[Senator Clay Davis]

He had more than a normal rooting interest. His son, Madison, the best postseason pitcher on the planet, plays for the Giants. And this night Madison had pitched five innings and earned the save.

“I didn’t know if he had enough left tonight,” Kevin said. “But I did know that boy would try to steal a steak off the devil’s plate.”

Today, Madison Bumgarner is known for a rocking chair motion, a 95-mile-per-hour fastball and a cutter that slides across the strike zone like a greased marble. But in high school, he was also a swatter, one of four batters known as the Bomb Crew.

“See that?” Parham said, pointing beyond the outfield fence. “Madison hit 10 home runs over that pole and those pine trees.”

He broke into a grin as he talked of that team. “Lots of people don’t like to hear this” — he leaned in as if to tell a delicious secret — “but Madison’s team, we had scuffles at practice. Fights! They were very competitive boys.

“And we had the big boy.”

Parham made a throwing motion. “Ssssss” — he made a sound like a 737 taking off — “pop! Ssssss-pop!”

Once, Bumgarner hit 97 m.p.h. in the seventh inning.

“I said: ‘That all you got?’ ” Parham recalled. “He put on his hat and looks at me and says, ‘No, sir.’ ”

Then he hit 98.

“The fire already was burning in that boy,” Parham said. “All you had to do was throw a little coal on.”

He had agreed I could stop by and watch Game 7. A few hours before the game, however, he begged off. “I’m kinda nervous wreck,” he texted.

I showed up after the game. Kevin was near vibrating, having chewed bubble gum with a light beer chaser during the game. We talked baseball, and pickup trucks. (Madison won a Chevrolet pickup as part of his M.V.P. award; his father said he already had so many “I got hopes he might give that one to me.”)

Then Kevin pulled out his phone. He had texted Madison after the eighth inning, and he tried to read it to me. He began to choke up and just handed me the phone.

“OMG. You’re so much more than awesome,” Kevin had written to his son. “To see you work on the mound reminds me of watching you in high school. You are willing yourself to perfection and dragging the team along with you. I couldn’t be more proud of your baseball accomplishments.”

Kevin looked at me. “I knew he wouldn’t read that text before the game was over,” he said, “but I wanted him to know this was what his daddy thought of him.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/sp...&emc=rss&_r=3#