When it comes to news about his MLB star son, Ron Nimmo is on the ball.
The dad of Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo Googles the slugger’s name first thing every day.
“I didn’t realize that he did this until probably a couple of years ago, but he gets up in the morning and he’ll just type my name into the news,” Brandon, 31, told The Post ahead of Father’s Day.
Brandon said his father usually knows what’s been reported about him before he does.
“Because I’m waking up at like 12 or 1 for a 7 o’clock game and he’s already been up and he’s got the laptop out and already checked out all the articles, so it’s pretty funny.”
Ron, 64, a retired CPA who lives in Cheyenne, WY, where he raised his three children, said he doesn’t share the search results with Brandon.
“I have learned that it’s probably best that I let him find out about that stuff himself, not for me to bother him,” he said. “I mean, he’s got a lot of people with a lot of input into what he should do and when he should do it and how he should do it.”
Ron also learned not to take anything he reads about his youngest son to heart — and that lesson came from Brandon himself, back when he was playing with the Mets’ minor-league team in Coney Island.
“Well, I found out what the grace period with fans is in New York,” Brandon told his dad while playing with the Brooklyn Cyclones. “It’s one day.”
The father recalled his son telling him, “The first day I was here, they were all my friend. The second day, they were all telling me how worthless I was and the Mets wasted their money.”
In 2011, the Mets drafted Brandon out of high school and the next year, while he was playing with the Cyclones, Ron and his wife, Patti, made their first trip to New York.
“Brandon . . . told us of a hotel that was close to him. Lots of razor wire around the property over there, bars on windows,” Ron remembered.
Ron and Patti decided to take the train to Coney Island on the 4th of July, right in time for the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest there, which he said was “a bad idea.”
“We had never, obviously, been on a subway anywhere,” he said. “So we walk out of the subway station and the street is full of, what seemed to us, like 150,000 people standing in front of us.”
Brandon recalled growing up in Wyoming, where the long winters weren’t ideal for baseball and organized leagues could be hours away. His dad built a 40-by-60-foot insulated barn in their yard with heaters, a batting cage, hitting nets and a pitching machine for him and his older brother, Bryce, 39, who played baseball at the University of Nebraska.
“We spent a lot of time in that barn, and so, it became famous when I got drafted,” Brandon explained.
“Lots of kids on various teams of Brandon and Bryce, they all used the barn and got out of the cold,” Ron recalled.
Until he was 14, Brandon, who became the highest-drafted MLB player in Wyoming history, played on parent-coached traveling teams, where Ron was one of the coaches. Since his high school didn’t offer baseball, Brandon joined the local American Legion travel team. Most of their games were in the Colorado area, two hours away, and others were as far as Spokane, WA, a 14-hour drive.
“It was a huge sacrifice made by our parents in order to travel. And I had two other siblings … and there’s two parents, they can only go with two children, so the third one’s gotta find someone to go with,” said Brandon, whose sister, Kristen, 37, played soccer.
Ron, who was busy during tax season from January to April, said he is grateful for his wife’s sacrifices.
“I was a partner at a CPA firm here in town, so that provided all the things that we needed, except for time,” he said. “Thankfully, my wife was in charge of mostly getting the kids everywhere they needed to go and she did a great job.”
Ron, who grew up in La Junta, CO, played football in high school and wrestled in college before a knee injury ended his career in freshman year.
“I know that it wasn’t his first choice to be working a desk job for 12 hours a day and doing all these things in order that I might have a better shot at doing what I wanted to do,” Brandon said. “So I really have appreciated everything that he’s done for me.”
Brandon also credits his parents for his deep faith.
“My parents have always supported me in this sport, but first and foremost, they’ve always wanted me to be well-rooted in my relationship with God,” he said.
“I tell people, ‘If you just bring your children to church, eventually it gets through,’ because I was the type of kid at the beginning, where I was going kicking and screaming.”
Brandon, known as “the happiest man in baseball” for his always-pleasant demeanor, is also known for staying late after games and giving fans autographs in the parking lot of Citi Field.
“I think the security guys kind of wish he would go home sometimes,” Ron said.
“Many times it’s midnight or later by the time he leaves the field, and there will still be fans waiting out there, and he’ll stop his car and he’ll sign for everybody who’s waiting. And then everybody gets to go home after that.”
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