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Frank's Place: Fathers, sons, and baseball can be a complicated mixture

The NBA Finals will conclude on Sunday, Father's Day, an ironic end-date for what has become a Mother's Day sport.

Though one 2013 study suggested the trend may at last be abating, pro basketball, for a variety of complex sociological reasons, is played disproportionately by young men who never had dads in their lives. That's why, when there's a McMansion to be gifted or a postgame shout-out to be made, the NBA parent who typically gets the call is mom.

Maybe a more fitting fare for Father's Day would be Game 7 of the World Series. After all, it's baseball that, like Hamlet, is animated by the ghosts of fathers.