Padres’ coach Mark Mc Gwire was one of my “heroes” growing up watching baseball in the 80’s and early 90’s.  In fact, I liked him so much that I bought a game used bat of his from the amazing 1998 season that he had.  Hopefully, it turns out to be a great investment one day!  And now he is coaching “my Padres!”  (Born and bred in San Diego!)

He recently had to take some time away from his job as a coach to take care of his family.  He has a wife, and 5 kids.  His wife had some kind of undisclosed health problem.

Bench Coach of the Padres, Mark Mc Gwire

 

We all have “football wives” who take tremendous care of us football coaches during the season specifically.  We probably don’t say thank you enough for everything that they do to keep our house and home in order.

Mc Gwire's family
Mc Gwire’s family

Here’s what Coach Mc Gwire had to say about playing the Mr. Mom part.  I liked it, and wanted to share with you.

“Needing to be home, and wanting to be here, it was tough. But family’s first and anybody that’s ever been put in the position I was, you’d do the same thing. I’ve got five young kids and you want to try to keep things normal. When mom’s down, you gotta get ’em to their practices, you gotta get ’em to school. They’ve got homework, you gotta go grocery shopping, gotta do the laundry. There’s so many things. I have the ultimate respect for moms out there that do all that stuff, especially for mothers or wives of ballplayers or athletes because we’re gone so much and to really understand – I like shopping and doing that stuff, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a tough job.”

You can read the whole article here.