Baseball is a family thing with the Spiegels.

I love it and relate to it based on early interactions with the archetypal baseball fan, my Pops.

My brother’s high school team was good, and they were gods to a fourth-grader like me. After constant pestering, I was made official bat boy. I beamed when their team bus would pick me up at elementary school for away games.

In daily driveway games of what he called “Tenni-Ball,” a round tabletop with a strike zone painted on it was an effective catcher. I was allowed to play outfield across the street.

I was the youngest fan our brood had, for decades.

My nephew is a very good 17-year-old pitcher on an even better high school team. I’ve written about him here before, when Pops and I watched him strike out 7 of 9 hitters as a 14-year-old.

A few weeks ago I sat behind his mother and watched a ballgame over both of their shoulders.

My nephew was in the dugout of a Frontier League ballfield in Joliet. He stood on the top step the entire game, rooting on his teammates as they battled for an IHSA championship. For him, it was as big an atmosphere as he has ever played in.

They believe they are men, and by many rights they are. But they are still kids in our eyes as we watch. They remind us of our distant youth, and of time’s incessant march. My sister birthed that lefty pitcher with the mutton chops. Now he’s as old as she was when she was an all-state soccer player. I went to her games and watched then, too.

It was truly great to be there; a heart-pumping atmosphere on a June night with a comforting chill that reminiscent of October.

Baseball is a very good game, demanding unique focus and skills from the people who play it.

The ace fought his way through 5 shutout innings. His opposition did the same.

Our heroes hit fastballs hard, and it felt like a breakthrough was imminent. But a runner was caught stealing in their only rally, and some good contact went unrewarded.

In the sixth, the other guys got a hit, a well-executed bunt, and then a double to the gap to plate the game’s only run. And that would be that, 1-0.

I watch the pros every night, looking for windows into who they are as people. It’s how I’m wired.

Players this young can’t hide their humanity. Our ace was rattled; there was a balk and some wildness, which he impressively survived without further damage. The batters trying to tie it up for the final six outs understandably felt the pressure at the end. Eagerly trying to deliver, they didn’t go as deep into counts as they had so often before.

Patience is demanded. Calmness is rewarded. Anxiety is often punished. The game helps us grow.

What a tremendous season for the young men of my nephew’s high school. What a great time in his life, with the promise of another chance with more involvement a year from now.

What a fun experience for this writer to have a team to root for with fervor. My sister was so nervous she couldn’t talk, and I respected that as we just watched.

We watched a game I’m glad my family has chosen to love.

My father never really played catch with me.

There were two or three times he threw me grounders in the street as I readied myself for Little League practice. But the playing of the sport itself was not our baseball bond.

Ours was, and is, a baseball bond of information. He likes knowledge, trivia, observation, great stories, and conversation. That’s the stuff.

Herb Spiegel turns 80 this weekend. He is the source of my passion, and laid the foundation for a life of inquisitiveness. Maybe yours did the same.

Herb was 8 years old in 1941. His father took him to Philadelphia that summer to see the A’s host Boston at Shibe Park.

My dad saw Ted Williams in the on-deck circle, and was smitten. That .406 season made him a Red Sox fan for life. To his Yankee fan father, I imagine that played as an act of rebellion.

In thinking about his pending octogenarian status, so many baseball memories flood my mind.

He let me sit with him in the car and be late for a trumpet lesson so we could listen to the 1982 All-Star Game for a while.

He told me Hal Newhouser was the only pitcher to win back-to-back MVP’s. He told me Harry Steinfeldt was the unmentioned third baseman in an infield with Tinkers, Evers, and Chance. He taught me that the Cubs’ Claude Passeau was the man who gave up Ted’s game-winning home run in the ’41 All-Star Game.

He drove me by the traffic circle where the Trenton Giants farm team used to have a stadium. He and my mom saw Willie Mays play there. No wonder I love going to minor-league games.

He told me about Matty, Felipe and Jesus Alou, and then made me aware of the forgotten fourth Alou brother, “Hullub.” It took me a couple years to get that joke.

He brought me to Cooperstown in my early teens, just the two of us. I think we spent about 15 hours at the HOF museum over two days, and still didn’t see everything. Take your kids if you haven’t.

When I was struggling in American History class in seventh grade, Pops sat me down. He made me realize that the baseball trivia that I loved, well, that was history. Knowledge is knowledge. That changed my curiosity forever.

I called him from a party with two outs and two strikes on Gary Carter in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. I said, “Dad, tape the postgame show, would you?” He said, “I’ve been a Red Sox fan too long, call me when it’s over,” and then hung up on me.

Then Bill Buckner happened.

He told me what it was really like to watch DiMaggio hit, to see Mickey Mantle field, to witness Mays doing everything. He described Rip Sewell’s famed Eephus pitch to me so well that when I finally saw it, I felt like I already had.

People used to ask me why I got so angry at the relentless cheating that the steroid era brought upon the game.

Here’s why: The outsized batting stats have wreaked havoc on the record book, and they’ve damaged the conversations I could have with my father. Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire vs. Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle? We can’t talk about that cleanly.

But we still talk plenty. I like to think the baseball fire in his kids, and grandkids, has kept his sports spark aflame. It’s the least we could do.

So let’s raise a glass to fathers who inspire a passion for knowledge. Here’s to true role models who give us something to shoot for when we become fathers ourselves.

And here’s to mine in particular, who didn’t need to play catch to make me love a game.

Happy 80th, to my favorite baseball fan.