The Pilgrimage

Making a journey to Cooperstown, N.Y., is the ultimate journey for a baseball fan. It's arguably baseball's holiest of holy cities, where baseball legends live on forever in a quiet, lazy town. And because this place is so isolated -- off the beaten path, at least four hours of windy road away from any major city -- the trek there is significant.

This isn't a site to see along with others. There's no way to quickly drop by this place or hit it on a tour of other sites. It takes effort to make it there, and that makes the trip all the more meaningful.


There's not much else to see in Cooperstown. The place is still quite charming, though has the tourist trap kind of feel to it. Thankfully, the town keeps the baseball theme all together, and doesn't try to lure in sightseers with water parks or dog-and-pony shows.

The building itself is filled with countless wonders -- and only 10 percent of the museum's holdings is on display at any time.


There's lots of Cardinals stuff there, too, like Stan Musial's locker.


One exhibit chronicling baseball stadiums featured some items from a tour a few guys did eight years ago. They visited all 30 major league parks and a few other baseball sights in 37 days. If you think they're more awesome than us, they're not. Why? Because they used Comic Sans on their T-shirts, the worst font on the face of the planet.


One of the coolest sights of the day was the display featuring the game balls from every no-hitter thrown since the founding of the Hall of Fame.

That, of course, also includes the game thrown by Jose Jiminez, of all people.


The Hall also has a 'locker room' filled with historic mementos from every major league team.


This is what they all play for. Lots and lots of gems in one giant ring.


It's a sight like this, though, that makes you realize why it's called a 'hall' of fame. Here are enshrined the greatest players to ever take the field. It feels like a sanctuary, a peaceful place to honor the legends of the game -- until a loud tour group of screaming elementary kids comes through and disturbs it all.


It's a special place, where the game's greats come together, their careers summed up in a few sentences.


The atrium at the end of the hall features the plaques of the hall's first class and the classes from the current decade, as well as flags representing the birth countries of the hall's inductees.


Here's me with Ozzie Smith, The Wizard of St. Louis. Without a doubt, he was my favorite player growing up. I went away for a week at summer camp in June 1996, and came back to the real world to discover that the Oz had announced his retirement. I thought the world was coming to an end.


There's not really a journalism hall of fame anywhere, but there is a wing of this Hall devoted to the writers and broadcasters. Don't know if I'll ever make it on this wall, but I can stand with the best for this moment, at least.


The Hall stands in Cooperstown because Abner Doubleday allegedly invented the game here. This stadium stands outside the Hall and bears his name.


We missed the Hall of Fame Game (an exhibition game played during induction weekend) by 10 days, but seeing a field cut out of the past was something special.


I'm pretty sure we had bigger dugouts than this in Little League.


For anyone who appreciates baseball's history, Cooperstown is a must-see place. The amount of history and detail feature in the hall is incredible, and it's a place that will undoubtedly give you goosebumps.

Lights Out

So, it's been awhile since our last update. Blame the city of Detroit.

We left the glory of Toronto for the depths of Detroit, only to find out that a giant storm that passed through the area, leaving 200,000 people without power. That total included the family of our pal Ace Engelbrecht, so no updates were happening tonight.

We've since located to a hotel in the area, so we could shower (no working water at Ace's house and we spent Saturday night sleeping in the car at a rest stop). Hopefully we'll get a very large update tonight after the game, with stories and photos from our time in Boston, Toronto and Detroit.

Day 6 Quickly

Starting location: Cooperstown, N.Y.
Notable stops: National Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, N.Y.; Cape Cod, New Bedford, Mass.
Ending location: New Bedford, Mass.

Miles driven: 308
Time spent in vehicle: 5.5 hours

States driven through: 3 (New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts)
CDs listened to: 4
Game result: The only day of our trip with no baseball game.

History Watch: Today was a day built around baseball history.

Food Value of the Day: Its hard to beat free New England lobster any day. We're staying with Colin's aunt and uncle in New Bedford, Mass., still the largest seafood distribution point in America. Colin's uncle, David Gilbertson, works in the industry, and gave us a tour of the cape.


Boats in this harbor mainly catch scallops and lobster, and they weren't going to let us leave without sampling the local fare.

Mr. California was a little tentative handling this alien-like creature.


David gave us a great lesson in cooking lobster. Don't worry, their nervous system is very underdeveloped, he said, so they don't feel anything when you put them into boiling water alive.





As they get done, they start to turn red. Here, they're just about there.


Now, this guy is really done. He should stay out of the tanning booth, or at least use some sunscreen or something.


A mountain of deliciousness.


David also has an amazing entertainment room. An awesome sound system complete with record players and shelves full of great LPs, a projection screen for viewing movies and concert DVDs and even a drum set so you can play along with the music.

Forget Rock Band, I'm ready for the real thing.



Stories and photos from the Hall of Fame will be posted eventually, but probably not until Sunday night. We're headed to a game at Fenway Park on Saturday afternoon, then driving to Toronto overnight to catch the matinée at the Rogers Centre. Go Cards.

Bring On The Big Apple

Of all the tasks ahead of us on our 12-day tour of baseball cathedrals and large cities, the task that would be most challenging (and the one that made me the most nervous) was negotiating New York City. Making it somewhere near the Bronx and back with my car in one piece and our sanities intact was a daunting assignment.

Now, if I told you that we made it through the day:
A. By finding free parking on the street.
B. Not getting caught in any traffic.
AND
C. Paying $4 total round-trip to and from the city.

You'd probably call us crazy. That's why we own this town.

We mapped out the plan the night before. We'd drive around the west side of the city, all the way to the north side of the Bronx to Van Cortdlandt Park, the northernmost stop on the No. 4 train that would take us to Yankee Stadium. We left our hotel about 8 a.m., missed traffic on the New Jersey Tollway, made it to the park and found (FREE!) parking along the northwest edge of the park. We walked a couple of miles to the train station, and made it down to the House that Ruth Built about two hours before game time.

Now, thanks to John Dimmick, a good friend of ours and (sadly) a devoted Yankee fan, we knew exactly what we had to do. In order to see Monument Park, an area behind left field devoted to the Yankee greats, we had to get in line right away. Sure enough, by the time we made it to the appropriate place, the line was already snaking up about eight ramps. By the time we got to the front, they weren't letting anyone else get in line to see the park.

We weaved our way through the concourse and reached what looked like baseball heaven.


We were on the main level concourse, and got a great look at the stadium that has housed more world champions and pennant winners than any other park.


First, we walked by a long line of Yankee retired numbers. Seriously, they're going to run out of these things pretty soon. Or, at least they'll have to start issuing triple-digit numbers to players.


Then, we strolled through a beautiful series of monuments to the Yankee legends (and there sure are a lot of them). So many great players have donned those pinstripes and played in this stadium, it's a shame they're leaving it after this season.


Seeing such rich history here was a fantastic prelude to the sights we'd see at the National Baseball Hall of Fame on Day 6.


Not only do they honor Yankee legends in Monument Park, but they also have large plaques devoted to every Mass a pope has delivered at Yankee Stadium. Puts a new spin on this being baseball's 'holiest' place ...


Colin got a little slowed up by the big crowd through Monument Park, so Miles and decided to walk around the main level. We weren't sure if they'd let us behind home plate, but we adopted the strategy that's key to exploring ball parks: "Let's just walk until someone stops us."

We walked pretty far.


Love them or hate them, if you're around my age, the Yankees' success in the late 1990s again made this stadium absolutely synonymous with playoff baseball. It just doesn't seem like October if larger-than-life players aren't making postseason history inside those blue walls.


We moved to our seats in the upper deck in right field. Not a bad location at all -- again, a perfect view of almost all the action.


There's a general misconception that tickets to the stadium's final season much be impossible to get. Not true. The place seats more than 50,000, and on an afternoon game like this one, it wasn't full. That's not to say the park wasn't spirited and noisy, especially when Alex Rodriguez continually failed to deliver a clutch hit.


Our seats also gave us a really true New York experience. A bunch of 30-something Yawkers sat behind us, and were engaged in a constant back-and-forth with each other, making fun of everything and everyone. They were particularly vicious to some moron who thought it'd be a good idea to wear a Red Sox hat in the section below us. He had to know what he was getting himself into.

Though the guys' act got old after awhile, it was pretty hilarious for much of the game. They liked to rag on A-Rod (who in New York doesn't these days?), which you can hear in this clip (Listen for the calls of 'You bum!' early on).





The dancing groundskeepers also made an appearance. Though they usually get more into their routine, they did a half-spirited dance to YMCA this time.





After visiting it, it's clear that the new Yankee Stadium will be a vast improvement over the current one. The concourses are crowded, there's duck tape on some seats and it's caught between eras. It's pretty easy to tell that it was a ball park built in the early 20th century and then renovated in the 1970s. It needs a lot of updating, which the new digs will provide.

Still, there was something about stepping inside that put a smile on your face and gave you goosebumps. All that history is hard to ignore, and hard to root against. I set foot in that stadium and wanted cheer hard for the Yankees. It was that powerful.

So, it was pretty easy to go nuts when Jason Giambi crushed a walk-off home run:

http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?mid=200806052847207

Especially since we were one section to the left of where the ball landed.


After the Yankees failed to capitalize on a number of opportunities, a lot of fans headed for the exits. The ones that left early missed a heck of a finish.

Once the crowd cleared out, we walked outside to get a better view of the new park. This will be an amazing baseball expereience, a simultaneous coliseum and cathedral devoted to baseball.


The plans make it look quite a bit like the current park, but a lot, lot better. There's no doubt these Yankees will do it right. They'll preserve the history while providing a better fan experience -- and make a lot of money doing it. This will be a park worth making a trip back to.

Mission accomplished, the only remaining question was about the state of my vehicle. We said a mild prayer that no tickets, no broken windows and no tow trucks would be waiting for us. We hopped on the No. 4, walked back through the park, and found nothing but good news.

We battled The Bronx, and we won.


We own this town.

Day 5 Quick Hits, A Day Late

Let's see if I can remember back that far ...

Starting location: Bellmawr, N.J.
Notable stops: Van Cortlandt Park, Yankee Stadium; New York, N.Y.
Ending location: Cooperstown, N.Y.

Miles driven: 322
Miles walked: 5
Time spent in vehicle: 6 hours
Time spent walking: 2 hours
Time spent on subway: 1 hour

States driven through: 2 (New Jersey, New York)
CDs listened to: 6
Game result: Yankees beat Blue Jays, 9-8

No News Is Not Always Good News: Our streak of not meeting a random Valpo person has hit a trip-low mark of two days (and after Day 6, it moved to three days). And, despite driving through New Jersey and walking through the Bronx, I failed to produce a single interesting photograph of Americana.

That doesn't mean there aren't great stories to tell from Day 5 ... posts detailing these will be up shortly.

The rain stays away

With dark clouds overhead and rain coming down as we pulled into the massive parking lot at Citizens Bank Ballpark in Philidelphia, it looked like the scheduled game against the Reds and Phillies was headed for another washout. Luckily, we came prepared with bright yellow and orange ponchos.

No one was getting lost with those things on.

Fortunately, the rain moved away by game time and we weren't subjected to another night of rain delays. Or another really slow grounds crew. Cardinals starter Kyle Lohse was not exactly impressed with the Nats crew Tuesday night saying after the game, "I don't want to get down on the grounds crew ... but maybe they could tighten up a little bit next time." I'm not one to agree with a Cardinals pitcher, but it was suspicious that the crew seemingly "forgot" to re-do the foul lines and had to hurriedly do so with both teams on the field and ready to start playing.

But going into the trip we knew we would have to deal with some weather. So we just tried to keep a positive attitude through the whole thing. Some of us did so better than others.

When the rain finally did blow away, we saw what turned into a great pitcher's duel. Brett Meyers of Philly took a no-hitter into the 7th, but he ended up the tough-luck loser to Cincinnati's Edinson Volquez. Volquez is real, real good. Look for him in the all-star game.

Our seats weren't as good as what we ended up with Tuesday night in Washington, but we got a good overview of the park. It was also nice to see a game in a relatively full ballpark for a change.Besides all the ballparks, there's another benefit to going to all these games: filling out lots of all-star ballots. With all the ballots I've turned in this week, it's no wonder the Cubs are in line to get three starters on the all-star team. But I got a little more creative with my all-star ballot on Wednesday. Since both the Rays and the Marlins are doing surprisingly well this season, I thought I should give the two Florida teams a boost and completed an "All-Florida ballot" with just players from teams from the sunshine state. A picture of the completed ballot is below.


But since this was a Florida ballot, I had a little trouble punching the holes all the way through. A number of hanging chads were left on the backside of the ballot.

These are the type of lame jokes you make with a political science degree.

That's all for now, but stay tuned for some posts on our exciting trip to Yankee Stadium.

Connection Timed Out

Sadly, the hotel we arrived at in Cooperstown did not have an Internet connection. We're getting kicked on and off a weak signal from a network somewhere around here, so we won't have much time to post today.

New York City and Yankee Stadium were unbelievable today. Tomorrow, we tour the Hall of Fame before heading to Boston. We'll have an Internet connection there, so we'll be making a lot of updates with more stories from our time in Philadelphia, New York and Cooperstown.

Thanks a lot to everyone who has been reading the blog and leaving comments -- we really appreciate it. It's great being able to keep in contact with everyone while on the road and share our stories and photos.

Talk to you tomorrow,
Josh