The love of baseball is generational

Story and Photos by Jacqueline Mundry

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Summers fly by faster than the blink of an eye and it can be hard to make time for family traditions, but Anthony Christiano and his 13-year-old son Ian Kish say they always visit NBT Bank Stadium before the summer ends.

Tradition runs deep

The Syracuse natives, Christiano and Kish, went to their first Chiefs game of the season on Wednesday when Syracuse defeated the Buffalo Bisons 6-1.

Attendance was fairly sparse on the warm August night, but for Christiano and Kish, it was the perfect time to go because Kish is off most of August after playing on three different baseball teams this summer.

"I just wanted to get to one before the season passes me by, I realized 'holy crap it's August,'" Christiano said.

The love of the sport outweighs the love of a team

The two are not necessarily Chiefs fans, as much as they're fans of the sport. The father and son are sure to make time for baseball in their everyday life.

"Both of us pay attention to baseball pretty closely, watching MLB Network quite a lot and we pay attention to who's up, who's down, and I follow the Blue Jays pretty closely," Christiano said. 

Considering Christiano likes the Blue Jays, he enjoys watching the opposing team, the Buffalo Bisons, to see who will be the next up and comer on the Jays.

The Jays fandom doesn't stop them from visiting other stadiums and other teams. The two began baseball season at Yankee Stadium's Opening Day. This was the first time they went to opening day and though it was memorable for many reasons, the first memory that comes to mind is the temperature.

"It was 35 degrees that day and there was like a 30-mile-per hour windchill," Christiano said.

It may have been cold, but Christiano and Kish agree it was worth it.

Combining both passions

Going to the Chiefs games has been a tradition for Christiano and Kish. It's also a creative outlet for Christiano, who is a photographer. He said he feels the most gratified when he photographs sports.

"It's nice to be able to come down to the games and get some work in, kind of exercise the creative muscles," Christiano said.

Kish asked his dad if he was going to bring his camera to Wednesday's game, but Christiano decided it wasn't necessary, "I just want to be a person tonight," he said.

Christiano said that when he does bring his camera to games, he tends to only pay attention to the photos instead of spending the evening watching the game with his son,

 "I tend to hyper focus on the work, rather than focusing on hanging out with him."

"He's over there, then over there," Kish said talking about his dad and motioning around the stadium.

Christiano got his start in photography by taking photos of Kish playing baseball ten years ago. He then started taking pictures of the Chiefs among many other things and has owned his own photography business for three years.

"It's just rewarding in a way that, say, wedding photography is not," Christiano said of sports photography, "this is more immediately gratifying."

Christiano explained that he gets the most gratification out of photographing sports because he is combining his two favorite things, photography and sports.