Notes #437 — Once Upon a Time

                             NOTES FROM THE SHADOWS OF COOPERSTOWN
                                           Observations from Outside the Lines
                                     By Two Finger Carney (carneya6@adelphia.net)
 

#437                                                                                                                      MARCH 7, 2008
                                            ONCE UPON A TIME
 

            I once wrote a poem about the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown that contained the line, “an attic full of once-upon-a-time stuff.”  One of Mike Schacht’s super editors of FAN Magazine suggested dropping the word “stuff” — and I agreed, that made it a better poem.
 

            This is an issue full of once-upon-a-time. Leading off, my whirlwind excursion thru baseball history, 1900-1910, in five or six pages. Anyone familiar with that decade-plus, knows it could have been 500-600 pages, not counting the footnotes. At various points, I injected my comments. For the record, I am still not comfortable being called a baseball historian — I’m more of a reader, who enjoys re-telling baseball’s great stories.
 

            The rest of the issue has two stories of my own. One has appeared here a few times before, The Stickpin , and I add it as the linchpin between my personal history and baseball’s. The other story, At the Hall with Rainman , has not appeared in Notes since 1995, so it is making, I think, its internet debut. Rainman is perhaps the most unique thing I’ve ever written, and let me say for the record, it is not science fiction, it happened. It is one of those things you just write , because you must, and you’ll figure out later where it might fit in the world of publishing. As it turned out, the piece did appear in NINE , thanks to the late Bill Kirwin, a good friend that baseball lost last year.
 

            I have to believe that if I had written Stickpin after my visit to the Hall with “the Real Rainman,” that these two pieces would overlap better. Instead, Stickpin remains a short summary of my first years of writing baseball (1989-90), while Rainman is one of the highlights of the early, pre-internet days of NOTES .
 

 

BASEBALL HISTORY — AS SEEN FROM THE SHADOWS OF COOPERSTOWN  
 

Introduction
 

            See last issue, Notes 436 , for the background of this project. I will add here just a few more comments. First, this will be a selective history of baseball — they all are, in a sense, but there are books that try to be comprehensive, and what I’m doing here has nothing to do with the serious histories that have been written so far, and that will follow. I recommend the Seymours’ volumes, especially Baseball: The Golden Age , for not just “the rest of the story” about the events I’m going to write about, but for a much better understanding of how those events are linked together.
 

            Second, I’m starting my history rather arbitrarily with 1900. Again, there are some wonderful books that cover the years before 1900 — I recommend David Block’s Baseball Before We Knew It (see Notes #398-399 ) for more than you want to know about the game’s origins, Abner Doubleday, and lots more. David Nemec’s The Beer and Whiskey League is one of the best books I’ve seen to get a feel for 19th century baseball, but there are lots more.
 

            Lastly, I will necessarily be skimming here, because to cram a whole decade into one issue requires that. I will refer readers to other things I’ve written, or to books I’ve reviewed, along the way. And as always, I invite your comments and corrections.
 

1900 — RUMBLINGS OF WAR  
 

            The shape of baseball at its top level changed dramatically as the new century arrived — no Y2K fears, but fans might have worried anyway in Y19, about the slimmed-down 8-team National League being challenged by the brand-new American League, which was the old Western League, re-named and strategically relocated.
 

            In 1899, MLB was just the NL, twelve teams strong. Well, not all of them were strong, and that was the problem. For example, the Cleveland entry finished 20-134, 84 games behind Brooklyn. So the NL contracted , shedding four teams and keeping eight — a magic number that worked for the next six decades or so. The eight are familiar to us even today: Brooklyn (which eventually moved to Los Angeles), Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Boston (which relocated to Milwaukee, then to Atlanta), Chicago, St Louis and Cincinnati, and New York (which became San Francisco). The four cities that lost teams included Baltimore, Louisville, Washington and Cleveland.
 

            Baltimore became an AL city; that franchise moved to New York in 1903 and exists today as the Yankees. Louisville’s top players, including Honus Wagner and manager Fred Clarke, joined Pittsburgh, giving that city its first and maybe its only real dynasty. Washington and Cleveland became AL sites, and with Baltimore, were joined by Detroit and Milwaukee; AL teams also faced off with NL rivals in Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia.
 

COMMENT:
I grew up following eight of the then-sixteen ML teams, the National League, and that seemed about right. I knew the rosters of those eight teams pretty well. And players stayed put, unless they were traded. I don’t recall resisting expansion, but it made it harder to keep up, and I gave up trying, long ago. I think it is a good thing that there are more ML teams. I no longer care how many, I still follow only one closely, and then study up, for October.
 

            In Notes #196 , I wrote at length about the 1900 season, and whether or not the American League of 1900 should be considered a major league or not. Suffice here to say it was not, at the time, and you know how hard it is to change things after a century has passed. But there is no doubt about 1901, and there we see the upstart AL, led by that bully promoter Ban Johnson, succeed.
 

            The War took place on several fronts. Teams fought over players, who became better-paid slaves as a result. At the box office, especially in the big cities that had teams in each league, it was the same old story, a struggle to survive. The AL showed to be the better marketer, clamping down on “rowdy ball” by supporting the authority of their umpires; the kinder, gentler version of baseball was easier on the eyes and ears of women and children, too. And you could take your family to the ballpark for a buck or less.
 

            The issues teams had to deal with back then are fascinating to read about today. Whether to play ball on Sundays or not? That was a crucial question, ultimately decided by economics, because the weekends drew the biggest crowds, and that made a big difference for teams with a tight budget. Whether to serve beer or not, or to permit fans to bring it into the parks. There were wet and dry cities, and the debate that climaxed with Prohibition was heating up. What about gambling at the ballpark?  This was part of America, and baseball’s unpredictability and variety made it popular for friendly wagering. Two bits sez this next guy’s gonna strike out. We suspect now that when the Mighty Casey fanned, Mudville had some money riding on that game. Gambling was the national pastime, and I think it still is.
 

            So that was Baseball in 1900. If we attended a game, we would be right at home. Three strikes yer out. Ned Hanlon led Brooklyn to the pennant in 1900, with Fred Clarke and Pittsburgh right behind, thanks to Honus’ .381, which led the league. Wee Willie Keeler hit ’em where they ain’t to the tune of .362 for the champs, while Iron Man McGinnity won 29 for Brooklyn. A guy named Herman “Germany” Long went long twelve times to lead the league in home runs. Every team in every city had its heroes.
 

1901-1903  
 

            Eventually it dawned on the magnates who owned the sixteen ML teams that the pie they were warring over was huge, and they would all get bigger pieces if they made peace and let the players play ball. (This lesson was forgotten by later generations of owners, and has had to be re-learned more than a few times.)  The AL and NL recognized each other, and decided on a structure that was called the National Commission. The two league presidents were joined by a tie-breaking magnate, Garry Herrmann of Cincinnati, in 1903.
 

            The AL President, Ban Johnson, emerged as the “czar” who ran the business, and for many years, no one seemed to mind. There were always disputes over player contracts and other matters, but now there was a civilized way to resolve them. Fan interest grew, and after the 1903 seasons ended, the AL & NL champs agreed to go at it in what we now call a “World Series,” even though the teams represented the best of just a dozen North American cities.
 

COMMENT:
I devoted NOTES #28 to Ban Johnson, a key player in 1919, but also in over three decades of baseball. He was a stuffed shirt, but a colorful one, and I think he gave baseball more than he took. Had he been a more collegial fellow, able to work better with others, he might have stayed in power longer, and Judge Landis may have spent the rest of his life in baseball rooting as a fan. I think we are still looking for the Commish (or Czar) that really puts the interest of baseball — its players and its fans — ahead of the business.
 

            Pittsburgh won the pennant in 1901 (Philadelphia finishing 7.5 back), again in 1902 (by 27.5 games ahead of Brooklyn — because the AL raids hit Pittsburgh the least), and again in 1903 (by 6.5 over the up-and-coming NY Giants of John McGraw). Their pitching was in ruins after the 1903 season, but they agreed to take on the AL champ Boston anyway. Boston had finished 1903 14.5 ahead of Connie Mack’s A’s, the 1902 champs; Clark Griffith had won the first AL flag in 1901 for Chicago, edging Boston. There is a good book on the 1903 Series, which I reviewed here, I think. For more on the first Series bribe (Boston catcher Lou Criger, who apparently just said No) see Notes 322 and 289. For more on Nine Game WS, see 284 .
 

            1903 was the year that Big Ed Delahanty died under mysterious circumstances, and there’s a good book on that, too — see my review of July 2, 1903 in Notes 257 .
 

1904  
 

            1904 got some attention when Bud Selig cancelled the 1994 World Series, breaking a streak. There was no Series in 1904, because of John McGraw of the NY Giants. I’m not sure if he did it to spite Ban Johnson and the AL, or to assure that his team finished on a high note. Or if he had other reasons. In any case, the NL Champs, the Giants, did not play Boston, who took the AL. This makes it harder to remember who the AL champs were in ’04, and that shows that even WS losers get some immortality.
 

            The Giants ran away with the NL flag, and for aces, how about Iron Man McGinnity (35-8, 1.61) and Matty (33-12, 2.03). Between them, they pitched 776 innings! That was over 50% of the innings played by the Giants. Iron Men , indeed. Jimmy Collins managed the Boston to their repeat pennant. Cy Young led their staff, so we were denied some great duels in the October sun when McGraw said No. Honus Wagner and Nap Lajoie were the batting champs, and only one player hit as many as ten homers.
 

1905    
 

            The Giants won again, and this time they agreed to meet with Connie Mack’s A’s in the second modern Series. This is the one in which every game was a shutout — three tossed by Mathewson, one by McGinnity, and one by Chief Bender, as McGraw won, 4 to 1. During the season, the Giants won 105 and finished 9 ahead of Pittsburgh. The A’s and White Sox both won 92, but the Philly team lost fewer, and there was no make-up rule (the teams had 56 and 60 losses, respectively), so neither played 154. The Series was a fitting climax for Matty, who went 31-8, 1.27. No pun intended, but he sure could make opponents fade away.
 

1906  
 

            Enter the Cubs. Chicago’s NL entry had been winning over 90 and finishing behind McGraw, but starting in 1906, they reeled off seasons of 116, 107, and 99 wins, finishing on top by 20, 17, and then there was 1908 — we’ll get to that later.
 

            The 1906 Series was considered an upset, although Hugh Fullerton had predicted that the crosstown rival “Hitless Wonder” White Sox would triumph over the dynastic Cubs, and they did, 4-2. Three Finger Brown was the Cub ace (26-6, 1.04!)  The Cub team ERA was 1.76 or 1.75. Against the Hitless Wonders, that sparkling ERA soared to 3.40. The Sox staff mustered 1.67 in October.
 

1907  
 

            What I remember best about 1907 is that the Cubs won the Series against Ty Cobb and the Tigers — the first of three straight Series losses for Detroit. The Cubs swept in 1907, a baseball first, altho there was a 12-inning 3-3 tie. Brown didn’t pitch till Game Five, then tossed a shutout. Cobb was held to 4-for-20, after a .350 season.
 

1908  
 

            The same two teams met in 1908, and this time the Detroiters did better, winning Game 3, but losing the Series, 4-1. Cobb did better, too, .368. But the Series that Fall seemed anti-climactic to two fantastic pennant races, that both went right down to the wire. I refer readers now to Notes #396 and 403 where I reviewed and commented on Cait Murphy’s book, Crazy ’08 .
 

            That season deserves a book, maybe more. The Merkle Game, the Joss perfecto, a NL playoff. 1908 had it all. Matty won 37 and the Giants lost the playoff. Ed Walsh won 40 for the White Sox, and they finished third, out by a game and a half.
 

COMMENT:
The pennant races — when there were just eight teams in each league — were often boring at the end. Look at those Cub margins, in 1906 and ’07. But when they were close, there was nothing like them. The long summer, 154 games, boiled down to a few that count for everything. You won the pennant, or you won nothing. OK, some cities had that City Series going, or maybe Cincinnati took on Cleveland for bragging rights in Ohio. But those were exhibitions. Good for betting, but they added nothing to the season. The problem in baseball was ALWAYS sustaining fan interest at the end. Teams 30, 40 games out, did not draw well. Sometimes I wish that baseball had the playoffs sooner — say, in 1908. Can you imagine, the Cubs and Giants, at it again? Or maybe the Pirates, they were right there, too. Six teams put together great seasons, but only two advanced to October. Oh well.
 

1909  
 

            I grew up knowing that the Pirates were World Champs for the first time in 1909, the same year Forbes Field was built. They took on Detroit, and for the first time, both league batting champs faced off in October, too, Hans Wagner vs Ty Cobb. We can only imagine all the betting this event inspired. I like the Wagner biography by the DeValerias, and recommend it for a good feel for not just Wagner, but his times, and for 1909.
 

            The Cubs did not exactly give the pennant away, they won 104 games. But Pittsburgh won 110. George Mullin was the Tiger ace. I think the 1909 Pirates and Tigers were among the first “APBA Great Teams of the Past” that I owned, and I managed them in many replays of the 1909 Series. Babe Adams didn’t always win three games, but who cared, it was a great face-off.
 

1910  
 

            This first installment of my selective history ends with 1910. The Cubs beat out McGraw in the NL again, but this time they would lose the Series to Connie Mack, whose Philadelphia A’s had grown into a dynasty themselves. And the Mackmen did it handily, 4-1. Eddie Collins played in his first of six Series, and went 9-for-21; Colby Jack Coombs won three. (For more on Collins, see my review of Rick Huhn’s book in Notes #435 .)
 

COMMENT:
It was a decade of war and peace between the two leagues. As the seasons unwound, heroes were made, and baseball took root in America. My grandparents were just finding each other; my parents would both be born in the next decade. My tangible link with this era was a stickpin, and although this story has appeared here in NOTES a few times before, it seems like a good way to end this first — in a series of ten, I hope.
 

This story first appeared in NOTES #22, in July 1993, with the intro in brackets below. Let me acknowledge again the editors who helped abbreviate the story.
 

            [I often write here about the Hall of Fame. Here is a story that appeared in FAN Magazine #7. It was my introduction to Mike Schacht, who had advertised in the SABR Bulletin for baseball stories with a father/son theme.]
 

                                                 THE STICKPIN  

            When my father died, I was the one who went through his things for Mom, to sort out anything valuable from the junk. I was 26 and had performed this task before, the “archeologist” sifting layers of someone else’s past, wondering about the meaning of the stuff collected over a lifetime. Poems and photos and rings and holy cards from the funerals of friends and relatives.
 

            In my father’s stockpile I found an old stickpin, something I’d seen years before. It had been his father’s pin, perhaps excavated from my grandfather’s belongings after he had died.
 

            My paternal grandfather, Mike Carney, was an Irish cop in Pittsburgh at the turn of the century. He died before I was born, but I was told that he was the first in my family to get hooked on baseball and the Pirates. Baseball was an occupational hazard for him, a rough sport played by rough men cheered on by rough fans. Policemen were admitted to games free if they were in uniform, to help keep order in the grandstand. Mike Carney took in as many games as he could.
 

            No doubt he was on hand in 1909, when Forbes Field opened. It was built in just four months. Sure, steel was handy, but I like to think that the construction crews were motivated like the cathedral builders of Europe, by a sort of religious fervor — the fervor of a city in a pennant race. The Pirates, descendants of the Alleghenies, had been there a few times before, winning in 1901, ’02 and ’03. But in 1909 they won 110 games, led by Honus Wagner and Fred Clarke and Howie Camnitz and a kid pitcher with a great nickname, Babe Adams.
 

            Forbes Field opened on June 30. The Pirates lost that day, but Mike Carney came home with a souvenir metal stickpin. It was a few inches long, a tiny catcher’s mitt with a baseball inside, engraved with the historic date. He kept the pin until he died, and so had my father.
 

            Perhaps the pin was worn on those special days, when my grandfather took his whole family to the old ball game, dressed in their Sunday best (because they rode the streetcar) to see Pie Traynor and the Waner brothers. I imagine my father as a teen, and his brother and sister being tremendously excited on those trips to Oakland, while Gram Carney packed a lunch and went along for the ride and understood none of it.
 

            When the pin became mine in 1972, it brought back memories of the Mike Carney who was my father. Games of catch, or hitting fungoes on warm summer evenings at North Park. Dinnertime debates over whether Dick Stuart was the new Ralph Kiner. Dozens of trips to Forbes Field with my family, with lunches packed by my Mom, to eat between the games of a Sunday doubleheader. Always taking along pencils to keep score, while we rooted for the Bucs.
 

            Memories of 1960. That summer I was a teenager, and when the Pirates charged to their first pennant in 33 years, then beat the unbeatable Yankees (on Maz’ homer), it was a climax of not just a season, but of years of rooting.
 

            When the Pirates won again in 1971, my father and I got to go to the only World Series game either of us would ever see. I was working in Cleveland, but my father got two tickets to the first night game in Series history, so I could drive home, root the Bucs to a win with my Dad, and be back at work next day.
 

            The pin also reminded me of hundreds of letters that I exchanged with my father after I left Pittsburgh for college. Baseball was a frequent topic. I was out of range for KDKA and Bob Prince, but my Dad wove the radio play-by-play into his letters, digressing for a triple by “Cleem” (his shorthand for Clemente) or noting Prince’s colorful images (“… that was as close as fuzz on a tick’s ear.”)  His letters came several times a week, sometimes twenty or fifty pages long, in his distinctive, effortless longhand. In between his predictions, in between hits and runs, I got to know my father.
 

            So when I found that stickpin from the 1909 birthday of Forbes Field, I decided that it belonged in Cooperstown, donated in my father’s name. He had been a Hall of Fame fan.
 

            I moved to upstate New York a few years later and started my own family. My wife will never be a baseball fan, but tolerance is one of her many other virtues. My kids are learning and liking the game, and we root for our local Blue Sox.
 

            When the Pirates won the pennant in 1990, I was a teenager all over again, rooting as hard as I ever did in 1960. But that season will also be memorable for an event on a rainy June morning.
 

            My sister was visiting from Pittsburgh, and together with my son, we drove off to Cooperstown, to see if we could find a certain stickpin in the Baseball Hall of Fame. I found it first, in a wall display commemorating Forbes Field.  For us, it recalled so much more than a ball park.
 

            My father is buried in Pittsburgh, where family visit with flowers and remember him. I visit Cooperstown and do the same.
 

[Just one more note: the stickpin from 1909 is not always on display at the Hall of Fame, it is one of hundreds or thousands of artifacts that rotate between the galleries and the “attic.”]
 

 

SPEAKING OF THE HALL  
 

            If The Stickpin is very autobiographical — and it obviously is — the piece below is, too, in a different way. At the Hall is a famous (to me) essay by Roger Angell of the New Yorker , his unique description of a visit to that Cooperstown shrine. I built on his title with At the Hall with Rainman for the report below. Looking back from today, it represents one of those rare times when my baseball writing hobby/addiction merged perfectly with my full-time job, which ordinarily had nothing to do with the sport.
 

           
            [This article appeared in the Canadian publication NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Social Policy Perspectives (Vol. 6, #2) in Spring 1998, as well as in Notes #102, May 10, 1995.]
 

AT THE HALL WITH RAINMAN
 

            When my father visited upstate New York in 1965, and realized that he and his family were going to be close to Cooperstown, he immediately plotted a course that would take us to the Baseball Hall of Fame.  A second-generation Pirate fan, who only rarely traveled far from Pittsburgh, he had probably never dreamed that he’d one day have this chance, so when it came along, he took it.
 

            I have lived in the Utica area for over twenty years now, and have visited the Hall many times since, with my own family.  But no visit was quite like the one this April 29, when I accompanied Kim Peek and his father Fran, visitors from Utah.
 

            Kim is no ordinary baseball fan, you see.  He is “the real Rainman,” a megasavant who inspired the movie Rainman .  It was Dustin Hoffman who suggested that Kim and Fran Peek tour the country, meet people, and let people meet Kim.  And that is what they have been doing in recent years, speaking to civic and school groups, or at dinners like the one sponsored by the Friends in Deed of the Retarded Foundation, Inc., here in Utica, to help make more people aware of the abilities of persons who are usually known more for their disabilities.
 

            I work at the Arc of Oneida County, in a program that finds jobs in the community for persons with developmental or learning disabilities.  Kim Peek has had no trouble learning — in his 43 years, he has absorbed libraries of information, mostly from reading books.  But he was labeled “severely mentally retarded” even before he was rejected from first grade as a hyperactive behavior problem, and his extraordinary powers of recall were only discovered six years ago.
 

Meet Kim Peek.       I met Kim before the dinner, where he was the featured speaker. I was introduced as a baseball fan, and before he said hello, he was talking baseball.  “He died the year before the movie came out, and it was two famous baseball players, and one of them was in the movie, and — ”
 

            “Do you mean Pride of the Yankees , the film about Lou Gehrig, in which Babe Ruth appeared?” I asked.  With just a brief acknowledgement that I had guessed what he wanted, Kim went on to other baseball “trivia,” never really asking questions (one of his favorite TV shows is Jeopardy — not People’s Court — and perhaps that’s why he prefers to phrase his questions in answer form), but offering clue after clue, until his listeners either guess the person or fact that he had in mind all along, or give up.
            “Bernard Malamud wrote it, and there was a film The Natural , and he was the real Natural”  (Eddie Waitkus) … “He was on deck, and Don Newcombe was taken out of the game, and there were two outs, and The Shot Heard ‘Round the World , the famous home run by Bobby Thomson” (Willie Mays) … “And Vic Wertz hit it, and the bases were loaded, and it was called the greatest catch”  (Willie again) … “And DiMaggio hit it, and it was Game Six of the 1947 World Series,” and when I took a little too long to remember Al Gionfriddo’s name, Kim gave the audio clue of a very good imitation of Red Barber’s famous, “Oooh, Doctor!” radio call of the event.
 

            We hadn’t really exchanged any small talk about ourselves, such as what we did, where we were from, or how we liked the weather, but Kim was clearly enjoying the language and country of baseball, as I was enjoying his flurry of facts, people, and associations. 
 

            After dinner, speaking to an audience of several hundred, Kim showed that baseball was by no means his specialty — as it is mine.  Tell Kim your date of birth, and instantly he will tell you what day of the week that was, what day of the week your birthday will fall on this year, and what year and day of the week it will be when you retire at age 65.  This he does as effortlessly as I would if you asked me, for example, what day of the week today is. Somewhere, Kim focused his photographic memory on a perpetual calendar, so he now just “looks it up” in a fraction of a second.  He does not calculate the days and dates somehow — his one weak area is abstract math.
 

The Folly of Labels.           With similar ease, Kim will tell you the states and their capitals, in the order in which they entered the union.  Or if you prefer, in reverse order.  He can discuss world or U.S. history, the Bible, Shakespeare, classical music, and many sports other than baseball.  (Kim was closely following the Utah Jazz’ progress in the NBA playoffs.)  Kim has a special fondness for directories, and when he visits a library, he may well prefer reading a phone book to a novel — even though he can read a book like Red October in about 80 minutes, then tell you the name of the Russian captain, and on what page he first appears.
 

            Tell Kim where you live, anywhere is the U.S.A., and he’ll tell you your zip code, area code, and what TV stations you have in your town. Kim spends a few days each year updating himself on TV channels, thanks to TV Guide — the magazine sends him the 140 or so versions of their Fall Preview issue.
 

            But to meet Kim Peek is to notice the folly of labels — whether “severely mentally retarded” or “megasavant.”  For Kim is a warm, caring person, whose humility about his mental powers is astonishing.  In his interactions, he does not seek to impress anybody, he simply shares what he has learned.  If he is stumped by a question, he politely asks for the correct information.  He knows a lot, and knows that he knows a lot, but he also seems keenly aware that he does not know it all. 
 

            And the message he wants to give to the thousands of folks that he meets each week, has nothing to do with knowledge. “Learning to recognize the differences in others and treating them like you want them to treat you will bring the peace and joy we all hope for.  Let’s care, share — be our best!”
 

Boxscores for Breakfast.Two days after the dinner, I had breakfast with Kim and his father and a small party from my agency, before heading to Cooperstown.  I had brought along a few books, wondering if Kim would like to examine them before visiting the Hall.  He skimmed through a Hall of Fame Yearbook, in which each member of the Hall is pictured with a brief biography, then set it aside.  He gave even less attention to a book of baseball trivia stories. He was genuinely excited about visiting the Hall, but was more interested for now in breakfast and the people around him.
 

            Although he had never been to central New York before, Kim knew all of the roads that connected Utica to Cooperstown.  He is fascinated by geography, and all along the way, compared the countryside to other regions he has visited.  This was also Leatherstocking country, which Kim associated with James Fenimore Cooper, and the illustrator of Cooper’s books.  Kim even suggested an alternate way back, so we could see Lake Otsego, a.k.a. Glimmerglass. Kim suggested that Cooper chose that name for the way the sun shimmered off the water, and observed that it was too cloudy for us to see the effect today.
 

            The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum has three main sections: the Hall proper, a cathedral-like gallery where over two hundred bronze plaques honor those inducted as members since the Hall opened in 1939; three stories of exhibits that chronicle baseball’s long history and greatest accomplishments; and a library, used mostly by researchers.  It draws over 400,000 fans each year, from all over the world, into the tiny upstate village.  I suspect that few leave disappointed.
 

            At the Hall at last, we started our tour with the multi-media show in the Hall’s theater — a fifteen-minute barrage of baseball images, with upbeat music, on film and slides.  There are hits and highlight-film catches galore, some famous, most not, as the show pays homage to baseball from the sandlot to the major leagues.  I sat next to Kim in the theater, pointing out a few of the events we had talked about earlier — Mazeroski’s famous 1960 home run, Fisk’s body-English clout in ’75. He had no visible reaction whatsoever to anything on the screen.
 

            When he was taken to the premiere of the film Rainman , I was told, he barely looked at the screen. When asked about it afterwards, he replied, “I was watching it with my heart.”  He may have taken in the baseball images the same way. Or perhaps he was just not as interested in the medium.
 

A Stroll Back in Time.        We left the theater for the historical exhibits, which Kim later said was his favorite part of the Hall. The exhibits are arranged chronologically, starting with balls and bats and uniforms and trophies from the 1800’s, and proceeding, decade by decade, right up until the present day.
 

            It was difficult to tell what caught Kim’s eye. We all walked along slowly, pausing here and there. At times, Kim seemed to be more interested in the captions — the print medium — than the artifacts themselves.  But soon it became apparent that Kim was letting each display stimulate him, and he would respond with a blend of information and associations.
 

            Kim was back in the mode he seemed to enjoy so much at our first meeting, weaving his information like a Socrates, a teacher who wants to elicit from others rather than impose his knowledge.  Lefty Grove prompted Kim to say, “He was the last one to do it until Warren Spahn, SPAHNIE!, Warren Spahn of the Braves did it later” (they were both pitchers who won over 300 games.)  Paul Waner’s memorabilia evoked something similar, “He was a great hitter, and he did something no one else did until Stan Musial, Musial did it in 1957,” and then the audio clue, Kim’s imitation of Cardinal broadcaster Harry calling Stan Musial’s 3,000th hit — the first time 3,000 had been reached since — Paul Waner.
 

            Kim seemed to be most excited when he made connections, and the more associations, the better.  These were obscure at times, for example, when he was examining the Hall’s new tribute to baseball in the movies. A poster advertising Pride of the Yankees caused Kim to erupt, “COO-per, COO-per” — not for Cooperstown, but for Gary Cooper, the actor who played Gehrig.  Similarly, Babe Ruth evoked “Fred Flintstone” — the connection being actor John Goodman, who played both Fred and the Babe in recent films.
 

            Yet Kim didn’t seem to make new connections, between the wealth of memorabilia at the Hall, and his own wealth of baseball knowledge.  For instance, Kim knew all about Cub catcher Gabby Hartnett’s famous “homer in the gloamin'” in 1938, that snatched a pennant away from the Pirates. But when Gabby’s autographed bat and ball were pointed out, Kim preferred to talk about a record of Hack Wilson’s that still stands (56 HRs, the National League high.)  When I asked Kim about another of Hack’s records, he had no answer, but as soon as I said, “190 RBIs in 1930,” Kim was on the same wavelength, pointing out that Gehrig came the closest, just one season later, with 184.
 

Yesterday and Today.       Over and over, Kim’s strong sense of history was in evidence.  In the gallery, seeing Old Hoss Radbourne’s plaque evoked, “SIX-ty, SIX-ty” (the record for number of wins in a single season), and then the comment, “Why, hardly anyone wins one-half, one-THIRD of that these days.”  Ty Cobb brought out associations with Pete Rose, and one Kim picked up watching Ken Burns’ PBS epic Baseball on TV (yes, he’d digested The Civil War earlier): “He [Cobb] died in 1961, and the year after, the first of his major records fell.”  Wee Willie Keeler’s plaque also connected with Pete Rose (both hit in 44 straight games.)
 

            That was Cobb’s 96 stolen bases in 1915, eclipsed by Maury Wills in 1962 (104). Kim then went on to note that that record fell in 1974 (Lou Brock, 118) — again, an audio clue, Harry Caray again calling the event — and then Rickey Henderson set the current mark, with 130 in 1982.  Kim would return to some of these favorite places in his memory over and over, whether the stimulus was Sliding Billy Hamilton, Max Carey or Ron LeFlore (“… and a film was made about him, and he played mostly for Detroit but was traded to Montreal for ….”)
 

            Because the Peeks live near Salt Lake City, they root for a farm team of the Minnesota Twins. Indeed, every mention of Clark Griffith at the Hall led Kim directly back to the present and the Griffith family’s association with the Twins’ organization.  But otherwise, Kim seemed to be an “ecumenical” fan, giving due credit to each and every player or manager honored at the Hall.  Perhaps he leaned just a bit toward the Giant franchise — going by the enthusiasm of any association that took him back to “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World,”  and Kim’s slightly familiar tone when he spoke of Christy Mathewson or Carl Hubbell or Johnny Antonelli.
 

Not a Walking Encyclopedia.      It is tempting to imagine that Kim Peek has somehow memorized a baseball encyclopedia.  But he plainly has not. Kim will “tell” you that Cobb’s teammate Sam Crawford has hit more triples (312) than anyone else, but when I asked who hit the most triples in a single season, he had no idea. When I offered the clue, “Chief,” he guessed Chief Bender, who was a pitcher.  When I informed Kim that Owen “Chief” Wilson once hit 36 for the Pirates (a tidbit I probably memorized growing up in Pittsburgh 40 years ago), he had little reaction.
 

            After talking with Kim’s father later, I wondered if Kim had developed a natural skepticism about the spoken word, versus what he has read — in reputable sources.  Fran Peek said that Kim had some sense of the historical, versus fictional, preferring the former (Kim does not care much for science fiction, either.)  At a display featuring the great Oriole pitchers of the early 1970’s, after Kim busily associated with Jim Palmer and Dave McNally (“… and he did it in a World Series, the only time a pitcher did it, and it was Game Three in 1970, against the Reds” — a grand-slam home run was the answer), I asked Kim how many consecutive games McNally had once won.  Kim guessed 15 or 17.  I didn’t know either, but if Kim had replied “24,” then I would have concluded that he memorized one of the errors in Ken Burns’ film. Perhaps Kim somehow sifted out that error.  Or perhaps he was on the road when that episode aired!
 

            Another good test of whether a fan separates myth from fact in baseball, is to look at the story about Babe Ruth’s “Called Shot.”  We got there soon enough — all it took was a photo of Charlie Root, who was the pitcher involved in the event. Kim responded to Root with, “It was Game Three, 1932 [World Series], the fifth inning, and it was Wrigley Field, and he pointed….”  When I asked Kim if he thought Ruth really did “call” his home run, Kim just repeated, “He pointed.”  Which is a very diplomatic way of replying to a controversial question, one which still has the power to heat up arguments among friends. Kim stuck to the facts, and refused to side with any interpretation.
 

Kim Settles an Argument.            There was no predicting Kim’s associations.  Bob Lemon, featured in a Cleveland Indian display, prompted Kim to do a delightful imitation of George Steinbrenner firing yet another Yankee manager. Another glance might send Kim back to 1954 and the Indians’ 111 wins, which again connected with Willie’s Catch in the Series and the Giants’ victory.  “Couldn’t fool RHODES, not old Dusty RHODES!” (the Series batting hero for the Giants.)
 

            Kim seemed to savor certain baseball names, like Rhodes and Spahnie and The Old Perfessor (Casey Stengel), and the volume of his voice rose when he became excited.  At times, the other fans nearby seemed a bit put off, but if they listened closely, they quickly discovered that Kim was neither inebriated nor childish — nor “retarded” (thus to be hushed or shown the door.)  We have all seen the looks, for crying babies in church or old men at the mall. Get them out of here .
 

            Instead, Kim drew people to him, as if he was lecturing on each exhibit.  When they found out Kim was “the real Rainman,” they often vied for his attention.  Kim’s baseball talk was fairly non-stop, but he showed no irritation at being interrupted, frequently, by youngsters (or their parents) — usually Kim’s father would get his attention, or I’d direct it to the curious.  Fran Peek almost always would ask for birth dates, and Kim would reply immediately with his automatic data. 
 

            I only once observed Kim venturing an opinion of his own.  A father and son approached, and dad explained that they had been arguing this afternoon about who was the better player, Stan Musial or Ty Cobb. Could Kim settle the dispute?  Initially, Kim tried to sidestep his having to take a stand on the issue, by noting many records for both players.  But when they pressed him, he finally uttered, with a tone of embarrassment, “Cobb.”  He might have tried the case in his mind for several more minutes, or perhaps hours, or days — but he was capable of a verdict.
 

People Are Most Important.         We had strolled into modern times (Kim was busily constructing riddles involving the pitching brothers Perry and Niekro, which also linked him with the Deans and stories about Dizzy, which led to stories about broadcasters — Dean had been prominent on TV’s Game of the Week when Kim was growing up), and then into the gallery. We poked along at a snail’s pace, because Kim’s mind was racing like — well, like Rickey Henderson.  The bronze plaques in the gallery are hung in groups, in rows after row of alcoves, and we probably could have spent all day in any one alcove.  Kim scanned the plaques, then focused on one or two, the ones with the most or the favorite associations, and then he was off.  Yet when we led him away, he never protested — he knew, I think, that there were miles to go, so to speak, and he wanted to explore as much as possible.
 

            I had wondered if Kim might be so thirsty for new data, that we would wind up having to slow him down, or chase him from room to room at the Hall. Instead, he turned “storyteller,” taking his time with each step, pausing long and often, and basking in the steady flow of stimuli.
 

            The Hall is being remodeled, and the Ballparks exhibit is now at the end of the gallery of plaques.  Here I directed Kim to look at a stickpin that commemorated the opening of Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, June 30, 1909.  This item had associations for me beyond baseball, as the pin had been my grandfather’s.  I had donated it to the Hall in 1972, after my father died.  Kim listened politely to my story, then moved on to examine old Comiskey and Crosley Field and Ebbets. (When I asked Kim that evening if he knew when Forbes Field was built, he guessed around 1910-12 — my story had not stuck.)
 

            The Hall had been contacted about Kim’s visit, and our group was given a special tour of the Hall’s “basement” — untold numbers of balls and bats and uniforms and trophies and cleats and paintings and on and on — some artifacts that will rotate onto display upstairs, most which of will not.  Here, Kim chose to “chat” with the Hall’s staff members on hand, informing them of the oddity of their area having two different area codes, the only county in the state that did, Kim was sure. The data about the Cooperstown area that Kim was retrieving today was, his father later suggested, from a book he had read when he was about seven years old.  Kim was careful to stick to historical facts and events, like battles of the American Revolution, to things not likely to have changed in the past 36 years.
 

Getting There May Be More Fun.           The afternoon in the Hall with Kim had been like a day at the ballpark — we were outside of time, spellbound.  Only our stomachs knew that it was time for a late lunch.  Kim left the Hall quietly, continuing to talk baseball as we moved down Main Street toward T.J.’s Place.  A coin-operated dinosaur outside, for toddlers to ride, caused Kim to again return to the Babe Ruth – John Goodman connection, and he sang a few lines of The Flintstones theme. (Kim gives many musical clues, sometimes singing, but more often humming, right on pitch.)
 

            We had not visited the Records Room at the Hall.  I had wondered how Kim would react to the many lists on display there, or the wall full of autographed baseballs from every no-hitter since the early fifties, all captioned with details.  I suspect that he would have scanned the lists with some interest, then selected some name or number of special interest to him, and begun free-associating, as he had with each exhibit.
 

            Kim is physically large, and unsteady at times, and he sat at lunch at the head of our table.  There he presided, like a professor with his students.  He was no longer talking baseball, he was once again open to any topic anyone tossed his way.  If Kim became too cryptic, his father explained the rest of a story or anecdote.  If Kim was not satisfied with his father’s rendition, he added the missing details or nuances.  Many tales of Kim’s good fortune since Rainman — he’s met many celebrities, for example — are by now well-rehearsed, and the Peeks carry them off as smoothly as Abbott and Costello’s Who’s On First?
 

            Kim was familiar with that comedy routine, but did not perform it.  When I asked him about Casey at the Bat , Kim merely said, “There is no joy in Mudville, Mighty Casey has struck out.” 
            On the drive back to Utica, Kim “navigated” from his front seat. At one point, he spurted, “One, two, three, four,”  over and over, until someone recalled telling Kim the day before that along one stretch of Route 20, cars rapidly cross three different county lines.  Kim had been looking forward to that.
 

            He finally dozed off, a short distance outside Utica.  When we reminded him of this later, he stated quickly, “I was awake for all the important parts” — meaning that he only fell asleep once he had gotten us back onto a road where we could not make a wrong turn or get lost. 
 

            Before dinner, I stopped home, and found something that I thought Kim might enjoy — a Rand McNally baseball atlas.  It seemed appropriate — a nice mix of data, stadiums and maps.  Kim’s father thought Kim would probably digest it on the flight back to Utah the next day.
 

                                                                        * * * * *
 

The Mystery of the Mind.  Baseball fans pilgrimage to Cooperstown, where most are unfailingly awestruck by the dazzling array of baseball’s “once upon a time” on display in a single building.  Those who meet Kim Peek must be similarly awestruck by the dazzling array of knowledge that he so generously displays, from a single mind, in a single meeting. 
 

            It is difficult to realize that Kim’s extraordinary abilities are the result of damage suffered by his brain before he was born.  His brain appears to be anything but damaged.  Fran Peek says that his son lacks a membrane that would separate the two sides of his brain.  His cerebellum is also split in half, and the right half is in nine pieces.  Somehow, out of this fragmentation, flows a steady river of connections.
 

            Years ago, I was privileged to meet another brilliant mind, and meeting Kim Peek reminded me of what that gentleman once told me: that the shortest distance between two points is often not a straight line.  He illustrated this by referring to the way phone calls may be routed: a call from New York to Texas, for example, might connect faster by going through lines that are open in Canada or California, than by waiting for a direct connection. The technology is probably all different today, but the point is clear: rapid access might be better achieved sometimes by a zig-zag approach.
 

            Is that a clue to the mystery of Kim Peek’s marvelous powers of storage and recall?  To how he can retrieve his knowledge with such ease and speed?  And to why he remembers more than he forgets, while most of us do just the opposite?
 

            Yet Kim Peek is not just his mind, any more than the Hall of Cooperstown is just a building.  To identify Kim with the facts and information he so freely shares, is mistaken.  His world is unique, but so are ours, and Kim Peek is more about connections than collections.
 

            Perhaps this story from Kim’s father puts it better.  Soon after Rainman made Kim famous, he was asked to help publicize a local campaign to help children with developmental disabilities.  At the center where the spot was to be taped, a dozen or so youngsters were at play when the TV crew arrived with Kim.  A bright-eyed little girl, smiling and photogenic, seemed to be the obvious choice to appear with Kim. But Kim had spotted a child off in a corner, a boy who was a dwarf and looked like, in the words of Fran Peek, “the hunchback of Notre Dame.”  Kim picked up and hugged the boy, and said, “No, we ought to do it with him.  Everybody loves her. This is the one who needs it.”  And so the boy appeared in the ad, in the arms of Kim Peek.
 

            For lots more on Kim Peek, just google his name. Kim has also been featured recently in a documentary on savants.
 

 

MORE NEXT TIME  
 

            As I go along in my History 101 course, I want to recommend a number of really complete histories. Up top, I recommended the Seymours’ Golden Age , which may still be #1, after all these years. Next issue, I’ll recommend Creating the National Pastime by G. Edward White (Princeton U. Press, 1996), and give a short review of its treatment of the B-Sox events.
 

            Also next time, I’ll cover the events of 1911-1920. Don’t worry, I won’t devote much space to the B-Sox or the cover-up.
 

            I’m hopeful that the two essays here, The Stickpin and At the Hall with Rainman , will both be published soon in my collection I call Cooperstown Kaleidoscope . That’s being considered by a publisher right now, but I’ve signed no contract yet, so if you are a publisher and interested, let me know.
 

            And maybe next time I’ll have an eyewitness report on a book of mine that is coming out soon, A Baseball Family Album (Pocol Press).