Cooperstown
"This is not about me, and it never was. It was about the people who put me here, the people who supported me. If I could, I would get plaques for each and every one of you." Hal McCoy, during yesterday's HOF acceptance speech.

Grey skies and the threat of rain hung over us as we rolled along a winding Route 80 with the translucent pea green algal blooms of a pristine Lake Otsego to our left and the Hall of Fame Weekend in Cooperstown ahead of us.

Admittedly, the induction ceremony was not our primary justification for travel. Already in Saratoga Springs to attend the weekend opening of the nation's oldest race track at Saratoga Race Course, as it happens, Cooperstown is just a tranquil two hour ride away. Even other staunch baseball fans advised that to go to Cooperstown on Hall of Fame Weekend, when the population typically swells from 2,000 to 30,000, was a bad idea. On the other hand, we reasoned that in the wake of the stampede of fans for the induction ceremony, our chances of touring the Hall of Fame unimpeded by typical crowds and at our leisure, were significantly better on this weekend, if we timed our visit right.

Taking the trolly in from the outskirts of town, we were immediately overtaken by swarms of fans in Mets and Orioles gear in recognition of the election of Gary Carter and Eddie Murray. There was a smattering of bilingual die hards clad in their pinwheel red, white and blue "M" caps celebrating the Expos, the cap Carter chose to wear into the Hall, and raucous Pete Rose fans driving around Main Street with their no. 14 Phillies uniforms yelling for Rose's enshrinement with megaphones. All around us were the vestiges of paraphenelia parasites; fanatics racing around to get their memorabilia stamped with the "official" date of the ceremony, cheap reproductions being hocked on sidewalk tables, and the rumors of star sightings every few minutes.

We managed, even in a brief tour along Main Street, to take in a fair share of former stars. While Monte Irvin was finishing up his autographing tour in one sporting goods store, we waited in vain for the promised arrival of Bob Feller only to find him, fifteen minutes later, across the street seated at a table with Juan Marichal, Red Schoendienst and Hal McCoy, gabbing it up with fans and signing anything slapped in front of them. It seems strange in some ways because even armed with photos of these men in their playing days, it is somewhat impossible to recognize them without name tags and yet, because they are famous, because there were people crawling all over them for attention, you naturally wonder who they are, as though you were crashing a party of unrecognizable guests.

For example, I had no idea until someone called out his name that the old, beefy gentleman I was standing across from was Rapid Robert himself. Should we say something to him? Howdy Mr. Feller, it sure was amazing watching you on those grainy black and white films striking out the side in 1946 after your stint as an anti-aircraft gunner in WWII? Perhaps that's why people are so busy shoving stuff at him to sign, they can't think of anything else to say to him but "would you please sign this?".

Red Schoendienst however, was immediately recognizable. To this day, at 80 years old, he still looks remarkably like a "Red" with his thinning reddish hair, sunburnt face and the bemused look of a prankster. I could have walked up to him and asked if he knew his name meant "shoe service" in Dutch or if Tim McCarver ever shut his mouth while he managed him with the Cardinals. But instead, I could only stare at these aging legends nonplussed, reminded of county fair freaks or zoo animals being poked and prodded by people whose marvel knew no boundries.

It seems a two-sided coin these old timers flip. On the one hand, it seems wonderful for them and fans to have a chance to bask in their collective memories. Being appreciated far beyond your days in the sun must be a warming feeling. On the other hand, there is a cynical angle of this played by the people fueling a booming autograph and memorabilia business. Kids with no idea of who some of the old timers were, were shoving pieces of memorabilia in their faces with a feigned and practiced politeness. Certainly they weren't on a nostalgia kick. It seemed more like an obsessive craze for authenticity than a true appreciation for the players themselves.

All of Cooperstown was like that in fact. Perhaps it is to be expected in a town whose primary revenue is baseball merchandise. For that matter, perhaps it is always to be expected that on the fringe of any tourist attraction lies a town staking its livelihood on tawdry and cheap parasitism. Nevertheless, meandering from one merchandise store to another, one cannot avoid the impression that like all else, even baseball history can be boiled down to the dollar and the cent.

The only quasi non-baseball related event occurred just minutes into our walk along Main Street when we were accosted by a woman who cryptically questioned us as to whether or not we wanted a baseball card of "America's next president." I wanted to slip away as quickly as possible thinking for certain that this was some assinine sales pitch I would get stuck listening to on the streets of Cooperstown rather than visiting the Hall of Fame. Instead, as carefully as possible, I suggested that I supposed it all depended on who the next president was in this fantasy world she was imparting upon me. After all, perhaps this was some sort of political clairvoyant and I was missing a golden opportunity to see the future of America instead of its baseball past.

She handed me a Dennis Kucinich card instead which caused me to laugh out loud. Five minutes into my Cooperstown walk and I'm assailed by a political campaign worker pushing the most liberal candidate in the Democratic party in a town where only a few months ago, Dale Petroskey was cancelling a "Bull Durham" reunion because the primary stars of the movie didn't meet the criteria of his conservative political agenda. What irony.

*****

The Hall of Fame itself was a somewhat somber yet simultaneously uplifting experience. What I was perhaps most conscious of, other than the obvious histories being spun, documented and depicted throughout the meatlocker-like climate controlled interior, was the sense of the passing down of the traditions. Throughout the tour I overheard fathers explaining to their children, the details and sometimes the memories of players and events that they either experienced in their own lifetimes or learned about in their own childhoods. More than any other sport, at its best, baseball can be about the wisdom and lore of one generation trickling down to another, stalactites of tradition slowly growing between the child and the adult, be they players themselves or fathers and sons.

I wasn't much impressed with the Grandstand Theater which is modeled after the original Comiskey Park with wooden seats, crowd noise and an exploding scoreboard. Perhaps spoiled by wearing out the grooves of the LP Professional Baseball:The First 100 Years and the expectations of modern technology, I found the 13-minute multimedia glimpse of the "heart and soul of the game" a bit of a disappointment. I'd have been more interested to have offered entire broadcasts of games by the masters like Red Barber, Mel Allen or Vin Scully, or hearing Russ Hodges' call of the 1951 shot heard 'round the world. In fact, the entire broadcaster wing is a disappointment for its lack authentic rebroadcasts of the masters. They should have had listening booths for each of them calling a game. And the Baseball at the Movies exhibition, especially in light of Petroskey's recent demagogic ranting, is at best, a farcical undertaking.

The biggest surprise of the tour was getting to see the sunglasses that James "Cool Papa" Bell wore during his playing days and getting to recall out loud in the Pride and Passion exhibit, Satchel Paige's tale that Bell "was so fast, that he could turn out the light and be in bed before the room got dark." As far as memorable moments, this almost ranked above eating breakfast at the "Country Cafe" somewhere outside of Ballston Spa wherein we came across our first real life examples of a menu that contained "freedom toast" and "freedom fries" while eating delicious homemade corned beef hash and listening to a few barrel-bellied locals recount Grady Little's mistakes in Friday night's loss to the Yankees over eggs and coffee.

There is no end to the fascinations of history and tradition in this hall. From examining the worn leather gloves so small they look almost cartoonish, to viewing programs and scorecards from every World Series ever played, to understanding how all-encompassing the dominance of the New York Yankees has been almost since the day they bought Babe Ruth, the Baseball Hall of Fame is almost a big a slice of America's apple pie as it is of the game itself.

*****

French, the Language of Champions?

First there was American five-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong noting, in French for his hosts, that ""Avec le recul, je pense que, pour une course comme le Tour, l'âge n'est pas un facteur négatif. A 33 ou 34 ans, tout est encore possible." Tout est encore possible!! And then, somewhat modestly, he and opines that "Cette année, j'ai été loin de mon meilleur niveau". Far from his best level, but like fine wine, he's just getting better with age.

Then came the final blow: Gary Carter, right down there in front of former President George H.W. Bush and all the world to hear, adding a greeting in French for his francophile fans.

It seems that despite the best efforts and perspicacity of our maestro Congressmen, the world continues to insist on speaking French, the savages...

Armando's Diabolism Works Equally in Pinstripes

So glad that Yankee fans can finally partake in the misery know as Armandogeddon. One night after Mariano Rivera had to bail him out in Game One, Saturday night's meltdown was classic Armando: "I'm cool, I'm comfortable," Benitez said. "I don't try to impress anybody. Everybody knows what I can do. If everybody didn't know what I could do, I wouldn't be here."

Rest assured, everybody knows what Armando can do because he does it like nobody else. Blowing the game when it counts is Armando's modus operandi and everyone but the glue-sniffing Yankee front office who somehow believed the magical Yankee mystique would turn him into a reclamation project for the ages had the common sense to know it. Thank God for Brian Cashman. Oh Armandogeddon, sweet music to my Yankee-hating ears.

During the opener on Friday night, because of whatever chaotic arbitrary rules govern broadcasting local games here in Manhattan, the game was broadcast on the local channel instead of the usual YES network broadcast. Rest assured, the banal and addled Yankee sycophant Michael Kay was still doing his best to drown out the wisdom of Jim Kaat with his idiotic play-by-play and moronic comments but on the YES network, instead of the game, they were rebroadcasting Bernie Williams' guitar-playing debut concert at Chicago's House of Blues. Williams, who recently came out with an album called The Journey Within, was jamming out with salsa and blues on one channel while on the other, he was going 3-for-5. What will the world of technology think of next?

How about a ticket refund? I only watched Williams "jam" out between innings of the game but my impression in that short span of time was that he's got a great future recording music for elevators. While competent but unspectacular when playing the blues, his version of jazz is positively stomach-wrenching. Somewhere between the snoozy underworld of John Tesh and Kenny G., which inexplicably, took a coterie of about 20 other musicians playing behind him to achieve even a palatable mediocrity. The saddest part of the concert was seeing ole Bernie out there begging his fans to beg for an encore which they finally did, if anything, probably just to put a merciful end to the evening. It's admirable that a ballplayer strives to do something more worthwhile than learning how far he can spit sunflower seeds in his spare time but really Bernie, don't quit your day job.