what about the plastic animals?

The Gems Of Quincy

Our first destination in Illinois was to see a Quincy Gems baseball game.  Before I get to the baseball let me just say to any Bay Staters reading that there is no "z" in Quincy, Illinois.  The Gems play in the Prospect League, a summer league for college players.  The quality of play wasn't all that great but the fans were having a good time.

I was really tired by this time of the very hot day and that tiredness shows through in these photos (or lack of photos).  The baseball stadium was one of FDR's Works Progress Administration projects as a baseball and football complex and is built out of a serious amount of local limestone.

The best part of the game was the post-game fireworks.  Even though it was the July 4th weekend I didn't have high hopes for a quality show.  Boy, was I wrong!  Donna and I left to get dinner in the middle of the game.  The game was still going on when we returned so we picked a location on the other side of the football stadium that we thought would have a good view of the fireworks.  That worked out perfectly.  We sat on someone's lawn and watched one explosion after another for quite a while.

Busch Stadium From Above

This is a week late but scrolling through my photo library this evening I noticed I took this picture of Busch Stadium, home of the World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals, back in July from the top of the Gateway Arch.

A Good Sign

The Times printed the most enjoyable Sunday sports section of the year today.  Baseball is above the fold on the first page and pro football has been banished to the interior.  Spring training starts this week which means spring itself can't be too far behind.

Also In Cooperstown

A few other sights from Cooperstown.  The extravagantly aforelocked James Fenimore Cooper, son of the town's founder and namesake, is next to the Baseball Hall of Fame.  The rare plaster cast of Cooper's torso was on the other end of Main St.  An exuberant Brooklyn Dodgers fan, Stanley Bleifeld, sculpted both Johnny Podres and Roy Campanella in honor of the Dodgers' only World Series title.  Bleifeld gave the sculpture to the Hall of Fame.  Finally, no comfy mall or department store for Cooperstown kids!  If they want to see Santa they've got to stand in line outside. 

The Makings of a Good Team

On my way back to the city I stopped for lunch in Cooperstown.  As you might expect the town is a little baseball-centric.  I quite liked this sheet of paper filled with autographs.  You could make a good team out of those players, provided the unpleasant Bunning and Carlton were traded for a shortstop. 

The Heater From Van Meter

When I was in elementary school I wrote a book report about Bob Feller, the Hall of Fame pitcher for the Cleveland Indians.  I suspect that book was "Bob Feller:  Hall of Fame Strikeout Star" by Gene Schoor, front and center in the third photograph.  Schoor was a sportswriter who specialized in quickie biographies of athletes.  He didn't go to games but based his writing on the work of of other writers, making him somewhat of a scoundrel.  Anyway, I was amused at Marty Appel's memory of writing book reports based on one of Schoor's books (I probably read that Mickey Mantle book, too!).

Back to Feller.  He was raised on a farm near Van Meter, Iowa.  It was apparent from a very young age that he was born to play baseball.  His father built a baseball field, complete with grandstand, on the farm for young Feller.  Interesting thing to do in Iowa.  Feller signed a contract while still in high school and, through some shenanigans by the scout that signed him, managed to go straight to the Cleveland Indians at age 17 without pitching in the minors.  Feller was probably the fastest pitcher in major league history.  He went on to pitch three no-hitters (including one on opening day), twelve one-hitters, 266 wins, and 2581 strikeouts.  All that despite missing the better part of four seasons while he served in World War II.  He didn't win a World Series game but he was a member of the Indians 1948 World Series winners.

Earlier in the 1948 season the Indians were playing at Yankee Stadium.  Babe Ruth was dying and made his farewell appearance at the stadium before the game.  To steady himself Ruth grabbed a bat, Feller's bat, and walked onto the field.  The last bat that Babe Ruth ever touched disappeared before Feller was able to retrieve it.  Years later he was able to buy it and the bat now oddly has pride of place in front of Chief Wahoo.

Driving between Lincoln and New York I got a kick out of seeing the exit sign for Van Meter, remembering that it was Feller's hometown.  I took the exit once.  There wasn't much happening in Van Meter.  The museum opened in 1995 so I had to stop in for a look on this trip.  There still wasn't much happening in Van Meter.  So little was happening that the museum wasn't even open.  I took a picture of the mural and headed to Winterset.

Normally I would have taken a different route back to Des Moines, but I had a hunch the museum would be open.  It was, and it is well worth stopping at if you're a baseball fan.  Everything you want to know about Bob Feller is there in the museum.  Feller was, along with Joe DiMaggio, a prototype for modern athletes, endorsing many products while carefully protecting his image.  He found that he could make enough money on off-season barnstorming tours that he could spend the winter months working out rather than taking a second job.  When the season started he was in much better shape than any of the other players.

I'm hosting a bunch of people this week for work so I'll probably not be around these parts too much until Thursday or Friday.

Hinchliffe Stadium

I knew Hinchliffe Stadium was somewhere in Paterson but I didn't realize it was right above the Great Falls.  Hinchliffe was home to the New York Black Yankees and the New York Cubans baseball teams of the Negro Leagues.  Paterson native Larry Doby tried out for the Newark Bears in Hinchliffe before eventually joining the Cleveland Indians and breaking the color barrier in the American League.  Hinchliffe is one of only three remaining Negro League stadiums.

The stadium also hosted professional football, boxing, midget car and motorcycle racing during its lifetime.  For years it was the home of Paterson's high school sports teams.  In part that's why the Art Deco stadium was built in the depths of the depression - to give Paterson's youth a safe place to play.

The stadium was closed in 1997 when the school district, which owns it, no longer had the finances to keep the stadium in good condition.  Since then the stadium has deteriorated, as is obvious.  I didn't go into the stadium but it would have been easy to do so.

Thanks to efforts by local preservationists Hinchliffe has been listed on the state and national registers of historic places and last year the National Trust for Historic Preservation listed it as one of the country's most endangered places.

Hinchliffe Stadium and the Great Falls were two of the three things I knew about Paterson before taking the long way home last Friday.  Next up is the third thing, or maybe something from Nebraska.  I haven't made up my mind yet.

All-Star Blimp

Yankee Stadium is almost exactly two miles away from my apartment.  Over the weekend the Goodyear Blimp started making daily appearances in anticipation of tonight's All-Star game.  Walking home this evening I spotted no less than five airplanes towing advertising banners.  There was also one hot air balloon.  What I did not see was the blimp.

The All-Star game will be getting all the attention this evening, and rightfully so, but it may not be the biggest event going on in town.  The Philharmonic is giving a free concert in Central Park this evening.   Those concerts usually draw at least 50,000 people.

I wanted to go but forgot about it until I went for a bike ride in the park.  It was easy to distinguish the concertgoers from the regular park users.  Classical music fans, remember your Safety City lessons and look both ways before crossing the park drives!  I'm not one of the intense spandex-clad cyclists who ride to experience pain as a way to face their inner demons and who would rather scream at pedestrians than slow down ruin their precious workout, and yet I nearly ran into several people as they obliviously stepped into traffic.  For the record I do want to commend the parks department guy who advised me to watch out for the pedestrians well after I had come to a complete stop.

Hilltop Park

Greg is right! Yesterday's pictures were taken 99 years and about 80 feet apart.  The photo I took was up the third base line from near home plate in the little courtyard park on the grounds of the Columbia University Med School/New York Presbyterian Hospital.  The medical complex replaced Hilltop Park, which was the home of the New York Highlanders, now Yankees, from 1903-1912. 

In addition to being the site of the famous picture of Ty Cobb stealing third base, Hilltop Park was also the location of perhaps the greatest sustained pitching performance in baseball history.

On Friday September 4th 1908 Humboldt, Kansas native Walter Johnson, then 20 years old, gave up only five hits to the Yankees in a 3-0 victory by the Washington Senators.  The next day Johnson blanked the Highlanders again, this time giving up only three hits.  Baseball in New York wasn't legal on Sundays back then, so it took until Monday for Johnson to throw his third shut-out.  This time he allowed only two hits in a 4-0 victory.  Four days, 27 innings, ten hits, and three shutout victories.  That's beyond impressive.

Quiz

Ty Cobb sliding into third base, photo by Charles M. Conlon

Today's quiz question:  What do these two pictures have in common?