The Great Baseball Journey, Part Two: Baltimore to Boston

The rain continued as we rolled into Baltimore, and we were ready. Baltimore, however, was not ready for us: we were informed shortly after arrival at Camden Yards that the ballgame would be postponed until the following day, due to rain. Our party was pretty bummed; from what we could see of the park, it looked like an ideal spot to spectate a good game of the old base-ball. Baltimore wasn't a complete wash, however; being from more than 75 miles away, the organization refunded our tickets, and prior to our brief call at Camden Yards, we had taken a meal at a little U.K.-style brew pub called the Wharf Rat. Perhaps the IHOP in Maryland had inspired me to try dishes unfamiliar to me: I ordered the bangers and mash, and was instantly smitten. The broccoli was a bit too beery for my taste, but the sausage was fantastic and the potatoes were deliciously fattening. C & J and K & L each split the Ploughman, which was described as a traditional English meal. It was mostly salad, and was accompanied by three types of cheese, rolls, and some mustard and chutney. I think the dish was less substantial than all of us had expected, but I certainly enjoyed observing its consumption while applying myself to my own food.

We re-entered Pennsylvania that night, and K's grandfather and step-grandmother kindly put us up at their condo in Mount Joy. Scheduled for the next morning was our departure for New York, and we needed to get an early start. Our hosts rose early as well, to present us with a large and satisfying breakfast. By that point in the trip, the morning coffee-hunt had become part of our routine, and that morning was our least successful, if most memorable, effort. J and I, the party's snarkiest coffee-hounds, had become accustomed to our daily latte and cappuccino, respectively, but the best we were able to do that morning was a Dunkin' Donuts, somewhere in New Jersey. I ordered my beverage and it was set before me, but along with it came perhaps the most perplexing question of my adult life:

"Did you order a cappuccino or a Dunkichino?"

Having no previous experience with or knowledge of the latter-mentioned beverage, I could only gape and try to form a coherent response. I finally grasped that my attendant had mis-heard me and prepared a nice hot Dunkichino, instead of what I had in mind. However, apparently still feeling adventurous, I decided to try this new beverage, and was joined by C. Together we determined that the Dunkichino was little more than the ultra-sweet, heavily-flavored coffee-like beverage common to Super Americas and Holiday stations across the land, but the experience provided us with the opportunity to spend the rest of the trip making suggestions as to what would have been the most humorous response to the original question.

Catching the first glimpse of the New York skyline was an exciting moment for me, having had a fixation on that city for some time. It took us quite a while to make our way up the West bank of the Hudson River to the George Washington Bridge, through New Jersey, but it allowed us to inspect the city from afar. Here's a tip: if you plan on crossing the G.W. Bridge into the Bronx, take the bottom route, if you have the option. Apparently all commercial trucks have to take the top route, so there is quite a bit more traffic. Yankee Stadium is in the South Bronx, and our hotel was just a mile from it. However, having recently finished a book about a Housing/Narcotics cop who worked there, I was aware that parts of the South Bronx are some of the worst in the city. It turned out not to be a problem, as the hotel was on a nearly-abandoned frontage road, between an NYPD precinct and an NYPD impound lot, but I didn't feel completely safe during the walk from the hotel to the stadium. It took us through a very active urban area: we saw lots of people sitting outside of shops and hanging out on the corners. I saw a man working on his car, parked on the street. We walked past a garage with a closed cage-door; the car inside had a blanket spread out across its trunk, upon which two cats were sleeping. One of the men sitting outside a bodega asked me if the Yankees were playing that day; only a couple of our number were exhibiting Yankees merchandise, and I imagine he made the assumption that the only white people in the neighborhood must be going to the House That Ruth Built. I didn't see them, but C said he saw five pairs of shoes thrown over the power lines at one intersection. He took it to mean that they belonged to five people that had been killed. I had also heard that such a symbol can represent a drug-spot, or a gang boundary. It could just-as-easily have simply been five pairs of shoes, nothing more, but based on everything we saw in that neighborhood, we decided in advance to take a cab back to the hotel after the game, rather than walk back through after dark.

At Yankee Stadium, we saw Chien-Ming Wang go up against John Smoltz and the Braves. I was excited to witness some genuine New York-speak; a stadium employee gave us directions to our seats: "What yew wahn-ta dew is go ahwul thi way up thi ess-ki-lay-tuh..." K is a life-long Yankees fan, but I'm opposed to them and their stupid twenty-six championships and their stupid big budget and their stupid Jeter and their stupid A-Rod. [Here's a story from The Onion, a few years old, that I really enjoyed.] The only Yankee I like to see do well is Mariano Rivera, whom we did get to see. He has only one pitch, which he can throw at only one speed, and yet somehow, he's one of the greatest closers, ever. I kept an eye on his pitch speed throughout one inning, and sure enough, it varied only from 92 MPH to 96 MPH.

The Yankees-Braves contest was our only extra-innings game of the trip. It started at 1PM, and I began to get a bit anxious to go see New York as the game took longer, then longer still. After eleven in the books, C & J and I decided to break off and see some sights. K text-messaged us as the game came to a close that A-Rod had hit a walk-off, but by that point, we had beaten the subway rush, and were already in Manhattan. Having but a few precious hours in the city, C & J and I landed between Times Square and the Empire State Building in Midtown, and hit the pavement. We spent awhile walking around Times Square, and somewhere around there we went into the Nat Sherman store; two levels of pipes and cigars, smoking jackets and canes, lounges and expensive humidors, and salesmen in suits. [Though typically comfortable in such establishments, I felt a bit under-dressed in my tee shirt.] Hungry for some real big-city fare, we took a quick break in the first pizza-joint we saw that looked decent. I'm not sure it was strictly New York-style, but it was a good eating experience: there were twenty or thirty types of pizza ready to go, from which we ordered slices.

By this point, it may have been 7PM, and we decided that the best way to comprehend New York's scale, with so little time remaining, was to ascend the Empire State Building. To reach the summit required some patience. Though it was mid-evening on a Wednesday, there was a large crowd, and it took us nearly an hour of standing in lines, cramming into elevators, and being abused by the staff, to summit. The implied cost of the outing was deceptive; we were ready to shell out the $16 each, but once we had spent several minutes waiting in line, we discovered that that sum would get us only as high as the 86th floor. The cost to reach the 102nd floor was actually $30, which we of course passed on. After waiting in line to buy tickets, there were more lines to stand in, during which we were reminded several times that our experience would be enhanced by coughing up more dollars for express tickets, the audio tour, and the Skyride Combo Package [a virtual tour of the city]. After we finally made it to the elevators, we were herded off again on the 80th floor, specifically for the purpose of having us wait in another line, which happened to wind in front of a green screen. Everyone's picture was taken [no exceptions], and on the way out we were offered the chance to buy the photograph, with an image of the ESB and city digitally placed behind us in place of the screen. Finally, we got into another elevator to climb the remaining six floors, emerged into a gift shop [of course], and went outside onto the observation deck.

Once we had navigated all of the bullshit, the Empire State Building was completely wonderful, and I would recommend it to anyone visiting New York. There were a lot of people on the deck, but being more patient than most, C & J and I were able to secure spots against the fence after waiting only a few moments at a time. We spent a long time at each of the four sides, gazing at Midtown and Central Park to the North, the East River and Queens and Brooklyn to the East, Downtown and Staten Island to the South, and the Hudson River and New Jersey to the West. The weather was gorgeous; the breeze kept us comfortable in the otherwise humid evening. Turning around to look up at the top spire of the ESB really put in perspective how high we were, and how much higher it was possible to be. How did we build something so tall? New York is quiet from 1050 feet in the air. We could clearly hear a few horns honking, and emergency sirens, but otherwise there was only the rush and breath and pulse rising from all sides, of engines and electricity and millions of people being alive.

We descended again to the sidewalk, and K & L and their friend A split off again to go to Little Italy for some food. Walking around again, I had the strange sensation of being aware of the city's fractal nature, as though each city block was, in essence, identical in content to the larger city-unit we had just observed from on high; as if from my own height of six feet, there was an entire city's worth of objects and spaces and even people within every city block, the same as we saw contained in an entire landscape from so high in the air. That may sound a bit esoteric, coming from someone who generally abstains from mood-altering substances, but I stand by it. We walked past a homeless man, stretched out barefoot on the pavement, and into the subway. I remember thinking: "Look at this place; I bet it looks a lot like a subway in New York. Hang on, this IS a subway in New York!" It was as though I had a mental model of New York, which I always used in comparison with urban features in other places, and at that moment, reality caught up with the images in my mind. I felt like I had actually, finally seen New York.

The subway dumped us back near Yankee Stadium. There was plenty of activity around us, but nervous to appear too lost, we began the cab-search. Almost immediately, a dark car pulled up to the sidewalk in front of us, but it was completely featureless, with no livery markings. C ran up and asked the driver if it was a cab, who nodded, and we piled in. It just-as-easily could have been anyone with a car who had a mind to prey on some clueless tourists, but fortunately he dropped us off at the hotel. He charged eight dollars for the one-mile ride, but we didn't fuss, worn-out and glad to be back safely. Only as it pulled away, I saw a sticker on the back of the car that said Raja Car and Limousine.

In the morning, we drove to Boston. By this point in the trip, I was aware that I had become infatuated with a particular musical recording; indeed, I had found a Road Album. I had acquired Vetiver's To Find Me Gone a few weeks prior to our departure, and had listened to it, but not enough to make more than a subconscious impression. As with most music that becomes a fixture in my life, things began when a small part of a single song sneaked unexpectedly into my brain. I found myself humming it, and when this happens, of course you have to obey the impulse, and listen to the music. From that point it can turn out to be merely a fluke, if you find little else of value on the album, or it can lead you to discover more and more goodness in that recording, from that artist or composer, or even in that genre. I believe I've had experience with only one other Road Album, which is a recording that you are compelled, quite beyond your control, to listen to constantly and exclusively during a trip or vacation. During a journey to Indiana with my sister and Jimmy Young several years ago, crammed in the tiny backseat of my sister's car, I became temporarily and totally obsessed with Red Medicine from Fugazi. Likewise, there have been only a handful of recordings the entirety of which I have become preoccupied, wherein each track, one after another in random order, become foremost in my affections, until the entire album has been exhausted and thoroughly digested. Some of those in my elite ranks would be Hollywood Town Hall from the Jayhawks, Thick as a Brick from Jethro Tull, OK Computer from Radiohead, Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lakes State from Sufjan Stevens, and possibly even the Spanish dances from Granados or Symphony No. 3-cum-Danse macabre-cum-Carnival of the Animals from Saint-Saëns. I can't be certain that To Find Me Gone will become a permanent member of this Hall of Fame, but in the short-term at least, I found it to be both a perfect Road Album, as well as one which offers an abundance of satisfaction in every one of its tracks. I found the songwriting to be masterfully diverse, from the slightly psychedelic opening tracks of Been So Long and You May Be Blue, and Red Lantern Girls, to the somber I Know No Pardon, the gorgeous folk-rock masterpiece Maureen, the late-album Double, to the alt-country gem Busted. The Porter is one of those songs that, despite decades arranging the same twelve tones of popular Western music in different combinations, manages to be both simple and unique. Thanks to my new-to-me third-generation iPod, on the trip I had a diverse musical library always at-the-ready, but I had to keep going back to To Find Me Gone, up to three or four or five times a day. It simply fit.

In Boston, J's Great Uncle L [GUL] had offered to act as tour guide for us, starting with lunch at his place in Cambridge, and would be accompanying us to Fenway that night. GUL is a professor of music at MIT, and is in possession of a truly remarkable library of classical recordings. I tried to be sociable during the toothsome lunch with which he provided us, but I couldn't seem to tear my attention from his music collection. My own interest in classical music is not long-established, nor is it the primary focus of my music affections, but I couldn't help but feeling that I was in the home of a kindred spirit. GUL turned out to be the best tour guide we could've asked for, having long experience at Harvard and MIT, as well as in Boston itself. One of the reasons I find highly-educated people so interesting is that rarely is their knowledge limited to a single field of inquiry. As we strolled around the Harvard campus after lunch, GUL discussed the history of campus buildings, as well as of Harvard itself. He pointed out the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, the only building in the United States designed by Le Corbusier, as well as a building by Frank Gehry. He also pointed out the two different styles of the Harvard crest, upon both of which the Latin veritas [truth] are emblazoned. Likewise, both have the word spanning three open books, though only the original crest featured the top two books lying open, while the third lay closed, representing either divine truth, or that which is as-yet unknown. More recent incarnations of the Harvard Arms show all three books lying open, which, according to GUL, represents the Harvard faculty's decision around 1900 that divine truth simply does not exist.

We then took a deplorably brief excursion into Harvard's Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, all of the contents of which had been using during the university's nearly three centuries of scientific inquiry. I found the collection more than a little fascinating, and regretted not being able to spend the better part of a day examining it. The piece de resistance was a Grand Orrery from 1764. It was three or four feet in diameter, and was especially fascinating because its creator had chosen to leave its internal mechanisms exposed, visible from the sides below the "ecliptic" plate across which its planets, at one point, orbited.

Having only thirty minutes remaining until we were scheduled to re-connect with K & L, who had gone off on their own, we nearly did not go into the Harvard Museum of Natural History, but GUL insisted, for which I will eternally be grateful. It seemed to be an excellent museum, which contained an exquisite collection of species, but, I imagine like all visitors, it is about the glass flower exhibit that I cannot help but gush. The collection was crafted by a German father-and-son team, between the years of 1887 and 1936, and approximately seventy-five percent of their efforts are in Harvard's possession. Within minutes of beginning my observation of the collection, I became convinced that I was witnessing one of humankind's grandest achievements, at least in the dual fields of botany and glass-artistry. At first I was confused: most of the 847 species on display featured enlarged anatomical sections next to life-size representations of the entire flower, and I felt certain that it must be only the anatomical studies which were formed of glass; the flowers themselves must have been harvested from nature and preserved. GUL, however, brought me up to speed by explaining that everything, each complete flower included, was genuinely, astoundingly, vitreous. Each broad leaf and slender stem, each stamen and pistil were formed and colored with such delicacy and subtlety as to baffle the senses. The exhibit challenged me to re-examine my notions of creations of nature; I was used to looking at natural objects and accepting the perfection of each of their aspects simply because they were, indeed, natural objects. A lily or a lilac or a rhododendron is perfect simply because it is; there is no other way for it to be. And here, before me, were examples of the same transient evolutionary perfection, but generated artificially by human hands; yet to scrutinize the most minute and detailed root structure or row of feathery petals offered no visual indication of that synthetic nature.

I don't mean to be overly dramatic, but after having a look at a few other structures on the Harvard campus, such as the aristocratic Freshman Dining Hall [as well as a clandestine peek at its attached, gorgeous and immaculate Sanders Theater] we headed over to Legal Sea Foods, a celebrated seafood spot in a city known for such fare, for one of the finest meals of my young life. GUL is a regular visitor to the establishment, and very generously spared us the stress of having to budget for such an exceptional dining experience. Unlike those at many finer restaurants [in my extremely limited experience], the menu at Legal Sea Foods was packed with dishes, nearly all of them beckoning me. I nearly chose the path taken by both C & J, which was a lobster and goat's cheese sandwich, but in the end I settled on the wood-grilled assortment, which was three pieces of fish of the chef's choosing, as well as three shrimps, three scallops, and two side dishes. The fish turned out to be tuna, halibut, and salmon, which is exactly what I would have ordered, given the choice. For side dishes, I decided on snap peas and polenta. Now, I love fish, and I love it best when prepared by itself; I prefer not to have too many other flavors competing with its fish-fleshy taste, and that's exactly what I got. Also, the snap peas were good, and the shrimps were certainly the best I've ever had. But for me, the scallops and the polenta were absolutely the crown-jewels of the meal. I'm sure I must have had polenta before [haven't you?], but I couldn't exactly remember when, or what it tasted like, or really, even what it was. Either way, I certainly hadn't had polenta like this before. With its lightness, its tones of cheddar and jalapeño, and its marvelously delectable consistency, that was one "side dish" about which I won't soon forget. And the scallops? What can you say about those moist and warm, seared and squishy sacs of sea-flesh? I can really only think of one word: ambrosial. And there is really only one phrase I can think of to summarize the feast in general: It knocked my socks on their ass.

Continuing our nation-wide tour of Public Transportation, we took the subway to Fenway. Appropriately, the BoSox-Mets game was the most fun of our entire trip [with the possible exception of our upcoming return to the Windy City]. I was looking forward to Fenway more than any other stadium, and it didn't disappoint. The game was, of course, sold out, and in fact we had been forced to purchase our tickets from an online-based scalper, paying $60 apiece for last-row outfield seats. It was totally worth it. Despite losing some favorites from the amazing 2004 season [particularly the traitor Damon, about whom we will never speak again], the Red Sox are really a fun team. One of my perennial favorites is Manny Ramirez, and GUL related a hilarious tale of that strange outfielder finding and disappearing into a hidden door in the scoreboard below the Green Monster, during a game. The crowd at the game was extremely enthusiastic, and there seemed to be nearly as many Mets fans as Boston fans, at least in our vicinity. The chants were constant and furious, and constantly turned over from LET'S GO RED SOX into LET'S GO METS, and back again. At points, the people in the crowd were able to put aside their differences, finding common ground, and YANKEES SUCK thundered across the park. This sentiment made its way into the bathrooms as well; I heard the same phrase during my visits, and C reported hearing such remarks as "Whaddya think this is, a Yankees bathroom? Get outta he-yah!" [Boston accent]. We got to see David Ortiz blast a dinger, and in the ninth we witnessed the young master Papelbon come in with his 0.41 ERA to secure the Boston victory.

After the game, the subway home was about as surreal a mass transit trip as is possible. The cars were, of course, completely packed, and our little group was the last to squeeze in. Standing there, looking at each other, suddenly the speakers crackled to life, and in a haunted-house, evil-genius voice, the driver started in: "Ta-ake me out to the ba-all ga-ame..." Instant mayhem, as the entire car joined in. As we approached another stop, the platform crowded with prospective riders, the driver remarked to us: "I have no idea how those people are going to fit in here." Gliding to a stop, he repeated the sentiment over the outside speakers to those poor souls. With the train standing still, doors wide open, us looking at them and them looking at us, C broke out with another verse of the song, which again was taken up by everyone in the car. The doors slid shut and we left them all behind. During the rest of the journey, the driver treated us to some other baseball-related songs, and some jokes. Back in Cambridge, GUL provided us with a driving-tour of the MIT campus, and then we dropped him off on our way out of town. Handshakes and hugs were exchanged, and that was Boston.