so the games cater to TV.

But it would be nice if someone in Major League Baseball threw us parents a bone sometime.

September is to the school year, what spring training is to baseball. It’s that brief time when all is fresh and promising. There’s plenty of time for reality later; It’s called the second semester.  

Last night, I went to curriculum night at the school attended by my two sons -  eighth and 12th graders. Curriculum night is when parents get a look at their kids’ courses and any major changes at the school.

The courses look improved. For instance, my youngest son’s history class starts up with the American West, includes the progressive era, World War I, World War II, the Civil Rights era and Vietnam. Pretty timely, since only a couple of weeks ago my youngest son asked me about World War I and how it started. Well the Archduke Ferdinand was assasinated,  but I recall there was a lot more to it. It was sort of like a  run-away train that no one could stop, but I’m not sure that made a lot of sense. Maybe in a few months he’ll be able to explain it to me. 

The teachers look promising, too. One excellent math teacher who had planned to leave is back for another year, and a couple of rookie teachers look like potential stars. Even the PTA seems energized.

And then there’s the final piece in the puzzle - my kids. So far so good. They haven’t failed any tests; Haven’t been late for school; And they’ve turned in the few simple homework assignments they’ve had.

I’ve seen the start of a lot of school years; this one looks special.

What were they thinking at Major League Baseball, ESPN, or whoever makes these decisions? You figure the two hours they had scheduled for Home Run Derby should have been enough time for what is supposed to be a simple and fun-side show to this evening’s All-Star Game. But like much of American sports, the Home Run Derby has become as bloated as a steroid-using slugger. And though Burning is a movie about baseball and not baseball, last night’s delay reminded of how baseball in general seems to be turning its back on kids and families. The biggest complaint I hear from people with kids is that so much of post-season baseball takes place at night, too late for younger children to watch. But somehow, Major League Basebal continues to get away with this family-friendly image.

So how late do you think tonight’s All-Star game will go? I’m betting 12:10 a.m. – unless it goes extra innings. No more bets after 9 p.m., please.

What has helped fuel this latest fad is a children’s author “named Mike Venezia”:http://www.mikevenezia.com/mikevenezia who publishes a series of biographies that are fun, quick and informative. Venezia has focused in particular on composers, artists and presidents. I’d recommend them, even if they aren’t the only biographies out there. I find that kids are drawn to the idea of “a series” or “a collection” of things, be they books, cards, toys, etc. It has been a factor in this case. I’m sure there are other examples.

Either way, I find it’s valuable to encourage whatever your child takes an interest in, and take time to turn it into something more concrete. Make it into shared experiences. For instance, this weekend we took a trip to “Union Church”:http://www.hudsonvalley.org/unionchurch/index.htm in Pocantico Hills, which, as most of you know, features stained glass windows by Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall. The Matisse window didn’t replace “The Red Studio” as a favorite, but the visit was a hit, even if the folks at the church didn’t entirely know what to make of this half-pint kid who actually seemed to want to know more about the artwork.

Of course, I’m immensely proud of my boy. Not that I wouldn’t mind a Derek Jeter or Mickey Mantle comment here and there, but I am proud that he has taken a keen interest in history, and lately in art and music history. Both his mom and I have gone through great lengths to encourage him in whatever his interests are and have been, including in his own musical tastes. (Green Day was great; My Chemical Romance took some getting used to).

This is what parenting should be about. As in all things, it’s not always so obvious. I think we all know parents who push their kids in a different direction: Whether it be towards sports, towards books, whatever. And while I try to mix it up — we push for outdoor activities when the weather is beautiful — we let him dictate the activity when our weekends are coming up.

And I’m not giving up on Jeter and Mantle just yet. Truth is my boy could always hit, and he’s taken a keen interest in classic baseball movies of late: We watched Eight Men Out and The Natural this past weekend. Next weekend we’re going to get out there and practice some Roy Hobbs moves. We’ll take a Pablo Picasso biography along just in case.

It’s an amazing scene: a circular lattice of steel rising from the parking lot and above that, six concrete towers with strange window-like openings. They looked like abandoned apartment buildings from an apocalyptic nightmare. I took photos with my cell phone and would have posted one right here – X – had I remembered to save them.

My older son and I recalled his first baseball game: a school trip to see the Mets that I also attended. At one point in that game many years ago, D joined with the crowd chanting “Let’s go Mets.â€? I smiled but immediately asked myself if I hadn’t made a big mistake. A Yankees fan from the womb, I wondered if D right then and there would be imprinted forever as a Mets fan. D, who is 17 now, laughed at that story. Both my sons are fans of the Yankees.

Later, I raised the possibility with my younger son that he might one day take a son to a game at Citi Field. Then he could tell the tale of how he and his father sat in the old ballpark and saw Citi Field being built. My son, N, who is 12, thought that was cool, and so did I.

I remember my father taking me to my first game when I was 7. Art Ditmar pitched the Yankees to a 4-0 win over the Kansas City Athletics in the Bronx that summer night. I’ll have to ask my father if he remembers it, too.