Oliver Wendell Holmes was thrilled when his son Clay, a relief pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates, called last week to invite him to join the team in Cincinnati for the annual dad’s trip.
Yet, he chastised Clay slightly. “I told him, ‘Why didn’t you give me more notice?’ ” he said Sunday morning inside PNC Park.
Getting Sunday off is no easy chore for Oliver Holmes, who is pastor of the Place of Grace Church in Dothan, Ala. He officiated a wedding Saturday night, arranged for an assistant to give the sermon in the morning, got a ride to the airport in Atlanta and arrived in Pittsburgh before Sunday’s game “on two hours sleep.”
“First Sunday off in 100 years,” he said.
Oliver Holmes is the second of four generations of men in his family named after the former associate judge to the U.S. Supreme Court, Oliver Wendell Holmes, who served from 1902-1932.
“My grandmother was a secretary in Washington D.C. for a while and she saw that name, I think, everywhere,” he said, “So she named her son, which was my dad, Oliver Wendell Holmes.”
Holmes, then, named one of his three sons Oliver Wendell Holmes and the son’s son became the fourth.
“It stuck for four generations,” he said, proudly.
He said he’s looking forward to joining the other dads for four games in Cincinnati, starting Monday.
“It’s really nice of the Pirates to do this,” he said. But he said his wife, Teresa, is a “little disappointed.”
There will be a wives and girlfriends trip later this season, but no mom’s trip.
