Once every year or two, I deviate from stories about the glass industry to write about one about sports. In honor of the World Series this week, here’s this year’s story:

Way back 77 years ago, a worker at the phone company in Queens, New York, was given a gift from the company he worked for—one ticket to the first game of the World Series of a lifetime. The city took sides in the great “Subway Series” in 1947 between the New York Yankees and the then-Brooklyn Dodgers. There was NO other story in town that week.

Though the worker wanted to attend the landmark event, he gave the ticket to his 14-year-old son. He told his son it might be the only opportunity either of them would have in their lifetimes to see a World Series game, so he wanted his boy to go because he would have more years to enjoy the memory

The young teenager had rarely ventured far from home and had never done so alone. So, for a few days before the series started, the dad took him to ride the subway to Yankee Stadium since he could not take him personally as the game was on Tuesday and he’d be at work.

The dad showed him what entrance to enter and where he would be sitting. When the afternoon of September 30 arrived, the boy was beyond excited. He got himself ready and easily made it to the Yankee Stadium—two hours early. He and 73,364 other fans watched the Yankees defeat the Dodgers, 5-3.

It was a thrilling series, and game one was no exception. He also got to see Jackie Robinson, who had just been named Rookie of the Year a few weeks earlier, play in his first World Series. It was an experience he would relive for his kids every now and then throughout his entire life.

That doting father was my grandfather, Fred Kopf, and his son (with the same name), who went to the game, was my father. When my dad passed away 14 years ago, we cleaned out the dresser drawer where he had always told us he kept his most “valuable possessions.” Amid his grammar school attendance card, a child’s harmonica and trinkets his kids had made for him was a flat manila envelope.

Inside it, carefully wrapped in a clear plastic sleeve, we found this official gameday program: