My dad died Tuesday. He was my sports hero and No. 1 reader | Watson
Most of you didn’t know him. But I lost my No. 1 newspaper reader, tomato confidante and baseball fanatic yesterday at 4:56 p.m.
My dad burst on the scene on Jan. 28, 1933 in Wisner, Louisiana, as the fifth of five children. A lefty at the plate with good speed to first base, James Royce Watson had no idea he’d grow up to be a great dad, a mission-minded Christian and my sports hero.
He played running back for the Wisner Bulldogs and was known to pull the hair on the legs of opposing basketball players to get them riled up and kicked out of a game. Not sure if that’s an actual fact, but that’s the way he told it. From the time I was 5 years old, and until I graduated from high school, my dad coached me, my sisters, and the girl who would become my wife, in baseball, softball, basketball or track. Countless hours when he could have been doing something else.
Pops to me, or Poppy to his grands, also spent his holidays taking teenage mission groups to South Louisiana and other regions to build a fence or paint a church. He and my mom continued the work as adults traveling to Mexico with other adults from Broadmoor Baptist in Shreveport or Cook Baptist in Ruston.
Along the way, he was a voracious reader of David Baldacci, Nelson DeMille and John Grisham. We often talked books and the fact he had a “gold card” to the Lincoln Parish Library. He also read every word I’ve ever written that he had access to.
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Dad loved Louisiana Tech baseball with an almost unnatural passion. He talked about the standouts from other eras – George Stone, Mike Jeffcoat, David Segui – and he doted on the new breed of Bulldogs – Taylor Young, Steele Netterville, Jonathan Fincher. He loved listening to voice maestro Dave Nitz call the games when his hip issues kept him from attending games.
When I was a kid, he took the family to games at Houston’s Astrodome where we saw Cesar Cedeno and Pete Rose succeed and fail.
But my dad hated strikeouts, especially when a player took a called third strike.
“With two strikes, you need to be ready and don’t get caught looking. You need to go down swinging,” he’d often say.
Ironically, it was three strikes that ended my dad’s support of Tech baseball and his ability as a master gardener to grow the best tomatoes in the region. A couple of weeks ago, he was diagnosed with AML leukemia and given a short-term future by his doctor. Strike one.
While in LSU Health Ochsner a week or so ago, he was diagnosed with Covid in the middle of the night. Strike two. Then, Monday, he contracted pneumonia at North Louisiana Medical Center and was helicoptered to the critical care ward at Our Lady of the Lake in Baton Rouge. Strike three.
But dad went down swinging. Over the past couple of weeks, he was transported to six different medical facilities without a complaint. All he wanted was an occasional Griff’s hamburger, a Coke and a Snickers. He also wanted me to shave him last week, so I borrowed my wife Emilane’s electric razor and worked it over his face. He lifted his chin, so I could get under his neck.
“The doctor isn’t going to recognize me when he comes in tomorrow,” he joked.
My dad stepped out of the batter’s box on earth for the final time late Tuesday afternoon just a few miles from where he earned his CPA certification at LSU. He may not have reached base on his final at-bat, but heaven gained a lefty it can count on.
Jimmy Watson covers Shreveport-Bossier area sports. Email him at jwatson@shreveporttimes.com and follow him on Twitter @JimmyWatson6.
This article originally appeared on Shreveport Times: Jimmy Watson's father loved baseball, David Baldacci, La Tech Bulldogs
