Notes #77

NOTES FROM THE SHADOWS OF COOPERSTOWN

Observations from Outside the Lines

By Two Finger Carney (carneya6@adelphia.net)

#77 August 3, 1994

TAKING TIME FOR PARADISE

Americans and Their Games was Giamatti’s subtitle for his small but tedious book with the wonderful title I’ve borrowed, and it could fit nicely as the subtitle for my week on the road with a Jay Buckley’s tour, July 24-30.

Perhaps A. Bartlett’s title is not quite accurate. Because we not so much take time, as leave it, when we enter the Game. And now that I’m back in time, I’m very conscious that I’ve been quite outside of it, for almost a week (measured in time). My world had been measured not by clocks, but by distances between cities and motels and stadiums, and by innings.

I can only compare the pace of this six-stop experience ( vacation is too thin a word) to that of Disneyworld: up early (an hour or two before departure), on the go all day with never a dull moment, collapse at the end to store up some rest so you can do it all over again tomorrow. Once launched, it’s not Wednesday , it’s either Day Three or Pittsburgh, we are traveling at some warp speed that proves Einstein’s Theory of Relativity over and over again. And we arrive back in time, younger than when we left.

We: 48 fans, plus our time-travel pilot, joined together at the horsehide from fifteen different USA states (California and Wisconsin the best-represented), T-ballers and Little Leaguers on board with their fathers or mothers (and in one case, with both), fans paired with relatives or friends, fans new to the Game and fans who cheered Ruth and Gehrig when they were kids. Random fans, on separate pilgrimages, sharing the shuttle, fast food lunches, and sections of Skydome, Three Rivers, Camden Yards, Fenway and finally Yankee Stadium, we are a deck of cards that is shuffled four or five times a day, so that the neighborhood is always shifting.

I had no time (!) to play Chaucer, to chronicle the tales of each Canterbury Cooperstown pilgrim, but I had no doubt that each had stories … and many more, after the trip. I want to tell a few of my new ones in this issue, with the hope that I can avoid the Home Movie Video pitfall. So, hang on, here goes….

BALLPARK

Time was kept at bay on the bus (Michael Jordan would have been quite pleased with our vehicle) partly by watching videos, including programs on the cities we were approaching, and their baseball teams — and their ballparks. (One video was on Classic Ballparks, including Old Comiskey and Wrigley.)

Some cities are now almost defined by their ballpark, Baltimore by Camden Yards and Toronto by Skydome (never the Skydome, I learned), and there was much talk of the new ones in Cleveland and Arlington as well. There are fans who collect ballparks, like bird watchers, and who will travel great distances to sight the ones not yet on their lists. I am not fanatical about this myself, yet as I entered Skydome, some tiny voice whispered chalk up another one , and I did.

We arrived in Toronto with plenty of time to sightsee, and I chose to hang out at Skydome all day. On an afternoon tour (with a hundred or more pre-teens from Quebec, bubbling French), I learned how many elephants Skydome can hold (African and Indian), how much it cost to build (a lot more than projected), exactly how it was accomplished (the design is reptilian, it turns out), and so on. No one explained why it was called Sky dome, when that was the single thing missing from the tour — we saw Roof dome. The tour began with a short film in a two-story theater room, and then we walked or elevatored to various vantage points including the press box and the upper deck, the steepest one going (but that feeling is offset by miles of railing, in front of every row, so you feel secure, even as your nose bleeds.) With the dome closed, the 1280-toilet facility is an exceptionally impressive, state-of-the-art theater , with restaurants and a hotel tossed in for good measure.

Fortunately, by game time the metal heavens opened, and Skydome looked more like a ballpark. Some players got their kicks tossing balls off the restaurant windows during BP, the USA anthem was #2, and we were entertained at the stretch by shake-your-body cheerleaders, but Skydome was a comfortable place to watch the Brewers score 7 in the first and hang on for a 7-5 win.

The kids from my tour showed up in white T-shirts in the LF bleachers, and screeched a lot, and had a ball. Skydome is huge, with an international flavor ( half tourists?), and plastic grass. If the ballparks of the seventies can be called concrete doughnuts, Skydome is a concrete-and-glass wedding cake, built for celebrations, and for fans.

If you build it, they will come . William Cammeyer had it right. People want to be out with the crowd , whether 49 or 49,000, and ballparks are places where crowds pay to mingle, pay to eat & drink, and then pay for souvenirs, so they won’t forget that they indeed were there, ate & drank, and oh, yes — 7-5, Brewers.

En route from “The World’s Greatest Entertainment Centre” to Three Rivers Stadium, the tour paused at Niagara Falls, and the contrast between this natural wonder, and Toronto’s artificial one, was striking. I had been to the falls thirty years before, with my parents, and five or six years ago, with my wife and kids. The falls are unchanging, they dazzle by their sheer power and size in a wordless way, no tour guide needed, no film on The Making Of .

ON DOUGHNUTS AND HOLES

Some people collect mugs. I don’t, but for years I kept one from a long-gone coffee shop in downtown Pittsburgh, because I liked the saying. It went roughly like this: “As you travel on through life, brother, let this be your goal: keep your eye upon the doughnut, and not upon the hole.”

I would guess that no one on the tour really had Three Rivers ranked one or two on their wanna-see-stadium list. It is fashionable these days to bash the “concrete doughnuts” of the 70’s. “If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all,” I heard someone say. But nothing could be farther from the truth.

Three Rivers and Busch and Riverfront and the Vet have, after all, something the new parks are only now manufacturing: history. When I visit Three Rivers, it’s not a doughnut , it’s where I saw a World Series game with my Dad, and where I saw a NL Playoff game with my son, and where I had all kinds of good times, over 25 years now, with family and friends. Like Niagara, Three Rivers is there , it hasn’t changed much, and so it’s comfortable for me, homey. The vendors have a familiar accent, the fans wear the Pirates’ colors, my team’s colors. Pittsburghers can knock Three Rivers (because they no longer sell chipped ham there, for example), but if others do it with ‘Burghers around, there will be a fight.

Fans don’t go to Three Rivers to see the ballpark (although they did, in 1970, when it was state-of-the-art), they go see the Pirates . This time around, the home team buried the Cubs under 16 hits, mostly jagged singles, in a 9-4 win. The victory, in the cool drizzle under the summer sky, tasted sweet — as a doughnut.

FANS & fans

At our next stop, Camden Yards, we were given a bonus: the game the night before was rained out, so we were treated to a doubleheader, Indians-O’s. The Forty-Niners (my nickname for the group) scattered upon arrival in Baltimore, some to serious shopping at Harborplace, some to the Babe Ruth Museum, and when the Yards’ gates swung open at 4 PM, an hour before game time (don’t ask me why — they could fill this place with lunchers even on off days, I bet), I found myself strolling by Boog’s barbecue pit with no long lines. So I grabbed a sandwich (better than Arby’s) and looked for a table. Camden has one of the most fan-friendly promenades I’ve ever seen, and I was soon seated with three fellows in Indian caps. All teachers, I soon learned, locals whose Tribe fever had been in remission a long time. This season, it has infected them badly, contagiously.

There were more Indian fans sitting behind me at the game, couples from Cleveland, literally following their guys around. They were psyched, and when they called out “Albert!” it had a familial ring. I heard unmistakable echoes of the strain of Buc fever that broke out in Pittsburgh in 1960, the cheers that can only come from throats which have been starving for decades, rooting colored with foolish, childish, impossible hope, that the end of the famine is in sight , is that close , maybe just a Belle-shot or a Lofton-steal away.

When the first game started, there were as many fans in the seats, as in the eateries, and the Yards didn’t fill till well into the evening. Sandy the Other Alomar’s 3-run HR put the Tribe on top to stay, and Albert’s 33rd sent the Indian fans into ecstasy. The Indians were up in Game 2, when we had to go. I wished the Clevelanders good luck on holding the lead (they did), and on the rest of the season. Just before the fifth inning started in the opener, I learned that a date of August 12 had been set for the Strike, news that made Indian fans wince. Of course, we all knew it was coming, and we all had been holding out hope that it wouldn’t come at all. Now our hope shifted: make it short, let’s get this very special season insomehow .

My many Red Sox and Yankee friends will pardon me for not taking much time with Fenway and the Stadium. Fenway will always echo Forbes Field for me (especially this time, as we had a somewhat obstructed view), despite the added luxury boxes. The Fen and the Stadium crowds were both rewarded, Mo hitting two out in a 7-2 win over Milwaukee, the Yanks’ singles outweighing three Cleveland bombs (one was Albert’s 35th, he was on a tear), 6-5. The BoSox and Yankee fans write plenty about themselves, anyway.

HALL OF FAME

“HOF” ain’t a bad adjective to describe this tour, and appropriately enough, that’s where we started, with an afternoon in Cooperstown. One of the 49ers was the son of Earl Combs’ nephew, had never been east, and seeing the Murderer’s Row leadoff hitter’s plaque was surely a highlight for him and his wife. (He also browsed through Combs’ considerable file in the HOF library.) En route to the Hall, we viewed the two HBO specials When It Was a Game , and I did the commentary as we passed through Fly Creek (where the “Doubleday baseball” was found in an attic) and near the Farmers’ Museum (where the Cardiff Giant lies in peace, and why do I always associate him with that Fly Creek orb?) I don’t think Cooperstown disappointed anyone. Heck, someday busloads of folks might come there just to see life without malls and McDonald’s!

Our group was not, by the way, full of major league city folks. We were postal workers and accountants and teachers, most of whom had seen a few ML ballparks. I’m sure we all could return to our “real jobs” quite thrilled to have seen just one of the places we visited.

I enjoyed lunch at my favorite C’town spot, T.J.’s, then shopped at Willis Monie’s, finally spending more there on baseball books (and postcards) than anywhere else, including Skydome and Camden Yards! Some fans collect books. I had tipped off the group to Monie’s, and many others came away with bargains and books they’d been looking for in all the wrong places.

The Hall itself, I skimmed. The new library is completed, and by chance I ran into Tom Heitz as he was leaving for the day, and had a great talk with him about all kinds of baseball topics. The Hall’s gift shop (where, I am now more hopeful, my book Romancing the Horsehide may soon be available), has quadrupled in size, and the bad news is, it’s starting to look like those other shops on Cooperstown’s Main Street. Ka- ching! The new “Baseball at the Movies” and “Scribes and Mikemen” exhibits were disappointing, for me. They just didn’t seem, well, HOF .

JOHN CLARKSON FOUND INNOCENT!!!

Reviewers of the book out this spring Field of Screams have all been impressed with the small passage it contains, that says HOF pitcher John Clarkson (1861-1909) slashed his wife to death, and invariably, reviewers have repeated this as fact. Unless he had a wife not worth a mention in his obit, I can now report that John Clarkson didn’t do it — no, he wasn’t framed , either. The fact is that Mrs Clarkson was alive long after John followed batterymate King Kelly (both cost Boston the unheard-of sum of $10,000 each) to the sanitarium and then the grave (pneumonia, after a general paralysis of five years.) After his death, the former Ella Barr returned to live in Bay City, MI. “Mrs Clarkson was with him when he died,” stated the Boston Globe , 2/4/09. I visited his other grave — his file in the HOF library. Now I must contact the author of Field and find out where he got his story.

TRIBUTE TO ‘FAMERS

All good things must come to an end, the saying goes, and my magic-carpet ride outside time ended well after midnight on July 31, with a reunion with my wife Barbara and our kids — they had been outside time themselves, two weeks at summer camp in the Adirondacks. I added to Mary Ellen’s pennant collection and Pat’s stack of plastic stadium cups, and had T-shirts for everybody.

Point is, I needed the next day to recover, and passed up the chance to see Lefty, Scooter & the Lip inducted, as well as my annual SABR rendezvous in C’town.

THE STRIKE

I can’t sleep on a bus, and since I had along for the trip John Helyar’s Lords of the Realm , I didn’t want to, anyway. Anyone who wants to understand the hearts and minds of the Owners vs Players, ought to read Lords . I’ll review it in a later Notes , because it deserves a lot of space I don’t have this time around.

Learning of the August 12 strike deadline, then hearing the aftermath on ESPN and reading about it in the odd newspapers, added a note of sobriety to the tour. We all were feeling sorry for the tours that may not go on, if there is no Show to go on.

No one was more concerned than a lady in charge of a concession stand at Three Rivers, with whom I chatted the evening before the announcement. She was knowledgeable on MLB finances, and knew the strike directly threatened the Pirates’ ability to stay in Pittsburgh. She was angry that the mayor permitted vendors to sell their wares all around Three Rivers — “You know how much of that goes to the Pirates? Not a penny!”

It didn’t take long in any conversation to find out who was blaming the owners, and who the players, and after a while the topic became one to avoid, unless you wanted a lively argument — as many fans do! With Lords of the Realm fresh on my mind, I found myself frequently quoting it, and then recommending it, and I recommend it here and now to you all. If the Strike is the final big story of 1994, Lords is Book of the Year.

OUTSIDE TIME

I am fond of talking about baseball games as events outside time, especially in my poems. My trip reminded me that there are other ways to leave time:

Conversation:Whole hours can get swallowed up when you are engaged in dialog, especially when traveling.

Reading:Hooked on a good book, some folks turn comatose, and focus their attention with Carltonian intensity.

Other Games:I am addicted to APBA Baseball (as others are to Strat-O-Matic), but I enjoy trivia games almost as much.

So there are at least three ways we can all cope with the Strike, and still escape time. Talkin’ baseball (or writin’ it), Readin’ baseball (I can hold out through 1995 easy), or finding other games. I recommend the “Minor” Leagues to the ML-city folk, and I bet no one will be disappointed with the effort seen there.

* * * * *

STUBS

What is it about ticket stubs

That prevents me

From throwing them away?

Not just the precious few

From a World Series

But lately

I can’t throw any away!

…

They stand for some thing:

For times I traveled

Outside of time

Like stamped passports

They are all the proof

remaining

Of my trips

— from ROMANCING THE HORSEHIDE

THE LAST ROUND-UP?

Our last look at the ’94 standings ( NFSC 74), showed four of the six current leaders as front-runners: the Yankees have stretched their 4? game lead to 8 (and they looked very strong in their sweep of the Indians) … Texas bobbed a notch toward .500, with only Oakland gaining ground … the Dodgers had been up by 5 over Colorado, but the Giants made up 6? games in July, and the San Fans seem confident that it’s just a matter of time now , and of course, there may be precious little of that left, so the Twelve Days of August will seem like a condensed pennant run … Cincinnati and Houston have pulled away from the pack in the NLC, the Reds actually gaining a game in July, despite that marvelous RBI machine named Bagwell.

The White Sox and Indians are neck & neck, this August 1st morn, and watching both play makes me like the Wild Card — for just a minute — because you want to see them both play in October, somehow … and finally, Montreal , North America’s Team, had a torrid July (19-8) to pick up 5? games on Atlanta, but you get the feeling that if October’s Game is played, the Braves will show up as favorites, even if they are the NL Wild Card.

While I was on the road, the Utica Blue Sox have fallen back to -5, a distant third-place 10? games back of the Watertown Indians (very similar to the Pirates’ situation) … and there really isn’t time to catch up in their Short-Season league. So U-Sox fans will root in August undistracted by that pennant-race dimension … taking it one out, one game at a time.

A FINAL NOTE ON THE TOUR

This issue of Notes has been fun and easy to write, and for that, I again thank Jay Buckley for inviting me to serve as an escort on the Tour.

One of my personal highlights came at Yankee Stadium, when I asked the youngest member of our crew, an 8-year-old with a face and voice of pure innocence, if he ever heard of somebody stealing first base. He hadn’t, so I told him the story of Germany Shafer, and watched as his eyes grew wider. A few minutes later, his older, skeptical brother came over and asked me how someone could steal first, and I retold the story. See, I told ya . Kids come to the ballpark with their gloves on, expecting stuff, like true believers, reminding us of so much.

EXTRA INNINGS

What teenager hit the most home runs in a [ML] season?

That was the change-of-pace question I asked last issue. Mel Ott hit 18 homers at age 19, and that was the record until Tony Conigiarohit 24 in 1964, at the same age. (Tony hit 32 the next season, to become the youngest-ever HR champ.)

Again, I’m taking these Q’s from Luke Salisbury’s The Answer is Baseball , and if you find yourself with extra time on your hands in a few weeks, this one is worth picking up.

Here’s one that I love to ask Yankee fans:

What pitcher has the best lifetime record vs the Yankees?

15+ career wins over the Bronx Bombers to qualify. And it wasn’t Frank Lary — he was only 28-13 (and consider the Yankee teams he faced!)