Matthew Monday: Our Trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Part 2

Two weeks ago I posted on our trip to Cooperstown, NY, where the Baseball Hall of Fame resides.  Part 1 was limited to our stay in Albany, NY.  This post is on our visit to the Hall of Fame.

Of course on that first post I had promised I would come back the next week, but alas I have a tough time keeping up during baseball season.  As you may know, I love baseball!  And thank God that love is being passed on to Matthew.  Today he just got his birthday present.  Twelve days after his birthday I’m afraid, but that’s because Amazon had to back order the 2021 complete set of baseball cards.  He was thrilled when it came in this afternoon and spent the rest of the night going through all the cards.  Truth be told, I spent a little time going through them myself.  ;)

As I explained in Part 1, we stayed in Albany because it was the nearest big town with reasonably priced hotels.  Cooperstown is a very small town in the middle of nowhere.  “Nowhere” being relative for a city boy, and from a very big city at that.  Cooperstown was about an hour and a half drive from Albany.  About 45 minutes was on a major highway, but then it was 45 minutes on back roads that wound around hills and farmland, up curvy ascents and down equally curvy descents, around ridges and along cliffs.   Some of it was white knuckle driving.  I was surprised that such a well-known site required such effort to get there.  I didn’t take any pictures of the countryside.  I was too focused on getting us there in one piece.  Matthew and I marveled at some of the local town names, though “town” might be too generous a term for some of them.  Frequently the names of the towns or counties or whatever they were seemed to have a “kill” in them, like Bobskill.  Must be a hunting heritage. 

The whole town of Cooperstown is just lined with stores that cater to baseball in some fashion.  Clothing, baseball cards, memorabilia, touristy tchotchkes, framed pictures, equipment.  Even the food outlets, which charged an arm and a leg—or maybe it was just inflation—had a baseball association.  It was a pleasure to walk down the main street.  Parking was difficult since it was all metered.  We wound up parking about a half mile away in the residential neighborhood, which was a blessing actually which I’ll explain at the end.

There were lots of displays at the Hall of Fame.  I could not take a picture of them all, nor if I did could I post that many here.  It was a baseball lover’s paradise.  I had been there once before with my wife, but I had mostly forgotten how thrilling it was to see all the baseball history.  Matthew loved it immensely.  He said it was one of the best trips we’ve ever had.

So here’s an early display as you walk in to the third floor, which is where they suggest you start.  I may have mentioned it, but you probably don’t recall.  Matthew, much to his father’s chagrin, is a New York Yankees fan.  You may remember I’m a Baltimore Orioles fan.  (Despite being a Yankees fan, I let him live in the same house, but at some point I may have to reconsider.)  Here is Matthew standing to a display of the greatest player of all time, The Babe.

 

And here I am standing on a display for two of the Orioles greatest, third baseman Brooks Robinson (#5) and fiery manager that led them to four World Series, two of which they won, and a number of playoff appearances, mostly during the 1970s, Earl Weaver (#4). 

 

Here’s Matthew’s favorite display, an icon for the 27 World Championships the NY Yankees have won.  To show you how incredible that is, the next closest are the St. Louis Cardinals at 11. 

 

It wasn’t just displays.  There were movie clips, quizzes, radio announcing, pictures of dramatic moments, team songs.  Baseball is Americana, and you got to live through the 20^th century of American baseball.  I also enjoyed the art section where they had statues and paintings on display.  They had several Norman Rockwells, such as this.

 

And they had this interesting painting of Christy Mathewson, a great pitcher from around the WWI era for the NY Giants.

 

I had a blog post a number of years ago on Christy Mathewson’s book on pitching, “Pitchingin the Pinch.”  

The plaque section of every baseball Hall-of-Famer is the climax of the walk through.  If they made it into the Hall of Fame, they have a plaque up for them.  Here are a few of my baseball heroes in successive order: Earl Weaver, Brooks Robinson, Eddie Murray, Cal Ripken, Frank Robinson, and Jim Palmer.

And a couple for Matthew, famed NY Yankee relief pitchers, Goose Gossage and Mariano Rivera.

 

And to cap it off, here is a picture of father and son in front of the Hall’s entrance.

1210

 

So finally, about that spot we parked a half mile away.  This was on a Saturday, and it was going to be difficult for us the next day to get to a Church for Sunday Mass.  Across the street from where we parked was—wouldn’t you know it—a Catholic Church, St. Mary’s Our Lady of the Lake Church.  https://stmaryscoop.org/  Cooperstown is on a rather large lake called Otsego Lake.  And wouldn’t you know it, we would make the Saturday Vigil Mass that counts for Sunday obligation!  Can it get any better than that?  God had certainly a hand in the working of the day.  Here’s a picture of the Church’s sanctuary.

 

The church goes back well over a hundred years, and the choir was superb.  If you are in Cooperstown, go to Mass at St. Mary’s.

Matthew Monday: Matthew’s First Baseball Game

On June 24^th we took Matthew to see his first baseball game, a minor league game between the Staten Island Yankees—the New York Yankees minor league (single A) affiliate stationed here on Staten Island—and the Pittsburg Pirates minor league affiliate, the West Virginia Black Bears.  Here are some pictures.

At the gate, Matthew dressed as a complete Yankees fan.

At taking a picture with the team mascots.  That’s Scooter, the Holy Cow.  If you know Yankees legend, you’d realize where they got that name.

It was one of those minor league special days where they (1) gave out a ball to each fan, (2) allow small kids on the field and at the end of the game run the bases, and (3) fireworks after the game.  It was a really good one to go to.

We got there early, and mother and child were restless.

Staten Island Yankees stadium is located right on the harbor with a magnificent view of the Manhattan skyline.  Here’s a zoomed in shot looking out over the right field fence.

And Matthew loving it on the field.

Single A league are the players just drafted, and Matthew got his new baseball that he’d just receive signed by one of the Black Bears players.  As it turned out, that player had been a local Staten Island kid who had gone to one of our high schools.  And to Matthew’s pleasure, they shared the same first names.  That young ball player was Matt Diorio, and he got a hit and an RBI.  We hope Matt makes it someday to the big leagues. Matt is number 18.

Here’s a picture Matthew took with my camera which he was very proud of.  He caught the Yankees pitcher in action.

As luck would have it, the Staten Island Yankees, who had trailed all night, tied the game up and won it in the bottom of the tenth inning.  You can see the box score here.   And here’s a picture of the fireworks.

What a spectacular night for Matthew.  He said “it was the best day of my life.”  Don’t take that as absolute.  He says that about a lot of days…LOL.  But he did have a great time.

Matthew Monday: Matthew Breaks My Heart

A father and son are supposed to share some vital interests.  It must be a violation of some natural law that a father and son don’t root for the same baseball team.  As some who have followed my blog might remember I am a passionate Baltimore Orioles fan when it comes to my favorite—and slowly becoming my only—sport, baseball.  Outside of my family, my job, and my love of literature, baseball is the only interest that enters my head.  Elegant beyond compare, nuanced in complexity, baseball is the game for those with an artist’s eye, with a poet’s ear, with a storyteller’s heart for drama.  I love the game.

And it’s not important how I became an Orioles fan, though I’ll mention it.  My father was an immigrant from Italy, and he had no notion of the game.  It was not handed down to me, especially a team to root for.  I guess being a lifelong New Yorker I could have gravitated to one of the New York teams.  But I didn’t.  Some kid named Benny Testa in second grade was an Orioles’ fan, and he convinced me to fight against all those Yankee and Met fans.  I lost sight of Benny in the next grade and have no clue whatever happened to him.  But at eight years old I latched onto the Baltimore Orioles and it has been a lifelong love, despite the many years of disappointments.

So you would expect my son to follow in rooting for the Baltimore Orioles, right?  Well, unfortunately his mother is a Yankees fan, and she drilled in him the greatness of the Yankees.  I figured I could slowly lure him away from the dark side—yes, the Yankees are evil—and I think I was beginning to, but what I didn’t count on was that Matthew’s best friend in school, J.J., is also a Yankees fan, and that is more powerful than anything I can do.  I hate to say this, but my son Matthew is —shudder—a Yankees fan.

And he’s been cheering them when he hears the Yankees have won or the Orioles have lost.  He keeps asking how many championships have the Yankees have won.  Twenty-seven I think, averaging something like one every four years for the past hundred years.  And those are the ones they’ve won; they’ve been in many a World Series and playoff where they did not go on to win it all.  The Orioles in comparison have won three.  Thank goodness this year the Orioles have been fighting for first place in their division while the Yankees have been either last or next to last.  This is a potentially rare bad year for the Yankees.  Still Matthew tries to verbally jab me when the Orioles lose.  And I don’t like it.  If he wants to be a Yankees fan, he should keep it to himself and not try to antagonize his father, who if antagonized too much might decide to give the child a swift spank on the butt.

So a few weeks ago he asked if I could buy him a Yankees hat.  I sometimes wear my Orioles hat, and he wants one to counter me.  “No,” I said.  “I ain’t gonna buy you a Yankees hat.  No way, I will never do that.” 

After going back and forth in an effort to dissuade me, he finally turned into a pout.  “Then I’ll get mommy to buy it or grandma.  Or I’ll buy it with my own money.”

“Fine, but I ain’t buying it for you.”

Then as it happened I passed a stand on the street where a man was selling sports items, and I noticed a Yankees hat.  I thought about buying it, but I didn’t.  That night I said to Matthew, “Guess what I saw.  Someone selling Yankees hats.”

“Did you buy me one?”

“Noooooo.  I told you I don’t buy Yankees stuff.” 

“Why?” he cried.

“Because it’s yucky.  The Yankees are yucky.”

He just stared at me.  “Oh yeah.  The Orioles are yucky.  The Orioles are yucky.”

So a week later I passed that same man selling baseball items on the street.  I stopped and bought a Yankees cap.  It hurt but I did.  When I got home, I told him I had something for him. 

“What?”

“A Yankees hat.”  I took it out and handed it to him.  His eyes lit up. 

“Thank you Daddy.” 

“Don’t thank me.  I didn’t buy it.  I told you I would never buy that yucky stuff.”

“Then who bought it?”

“Nonna bought it.”  Nonnna is Italian for Grandma and is what we call my mother.  “Nonna made me stop the car and she bought you a Yankees hat when she heard you liked the Yankees.”  I was lying of course.  But he doesn’t need to know that.  Here’s a picture of him in his Yankees hat, sticking his tongue out at Dad.

Ha, the little punk.  At least the Orioles beat the Yankees two out of three this weekend.