Pat Tabler — the former Major League Baseball all-star and current TV color analyst of the Toronto Blue Jays — is usually with his wife, Susan, and a slew of relatives watching son Troy play for the Raiders. They’re at almost every game.
“I missed Mississippi State and the Miami game before that, too,” Tabler admitted. “My best friend got married. I was his best man, and he took everyone on a Caribbean cruise.”
That friend, Tim Ryan, got married when the ship docked in St. John. That happened to be the very same time WSU was losing by 11 to the Bulldogs in the nationally televised game where Troy had a team-high 22 points.
“They had ESPN2 on the television down there, so I kept sneaking out of dinner — in my tux — and going to my room so I could watch,” Tabler said. “But for some reason they were showing this team out here tonight, Arkansas-Little Rock playing South Alabama. So instead of watching Troy, I scouted these guys.”
Pat was recounting the story Tuesday night, Dec. 22, from Section 203 of the Nutter Center. On the court, the Raiders were drubbing UALR 69-47 as Troy again led the team with 16 points. This time Pat and his wife were surrounded by family.
Not as many as the 77 who’ll gather for the family’s Christmas Eve in Cincinnati — but close.
Included in the crowd were Pat’s in-laws, Theresa and Greg Hammons, who run Ashley’s Pastry Shop in Oakwood. That’s who Susan called for an update of the Miami game.
Troy got 23 that game and afterward he called his dad.
The two talk almost every day and, of course, sports is part of the bond.
A first-round draft pick of the New York Yankees, Pat played first base and outfield for five big-league clubs, was an all-star with Cleveland in 1987 and won the World Series with Toronto in 1992.
Troy, a 6-foot-3 junior guard for the Raiders, is really coming into his own this season. He’s started nine of 12 games and is averaging 12.5 points per game.
Tuesday night, WSU coach Brad Brownell talked about how Tabler is a “tremendous shooter” and how he “creates offense for himself because he moves without the basketball better than anyone on the team ... He really has emerged.”
That emergence, in part Pat said, came because of his son’s hard work this summer.
When Troy was a freshman at Moeller High, his coach gave him the keys to the gym so he could work out on his own. This summer he worked there twice a day — playing one-on-one with Michael Davenport, who plays at St. Bonaventure. In the evenings he’d shoot for an hour.
Although Pat was once offered a full basketball scholarship to Virginia Tech when he came out of McNicholas High, he said he no longer gives his son hoops advice.
“The days of me telling him how to play basketball — they’re long gone,” he said, laughing. “He knows more about basketball than I do now.”
And that’s why, on a day when Pat Tabler was the best man, his son ... was even better.
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