How Dad's ice cream shaped King's journey to bigs

This story was excerpted from AJ Cassavell’s Padres Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

SAN DIEGO -- A father himself now, Michael King can deeply appreciate the sacrifices his own father, Jim, made throughout his baseball journey.

“I’ve always said I want to be most like my dad in that he never said no to me wanting to play anything,” King said ahead of Father’s Day weekend. “Whether it’s taking grounders, playing basketball. He had a tough day at work, he’s tired or whatever, he never said no.”

A big part of the reason Jim was so present? His grandmother’s ice cream. Seriously.

Jim King was a news anchor at various places across the Northeast when Michael was growing up. He moved to Rhode Island for a TV job in Providence when Michael was about 4. When his contract ran out, the Kings had options to move elsewhere. But they also had two kids, Michael and his sister, Olivia, and they were moving a bit too frequently for the Kings’ liking.

“My mom was like, ‘We can’t keep doing this with the kids,’” Michael recalled. “‘We’ve got to figure out something. We can’t just be moving them every couple of years.’ So he started his own ice cream company.”

Jim’s grandmother had a sherbet recipe beloved by the entire family. They made it for holidays and events. It was good enough, Jim believed, to sell and market. So he began selling Gaga’s ice cream -- named after his grandmother -- to local vendors.

Initially, the family was skeptical. In family lore, King’s mother, Michele, told Jim, “‘Do something useful and go clean the garage at least, we’re not going to be able to sell your family’s ice cream recipe.’” Jim may have had his own doubts. But he was at least going to try.

Jim continued working various news gigs but nothing permanent. For the most part, his full-time job became “ice cream salesman,” as Michael put it -- “and that kept us afloat for probably 15 years.”

The family always referred to it as sherbet. But because it contained a minimal amount of dairy, it was required to be marketed as “ice cream.” So Jim sought to find a niche -- tastier than sherbet, healthier than ice cream.

He sold Gaga’s in pints. They sat in the frozen treats section at grocery stores and markets -- right next to Ben and Jerry’s and the like. Lemon was the original flavor. Raspberry was Michael’s favorite. There were a dozen or so flavors, and the Kings were constantly experimenting -- one of Michael’s favorite parts.

“He probably put us through some child labor laws,” Michael said. “I was making the labels, putting stickers on the little pints, putting stickers on the lids. He brought me to the shop all the time where we’d actually make the ice cream. … It was fun to always have an unlimited supply of ice cream.”

The biggest perk of the job? For the most part, Jim got to set his hours. He was home in the evening when Michael was home -- a stark departure from his job as news anchor.

“I was asleep by the time he came home, so he wasn’t able to see me play baseball, all the other after-school activities,” Michael recalled. “Now that he’s basically got his own hours and he’s an ice cream salesman -- is I guess what you’d call him -- he had the time to do that.”

From his time as a news anchor, Jim King made a few connections. One of them was ESPN broadcaster Karl Ravech. When Jim realized his son was actually pretty darn good at this whole baseball thing, he called Ravech to ask who Michael could get some advice from. Ravech had answers.

One of those answers was Orel Hershiser, who called games with Ravech. One year, when the duo was calling the Little League World Series, Jim and Michael made the six-hour drive from Rhode Island to Williamsport, Pa., so Michael could get a lesson from Hershiser. They spent five hours together going over the finer points of pitching.

Jim King, as Michael tells it, went above and beyond like that, linking him up with anybody and everybody in the region who could help his son’s baseball career. And considering Michael’s strengths -- absorbing information and using it to get better -- it was just what he needed at the time.

In hindsight, it’s entirely unclear if Jim King would’ve had the time or the opportunities to further Michael’s career had he continued in his role as nighttime news anchor. But Jim King was right where he needed to be.

“I don’t know if he would have had enough time to find the connections that were able to help my career,” King said. “I think of it all the time. I want to be a huge part of my daughter’s life. I know it’s very hard, when I go away for a week or so.

“I don’t know if that was ever weighing on him. Or if he realized how much more special it was to be with his kids throughout our main development years, where you’re actually seeing your kids grow up. So I’m just very thankful, for me, to be able to have him.”