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AUGUST 2010 SPORTS & EDUCATION 70 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT : ARTIST CORNER A LOVE OF THE GAME Sometimes life throws you a curve ball. That was true for Gary Cieradkowski Jr., who runs Cieradkowski Designs in Long Beach, an advertising, branding and marketing firm. Last fall, Cieradowski's father, Gary Sr., died suddenly at age 60 of a brain aneurysm while at work as a cutter in the garment industry. Gary Jr., whose family is still back in New Jersey where he grew up, was devastated. As he became an adult, his relationship with his father had deepened despite distance and different time zones thanks to a love of baseball. After Cieradowski left for college in Baltimore, their relationship became like a pitcher and catcher, except they weren't throwing around baseballs, but rather baseball trivia. "When I got older, we developed more of a relationship," Cieradowski said. "He stopped being such a father figure and became more like my friend. I don't know why, but we ended up speaking more when I went away to school." That meant several phone calls throughout the week, all with one purpose: stump the other with obscure baseball facts. To say the two shared a love for the game is a bit of an understatement. They were baseball nuts, historians even, eager to get their hands on every bit of knowledge about the sport. "My father and I were big readers," Cieradowski said. "He read two to three newspapers a day: the New Jersey Ledger, New York Post and Daily News. All three had really good sports sections." And in this game between the two, there were no "can of corn" questions, baseball lingo for an easy catch. "He'd really gloat when he'd get one by me," Cieradowski said with a chuckle. "I wouldn't be able to live it down for weeks." Gary Sr.'s death seemed like a bad error in an otherwise good game. "I had all this stupid baseball knowledge and no one to share it with," Cieradowski remembers. As the holidays approached, he found himself with some downtime WRITTEN BY ALISHA GOMEZ PHOTOGRAPHED BY MIRANDA MIRSEC