Red Sox players reflect on their parents’ influence

Brock Holt and his son, Griffin, a social media star and danger to Dad's eyes. (Barry Chin/Boston Globe via Getty)

“My father never played baseball. He never pushed me in any direction to do anything. He let me make my own decision," said Brock Holt. "He just enjoyed watching me grow up, and I ended up choosing baseball, and now he’s a huge baseball fan and he never missed a game and they watch me every night. I’m extremely lucky, just the way he raised us growing up, the example that he set, not only the things he taught us, but the way he lived his life and treated other people and the way he loved my mom. He taught us so many things about how we should be — especially me and my brother as men.”

“My dad, he played football, ran track, played basketball, he did all the sports but baseball. You hear about some dads, ‘I played football; my son is going to play football,’ this and that. He never did that.

“I played football in high school and, of course, he liked going to the games. I played my freshman year and then quit. Whenever I told him, ‘Hey, I don’t want to play football anymore,’ he said, ‘Hey, it’s your life. You do what you want to do.’

"But, yeah, he was great, man. He’s still a huge influence on me. Any time he gets to come up and watch games and I get to spend time with him is a special time.”