Sharing Family Passions : From Baseball to Bugs, Parents Pass On Favorite Pastimes : A CHILD’S WORLD: <i> What shapes the way we grow up.</i>

Pound for pound, Jose Canseco’s got nothing on Michael Gilmartin.

Have you seen the kid’s scouting report? Absolutely loaded with superlatives. One normally crotchety and critical baseball veteran put it this way: “I couldn’t believe it. An up-and-comer. Great hitter.”

And the kid can swing a bat--at least as well as any other preschooler.

“He shows a lot of promise,” said the veteran, Paul Gilmartin Sr., aformer minor-league pitcher and baseball hound--and the boy’s grandfather. “I was pleasantly surprised.”

Michael Gilmartin, at this moment, is 4 years old, a T-ball terror. But if family history holds true, 15 years from now he may well be playing professional baseball. His great-grandfather played in the old New England League, his grandpa played in the Cotton States, Eastern Shore and Interstate leagues and his dad played in the Northwest and Mexican Winter leagues. One uncle was drafted by the Baltimore Orioles, the other by the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Gilmartins like to pass their passion from generation to generation--they are just one example of what psychologists call intergenerational transmission. It occurs when parents consciously or subconsciously pass on interests to their children. Experts say everything from chug-a-lugging beer to political activism to playing the banjo can be transmitted.

“It happens frequently,” said Rex Beaber, a clinical psychologist and former director of psychological services of the Division of Family Medicine at UCLA. “Parents want their children to take a part of them into their lives. They want their children to take after them. They want, in some way, to cheat death.”

Think about it. Your dad not only wanted you to hook a trout on those fishing expeditions, he wanted you to reel in a part of him.

Now, more than likely, you are passing similar interests, hobbies, traditions and activities on to your children.

The Gilmartins have taken this phenomenon to new heights, launching familial baseball transmission into the stratosphere.

It started when Great-Grandpa Gilmartin, who played third base for several minor-league teams in Massachusetts from 1915 to 1917, introduced the game to his son, Paul Sr.

“I never saw him play in his heyday, but every time he was around the house, the radio was on a ballgame,” recalled Paul Gilmartin Sr., 67, of Sepulveda. “That really rubbed off on me. I used to play catch with him sometimes, but he didn’t really care if I played the game.”

Years later, Paul Sr.’s approach to introducing his three sons to baseball was more active.

“I was with the boys a lot,” he said. “They started fielding and batting when they were 4 or 5 years old. I wanted them to do things correctly. I taught them how to throw, to field, to hit. I was too dogmatic for young kids. Too critical. But, boy, they looked good. They could play.”

Paul Jr., now a 38-year-old chiropractor from Moorpark, spent a number of years in the minors, as did his brothers--Kevin, 35, of Canoga Park, and Danny, 31, a college baseball coach in Sacramento.

Although Paul Jr. says his father was difficult to please through the early years--”He helped us change our (batting) stances and taught me to switch-hit when I was 11”--the paternal scrutiny never ruined the game for him. He is almost as enthusiastic about his 4-year-old son’s prowess in T-ball as Grandpa Gilmartin is.

“I think it’s an activity all of us can share,” he said. “I certainly have a love for the game of baseball.”

“It has kept us close,” Paul Sr. added. “I’m a very lucky dad. Very lucky.”

Beaber cautions against parents transmitting their passions--however noble--with too much exuberance: “For every instance where a father or mother succeeds with that (approach), many don’t. Some children develop an aversion to their parent’s interests.”

Generally, Beaber said, parents transmit their interests in one of two ways, or in some combination thereof. One is by subconsciously modeling the activity. The other is by teaching or indoctrinating them. According to Beaber, the passive mode is more effective because it bypasses a child’s ego.

To demonstrate how boundless the phenomenon of transmitting can be, one need look no further than John Valentine of Pasadena and his three daughters: Fara, 14; Megan, 13, and Carrie, 10.

The passion Valentine is handing along to the girls is an appreciation of bugs and reptiles. Big bugs and big reptiles, some of which appear to be on steroids.

A walk through Valentine’s garage reveals aquariums of scorpions, 8-inch-long, half-inch-thick centipedes, tarantulas, baboon spiders, wasps, snakes and lizards.

“Look at this Sun spider,” Valentine tells the girls and a visitor, pointing to a 2-inch-long spider with a 1-inch-long mouth. “It has four separate jaws, it’s the darndest thing. And let me tell you, they are strong.” Strong enough to devour a cricket, which it promptly accomplished when Valentine dropped one in the tank.

“Wow, look at that,” Fara said.

“That’s disgusting,” Megan said.

No one said these kids have adapted completely to insect life.

But there’s no doubting their interest. They said they really do enjoy going out to the desert with Dad to observe snakes, scorpions and whatever life forms they can find.

“Do you know how you can tell a moth from a butterfly?” Fara asked the visitor.

“By their antennae,” she answered. “A moth’s is more bristly.”

Oh.

“My dad used to take me exploring in Baja,” Valentine said. “We’d go fishing, hunting, exploring all over. I learned early on to appreciate nature. Now, I’m passing it on to my girls. At an early age, they aren’t afraid of animals, snakes, insects. It’s not at the top of their list to go hunt rattlers, but I’m happy they’ve come to appreciate nature and what’s out there.”

“When I see a bug, I don’t kill it,” Fara said. “I look at it for a while to see where it goes. I think that’s fun. I think when I get older I’ll show my kids all the things my dad showed me. Maybe it will rub off on them the way it’s rubbed off on me.”

No doubt, that would be the smart way to bet.

David Leonard, 54, of Tarzana attempted to introduce his passion, golf, to his three sons because “the game has attributes of gentlemanly behavior, it teaches humility and respect for something that is difficult to do.”

Translation: He wanted to keep his boys off the streets.

As it turned out, they stayed off the streets and on the fairways enough to become single-digit handicap players, which is to say, for those unfamiliar with the game, they are better than 95% of all the world’s golfers. One son, Jeff, 31, has won his golf club championship four of the last five years.

Bill Leonard, 33, an attorney practicing in Encino, said the boys enjoyed the time spent with their father as much as the golf. “Sometimes we’d play 54 holes in one day,” he said. “It gave us a chance to talk, maybe about things you wouldn’t otherwise bring up. It definitely gave us a chance to interact.”

Such circumstances provide fertile ground for passing along one’s interests, according to Barbara Cadow, a psychologist who teaches at USC.

“When your parents have a passion and you are allowed to take part in doing it with them, it can create some of the best memories of your life,” she said. “Whatever it is--hunting rabbits, playing ball--you identify that as a positive experience.

“This is when children get their parents at the most relaxed state. It makes the activity more important, and they are likely to follow up on that activity.”

Not all intergenerational transmissions are so harmonious, however. Particularly when a musical instrument is involved.

Janet Smith, 39, of Altadena, took piano lessons for almost 20 years, beginning at age 5, before she developed her own appreciation for the endeavor.

“My mother was a musician, so that’s what we did in our family,” she said. “We took piano. I wouldn’t have done it on my own. Nobody likes to practice. But, with my mom, it wasn’t negotiable. She was very strict.”

And, now, so is Smith with her three children.

Her oldest son, Michael, 17, has taken piano for 10 “long up-and-down” years.

“I tried to start teaching him myself when he was 5,” she said. “That was a disaster. It lasted three weeks. We were not a happy family.

“He was ready at 7, so he started again. Since then there have been times when he’s loved it and times when he’s hated it. He’s wanted to quit many times, but. . . .”

It wasn’t negotiable.

Now, after all the years, it is.

“He can quit if he wants,” Mom said.

Not so fast, Mike Smith says.

“It’s kind of turning into a passion for me. I play every day and I enjoy it. I’m even thinking of doing this professionally.”

Regardless of whether Michael Smith actually goes into the music business, chances are decent, 20 years from now, that his children will be banging on a keyboard.

And chances are, there won’t be a lot of negotiating about it.

In many cases, vocations, as well as avocations, are passed on by parents to their kids. One such case is that of Dik Browne, the late cartoonist who drew the “Hi and Lois” and “Hagar the Horrible” comic strips.

His sons, Chance and Chris Browne, who grew up watching their father create cartoons, have continued his legacy.

They say they became involved subtly and over a period of many years.

“He never forced cartooning on us,” said Chris, who draws “Hagar.” “It was just kind of natural. I feel like this is my destiny. For me, it’s certainly the greatest way of remembering Dad. I still try to infuse ‘Hagar’ with my father’s soul.”

“Dad set it up so we could carry something on in the family business,” said Chance, who draws the “Hi and Lois” strip. “I think he wanted to see it go on. He wanted to see us carry the Browne flag into the future.”

They may be cheating death, but, according to Cadow, they are also enjoying life.

“These things that people pass on, they are the things that have made people happy,” Cadow said. “They have enjoyed it themselves, so they pass it on.”