PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – When Jacob Stallings was four, his dad was the head basketball coach at Illinois State and by the time he got to middle school, the head coach at Vanderbilt. Stallings grew up around basketball.
Now Stallings has a four-year-old boy, Emmitt, along with a one-and-a-half-year-old, Micah. They have the same passion about their dad’s profession.
“My oldest, his favorite thing to do is to look at rosters on the MLB app,” Stallings said. “The kid is obsessed. He came up to me the other day ‘is Jordan Luplow of the Indians hurt?’. I was like ‘how do you know Jordan Luplow plays for the Indians’?”
Stallings couldn’t hide the wide smile that was larger than the one describing his game-winning hit on Thursday night. He tries to take advantage of every opportunity to have them with him after and before games.
“You don’t know how long you are going to be in the game,” Stallings said, a seventh round Pirates draft pick out of North Carolina in 2012. “You don’t know how many of these opportunities you are going to have. We try to get him to as many ballparks as we can. It’s just fun.”
It’s not just the current players’ numbers that Emmit Stallings remembers, it’s the Pirates legends as well.
“He would know Willie Stargell, Clemente, Mazeroski,” Stallings said. “He would get every single one on our team right now.”
“He is obsessed with guy’s numbers. He’s got them memorized. He knows our guys numbers better than I do.”
The young Stallings hasn’t started studying Pirates’ player’s stats or his father’s. Yet.
“Thankfully he’s not quite to the level of asking me why I struck out twice tonight. I’m sure we will be there soon, though.”
For now, the son who grew up around his father’s job in basketball is enjoying being the dad showing his kids his job in baseball.
“It’s just fun. It’s just those moments. My youngest loves it too. He’s just too young right now.”
“Emmitt just eats it up. On our off-day we went to a park with a baseball field and played baseball yesterday. It’s an everyday thing for us.”