Saturday I went to my monthly writers' meeting and got together with friends for coffee and conversation, stopping at my aunt and uncle's which my father knows is my routine so he called me there to tell me not to bother to try driving home as roads were flooded in my home county. Which is how I came to be flipping through the channels on a Saturday night, passing shows I normally never see. I make instanteous decisions, analysizing the image on the screen in a split second before moving on, but an image of Cooperstown stopped me short.
Cooperstown, on the Food Network no less, $40 a Day. I had missed part of the show as the host, Rachael Ray, was tallying her breakfast bill (where? where?) at $9.09. There were familiar shots of Main Street, all of the shops recognizable to me, frequent visitor, and I realized the show was at least a year old as The Shortstop Restaurant was shown in its former Main Street location; it can now be found in the cellar level of Pioneer Street, directly across from the Tunnicliff Inn, beneath Mickey''s Place. She made the requiste whirlwind tour of the Hall of Fame, making a point of visiting Pudge's plaque, earning me as a fan by lingering on Fisk's engraved contentance. She went to Ommegang Brewery (I have tried their wares only to discover I don't care for Belgain ale), grabbed the makings for a ploughman's lunch at Danny's Main Street Deli which serves huge, fresh sandwiches, and ate on the shore of Lake Otesaga (Glimmerglass in Cooper's world). Afterward she left town via I-88 to Brooks Barbeque, just a short distance away in her words, though getting to I-88 is a 20-25 minute ride from Cooperstown. She rounded off the visit by riding out a rain delay at the Cooperstown Dream Park, a wonderful facility where kids from across the country come every summer to play week-long tournaments; I've visited when a friend was umpiring there and it's a great chance to watch amateur baseball.
As if a feast through, and around, Cooperstown wasn't enough, the teaser showed the next episode --to follow immediately-- involved more baseball.
The Triangle: Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hil, NC. As if I hadn't already enough of a yen to visit the place, she showed some great eating (I have to ask my friend JJ about her recommendations), some interesting shopping, including a local bookstore, and she took in a game at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, the New DAP to some of us. She had breakfast at Elmo's Diner which looked like a great place though Southwest Cheese grits isn't likely to be on my plate, lunch at Mama Dip's (Catfish Gumbo), Cracker Jack at the New DAP, and supper at The Barbeque Joint where she learned the difference between Eastern North Carolina barbaque and all those other things claiming to be barbeque. She topped it off with an iced cappuccino at Cafe Driade. Though I'd probably make somewhat different food choices, she had what would basically be a perfect day as far as I'm concerned.
The crowning part of this show was her visit to the New DAP. Not only did I get to see what the place looks like, inside and out (sadly, too much like other stadia of its vintage), the visiting team was the Syracuse Skychiefs. That the Bulls' opposition was one of my local teams was a happy coincidence for me, but what made me even happier was that I recognized, in a fleeting glimpse, the Skychiefs' pitcher, Mike Smith.
Coffee-Flavored Misses Looks like My Barista was partly right. He predicted the winning team would score 9 runs, and that Boomer would be lifted inthe 5th, and that the number 2 was connected to the final score.
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