It is Monday as I begin to write this week. The last full week of August. Baseball heads into the final 30 games. Little Leaguers are heading home from Williamsport, Pennsylvania team-by-team until a champion is crowned for 2026. The NFL holds its final pre-season contests—the mini-dress rehearsals for the regular season. College football starts with Week 0 (Week 0?). Caitlin Clark dazzles as the WNBA plows towards its playoffs. All expected happenings at this time of the year.
But it wasn’t an ordinary Monday. Far from it. My wife and I attended a funeral on this day. For Gilbert Glass, D.D.S.
We went to the funeral service in Millburn, the town adjacent to Springfield. Then we slowly made our way to Kenilworth for the interment. On a beautiful, sun-splashed day with low humidity,
After the cemetery we stopped at his son’s house in Fanwood. Then we repaired to our house for some rest and dinner before returning to lead the first shiva minyan service.
I had met Gil Glass maybe twice. Once in passing at his dental office in Union Township. And at his son’s wedding in Manhattan in a restaurant under the spans of the Queensboro Bridge.
I knew more about Gil Glass because his son Dustin became the best friend of my son Brian at Emory University in Atlanta. Our neighbor had told us that Dustin was going there; her then-husband was Gil’s friend and accountant, thus they knew Dustin’s affairs pretty well. I’m guessing that Gil was very proud that his son was attending a prestigious school like Emory; I know my wife and I felt that way about our son.
Thus we became well-acquainted with Dustin while he and Brian went to college. Upon graduation, they both chose to attend law school—Dustin went to Rutgers in Newark while Brian earned his juris doctorate at the University of Miami, although Brian needed a year to be ready for the grind that becoming a lawyer requires.
Dustin went into private practice. Firm life was never our son’s choice; he opted to represent people with mental health issues who required legal assistance.
It was never a competition for success; they both shined in their own way. As friends do. Fully supportive. They were always there for each other. Even if Dustin rooted for the New York Mets and New York Giants while Brian’s allegiance was with the New York Yankees and New York Jets. They’d go to games and commiserate when their teams invariably lost.
My father was a dentist like Dr. Glass. Both had significant senses of humor— a necessity to make the patients comfortable in the chair before something unpleasant might unfold.
They were military men. My father served in World War II as a navigator/bombardier in B-17’s based in England. He studied dentistry at Temple University while still active in the military then did his training at Turner Air Force Base in Albany, Georgia, where I was born.
Dr. Glass was part of the Navy’s dental group in Viet Nam. He did have a white uniform, but apparently never really had to wear it.
What they opted to do was raise families—I was from Highland Park in Middlesex County while the Glass family was reared in Fair Haven. Two very good school systems. Both families consisted of an older son and a younger daughter.
The two fathers lost their wives too early. Dr. Glass had more of a burden to take care of his children than my father did, as my sister was 17 at the time my mother passed away and I was 26 and had been working with the Office of the Public Defender for a while.
The children became important to the men who spent long hours cultivating their practices. In stories related by the family, Dr. Glass went to most every sporting event his kids were in, including a memorable time when he might have bent a golf rule for his daughter when she played at Gettysburg College.
My father made the long treks to Lancaster on Wednesdays and Saturdays to watch me play baseball at Franklin and Marshall College, his alma mater. After he had watched me play summer baseball in my youth. Ditto for my sister’s tennis matches at Monmouth College (now a University).
While he always chided me about something I did on the field, my father would then rave over my exploits to his friends. Remember, I went to F&M to get a degree and go to law school; baseball happened to be on my agenda but not his at the outset.
What I learned from my father and was reminded of by Dr. Glass’ actions as narrated by his children was that attending your children’s events was of prime importance. Being there for them and being encouraging would be the only tonic they needed. Winning was nice; participating at a high level was even more important when appreciation was shown for what one attempted.
Dr. Glass took his children to sporting events and played golf with them. My father took me to plenty of baseball games and tried to regularly have a catch with me—albeit he threw like a wrestle/dentist who hadn’t thrown a ball in ages.
I tried to do the same with my children. I was there for Brian’s tennis matches in high school and in tournaments. With Erica, I attended plenty of gymnastics meets to await her fabled floor routine.
That’s what parents needed to do—if they could. At least by my standards and apparently those of two dentists.
I should be concluding 75 years on this planet in two months barring something unforeseen. I have come to recognize that one’s body can betray great intentions nearly every time.
The aches and pains that we ignored earlier now become constant reminders of how much abuse we put our bodies through. No matter how much work we put in to try to repair the damage, sometimes we have to accept the reality of aging in conjunction with vigorous exercise at an earlier age.
I wish I had listened to my body much earlier in life. Yet what I was doing was so much fun that I ignored the fact that there would be eventual consequences no matter how strong and agile I was at the time.
There is a whole lot of carping about Giancarlo Stanton now injuring his right calf in an attempt to rehabilitate the unforgiving left calf and make it back to a baseball game that counts. Nobody wants to see injuries to players, least of all the players.
Sure, Stanton is overcompensated for what he does. More so on a productivity basis since he seems hardly to be on the field in the past couple of seasons.
Who could have thought that his Yankees career would become so injury-riddled? This was a feared slugger, a National League M.V.P. and a player who seemed destined to be in the Hall of Fame once he reached the magic 500 home run mark, which was a foregone conclusion.
Instead, Stanton is mired at 456 home runs slugged over a 17 year career (Stanton has 18 more post-season blasts while in a NYY uniform). A significant career which started in Miami and could be over if his body continues to be uncooperative as he approaches age 37 this November.
His toughness is unquestioned—he suffered a devastating injury to his face and jaw while with the Marlins. His determination to return was unquestioned—Stanton wanted those home runs and he wanted to be known as a World Series champion. A perfect coda to his career.
Except that things don’t work out in storybook fashion. Even NYY superstar slugger Aaron Judge has had his share of injuries which have sidelined him for extended periods of time.
The broken rib suffered in late April has kept number 99 out of the lineup and curtailed any talk of a fourth M.V.P. award. Judge’s absence has been noticeable and kept NYY from running away with the AL East title given the great pitching the team has shown this season.
Mike Trout should make the Hall of Fame with a resume not unlike Judge’s might one day be. Toiling in Anaheim, a baseball purgatory where winning teams just don’t happen frequently, the heavily-muscled South Jerseyan is a 12 time All-Star, American League Rookie of the Year and 3X-MVP.
Yet he too has not been injury-free. As graceful and powerful as anyone in the game, Trout seems to routinely end up on the IL. It happens to the best.
Which is why I was saddened by another death in the baseball world. Thomas Edward John, Jr. was a left-handed pitcher who hailed from Terre Haute, Indiana.
John pitched for 26 years in the major leagues for 6 teams. A 4X-All-Star, his record was 288-231. He was not a dominant pitcher.
Yet he endured because he was the first to undergo radical surgery on his pitching elbow. That surgery proved successful and has led to so many others having the procedure and going on to productive careers at all levels of baseball.
We know of the surgery because it bears his name when referenced. It is iconic.
Still, he has never received enough credit for being a trailblazer. Without his taking a chance on a novel and untested procedure, baseball careers for pitchers would have ended so prematurely for too many others.
The fact that John compiled 164 wins after the surgery is amazing, What is more surprising is that, as John liked to tell it, that is one less than Sandy Koufax the preeminent left-handed pitcher of his era had won.
Koufax is in the Hall of Fame. John has never come close in the normal voting or on any of the subsequent committee determinations.
Yes, they are two different kinds of pitchers. But John should have been recognized for his bravery and perseverance. That’s enough in my book for entry into Cooperstown. Except that I don’t vote.
Circle back to Gil Glass. He needed both kidney and liver transplants to live. He had the kidney procedure but there were complications regarding the second operation.
Somehow, the surgeons at Jackson Memorial in Miami green-lighted it with the risks involved. That gave him a new lease on life for 7 years. Gil was able to continue living with his second wife and to enjoy his grandchildren.
Gil Glass epitomized what life was about. You take advantage of what is before you. And you live. Such an axiom applies to athletes like Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, Mike Trout, Tommy John and a whole host of others.
It’s why I get up early, make a smoothie for my adult daughter to take to Manhattan with her, drive her to the train in Millburn, then late in the evening, pick her up. Dr. Glass and Dr. Sperber would have done the same.
Things may not always turn out the way you planned them, but you got to keep on trying. Because that’s what you do.
Rest in peace, Gilbert Glass. Thank you for being you.
