When arguing was a sport
His father and grandfather disagreed, but were never disagreeable.
By Thomas Leibrandt
Although an ardent supporter of the old Philadelphia Athletics since boyhood, my father never rooted for them again after they left town for Kansas City. Instead, he transferred his allegiance to another American League team, the Yankees.
The National League was soundly defended by my grandfather, my mother's father, who lived with us. Grandpop was a rabid Phillies fan, even in some of the bleak years of the '50s and '60s. Although the American and National League teams didn't play each other during the regular season in those days, those two were at odds throughout every All-Star Game and World Series. My father would eventually come to embrace the Phillies as his favorite baseball team, but my grandfather had been dead for several years by then.
Their differences of opinion didn't stop with baseball. These two men, both of whom were native Philadelphians, shared the same religion, the same ethnic heritage, and even the same house, never cheered for the same team or voted for the same candidate.
A traditionalist who believed baseball was the only true national pastime, my grandfather never warmed to professional football. Maybe that's why my father embraced it. Dad told me stories of an unstoppable running back he'd seen named Steve Van Buren. As a boy, I saw my first year as a full-fledged Eagles fan during the 1960 World Championship year. (Although if you really think about it, it's been downhill since then.) My grandfather chose inexplicably to support the Giants when they played the Birds that year.
Politics? My father was an ardent Republican; my grandfather, a diehard Democrat. Each voted and viewed the country's progress, or lack thereof, strictly along party lines.
Dad was management; Grandpop, a retired railroad engineer, was, of course, fiercely pro-labor and pro-union. They even worked for competing railroads: My father, like his father before him, worked for the Reading Railroad, and my grandfather, the Pennsylvania Railroad.
National League/American League, Kennedy/Nixon, steam locomotives/diesel engines, and both sides of every political dispute: We heard them dissected every evening in excruciating detail. Each analyzed, rebutted, and lampooned the other's arguments. But though those discussions were certainly heartfelt and often loud on both their parts, they were never profane, uncivil, vindictive or personal.
In some ways, it was like a nightly McLaughlin Group, without the moderator or the arrogance, but with only two participants. It became a rite of passage in my house when you became old enough to realize that you had the power to actually start the argument. "Hey, Grandpop, did you hear about . . . ?" My mother would come sailing into the room, casting a withering stare at whomever she suspected was the instigator as she scrambled to close the windows so the neighbors couldn't hear.
There is a photo of which my grandfather was justifiably proud, him standing next to his steam engine on the day he retired, surrounded by Pennsylvania Railroad officials. Everyone in the family believed this turnout was in recognition of his 50 years of hard work and exemplary service. I don't think anyone, especially my grandfather, ever realized that my father had quietly arranged for the photo by calling his counterpart at the Pennsylvania Railroad after Dad had found out that nothing had been planned to celebrate the old engineer's last day on the job.
Me? I root for the Phillies, though less fanatically than my grandfather. My father was right about football, though. It has really become our national pastime and I'm still waiting and hoping for the Eagles to accomplish again what they did in 1960. As for politics, I learned at an early age to examine both sides of any issue, and if you look at it just right, it can be downright entertaining.