Cooperstown Dreams, Part 1
My brother joined me at the Baseball Hall of Fame, and euphoria ensued.
Years ago, I learned about the variety of conferences offered by the Society for American Baseball Research, or SABR. I had recently watched the Ken Burns documentary entitled Baseball and loved the interviews with the affable Buck O’Neil. O’Neil played for the Kansas City Monarchs in what were officially termed the Negro Leagues. Major League Baseball’s policy of denying entry to black players meant that some of the very best to ever play the game wore the uniforms of teams like the Homestead Grays and Chicago American Giants. During most years, SABR hosts the Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference, usually in a city that a Negro Leagues team used to call home. One Christmas, my brother Justin gifted me a SABR conference trip and it took years for me to redeem it. However, when it was announced that the 2024 edition would take place at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, I knew it was time.
After taking off from Los Angeles, I had a layover at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. Naturally, I couldn’t escape baseball as the Cubs Bar & Grill loomed large on the way to my connecting flight. That brought back memories of visiting Wrigley Field with my family in 2007 on our trip to see Justin graduate from Northwestern.
I landed at New York’s LaGuardia Airport and attempted to make the most of my day in the city. I made my first ever visit to the Morgan Library which was hosting an exhibit about children’s author Beatrix Potter. She is most famous for her Peter Rabbit character, but as a cat lover I am partial to Tom Kitten who is pictured above. The exhibition was an engrossing overview of Potter’s life and career. Potter began by writing stories for the children of relatives before her commercial success. The author also took an interest in environmental causes, preferring the rural county of Lancashire to bustling London.
I made my way back to the subway, smiled when I saw Aaron Judge on an advertisement, and met my brother at his apartment in Brooklyn. My nephew Roman had grown noticeably even since I saw him at Christmas, and it was lots of fun blowing bubbles for him to pop. We all enjoyed dinner before heading to bed.
On Thursday morning, Justin and I got a relatively early start as he drove us across the Brooklyn Bridge and out of the city toward Cooperstown to the north. It’s roughly a four hour trip. After a stretch on the New Jersey Turnpike, we spent considerable time on winding country roads.
Having moved around a lot growing up, I became very close to my brother. We live on opposite coasts now, but this excursion was a great excuse to reconnect. The conversation flowed from politics to music to our daily lives, and soon it was time to stop for a sandwich in the town of Wallkill.
After lunch, we filled up at a gas station in sleepy Downsville, where I found a baseball card shop open for just a few hours on Sundays. Subsequently, we drove through the college town of Delhi and noticed dozens of signs advertising an upcoming dairy festival.
Finally, we arrived at our Cooperstown bed and breakfast called the Rose and Thistle. The friendly owner Patti gave us a brief tour, and then I drove downtown to check into the conference. Leslie Heaphy, a professor at Kent State University and organizer of the event, welcomed me to the Baseball Hall of Fame. The badges she handed over permitted access to the Hall for the duration of the Malloy. I was right in time for a lecture in the Grandstand Theater by Frank Harte entitled Thriving During the Depression: The Shared History of Black Baseball and Jazz in Kansas City during the 1930s. The ballplayers and jazz musicians definitely had a mutual appreciation for each other. As a fan of both, the subject was especially interesting to me especially in light of my trip to Kansas City in 2022.
Following a brief but intense rain shower, I browsed a few local shops. Aside from a multitude of items for sale, Mickey’s Place boasts some impressive displays of Yankees memorabilia. I also walked through several rooms at Shoeless Joe’s which sold apparel and fan gear from multiple sports. With stamps available at the post office located right across Main Street, I bought a few postcards at the Hall of Fame gift shop and headed back to our room.
Justin and I chose Toscana for our first Cooperstown meal, and it turned out to be my favorite of the week. A calamari appetizer and glass of red wine were the perfect prelude to my chicken parmigiana. The place really filled up by the time we finished eating. We only had to walk across Main Street to reach our reception at the Hall of Fame’s plaque gallery.
Hall of Fame President Josh Rawitch thanked us for traveling to a relatively remote part of the state. He also pointed out that it’s a rare treat to get a private, after hours viewing of plaques honoring the sport’s greatest players. After nibbling on some fruit and browsing the more than 300 plaques, we headed upstairs to see an exhibit called The Souls of the Game: Voices of Black Baseball.
As regular readers of this site know, baseball and museums are two of my biggest passions. Even better for a Yankee fan, this exhibit displayed Derek Jeter’s cap from when he played at Kalamazoo Central High in Michigan. That explains the “KC” Royals logo, which looked a little strange against a maroon backdrop rather than powder blue. I also enjoyed learning about Bud Fowler, a black man who may have been the first to play organized ball alongside white athletes in a time before the color line was officially established. Speaking of Jeter, it was a thrill to pose with his plaque. His former teammates Mariano Rivera and Mike Mussina are gallery neighbors.
Part two of this travelogue is coming soon!
