Come to think of it, every day yields a Father's Day memory

My Dad's been gone 20 years now. Yet I've been thinking about him a lot lately. Not just because of Father's Day. That's just the irony of timing.

No, it's just that almost everything happening around me recently ends up with me thinking about Dad.

We've been cleaning out closets and drawers at my house, trying to get the old abode ready to go on the market and move on with life. It's ended up taking me on a sentimental journey backward.

Sorting through random boxes and drawers, I continue to come across items passed down to me from Dad. Tie clasps and tie tacks. Somehow I never inherited that tendency, certainly not with his penchant for flyrods, racehorses and fishing tackle.

A bunch of his old ties also made their way from the far recesses of my mind and closet to the back door of Goodwill. Steeped in sentiment or not, I could never picture myself wearing those old wide, double-knit ties or even the silk ones with those dated earth tones and heavy diagonal designs.

Meanwhile, I needed to shoot a couple publicity photos recently for the current Playhouse production of the musical "Guys and Dolls," which just happened to be my Dad's favorite play.

The lyric "I've got a horse right here, the name is Paul Revere," as sung by the racetrack touts, put a lump in my throat I'll admit.

I'm going to see "Guys and Dolls" Saturday night, albeit with some more striking company to distract me, but I'm sure the play, the lyrics and the advent of Father's Day will have my Dad squarely on my mind nonetheless.

Really though, it's fishing and baseball that make me think of Dad the most.

Baseball icon Don Zimmer died the other day, and when I heard about it, I suddenly felt like I was 12 again and wanted to call Dad at his office to relay the news (see, even then that was a compulsion of mine).

Of course, that being impossible I couldn't help but contemplate his response regardless. After all, a few years back (OK, more than a few), right after the Chicago Cubs won their division with Zimmer as manager in 1989, I had the pleasure of interviewing the baseball legend during a Cubs Caravan visit to Indianapolis.

Newspapers had photographers back in the day -- which, incidentally was before people said "back in the day" -- and our own Gary Goodman took a picture of me talking with "Zim."

My hand and arm were outstretched at that precise moment, like I was imploring him to do something. I always told everyone I was trying to convince him to let me play third base for the Cubs that next season.

Proudly I sent a copy of that photo to my Dad, and when I called later to see if he'd gotten it, he responded with something like, "Oh yea, you and that blankety-blank that likes to call for a squeeze (bunt) with the bases loaded."

Yep, him. You have to understand, Dad and I always differed a bit on our baseball perspective.

He and his dad both played a little semi-pro ball and thought I would take it to the next level. Of course, when I didn't, it wasn't about not being good enough. And when I hurt my pitching arm, it wasn't from overuse or trying too hard, it was from throwing too many snowballs and whiffleballs -- at least in my Dad's mind.

There's a scene in the Billy Crystal comedy flick "City Slickers" that encompasses the father-son relationship that found us disagreeing on things like Muhammad Ali, the Kennedys, the length of my hair, when I should mow the grass and how serious I was with my girlfriend at the time.

Father knows best? I never really bought that until I became one.

The movie's Daniel Stern character, in a midst of a baseball discussion with Crystal and Bruno Kirby, explains gratefully that he and his father always had baseball to fall back on.

"When I was about 18 and my dad and I couldn't communicate about anything at all, we could still talk about baseball," Stern says. "That was real."

Man, I do miss those conversations. And even after 20 years, I miss my Dad.

Believe me, it's just not the same. Not even when you say ...

Happy Father's Day.