R and J in the USA

One of our absolute must-see stops in our home state of New York was Cooperstown in central New York, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Cooperstown is not just the town in which the Baseball Hall of Fame is located as one of the buildings on the street, it is a town that radiates the love of baseball and has fully embraced its role in the chronicles of baseball history. Every other shop is selling baseball gear or merch and Doubleday Field is right there on Main Street. We stopped in a shop that makes customized bats and is responsible for selling the wood and billets for 90% of the bats used by the major league, including the billets we saw when we toured the Louisville Slugger factory in Kentucky. 

Coopersville is also the quintessential New York small town. It is a New York that we hold near and dear to us, a New York that, when you are far afield from the state and saying where you are from, few people realize is the type of place that is quintessential New York. It is a town with strikingly beautiful scenery of rolling green hills and long and wide sparkling lakes wrapped up in a backdrop of earth rising up around it that sits somewhere between a hill and mountain in size. It is wide streets lined with charming and historic buildings of brick and stone and wood. Like a number of small New York State towns that have one or two worldly claim and serves as a beautiful vacation spot for those hailing from the medium and large cities in its relative proximity, it is a town that alternates between the calm and quiet of locals in the off season and the hustle and bustle of in-season life, when its size grows exponentially and its wide streets fill up with those wanting to get a piece of it when it is at peak beauty. 

Julie was a pretty big baseball fan in childhood. She enthusiastically played on her little league team and collected baseball cards. Her team was the Toronto Blue Jays, just across Lake Ontario. Somewhere along the way, Julie let baseball get away from her, but the love of it has always remained deep in her bones. There are some people that can’t help but feel romantic about baseball, and Julie is one of them. Julie had wanted to go to Cooperstown for decades, but had never been. And for no reason other than pure inertia and the simple fact that, as decades in life go by, many people seem to have their list of things they have always wanted to do that, for no particularly good reason, they just haven’t gotten around to doing. A visit to Cooperstown had been sitting squarely on top of Julie’s list and, this being a bucket list trip, we were dang sure this gap would be solved. No matter what New York itinerary twists and turns came up, we made sure to keep a visit to Cooperstown on the docket.

As we walked through the neighborhoods of this perfectly charming New York town and Julie looked out at a lake she wanted to jump in and mountains she wanted to hike in and houses she wanted to live in, she said to Ryan, “I love Cooperstown! I can’t believe I finally made it here!”

Ryan responded, “You just decided to take the long way round.”

Indeed. Even though Cooperstown is about 170 miles from our house, we traveled about 50,000 miles, give or take a couple thousand, to get here. Well, whatever it takes. 

Well, this is supposed to be a post about the people we met along the way, but meeting the town of Cooperstown is as much a part of the story worth telling as anything. 

When we were finally in the Baseball Hall of Fame, the sense of romance with baseball reached its height. Not just in the exhibits and not just in the iconic plaque room where the greats of baseball since the 1930’s were elevated in permanent recognition for their contributions and accomplishments to and in the sport, but in the people that worked there. When we were there, almost all of the people we saw in the official shirts that denoted they were staff, were older men. But to talk to any of them, what you saw was little boys that loved baseball, and just happened to have been alive for many decades. They went out of their way to help and guide us on our Baseball Hall of Fame experience with an unbridled enthusiasm. 

One, in particular, stood out to us, whose name we never thought to grab. He caught us on our way up the stairs from the first floor to the second. He was leaning on the balcony on his forearms with his hands hanging over the railing, his enthusiasm jumping between the floors to catch our attention as soon as possible. 

As is typical on this trip, we were arriving at a museum when it only had 1.5 hours left in its day and we would need to fit the experience that could easily chew up a day or two into that short window. Unsolicited and eagerly, this white haired gentleman with the youthful spirit of a baseball fan for life asked us if we were just arriving to the museum. When we announced we were and he looked at his watch, he immediately made it his job to strategize how to best use our time. He suggested we go out of the regularly suggested order to make the most of our short time. Though the iconic plaque room is typically recommended as the last stop for climactic purposes, he recommended we start there as we certainly wouldn’t want to run out of time and miss it. Then, the last movie of the day would be showing in 25 minutes and we were told it is not to be missed. Then, make our way to the 2nd and 3rd floors and skim them to decide which sections we wanted to go deep into. We appreciated his recommendations and used it to inform our strategy. At the end of the day though, we both always end up doing things the way we like to do things. And, as is typically in museums, Julie always goes to the movie, and Ryan almost never does, preferring, instead to take advantage of more wandering time.  

When Julie showed up to the movie alone, the gentleman said, “Where’s your husband?!”. He seemed genuinely invested in both of us getting to experience the glory of the 17 minute video. Julie reported that her husband was off wandering and she would be the movie viewer.

”Okay, good, then you report back to him.” he eagerly responded, still committed to wanting Ryan to have a chance to feel the magic of the movie, if only vicariously though Julie.

”Of course,” Julie said with a smile. 

Julie watched the movie and found her baseball heart strings playing that familiar baseball love song.

After we each wandered through the floors of the museum and the Hall of Fame, each at our own pace and approach, running into each other with 10 minutes before closing time up on the third floor, we ran into our friend again on the way down.

”What did you think of the movie?!” He asked Julie with enthusiastic anticipation.

”It was pretty great.” Julie responded wholeheartedly. For anyone that has a tendency to feel romantic about baseball, this movie was going to take you right there. It was clear that present company was most certainly in that camp.

”Did you cry?” He asked with a big kid-at-heart smile on his face.

”Almost – I got close.” Julie admitted.

”That’s right!” he said, “Cause there’s no crying in baseball.”

”No, sir.” Julie said with a smile.

He winked at us. “Every time I see that movie, I get allergies. There’s no crying in baseball, but I definitely get allergies.”

We all laughed.

When we were leaving at closing time, Julie stopped in the ladies room. While she was washing her hands there was a knock on the door, “Anybody in there?” A booming male voice asked, doing the final sweep before closing.

”Yes.” Julie replied.

When Julie exited the restroom she went up to one of the other staff members at the door to let them know she was the last one out.

Then, from around the corner, after having checked the men’s room emerged our white-haired, ”allergic”, friend.

”Oh, it’s you!” He said with a familiar smile.

The other staff member said, “Oh, you know each other.”

Our new friend said with a big smile, “Oh, yea. We go way back!”

Julie responded in a laugh, “Yea, we go all the way back to the second floor!”

Despite all being strangers two hours ago, we all laughed like old friends. There is just something about baseball that brings out the little kid in everyone at every age. 

And, even though there is no crying in baseball, there are a lot of people of every shape, age and size that all get romantic about it, and all seem to, every once in a while, get a surge of allergies when they are busy being in love with the sport.