My grandfather passed away last Friday at the age of 96. I have spent the last few days in new Jersey trying to help my mom sort everything out with my grandmother. It has definitely been an interesting few days, but every time I get a little sad I try to think of all the good times I had with him. One of the things we always had a good time with was talking baseball. My grandfather was a Yankees fan. I obviously am a huge Mets fan.

He would wear his Yankees hat high on his head (with no curve of course) and would always ask me "Robert, did you watch the Yankees last night? They won again." To which I always said "No. I hate the Yankees." He would always laugh and then proceed to tell me about the new players on the team who he hadn't heard of. Then he would try to throw me a bone and tell me that he did actually watch the Mets the other day. At first, I think he was just kidding me, but in the previous few years, I'm pretty sure he would watch the Mets. You see, he didn't have cable and relied on the weekly Yankees games on 11 or the Mets games on 9 to watch baseball. Still, he would always carry on the old conversation and razz me about the Mets.

I opened up his closet today and on the top shelf was his Yankees hat. I took it down and thought for a split second about putting it on my head. Then I looked at the size and luckily it was a 1/4 size too small for me (thus eliminating any chance of me committing adultery) so I didn't put it on. Instead, I just held it in my hands and I couldn't help but smile. While I hate the Yankees more than the Devil himself, I was happy to be holding the hat and have since given serious thought to bringing it home. I'm not sure exactly what I would do with it if Grandma is ok with me having it, but I think it is something I want to do...and I don't think it makes me a bad fan.