My Pilgrimage to Cooperstown

I took a wonderful two and a half day trip last month with my friends Rich and Tom. We left on Tuesday after lunch and drove to Cleveland, where we had a leisurely supper across from the ballpark, and then went to a night game between the Indians and the Tigers. This April has seen much bad weather, with a record number of MLB games being postponed. The night before, the Indians had played a game with a game-time temperature of 33 degrees, a record cold in the history of the Indians current ballpark, now called Progressive Field. This night, however, the starting temperature was 43 degrees, with little wind. While not very good baseball weather, it was at least tolerable. Still, the attendance of 10,078 was only slightly higher than the previous night's attendance of 9,843.

We had seats down the left-field line, which gave us a good view of the Indians' two best players, shortstop Francisco Lindor and third baseman Jose Ramirez. Lindor made a sparkling play in the very first inning, diving to his right to smother a ground ball, and then getting up and nonchalantly throwing out the batter at first. A few innings later, left fielder Michael Brantley made a nice running catch in the left field corner near the foul line. And late in the game, Lindor made another fine play, backhanding a sharp grounder on the first hop, and then taking his time to throw out the runner at first. Jason Kipnis also made a couple of nice plays at second, going far to his right to backhand grounders, and then throwing out the runners on close plays at first. (A guy sitting in front of us was bad-mouthing Lindor the whole game, but backed off a bit towards the end and claimed that it was only his hitting he was complaining about.)

Despite the cold weather, the game was well-played in a crisp 2:47.  There were few walks, few mound visits, and only one error. Ramirez started the scoring in the first with a solo homer. Indians' starter Mike Tomlin made the lead stand up during his time on the mound, though he had to pitch out of trouble a few times, and his strike-ball ratio was so bad that he was lifted after the 5th due to his high pitch count.

Three Indians' relievers shared the next two innings, with the Tigers tying it up in the 7th. Then in the 8th star reliever Andrew Miller came in, to much fanfare highlighted by fire showing on the scoreboard around the phrase "Miller time". Light-hitting back-up catcher Roberto Perez broke the 1-1 tie with a homer in the bottom of the 8th, and closer Cody Allen pitched the 9th for the save, giving Miller a rare win.  This win put the Indians over .500 at 6-5, and at this writing they are in first in their division despite still being only one game above .500.

After the game we drove about an hour and stopped at a motel in Ashtabula for the night. The next day we continued to Cooperstown, driving through the northwest corner of Pennsylvania, then through the finger lakes area of New York, where there were few signs of farming, and arriving at Cooperstown at about 2:00 P.M.

We spent three hours at the museum, then had a leisurely supper and evening. I got to watch more TV than at any time during the past three and a half years. A program on the moose in Canada, and then the Rachel Maddow show, discussing the latest chaos of the Trump presidency.

The next morning was spent at the museum, taking in the part containing the plaques. Then we explored downtown Cooperstown, visiting several souvenir shops filled with baseball memorabilia. Since it was the offseason, the shop proprietors had little to do and were quite happy to converse with us. (Being the offseason also helped enormously with the motel rates.)

The visitors guides at the museum were uniformly helpful and friendly. One talked with us for quite some time, relating the visits from the new Hall members set to be inducted this summer. Trevor Hoffman and his wife cut the cake and served it to the museum staff, the first time this has ever happened, according to the guide. Alan Trammel also impressed the staff, as someone married since he was 20 and very much the unassuming and humble family man.

Chipper Jones was just the opposite, someone the women took a dislike to as he apparently is a well-known womanizer; he's now on his third wife, and has a son born out of an 18-month affair with a Hooters waitress during his first marriage. An interesting factoid about Chipper is that he and his current wife are expecting a child, the due date being on his induction date! They have checked out the Cooperstown hospital and plan to name the child "Cooper".

Some of the museum patrons were also quite friendly. One guy from Boston fired some trivia questions at us; the one I remember is "Who is the only player to play on each of the Sox' first four world championship teams?" I knew this was in the 1910s and made a few guesses, with the guy explaining why each was wrong, before he told us the answer: outfielder Harry Hooper.

We started back, stopping for a fast food lunch in Otego, coincidentally the same exit at which we had stopped for lunch the day before. Our last stop was a gas stop, which was, again coincidentally, in Astabula. Much good conversation the whole way. A most memorable and pleasurable trip.