You can't get there from here

Baltimore, Inner Harbor.

I can see it from here, the hotel where I'm staying. The light stantions, the back of the warehouse on Eutaw Street. But I can't get there.

I was in Baltimore for a conference for work. When the anncouncement of the conference arrived I told my supervisor I wanted to go, and I pointed out to her that this was even without checking the Orioles' schedule first. When I did check it, of course the O's were out of town, in Toronto then Boston.

But surely there would be a time slot during the conference when I could get away and take a tour of the stadium, a tour I have been told I have to take. I wasn't worried about finding the time, there's always at least one session in every conference's schedule that has nothing of interest to attend. (see Cooperstown Symposium 2008) And Ifound a time, but when I checked the Orioles' website there were no tours listed for that week.

Since I wasn't going to tour Camden Yards this trip, I decided trying to get over to the Babe Ruth Museum could wait till my next trip as well.

I did stroll a couple piers over from the hotel and checked out the Barnes & Noble, which had described to me as the world's largests B&N, but my source apparently hasn't been in many B&Ns. The interior is dominated by old furnaces and smoke stacks of the power plant originally housed in the structure. When I travel, I look for local editions of the historical picture books put out by Arcadia Publishing; I was in luck, picked up a copy of Baseball in Baltimore.

Baltimore and the surrounding area ballparks are on my list of places to be visited, but since I finally got there, allbeit for an entirely different purpose, I know it's a definite, not a maybe, and it has moved higher on the priority list.

Cooperstown Symposium 2008

Another year, another former major leager tossing the ball for both teams in Town Ball.

As always, there were number of fascinating topics presented at this year's Cooperstown Symposium, so many that there was never a time slot in which there was nothing I wanted to hear so I never got my usual free time to wander Main Street and poke around the stores. I managed to grab a few quick minutes to pop in to Willis Monie Books, chatting with co-symposiite and Cubs' fan Merle as we skimmed the spines crowded into the shelves right inside the door, the hot spot for used books in Cooperstown.

Because this is the centennial of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" the song was, of course, the topic of a presentation. Timothy Johnson's Music Theory for Dummies ("Analysis of Melodic Shape") look at the song was an interactive session, opening with the audience rising to sing the National Anthem, fixing the particular musical theory Dr Johnson was addressing firmly in our own experience. There were a couple other songs we rose to sing, including TMOTTB, and someone nearby expressed exactly what I was thinking, that this session was like being at Mass. We talk about the chuch of baseball and the green cathedrals, so this made perfect sense.

We were to have a demonstration of Pesapallo, Finnish baseball, which was rained out. The presenters, Kevin Casebolt and Shawn Munford of East Stroudsburg University,, gave us a packet that included a schematic of the field which I kept having to refer to to make sense of the rules. The pesapallo diamond is not equilateral like the baseball diamond, and a home run is reaching third.

Terumi Rafferty-Osaki gave an impassioned presentation on the Japanese internment camps and baseball. This is a subject I knew of, but knew little about it, the children's book Baseball Saved Us and the movie American Pastime, but these barely hint at the volumes of information and evidence that Terumi displayed. Each year I find a presentation that opens a whole new arena to explore and take to my classroom and this year it was this one.

There was a session with guest umpires who were with us via video tape and through a son/co-author, talking about umpiring in the Negro Leagues and the Pacific Coast League. (I got a souvenir at this session, a baseball autographed by Branch Rickey. Branch Rickey III, that is, Mr. Rickey's grandson who is president of the PCL. And who looks eerily like his grandfather more than ever.

One participant brings his primary source to the conference and lets the other participants ask what they want to know. Last year he brought a member of the 1986 Mets, who was on the DL and didn't play in the World Series. This year he brought Mario Ramos who is transitioning from being a professional athlete to civilian life. His willingness to speak with a roomful of baseball academic geeks was appreciated as was his apparent introspective take on his role in life. Another former minor leaguer present commented that Mario was much farther ahead, had a more mature outlook, than he himself had at the same age. I suggested that the two of them hold a panel presentation next year with our resident cultural anthropologist and former minor leaguer as moderator.

My favorite session, possibly of all time, was by Stephen Wood and David Pincus. These two have presented in the past and each time it's been a stand out. They've covered music (sung a few songs in the presentation) , they've covered films (I use their movie website http://www.reelbaseball.com/ as a source in my class. This time they presented photos. They're both professional photographers who like to take busman's holidays at ball park, and they've gathered a beautiful collection in a book, Baseball Revealed: A Photo Essay On The Hidden Art In America's Game. I loved this mostly visual presentation. They talked about taking pictures of things other than the action of the game, lines and angles and colors and lighting in and around ballparks that are interesting, and as I watched the images flash past I was enthralled, mostly because they were great shots, but also because they were photos I would have taken. I love the quirky things one can see at a ballpark, the dramas and comedies being played out. People who haven't attended a live professional game, a minor league game in particular, don't understand that the game, the action on the field, is only a part of the experience, and their collection highlights this.

These are a couple of examples from my work, taken at The Beehive in New Britain, CT.

Whoda Thunk?

A pitchers' duel involving Dice-K? I'd expect to see Wake on the mound for one of those before Dice-K.

But Monday's game was exciting to watch. And I have to admit the Twins are probably the team I care about the most second to the Saux, mainly because I've seen so many of them climbing the rungs, from New Britain to Rochester to Minnesota, and enjoyed their playing at each level.

Watching Tek handling Dice-K, and all of the rest of the staff (except Wake with Cash on hand), it's gratifying to see his importance to the pitching staff and therefore the team acknowledged by the players when they voted him onto the All-Star team despite a paltry .214 BA this season.

Catch as Cash Can

It's almost a perfect storm in baseball: the Red Sox at Fenway, a knuckleballer on the mound, and a player I've enjoyed watching in the minors behind the plate.

Kevin Cash was booted back and forth between Toronto and Syracuse for a number of seasons. Once upon a time he was considered a hot prospect, but that fizzled out as so often does with young players, the reason sometimes obvious, sometimes mysterious. Cash was one of the few SkyChiefs I rooted for and I was disappointed that he wasn't getting a serious chance with the Jays.

Tim Wakefield filled me with terror when he was the closer for the BoSox, but as a starter he's a perennial. Like any knuckleballer, he has his days, those when the ball dips and dances and flutters and floats unhittably by the batters, and those when it's Home Run Derby time.

It takes someone special to catch a knuckleball. It takes someone with a lot of collected cool, especially when that someone catches only every fifth day.

Back when Wake was in the bullpen, Jason Varitek was the guy who geared up whenever Wake got the call. But Tek is too valuable to the Sox to relegate him to caddy status, much too valuable to risk injury at the hands of the knuckler.

Once Wake was part of the rotation, the Sox found a caddy for him, Doug Mirabelli. And Doug's ability to wrangle the knuckleball and maintain sanity as a part-time player neutralized his hitting ability. Which wasn't all that bad for a guy in his position. Theo Epstein was credited with an error for trading Mirabelli away, redeemed himself by getting Doug back, literally just in time to catch Wake.

And now Mirabelli's gone. It seems his replacement is on hand. Kevin Cash makes catching a knuckleball look easy, almost easy. That he is able to throw out a runner attempting to steal second while catching said knuckler is close to amazing. Hitting a homer off the Unit? Kevin Cash has secured his position, yoked to Tim Wakefield, not a bad place to be.

photo from http://www.bostonherald.com/

A month? Already?

So it's been a while since I posted, and I can't blame it on being at too many games....

I logged on today to post, to try to catch up, but first I took a quick peek at the Syracuse Chiefs blog and was happy to see that Dave has had the great fortune of experiencing the fan-friendly ballpark in Binghamton. I left a long comment that I hope he okays for posting. Here's what I wrote:

A long time ago, I used to use the experiences I had at MacArthur Stadium serve as my benchmarks for evaluating other ballparks. After that stadium fell and the new one was built in Syracuse, I gave up. Years later someone introduced me to the B-Mets.
From day one I have been blown away by what a great fan experience this team provides, and over the past decade they have just continued to get better and better at it.
There is an infectious sense of fun at the Binghamton ballpark, something I have praised repeatedly in my own blog, while giving a repeatedly thumbs down on the experience in Syracuse.
If Syracuse should land the Mets' PD contract, they will need to step up the enjoyment and fan-friendliness if they want to win over the fans that will begin making the trek from Binghamton to Syracuse to follow the boys of summer up the minor league rungs.

My Guys

When I say "My Guys" I'm usually referring to the B-Mets, or to individual B-Mets who have moved on, and generally upward, but on a recent sunny Saturday, My Guys meant, well, My Guys.

I attended a game on campus and had a good time cheering on the team, which included three young men who had been in my baseball class in the fall. All three of them made a point of greeting me, and one went out of his way to thank me for coming to support the team. That this particular young man has Derek Jeter as his favorite ballplayer is not surprising.

I struck me as I was walking to my car after the games that these young men really are My Guys. And I look forward to having more young men, maybe some day a young woman or two, participate in my class and play for the college' team.

Petrosky

Recently the Hall of Fame announced that Dale Petrosky was leaving as president, an announcement that I greeted happily. Under Petrosky, the Hall because a much more serious museum and a serious and scholarly research facility, good things. But it also became a little to serious about itself, and there were conservative, right-wing elements introduced to the Hall that made it less the National Baseball Hall of Fame and more the Republican Baseball Hall of Fame. Employees were pushed toward professionalism, but to an overbearing point. Military service by Hall of Famers was honored in excess. Petrosky cancelled an event meant to commerate one of the best baseball films ever made, Bull Durham, because he, or perhaps Board Chair Jane Clark Forbes, was concerned that the film's stars, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, would make it a political event by voicing dissent toward the then-recently begun Iraq war. Petrosky instead denied them and baseball fans the opportunity to celebrate a love of The Game, he turned it into a political protest. While Petrosky brought much good to the Hall, it is good now that he is no longer at the helm.

Goodbye, Earl

I've looked and I've looked, but I have yet to find Earl Snyder listed on any organized baseball team's roster, as a player or a coach.

I miss Earl.

Home

Went to Binghamton on April 6 for my first game of the season there.

And as I was approaching the entry game, a sense of welcome and calm came over me.

I chatted with the ticket taker a bit before heading down the concourse, and when the next familiar face asked how I was, I said, "It's good to be home."

Not just at a ballpark. This ballpark. As Ben Wrightman says in Fever Pitch, this is my summer family.



This is my happy place.

Fantasy Update

The Talkin' Baseball League has 14 onwers/managers. On April 3, the Huskytown Dukes were in 10th place.

On April 4, they were in 1st.

Apparently all of the starting pitchers on my roster pitch on the same day. It's gonna be a wild ride in that case.

Today, they're in 3rd. I gotta blame it on David Ortiz. Papi's not hitting, I've got to bench him.

Green is Good

There be grass here!

Yes, Syracuse now has a green grass diamond, and the "new" stadium finally looks like a ballpark. They celebrated Opening Day with green balloons.

Not only have they ripped up that ugly ugly blue-green cement hard carpet, they've added a warning track and padded the outfield walls. They also moved the bullpens from behind the outfield wall to along the stands in foul territory on either side; however, they've also built a small fence (maybe it's going to be an actual wall and what was visible last week is only the framework) to separate the bullpen crew from the fans.

So as long as you get quickly to your seat and stay away from the concourse, the stadium in Syracuse is not too bad a place to watch a ball game.

Because of a slew of personal problems, I haven't been able to plan ahead, so I hadn't planned to go to Opening Day anywhere, but since the weather was so nice and Syracuse had a day game scheduled, I headed that way. I was relatively late, got there about 15 minutes before game time. Yes, I know, nice day, opening day, stadium improvements, all things to draw out people who don't normally show up--like Easter Christians--so I expected to have to wait a bit. Fifteen minutes to get to the parking lot (and I ended up in the overflow lot!) wasn't outrageous, but 40 minutes to purchase a ticket was. There are eight ticket windows, but typical Syracuse management operations: 2 windows dedicated to Will Call (I saw 3 people go to Will Call the entire time), 2 windows dedicated to General Admissions (not at all busy - the upper deck was nearly deserted), 3 windows open for ticket sales, 1 window not open until after the game had actually started.

Syracuse had another day game a week later -- no crowd at all. But at least the grass looked greener.

First Lady of Baseball

Today is Effa Manley's birthday, the only woman enshrined in Cooperstown.


her plaque in the Hall

Effa no only was someone who ran their baseball team as a business, but did it well. She made changes for the better for her players, and she made white baseball literally pay respect to the Negro League and its players. She as was a a social and civil rights champion, organizing an effective boycott of Harlem merchants who refused to hire the local residents, running anti-lynching and pro war bonds campaigns at her ballpark. She loved baseball, to the point that she ran the team even on the field at times.

Baseball could not have selected a better woman to be the first in the Hall.

Show your team pride!

Sometimes You Just Don't Need Words

Pride

Have I mentioned how proud I am of the Red Sox and
their stand on the trip to Japan?

Way to go, guys!

Draft Day!

Believe it or not, Draft Day is a day I look forward to all year long. And I missed out on the start of the draft because the fire alarms went off and we had to evaculate the building until the fire department gave the all clear. One of the league members had bantered with me about "burning down the house". I blame him.

Of course, we had someone who had a personal situation that kept him from preparing for the draft which meant he ended up with 24 keepers belonging to other teams. As commissioner of the league, I removed all of them and redistributed as appropriate (though 4 teams still are overstocked), leaving a roster of one. One player.

People at work have been asking me if I got the players I wanted. I have no idea. Gotta go see who I drafted....


Melky Cabrera
Jacoby Ellsbury
Kosuke Fukudome
Mike Jacobs
David Ortiz
Dustin Pedroia
A.J. Pierzynski
Justin Upton
David Wright
Kevin Youkilis
Michael Young

Bronson Arroyo
Jeremy Bonderman
Boof Bonser
Lance Broadway
Billy Buckner
Chris Carpenter
Tom Glavine
Chuck James
Jon Lester
Tim Lincecum
Noah Lowry
John Maine
Anibal Sanchez
Chase Wright

Not bad, not bad. Only a couple silly selections. Chase Wright (picked just for the name) and Lance Broadway have already been given their walking papers. Billy Buckner, how could I not? Cole Hamels was the keeper of mine who get taken in the Great Keeper Draft. He'll be back by Opening Day.

I'm ready, and the people I work with are ready for the season to start too. I do, after all, become a whole different person during the Season. It's what lights me up!

Invite

Recently as I was leaving work, walking through the athletic facility, I passed the baseball team waiting for the coach to unlock the door to the indoor training area and the guys who had been in my class in the fall called, "hi, how're you doing?" to me. I greeted them and kept heading toward my car.

Then one of the guys stepped apart from the group and asked if I was going to be coming to watch them play, I should come to some games.


It's nice to get asked.

Duke of Earl

Who's Kidding Who?

I spotted the Mets yearbook on the store magazine rack earlier this week and took a look to see what they had on the minors. In the article about the organization's prospects I was pleased to see Mike Carp, tied for 10th. The evaluation was spot on regarding his 2007 season in Binghamton: hampered by injuries, power and hitting hurt by said injuries, and a lack of defensive skill at first.

The article also listed Brett Harper as a prospect.



Brett Harper? The slowest man on earth? The model of doorstop as first baseman? Is the continuing consideration of Harper as a prospect a case of CYA? Does his dad have buddies in the organization protecting Brett?

I know some of the fans in Binghamton love to see Harper play, but I cringe whenever he takes the field. Or even bats as DH when they play AL-parented clubs.

He's more suspect than prospect. Cut him loose.

Time flies - at supersonic speed

My 2007 baseball season came to an sudden and unexpected end.

On Friday 8/17, Irish Night at NYSEG Stadium, it rained and blew, but Livianna, Grace, Mellow, and I toughed it out. There was an inflatable Irish pub off the third base side. I wasn't' curious enough to see what beers or ales they might be serving out there to make the trip, especially keeping in mind how high the prices probably would be. When the wind picked up, they had to deflate the pub and fast! When the rain got too heavy, we headed downstairs, with everyone else in the stands, but just to make a pit stop. We got separated and I headed up to the seats assuming Liviana and the girls would already be there, but no. So I did something I hate and mock; I used my cell phone to call them to find out where they were. Coming up the steps even as we speak. Once the wind died down, the pub went back up, and quickly.

Saturday, my writing bud Soupbone came down and we took in our first game together. It's my zen place, and he needs zen occasions. It happened to be Blues Night, the Blues Brothers performing, which was fitting since Soupbone loves the blues, took a long vacation biking through Blues country this summer.

Sunday was a day game, a really sloppy game, but who cares, it was a nice day and they were playing ball in the sun.

Then Monday, 1 AM, my father woke me up, asked me to take him to the hospital and my life was turned upside down.

He had a stroke, stayed at the local hospital for a week, but kept deteriorating so he was shipped to the stroke center at the medical school hospital. He was in the neurology ICU for another week, upgraded to stable and moved to the rehab unit at the hospital for a few weeks then to another rehab facility where they determined he was unable to benefit further from therapy, so now it's a waiting game to find him permanent placement in a long-term care facility, a nursing home. I'm trying to have him moved closer to home so I can visit him more often. Between working two jobs, doing the full prep for the baseball class instead of 1/3 of them, trying to write for my learning contracts to complete my creative writing degree, and the constantly rising price of gas and my fuel efficient car in the repair shop most of the fall so I've been driving dad's gas guzzler, it's been difficult getting up there to see him as much as either of us would like. People ask me how dad is and it's hard to tell them. If I say he's okay, I mean he's alive and in stable condition. He cannot move his left side, he can't talk--he talks a blue streak but it's gibberish, though occasionally he can say a word or two that's intelligible and he can say yes and no-- he understands most of what is said to him though he doesn't remember he had a stroke and says he's ready to leave this place, he also can't swallow (the stroke disabled the muscles in his throat) so he's fed liquids through a tube into his stomach.

My mother had Alzheimer's and my father insisted on keeping her at home as long as he could possibly care for her, with my help, through all the stages of the disease. When it is said Alzheimer's destroys a person's memory, it is not only the memory of who people are but how to do things, until the person with the disease regresses to a dependent infantile state, needing to be fed and dressed and diapered. He finally had given in and put her on the waiting list for a nursing home, just two weeks before she died. So I've been through this before, only this is worse because my father had each other to lean on and I am now alone to deal with it.

I spent Labor Day weekend at my father's bedside in the neurology ICU, and wished that I could be at the ballpark, the place that has long been my sanctuary. Throughout my mother's long illness, I escaped to the ball park Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons whenever I could because it was the only place I could find peace. And I needed peace, still do.

The remainder of the major league season? Didn't exist for me, and the World Series, second win in four years for the Red Sox, was a blur. Of course, as I told people back in 2004, once the Sox broke the Curse everything else would be gravy. It was a nice win, but not the marvelous joy of 2004.

This fall instead of team teaching the baseball class (I recently heard it referred to as "Baseball Culture," I like that), I did the class on my own. Which was good, but I didn't have lessons and lectures prepared for 2/3 of the topics that my partner in crime usually covered. We covered topics that previous classes hadn't touched on, and our focus was sometimes shifted. And throughout the semester, my students wanted to know when the Mitchell Report was coming out. I predicted as close to Christmas as possible so it would get reduced media attention. I was close, it came out the day after our final class meeting. It was a great bunch of students in the class this year. Only two women, but one of them was an outspoken member of the class. She was also the one who is considering a career in baseball, this side of the fence. A number of students are members of the college's baseball team, adding a different spin to things at time.

The co-instructor does the class online in the spring and summer, and he had mentioned he was thinking about changing the reading list, maybe adding a biography. Since I had turned more than once to Jim Bouton over the semester, I suggested Ball Four. He was concerned that it might be dated and/or risque. Please. It was the original tell-all baseball book and is pale in comparison to those that have followed. I like it for the class because it was the original, and it a true baseball player's voice, not an as told to (though editor Leonard Schecter had a strong influence on it). We've been relying on David Halberstam's October 1964 as a period piece, to explore race relations in the US, and I think Bouton's book would be a good companion to it. We talk about hero worship in the course, how ballplayers have been viewed by society over the game's history, and Ball Four punctures that nicely.


I'm ready for a little distraction. How many days till pitchers and catchers report?

Bonds*

Destruction Of National Pastime Given Two-Minute Standing Ovation

You did WHAT to my picture?

Found on the Web

While searching for an image, I came across one of my photos, modified, at another website.



It made me laugh.

Where to next, Jeff?

Syracuse has too many outfielders, so Toronto released Jeff Duncan.

This stinks, not just because I think Jeff's career has been mishandled by the various organizations he's been with, but because of the timing. There was a nice write-up about Jeff and Wayne Lydon, both former B-Mets, only two weeks ago. (The third party of that mix, Angel Pagan, is now playing with the Cubs.

Angel Pagan

Random Bits

Sunday, June 24 - Fernando Martinez sits out the game so Corey Coles plays centerfield. The third batter of the game, Dan Dement, hits deep to center and Coles, not used to centerfield, misjudges the ball which bounces off the big blue wall and, going after it, Coles bounces off the wall and falls on his face in the grass. The right fielder, Caleb Stewart, comes over to cover for Coles as Dement runs and runs and runs. An inside the park home run. Cool. Even if it is the opposing team.

Which Way - Syracuse, in keeping with the spirit of the city, continues to take small steps backwards. They got rid of the SkyChief name--fans continued to call the team the Chiefs no matter how much the new brand was pushed. The also got rid of the SkyChiefs' logo--a bat with fighter wings, reminiscent of WWII--and replaced it with a steam engine, purportedly to honor Syracuse's railroading history--the trains used to come right through the middle of the downtown streets. The letters on the uniforms were changed to reflect the train motif, but there are three different, clashing fonts, one for the team name on the front, another for the player's name on the back and a third for the player's number. They didn't retired the mascot Scooch--an orange blobby critter--but added a second, Pops the engineer.


Finally, though, they have taken a step backwards that is a good one. They (the county) are going to replace the hideous artificial turf with grass before the next season. Although it hasn't been officially voted on, it's considered a done deal. The day after it was announced in the paper, they had shirts proclaiming the return for sale at the park. On the front it says "got grass?" and on the back "we do, coming 2008".