Play Ball!: Searching for 'Murica (part one)

 

Last Wednesday marked 164 days in captivity in our apartment in Arlington, and it was time to get out, if only for a few days. While my wife elected to stay at "home", my daughter didn't have a choice, and so the two of us set out on a short road trip. The idea was to drive north to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, but to do it by avoiding highways (and tolls) whenever possible. My intention was to give Amber, who says she feels more Taiwanese than American these days, an education via the automobile of how or what America (or 'Murica) actually feels and looks like when you avoid the interstates and the suburbs. It's a romantic notion, of course, but my initial plan was to visit my sister on the other side of the country in exactly the same manner - time constraints, alas, have put that project back on the shelf for now. A shorter road trip is better than none, and would allow me to spend some time with my daughter before she and Shu-E leave for Taiwan at the end of the month. Which is how the two of us departed after lunch in our rented Chevy Malibu in search of 'Murica:    

 

 

Our drive that Wednesday afternoon only lasted a few hours, but it was enough to take us from Virginia through the District of Columbia and Maryland, and then into Pennsylvania. We ended up stopping for the night at a Best Western in Carlisle, PA:

 

It was Amber's suggestion to have dinner at a Belgian restaurant in downtown Carlisle. Although mussels would've been the apropos order, they only came as a two-pound (0.9 kilograms) portion, more than we could handle, so she chose to have the steak frites, while I opted for the stuffed pork loin. Confident in my heterosexuality (and conscious of the fact that I needed a lower ABV beverage because I was driving), I washed down my entree with a cherry lambic Boon Kriek:

Carlisle has a history dating back to 1751 and is home to the U.S. Army War College. After dinner the two of us took a stroll through the downtown area. Here, my daughter checks out the local war memorial:

The figure on the far right holding a football is Jim Thorpe, a Native American athlete and Olympic gold medalist, who was an All-American in football while attending the Carlisle Indian Industrial School: 

Thursday would be a day full of 'Murica, as we passed through one historic small town after another, interspersed with idyllic scenes of farmland and forests. Though charming at first glance, it was also apparent that most of these slices of American pie had seen better days, before jobs that had once been plentiful in factories and mills moved elsewhere. We stopped for a short break in Selinsgrove, along the Susquehanna River:

This decline, and the sense that time is rapidly leaving these places and their residents behind, probably explains the proliferation of "Trump 2020" signs that infested the roadside as we made our way through Pennsylvania. It hit home when we stopped for lunch at the Rocky Creek Cafe in Monroe. The bacon cheeseburger I had was surprisingly good; the conversation at the next table, however, left a bitter taste in my mouth. Three middle-aged men were expressing their disgust to each other at the nerve of African-American football players kneeling, or worse, refusing to come out of the locker room during the playing of the national anthem in support of Black Lives Matter. One of them Googled the lyrics to Lift Every Voice and Sing (the "black national anthem"), and practically spat out the last line in the song ("True to our native land"):

The support for Donald Trump I could understand (sort of); what was beyond comprehension was the sheer number of Confederate flags we would see as kept driving. If I remember my history correctly (and I always do), Pennsylvania wasn't a slave state, and was an integral part of the Union during the Civil War (the next blog post, in fact, will cover our visit to Gettysburg). And yet one could be forgiven for thinking in some places that they were in Dixie. According to a joke relayed to me by a friend, "Alabama" is what you find between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia; "Pennsyltucky" is how another friend (who resides in the Keystone State!) describes it. There was a strong sense of relief when we crossed state lines into New York, where we took a short break along the Susquehanna in Kirkwood:

Though we certainly saw a lot of Trump signs in New York state, there was also plenty of visible support for the Biden/Harris ticket (much more so than in PA). We stopped for ice cream in Bainbridge: 

Around 1630 hours we rolled into the parking lot of a Holiday Inn, just outside of the village of Cooperstown. After checking in and relaxing for a little bit, we went out for dinner at the Council Rock Brewery, where we both had tacos, washed down (for me; Amber had a hot chocolate) with a "Spontaneous Ale #2":

On Friday morning I reached the holy land. For as long as I've been a fan, I've wanted to visit the baseball Hall of Fame. The dream was about to come true as we parked at Doubleday Field:

The National Pastime. If what we heard and saw in the Pennsylvania countryside revealed the ugly side of America, Cooperstown and the Hall of Fame went some ways in restoring my faith in this county. I don't have the literary skills to elucidate on the role the game has played in American history and society (watching Ken Burns' highly acclaimed PBS documentary series certainly does), but I truly believe that in order to understand America, one has to understand the game of baseball:

It's definitely a shrine to the game, but the Hall of Fame is also, quite simply, one of the best museums of any kind. Its three floors cover the history of the game and its impact on American life in a way that I could never do justice, so I'll just encourage you to see it for itself, and in the meantime present to you a plethora of photographs taken during the several hours Amber and I were at the Hall, like this display on some of baseball's international outreach efforts. I saw one of the games (if memory serves me right, the final one, though it might also have been Game 3; in any event, the MLB All-Stars came from behind to win as Sammy Sosa homered) of the 1998 MLB Japan All Star Series at the Tokyo Dome 東京ドーム:

My daughter isn't a fan, but even she was interested in many of the displays:

Babe Ruth, aka The Bambino or The Sultan of Swat. Arguably the greatest player to have ever taken the field. Even Amber had heard of him:

Ty Cobb, the Georgia Peach. History hasn't been kind to him as a personality, but the evidence suggests history hasn't always treated him fairly, either:

The immortal Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball's notorious color line in 1947. His contribution to the civil rights movement can't be overstated, as Amber had heard of him, too:

The museum has a room dedicated to the Negro Leagues, which should never have existed. So many great players, like Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell, were denied the opportunity they deserved to play as equals on Major League diamonds. There's a Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City that I would like to visit one day:

My daughter learns of the fascinating story of Moe Berg, and of the part played by women in the game:

The 1970's was the decade I became interested in baseball, beginning with the great Oakland Athletics teams of 1972-1974:

Video screens in the Hall show classic baseball moments, like Kirk Gibson's unbelievable home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series. I was working as a busboy at an upscale steak and seafood restaurant in Sacramento at that time, watching the game on TV in the bar between clearing off tables. As a lifelong Dodgers fan in a roomful of A's supporters, it was all I could do to control my excitement as Gibson hit that 3-2 slider into the right field pavilion at Dodger Stadium:

As only the great Vin Scully could describe the action:

The 1998 home run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. The display didn't shy away from the controversy over steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs:

I was living and working in Yokkaichi 四日市, Japan during the remarkable 2004 American League Championship Series between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. I would watch the games in the morning before going to work, celebrating as the Red Sox came from 0-3 behind to beat the Yankees, and then end the Curse of the Bambino in the World Series. I don't admire Curt Schilling's politics, but I'll never forget the image of his bloody sock:

The 1927 New York Yankees, aka Murderers' Row, arguably the greatest team ever assembled:

Baseball in the Caribbean:

No. 21, Roberto Clemente:

Baseball has experienced work stoppages in 1972, 1981 and in 1994-95, the latter of which resulted in the cancellation of the 1994 World Series: 

Explaining the finer points of Ichiro Suzuki 鈴木一郎. He will almost certainly be a first-ballot Hall of Famer when he becomes eligible in 2024. Yes, that is in fact a South African Springboks rugby jersey that I wore to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum:

A classic photograph of Ty Cobb in action:

From timed entry tickets to mandatory face masks, COVID-19 has changed the way we travel in 2020:

Amber and the Phillie Phanatic:  

I can remember my Dad and I watching the game in April 1974 when Henry Aaron broke Babe Ruth's career record of 714 home runs. "He did it!" my father yelled excitedly as we rushed from the dinner table to the TV set to get a closer look:

Ted Williams was my father's favorite player:

The Splendid Splinter was the last player to bat over .400, hitting .406 in 1941, the same year as Joe DiMaggio's incredible 56-game consecutive hitting streak:

イチロー!:

One of my favorite players was Nolan Ryan, the Express, holder of the records for most strikeouts in a career (5714) and in a season (383); as well as for the most no-hitters thrown (7). I saw him pitch once when he was with the California Angels, and I swear I couldn't see the ball as he threw from the pitcher's mound to the batter's box:

Does Barry Bonds belong in the Hall? He would've been a shoo-in had he not so obviously used PED's later on in his career. At some point, however, the baseball writers that vote on membership are going to have to accept that steroids were a part of the sport's landscape in the 1990's, then hold their noses and elect both Bonds and Roger Clemens:

As much as I despise the New York Yankees, you can't overlook their 27 World Series championships:

Last year the Washington Nationals overcame a 19-31 start to reach the World Series, where they went on to defeat the Houston Astros:

Baseball cards. My daughter is aware of their value, and couldn't believe it when I told her that her father, like many kids of his generation, used to attach cards using clothes pins to his bicycle wheel spokes in order to create a neat sound. Fortunately, this exhibit showed her what her old man was going on about:

In an exhibit entitled "The Cards Your Mother Threw Away" I noticed the same 1973 Topps Roberto Clemente card that I once owned as a ten-year-old. I looked it up recently online and learned that a mint copy of this card would be worth around $500 today. My mother didn't throw away my baseball cards; she gave them away, with my permission, sometime in the early 1980's before they became valuable commodities. I had to apologize to Amber for allowing her grandmother to surrender my daughter's future Ivy League education:

The T206 Honus Wagner, the most expensive baseball card ever:

One room had a recreation of a locker room, with examples of all 30 MLB clubs. As a kid growing up in southern California, I lived or died with the then-California Angels (mostly died, thanks to Dave Henderson's homer in Game 3 of the 1986 ALCS) and Los Angeles Dodgers, allegiances maintained even after the family moved to Sacramento (Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants territory). When my parents relocated to Washington state after my father retired, I allowed the Seattle Mariners into my closed world. I've also cheered the Washington Nationals after joining the State Department and spending time in the D.C. area:

2020's inductees into the Hall include Derek Jeter, Ted Simmons, Larry Walker and Marvin Miller. The latter helped end baseball's notorious reserve clause, which even my 14-year-old could understand was an extremely unfair labor practice. She agreed with me that the Supreme Court made a mistake in 1922 when it ruled that organized baseball was an entertainment, and not a business subject to federal interstate commerce regulations:

The Hall of Famer (1996), LeRoy Neiman:

We ended our visit in the gallery, containing the plaques of all 314 enshrinees (not including the Class of 2020). To put things in perspective, of the more than 19,000 players who have reached the major leagues, only 234 have been elected into the Hall of Fame. Math has never been my strong suit, but I believe that works out to less than 1.2% of those who have had at least a cup of coffee in the big leagues. That's Hank Aaron in the upper-left corner, with Frank Robinson in the lower right (another great whose card I foolishly allowed my mother to give away):

Don Drysdale:

Lou Brock and Tom Seaver, two greats who died this summer:

Tommy Lasorda, who "bleeds Dodger blue":

Nolan Ryan on the bottom-left (not to overlook George Brett and Robin Yount):

Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr.:

1936: the first class. Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth and Honus Wagner:

Edgar Martinez, beloved in Seattle:

We briefly left the gallery to check out an exhibit on baseball and the movies:

I saw Field of Dreams in a cinema in Tōkyō 東京 in 1989, and I'm not ashamed to say it made me cry. I think you can guess which scene started the tears flowing, but if you can't, here it is. Have a tissue ready: 

Back in the gallery:

My Hall of Famer:

No museum visit is complete without a stop in the gift shop. We picked up a few souvenirs, but having a lifelong fear of clowns, I skipped on this cap of a historic Negro Leagues team:

Pilgrimage completed, it was time for a late lunch. What and where else than a beer and a hot dog at the aptly-named Doubleday Cafe?:

Many shops along Main Street in Cooperstown deal in baseball memorabilia. Check out those prices:

Sign o' the times, and evidence that we were no longer in Pennsylvania:

Baseball was not invented in Cooperstown in 1839 by Abner Doubleday, but as is often pointed out, it should have been (the supposedly pastoral game actually evolved from several different ball-and-bat games, and the rules of what became the national pastime were first codified in 1845 in New York City):

Taking an ice cream break outside Tin Bin Alley:

The "Who's on First" exhibit was closed due to the pandemic:

At one point we walked down to the shore of Otsego Lake:

Outside the Hall of Fame building. What the batter's box looks like from 60 feet 6 inches away:

Johnny Podres fires to Roy Campanella. I didn't stand a chance:

Satchel Paige:

It isn't all baseball in Cooperstown. The town was founded by James Fenimore Cooper's father, and the celebrated writer grew up there. On Saturday, on our drive to Gettysburg, we stopped off at a Barnes & Noble in Wilkes-Barre, where I bought my daughter a copy of The Last of the Mohicans. It'll be her assigned reading while she does quarantine in Taichung 台中:

Amber scans the current MLB standings:

Checking out Doubleday Field before driving back to the Holiday Inn:

We returned to Cooperstown in the evening for dinner. Already tired of 'Murican cuisine, Amber suggested we dine at a Japanese restaurant, which was run by a friendly Chinese couple. I would name the establishment, but the tempura 天ぷら I ordered (which was too much for me to finish) resulted in a trip to 下痢 town in the early hours of Saturday morning. My daughter (who had teriyaki beef) was fine:

Back in the hotel and modeling the jersey I'd bought at the Hall of Fame. I was considering a 1980's Nolan Ryan Astros jersey...:

...but the look on Amber's face while we were in the gift shop convinced me otherwise (she also talked me out of the purchasing a very vivid LA Dodgers Hawaiian shirt). So instead I bought this Red Sox road jersey - #9, of course, was none other than Ted Williams:

Cooperstown has been described by some as America's most beautiful village, and it's easy to see why. A glance at some properties in the window of a realtor's office on Main Street showed that a beautiful house could be mine for less than $200,000, which naturally spurred thoughts of retiring to the area. However, it was already getting cold in this part of New York state even though it was still September (the overnight temperature would actually fall below freezing), and for my wife the lack of any Asian grocery stores in the vicinity would be a definite negative. Cooperstown is a great place to visit, but warmer climes hopefully await me in the years ahead.

To be continued...