Seeing my dad umpire a baseball game is nothing new, but seeing him umpire a baseball game on ESPN in the northeast regional tournament, a step away from the Mecca of little league baseball, is something I’ll never forget.

For years I’ve seen my dad, Larry Hawthorne, work hard for something he thought would never happen. Watching him go from umpiring games at my old little league field in Sharpsville, Pa. to ESPN proves that hard work pays off.

It was early January when my dad got an email from a Little League Baseball email address. My parents had just moved to Warren to be closer to my son and I was going over to their house to pick up my son from my dad. When I walked in and sat down, my dad had this weird grin on his face. He handed me his phone. The first thing I read was: “On behalf of the Eastern Region for Little League Baseball and Softball, I am pleased to inform you that you have been selected to umpire in the 2022 Eastern Regional Little League Baseball Tournament.”

I like to brag that I was the first to find out about this.

When he got the email initially, he didn’t want to get his hopes up, for some reason, but I could tell he was excited. Whenever my dad repeats something a few times in conversation, it’s a big deal. I couldn’t count the number of times he said “it’ll be cool” or “if it works out, It’ll be great”.

“You work for it, you know you’re qualified for it and you put in the time. It just worked out for me. Keep applying for it and hope you’re lucky enough to get the call,” he said.

The week of Aug. 6 to Aug. 12, my dad was in Bristol, CT working the regional games for the 12-year-old teams vying for a shot at Williamsport. He was at second base for his first game at 10 a.m. Aug. 6.

As my 14-month-old son ran around my living room, my younger brother and I were staring holes through my television just hoping to catch a glimpse of our father, the man who dedicated most of his adult life to officiating sports, on the field in Connecticut.

Then it happened – a routine pop out to centerfield but the camera angle showed my dad jogging out to make sure the player caught the ball.

My brother and I screamed “DAD” as excitedly as we could and started high fiving each other with such ferocity I thought about grabbing an ice pack for my palm. Even my son started to clap along as we watched our hero on TV.

We rewound the live playback to get the best picture possible for him to have as a keepsake, but those pictures pale in comparison to the events that went on later that night.

As 7 p.m. rolled around my wife, son and myself were strolling through the Eastwood mall. l loaded the ESPN app on my phone and watched my dad get set in that all too familiar ready position behind the plate for a prime-time matchup between Connecticut and Rhode Island.

When he called me the day before when his assignments were given out, he spoke candidly about his thought process after seeing his name next to one of the biggest games of the tournament.

“Don’t (explicit) up. That’s about it,” he recalled. “It was the two closest teams to Bristol so it would have been the most crowded. I had some nerves, but that all goes away when the first pitch is thrown.”

If it’s an incredible feeling seeing him on tv, hearing the announcers shout out my dad as the camera zooms in on a closeup of him wiping sweat from his face and a graphic listing his name along with the three other umpires is an indescribable feeling.

My dad, the man who got me into baseball when I was only a little older than my son currently is. My dad, the man who spent hours upon hours coaching his two sons in a sport that would have a stranglehold on my family. My dad, the man who worked his tail off for everything he’s ever had in life, finally got his time in the sun.

My family’s fascination with baseball is the one true consistency in our lives. Whether we were playing, watching, coaching or umpiring didn’t matter. We were enamored with the sport from the very start. My mom kept the scorebook for as long as I could remember, actually winning my 9-year-old team a game as the other team hit out of order resulting in the final out. My dad coached me for a few years and then my younger brother, who needed it more than I did. I even helped coach with my dad whenever I could.

Regardless of who he had on his team, his philosophy was always to put the kids first and help them get better day by day. When he couldn’t coach his sons anymore, he turned his attention to umpiring.

Even when he was an umpire, the kids always came first. He’d coach up the kids, albeit subtly, as best as he could. If a pitcher was struggling and got taken out of the game, my dad would be the first to go lift his spirits.

That’s just the man he is.

It doesn’t matter the talent level or whether or not he knows the kids on the field. As long as an effort is made, my dad does anything he can to help the kids get better.

With a regional tournament under his belt, my dad is one step away from getting a call up to umpire in Williamsport. Something he’s long dreamed of since our first visit to the World Series in 2008. In fact, as we were making the 4-and-a-half-hour drive home that year, he lamented how cool it must be to work those games.

Little did he know that it was only a matter of time before that comment could soon become a reality.