Father’s Day at the ballpark special for Cedar Rapids Kernels manager

CEDAR RAPIDS - It’s about a half-hour after the game, and Cedar Rapids Kernels Manager Brian Meyer heads out of the home clubhouse at Veterans Memorial Stadium to The Annex, the building adjacent to the stadium that houses the club’s video room, weight room and family room.

There are multiple hitting cages in there as well, and that’s the purpose of Meyer’s postgame visit. He’s going to throw some batting practice to his six-year-old son Walker.

It is their ritual.

“We don’t ever force anything on him, wanting him to practice or anything,” Meyer said. “He’s always dragging me out there. In Fort Myers, when it’s 1,000 degrees out, and we had our Monday off days, he’s asking if we can go to the ballpark close to our house. This is when he’s two years old. He’s asking if we can go to the field and mess around for a couple of hours.”

Sunday was Father’s Day, of course, and that his boy was with him on this day meant the world to Meyer. Because it doesn’t always work that way in professional baseball.

Especially in the minor leagues, families get separated. Guys spend a month and a half in spring training in Florida or Arizona, then head to whatever city they have been assigned.

Wives and children many times remain home, the children in school and the wife working. Meyer’s wife, Ashley, and Walker just recently came to town for the rest of the summer.

The Meyers are living with a local billet family. Walker threw out a ceremonial first pitch to his dad Sunday.

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“It’s very much a blessing,” said Brian Meyer, whose team lost to Peoria, 4-3. “I was reading an article in The Athletic yesterday about how families navigate kids, between spring training, being away for the season. Like school work and all that. It was about how families kind of try and navigate that.”

It was easy for Meyer the past four years because his family lives year around in the Fort Myers, Fla., area, and he was manager of the low-Class A Fort Myers Mighty Mussels. This season provided more of a challenge personally.

Ashley Meyer can work remotely, which is good. Walker’s first-grade year is over, so everyone is back together.

Oh, and has it been mentioned exactly how much Walker Meyer loves baseball?

He comes to Kernels games in full uniform, sunglasses generally perched on top of his cap just like the players. He scurries to the field after wins and gets in the postgame high-five line with everyone.

Brian has all kinds of baseball-related photos of him attached to the walls in the manager’s office, including one where he is sitting on the bench with the rest of the team during a spring training game in Florida.

“He doesn’t know it right now how good he has it. He doesn’t,” Brian Meyer said. “But hopefully one day he’ll come to appreciate it. Just the way that he gets treated by players and front office, whether it’s here or whether it was the Mussels. He’s been extended family.”

Meyer said he told his son Friday that outfielder Maddux Houghton was joining the Kernels from Triple-A Saint Paul. Houghton played in Fort Myers, and Walker loves him.

“You should have seen his eyes light up. Maddux is his favorite guy,” Meyer said with a laugh. “He was like ‘Oh, let’s go!’ He was so excited.”

Make no mistake, this is a baseball family through and through. Meyer’s father in law was a longtime clubhouse manager for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

For the Meyers, ball really is life, including young Walker.

“I don’t know if I can put a value or words to it,” Brian Meyer said, when asked what it means to have his son around the ballpark with him. “I mean, he absorbs everything. Whether it’s the game itself, the equipment, the players, the look, he absorbs everything. It’s something we never really forced on him, but he’s just always been around it from the day he was born. I was a coach, my father in law worked in baseball. He just loves it.”

The Kernels won five of seven games in the series against Peoria but fell a game behind Quad Cities for first place in the Midwest League’s Western Division with three first-half games remaining. Quad Cities beat Beloit five of six games in their series, the last five in a row, actually.

Cedar Rapids finishes the first half with three games at Beloit. It’s part of a six-game series, with the final three games beginning second-half play.

Quad Cities hosts Lansing.

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