Dr. Daniel J. Farren passed away last week.

Not every guy will be as sad as I am about the passing of his longtime optometrist, but Dr. Farren was special. Dr. Farren was so much more than an eye doctor.

The good doctor came into my life in 1983, when I was 9. I remember the day we met like it was yesterday. It was also one of the most important days of my life.

I started wearing glasses before I turned 3 years old. That meant that I had to go to the eye doctor at least once every year, though it seemed like it was every month.

I did not like my first eye doctor, and it was pretty apparent that the feelings were mutual. Even my mom, who almost always sees the best in every person, told me recently that she thought the doctor was mean to me.

The worst part about going to that eye doctor was that he basically had one style of eyeglasses for me to pick out. The “throw-the-ball-at-my-head” model. They are the kind of glasses my friend Pat Ryan would call “birth control glasses.”

As if the lazy eye didn’t put me behind the 8 ball enough.

My lasting memory of going to my first eye doctor was a couple of members of his staff holding me down to a table so he could get an eye drop in my second eye. He must have figured that if glasses were not going to fix my amblyopia, then he would scare that eye straight.

The first drop stung, so I was not about to let him land a drop in my other eye. I won that fight, too, because I learned at a young age that no doctor can beat an effective kicking-and-screaming tantrum.

When he decided he would charge my family extra to make monthly payments — right after the mines closed in Butte and my dad lost his job — my mom finally decided we needed a new eye doctor.

That is when I met Dr. Farren. I immediately liked him because, well, he was just such a likeable guy. He always had a joke, and he was always smiling.

Literally every single time I saw Dr. Farren, he was smiling.

He was also much, much better at his job than my old eye doctor. Dr. Farren actually offered an explanation as to why my left eye always liked to stare at my right eye, and it was not because of a lack of stinging eye drops.

Both of my eyes worked, but not at the same time.

I remember staring at the giant E on the chart across the dark room. Dr Farren held his big spoon to cover my right eye. Then he switched it to my left, and then back again. I thought I was outsmarting the good doctor by switching my eyes as he moved his spoon.

That first appointment seemed like it took forever as Dr. Farren figured out what was up with my eyes and explained it to my mom. He said he could fix it.

With that, we started some pretty intensive therapy. I went to Dr. Farren’s office a couple of times each week to work on training my eyes to work together. I remember sitting in a dark room for hours, staring at a screen while trying to make the off-kilter L and the R lineup.

To almost every other person on the planet, the L and R just automatically lined up. Not for me.

Dr. Farren also got me a pair of glasses that were a little more fashionable. Not much, but a little.

As I went through the months of therapy, Dr. Farren and I hoped that it would work well enough that I would be able to hit a baseball. Well, at least I hoped it would. I am sure Dr. Farren probably knew that was a lost cause, but he never told me that.

It did help me hit a little better, though. Instead of striking out every time, I started to foul off the ball. Occasionally, I would even get a hit.

One time years later, though, I helped Dr. Farren’s grandson hit an inside-the-park grand slam. That should count for something.

I wrote about that in a column for ButteSports.com in May of 2015.

Taylor Farren was on the Centerville Fire Department team in the Northwest Little League’s Triple-A league in 1999. I was an assistant coach on that team, and I worked hard to get Taylor to swing the bat during games.

One game, late in the season, Taylor was our 10th batter of the inning. Under league rules, the inning ended after 10 batters if the defense did not record three outs.

So, with the bases loaded, Taylor came up and watched the first three pitches come nowhere close to the plate. I called time out.

“Listen,” I told him, “if you walk here, you are just walking back to the dugout because you’re the last batter. So, I want you to swing at the next three pitches no matter where they are.”

The next pitch was high and outside, but Taylor smashed it over the center fielder’s head and to the fence. Taylor sprinted around the bases as his mother honked her horn and then jumped out of her minivan to race to the fence to scream and cheer for her boy.

Had I ever hit the ball like that, Dr. Farren would have been the one screaming and shaking the fence. He worked so hard to get my eyes straight. They never made it all the way, and I still cannot not get that L and R lined up.

But Dr. Farren never gave up on me. He also made it so my left eye has not crossed uncontrollably. In fact, today you would hardly be able to tell that I ever had such a problem.

As I got older, those appointments with Dr. Farren got even more fun. They were long appointments, too, because we would talk so much. His stories were still funny, and his jokes were even better.

My three kids thought he was a riot, too. They will never forget how he told each one of them about the phone call he made to Mickey Mouse the day before the appointment, asking “Mick” to send a special video to show the kids as he examined their eyes.

Then, Dr. Farren would put on a video of a Mickey Mouse cartoon that had to be at least 70 years old on his 1980s model TV/VCR combo.

When it was my turn for an appointment, it was always apparent how badly Dr. Farren wanted me to see 100 percent straight. He would almost try to will me to see the shape that was supposed to jump off the screen in the depth perception test.

Since my eyes still aren’t totally lined up, I never did see it.

One time, I figured I would have my wife tell me what the shape was so I could get a rise out of Dr. Farren. I just wanted to see the look on his face.

The Doc, though, got to Kim first. He made her promise not to tell me, and she held true to that promise.

I never did make the big leagues in baseball. I never even made the Babe Ruth league. Of course, that was not just about my eyesight. I also lacked just about every other quality an athlete needs to be a good baseball player.

But it was not because Dr. Farren did not try. He even offered to help me when I tried to take up playing handball in my late 20s.

This time, though, Dr. Farren did not bring me back for therapy to try to line up the L and R. Instead, he suggested writing me a note to explain to my opponents why I could not hit a handball. It would have been like a doctor’s excuse for losing.

Then, like he always did, Dr. Farren smiled.

— Bill Foley, who wishes he would have taken Dr. Farren up on that offer to write a handball excuse note, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74 or Bluesky at @foles74.bsky.social. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.