The Great Baseball Journey, Part Three: The East Coast to the Midwest

At this point in the journey, having come as far East as we could without getting wet, we nosed over and pointed back in the direction we had come. Our next destination was the Baseball Hall of Fame, in Cooperstown NY, and having put sufficient miles between ourselves and Boston, we pulled over and got a hotel room in Chicopee MA, near Springfield. The stay was uneventful, except that I managed to leave both my blankets at the hotel. That morning, I did some dozing in the car, and awoke to find C & J navigating around Cooperstown, trying to find the HoF. They pulled over to ask directions of a woman walking her dog, whom I am now certain was an actor, placed on that sidewalk strictly for our benefit. Her stilted accent [European?] and cutesy, grinning way of describing "the only traffic light in town" were a bit too perfect. I was actually a bit disgusted with Cooperstown in general, which I found to be an shamelessly ravenous tourist trap, with precious little baseball-themed shops and horrifyingly adorable pseudo-small town sensibilities. Despite that, I did patronize the place a bit; I bought a pretzel, and a couple of cigars at Cooperstown Cigars on the way out of town. Not to mention my admission at the Hall of Fame. I did somewhat enjoy the HoF, but the ninety minutes we spent there were certainly sufficient. It was interesting to stroll through the hall of inductees, and look over the plaques cast in their likeness. We got to see Kirby Puckett, of course, inducted in 2001. Aside from that, it was pretty much what you'd expect from a museum of history, and I was glad to see a row of seats from the old Met stadium, former home of the Twins.

Our last stop before crossing the Canadian border was K's parents' home, near Rochester NY. On the way, we passed at least one area which had suffered some terrible flood damage; lakeshore houses and cabins which were standing in water. We met K's folks at a family-favorite eating spot, a Thai restaurant called The King and I. Along with them was A, K's seven-year-old nephew. A is a remarkably talented, creative and gregarious kid, who spends most weekends with Grandma and Grandpa, for some time away from... a troubled environment at home. We all took a strong and instant liking to him [he insisted on greeting us: "Hello, my Jamaican friend!], and enjoyed spending time with him during our stay. I semi-accidentally ordered a dish worth three peppers on the hotness scale, but enjoyed it very much. I saw a side of K with which I had previously been unfamiliar: he ordered a five-pepper dish, and still added the hottest-of-the-hot-stuff to it. I was impressed.

Back at the house, we encountered a tangibly positive and happy home. It's the kind of place where you feel instantly at-home, and we engaged in a comfortable settling-in period, during which A showed C and I a bunch of his baseball cards, before we sat down to a bonfire outside. The land was beautiful: K's mom had a series of lush gardens [which A sometimes helped with on weekends], and a wide crick marked the edge of the backyard. Near the crick was an enormous willow tree, which had been planted during K's childhood. We sat around the fire, I enjoyed one of my cigars and shared the other with K's dad, and A moved among us as though we had been there his whole life. I kidded him about his Jamaican-fixation, asking him if he were a Rasta-mon. His follow-up question: "Am I a pasta-man?" After a while it began to rain, and we drifted off to bed.

In the morning, K's mom prepared for us a delicious fritata, a dish that I familiar with only by name, but recognized as what my family would call "eggs and everything". I spent some time playing games with A: he had created his own card game, called Match Match Don't Give Up. It was touch-and-go for a while, but in the end, he beat me. Then it was darts, at which he also beat me, and it turned out to excellent practice for his budding mathematical skills. K & L had brought him some gifts, with which he was overjoyed, and then we said goodbye.

After a couple of baseball-free days, the trip was winding down. We still had two games remaining, and still had to cross the border into Canada. The plan was to cross and see Niagara Falls, then head on to Toronto to see the Blue Jays play the Phillies, in one of only two games we would see at a National League park. We crossed the border without problems; each of us had either a passport or birth certificate. After a few questions from an apparently bored officer who seemed to take his position of authority a bit too seriously, we were across. Niagara Falls turned out to be, for me, a monstrous disappointment. As we arrived on the scene, and I saw the huge throngs of tourists and completely unchecked commercialism, I could just feel my blood pressure rising. K & L, having seen the falls before, dropped the rest of us off and went to find a parking spot. The falls themselves were, of course, simply awesome. But there were hundreds of people touching elbows on either side, boatfuls of blue-ponchoed tourists nearly inside the falls in front of and below us, and a row of towering hotels just over our shoulders. I found it to be one of the finest natural phenomena in North America that had been completely overwhelmed and destroyed by the trappings of consumer civilization. It was as if Vegas had been relocated to inside the Grand Canyon, and expanded to fill it to capacity. This sensation was reinforced as we walked, quickly, over to one of the hotel-slash-shopping centers to find K & L, and saw the lights and advertisements and gigantic movie posters. If I can help it, I will never in my life return to Niagara Falls.

As we continued into Canada, we discovered a problem - we couldn't spend any money! At least, it was difficult. Not that I was excited by the prospect, having just witnessed that abomination of Capitalism, but we were hungry, and wanted lunch. We were of course able to spend American cash near the border, but as the system was set up so that we were given Canadian money as change, we took a big hit from the exchange rate. We would be charged a fee for using credit cards, and during our short stay in the country, we didn't see a single ATM that accepted Visa - it was all Mastercard. We drove around some Canadian town, looking for food, and pulled up to a place called Spagucci's Mediterranean Grille, but it seemed not to be open. Looking closer, we saw a letter taped to the door, and around the side and back of the building, a total of nine parked health inspection vans. I shudder to think about the health codes it must have violated [all of them?] to bring down such an awesome display of wrath. Appetites slightly diminished, we settled for Quizno's, and were served by two extremely courteous Canadians. When we reached Toronto, having no money, I didn't buy anything at Rogers Center; such practice was a personal custom, anyway, which I had suspended only for the duration of the trip. Rogers Center was impressive with its cleanliness, retractablele roof, and hotel rooms overlooking the outfield, but its seats turned out to be the tiniest and least comfortable of any park we visited, and it was a bit off-putting to see the stadium so empty. It does have a large capacity, over 50,000, but far fewer than half the seats were occupied. We watched the Jays beat Philadelphia, and then, having unknowingly blundered into the country on Canada Day, were treated to the roof's closing and a fireworks show inside the stadium.

I love Canada: I'm envious of their liberalism and cleanliness, their socialized healthcare, their low violence and murder rates. By this time, however, we were ready to get the hell out, and made a mad push for the border near Detroit. Despite the rented van, it was even easier to cross back over into the United States; the officer didn't ask for our paperwork, and barely even glanced at us. Hungry and happy to have our spending power reinstated, we went to one of the only places we could find open at the late hour: Wendy's. We should have known, but it turned out to be absolutely the worst meal of the trip. Possibly the staff were offended by our raucous manner and decided to treat us to morsels that had been under the heat lamp since Thursday, but each of our meals were barely edible. K, in fact, took a single bite of his burger, and discarded it. But even horrifying fast food couldn't keep us down: we were back in our native land.

The post-Canada plan had been to push as far as we could back toward Chicago, and crash at a hotel somewhere along the way, but C was in the driver's seat, and simply would not be dragged out. At some point as the night progressed, he decided that we should go all the way back to Chi-town that night, and that he was prepared to make it happen himself. He kept driving and driving, and I alternated between dozing and trying to help him stay awake, and finally, we rolled back into Chicago around 3AM. K, who had slept the whole way, woke up amazed to find himself back in his hometown. We zombied up into K & L's apartment, and the final day of the journey would begin as had the first: in the great Midwestern metropolis.

Thanks to C's mad driving binge, we were able to sleep late. We awoke and drove toward the El station in K & L's car, and got a flat tire in the rain. After putting up better than 2600 miles on the Grand Caravan with nary a pop, whistle, or occurrence of external combustion, we lost a tire inside a single mile, after boarding a different vessel. We manly men affixed the donut while J & L looked in vain for the absent hub-cap, and mobile again, finally reached the station. Wrigley was a great stadium in an interesting setting. We walked that last several blocks, rather than transferring trains, and all of the sudden there it was, tucked right into a neighborhood. Our seats were above first base, so we could look beyond the outfield at the building across the street with seats on their roofs, and turn around and see downtown Chicago through the chain-link fence.

Almost immediately, the Chicago vs. Chicago game turned into something of a shooting war. The Sox put up two runs in the first inning, and the Cubs answered back with seven of their own [against Buehrle, of all people], including two home runs, one of which was swatted by Zambrano, the pitcher. The game played out in this fashion, and all-told, nine long-balls were hit. When the dust settled, the Cubs were still standing, with fifteen runs to eleven, having out-swung their opponents to avoid a sweep. I was happy; I really like the Cubs. They've got some exciting players: including of course Maddux, Prior, and Zambrano [and Kerry Wood, when he's healthy], as well as Derrek Lee and Juan Pierre. There was nobody that I was more excited to see, however, than Jacque Jones. I was heartbroken when he was traded after seven years with the Twins, but happy that it was to the Cubs. C and I nearly went hoarse with shouting when he came off the bench and hit a double, staying in to close out the game in right field.

And, just like that, the trip had ended. Turns out Wrigley isn't good with crowd management, and it took a lot of cattle-time to have our freedom-of-movement restored, but then we took the train back to K & L's apartment, had a brief goodbye, and left for home. We were in a hurry because it was getting late, and we still had seven hours on the road. We all [thought we] had to work the next day, me at 6AM, but keep reading if you're curious to see how that turned out. Here's to a great trip; C & J, thanks so much for initiating and including me, K & L, it was so nice to meet and travel with you. Hope to do it all again next year.