Baseball Hall of Fame (and a bit of shame!)

 

The HAMMER!

After fleeing the beautiful, but somewhat isolated, Adirondacks early (hey, folks have to have their WiFi, don't they?... and there wasn't any up there in the wooded hills for crying out loud!), we headed downstate, though still in largely rural "Upstate New York", this past Sunday, Oct 6th, to a beautiful family campground near the Village of Cooperstown, called appropriately enough, Cooperstown Family Campground. We've been to a lot of parks and campgrounds during our cross-country travels these past 3+ months, many very nice and in beautiful settings, a few admittedly not so nice; but this one takes the cake, so far, for pure beauty; set in a pastoral rural area, with two ponds in the park, and surrounded by scenic hills, trees and farm pastures. This was the view greeting us just yesterday, as an example, as the sun reflected on the pond across from our site.

PLUS, it's not only close to more family history (Elaine has ancestors who lived in the County just to the East, some of my ancestors were just West of here), but it also has the BASEBALL HALL OF FAME just a few miles away in Cooperstown Village.  Those of you who know me well probably also know that I've been a Fantasy Baseball Junkie for some time; tried "Recovery" on a couple occasions, but still have the addiction.  Anyhow, the Fantasy Baseball stuff started "fairly recently", relatively speaking, back in 1988; but some 30+ years before that (yes, I'm THAT OLD..., why do you think I'm retired?), I became a TRUE baseball fan when "Hammerin" Hank Aaron and the, then, Milwaukee Braves beat the damn Yanks ( the damnYanks are NOT my favorite team, then or now) in the 57 World Series; and Hank became my all-time favorite ballplayer right then and there; and remains so today.

Anyhow, there I was this past Monday (Oct 7) in the hallowed halls of Baseball's Hall of Fame.  I'd been there before, albeit briefly, a half dozen or so years ago, during a short trip to this part of New York; but on this second tour I took enough time to soak it all in.  Just walking through the baseball exhibits, many of them featuring ballplayers, like Hank, who I grew up avidly following in the papers and on TV (no personal computers, much less internet, then), gave me goose bumps!  And I was also amazed at how small the actual room displaying bronzed plaques of all the Hall inductees really was.This is indeed a very select group! 

There, among the exhibits, was Stan "the Man" Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals, who died just within the past year or so at the ripe old age of "90 something", who, if he was Catholic (and I'm not sure he wasn't) would probably be heading for Sainthood in the Church soon enough; for not only was he a great ballplayer, but also a great, gracious, and much beloved, human being and humanitarian right up until the day he died.

 

Also on display were the "Dominican Dandy," Juan Marichal, and Gaylord Perry, two pitchers enshrined in the Hall, who came up together on the San Francisco Giant farm teams of the early 60's.  I, already a baseball fan (but not yet a "junkie") then, thanks to Hank and the 57 Braves, spent several afternoons and evenings as a "very young" youth at Cheney Stadium in Tacoma, Washington, home of the Tacoma Giants, the big league Giant's AAA farm team, watching not only Marichal and Perry, who dominated the league that one year they were there together, but also another future Hall-of-Famer, Willie McCovey, and a handful of other young guys who would ultimately have long, productive major league careers of their own.  Those are priceless memories to this day; and the Giants remain, after my beloved Braves,  my second favorite major league team.

There also, displayed at Cooperstown, take it any way you want, but it was reality back then, was this example of many signs/threats Jackie Robinson, the first Black ballplayer in the major leagues, faced in the late 40's when he broke in with the, then, Brooklyn Dodgers.

  
Yes, racism raised it's ugly head then (this is the "shame" part alluded to in the title to this blog..  but koodoos to the Hall for keeping this in the public consciousness), and it was slow to go away, if it has fully gone away at that.  When my man, Hammerin' Hank, was chasing the all-time HR record in the early 70's, he received many of the same racists slurs and threats that Jackie Robinson endured some 25 years before.  Attitudes change, if grudgingly, in some respects.
 
But enough said about that, and I'm getting off my "high horse" to offer a closing tribute to my all-time baseball hero, Hank Aaron.  He was and remains one of the greatest ballplayers in history.  Mickey Mantle, the Yankee Great, a Hall of Famer, and a contemporary of Hank's during the 50's and 60's, had this to say (in part) about Mr. Aaron, when both were still active in the game:

"As far as I'm concerned, Aaron is the best baseball player of my era.... He's never received the credit he's due."

Hank, himself, remains, like Stan "the Man" Musial was, a model citizen in retirement.  He has been a champion of charities for under-privileged youth, putting his name to several notable charitable organizations in the Atlanta area, where Hank has also become a top executive with the team he played on for so many years.

Several years ago, I bought  a hard back copy of Hank's autobiography, "I Had a Hammer"; and I sent the book to the offices of the Atlanta Braves, addressed to Mr. Aaron, asking if he'd put his autograph on the book, and offering to pay for that autograph.  I didn't want to make any profit by ultimately selling the autographed book; I JUST WANTED his autograph.  Several weeks later I received the book back, unsigned, but with a note, signed by Hank Aaron himself, very politely saying that if I donated to one of his charities, he'd sign the book.  He didn't ask for a specific amount, and nothing for himself; just a simple request that I contribute to one of his charities.  I did so gladly, sent the book back, and soon enough received Hank's signature, which I cherish to this day. Hank, like Stan Musial, was, and is, "THE MAN!"

 And here's one in closing for the Oregon folks.  Amidst all the hoopla about guys like Mantle,  (Willie) Mays, (Duke) Snider, Aaron, Musial, et al, some of the the superstars of my era, there is a bronzed plaque in the Hall, awarded in 1986 on his induction, to one Robert "Bobby" Doerr, superb second baseman for the Boston Red Sox from the mid 30's to the early 50's.  That era was, believe it or not, actually before my time as a baseball fan (hey, I ain't THAT old!), so I only really knew about Bobby Doerr, the star baseball player, way after the fact.

Bobby eventually came to my attention somewhere around the mid 80's because I learned he was a long-time resident of Junction City, Oregon, just up Hwy 99 from Eugene, my adopted home, he was being considered for the Hall of Fame, of course, AND his last name was eerily familiar.  Turns out I had known his only child, Don Doerr, for many years as a fellow CPA in Eugene, though Don, during all this time, never mentioned that his Dad was a famous Boston Red Sox 2nd baseman.  I don't think Don, who played collegiate baseball at the UO, but never went beyond that as far as I know, was jealous of his Dad's greater baseball accomplishments; I just think Don is, like his Dad, a very humble person; like Father, like Son, you might say.  So he never found it necessary to dredge up his famous baseball connection.

 Bobby, indeed, as far as I can tell, is one of the most humble and likeable Hall of Famers (right up there, in my own opinion, with the likes of Stan the Man and Hammerin' Hank).  And he's also currently the OLDEST living Hall of Fame member, 95 years old and counting as I write this.

 

Well, that day at the Hall was mostly fun and all that good stuff that goes beyond ugly racist threats (or the effects of performance enhancing drugs... see Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, et al, for example)!  Here's to Hammerin' Hank, a great "Man",  Stan "the other Man", Bobby, yet another great, and humble, "Man", as well as the  Duke, "Say Hey" Willie, the Mick, Spahnie (Warren Spahn, a hall of fame pitcher for the Braves in the 40's and 50's), Marichal, Perry,  et al for all the great memories!