Cooperstown: Baseball's Vatican City

An aura of placidity seemed to envelop Cooperstown as I pulled onto Main Street--pausing to take a few calculated breaths of nostalgia. It was a snowy-foggy New Years Eve morning, and the streets were practically deserted. I parked the car, and reverently walked to the middle of the street casting my eyes about for a superior vantage point. I was living a boyhood dream. Smack in the middle of this charming little hamlet replete with vintage streetlights, homey storefronts and untouched 1930s quaintness, I actually giggled in anticipation. I felt like a subject in a Norman Rockwell painting. It was perfect. My heart was aflutter as I stood there, sizing up if you will, the famed National Baseball Hall of Fame. One deep breath and a few paces later--I was inside baseball's Vatican City.

The Hall awaited me. Ruth. Cobb. Robinson. Heroes and villains of the best game ever conceived. As a kid, I had always believed that the ghosts of baseball past roamed The Hall--inspiring all pilgrimaging purists. It all seemed very Dead Poets Society esque as I passed by the bronze plaques honoring the great ones. The bronzed countenances seemed to whisper, "Remember our legacy--remember this game." I ruminated on what The Hall was trying to communicate to me as I traveled to each wing of the museum.

Seeking inspiration, I hopped from one exhibit to another, busily scribbling in my notebook and taking photographs. When I arrived at a particular exhibit, I put my camera bag down, slid my notebook into my pocket, and just waited. I had an epiphany as I stood there staring at a ball carried around the world by freelance journalist Ted Sullivan, promoter of the 1913-1914 world tour. I decided that there are people who love baseball and people who don't, and the people who don't just haven't looked closely enough.

Much of my time was spent taking in the "Viva Baseball" wing of the museum. The wing was dedicated to the Latin love affair with baseball. As I re-read the history of baseball in the Caribbean Basin I couldn't help but feel like a kid in a candy shop; I couldn't get enough. American sailors introducing baseball to Cuba in the late 1800s, the Cubans (the apostles of Caribbean baseball) introducing the game to the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Panama, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Colombia, and Mexico. I am impressed with the sheer number of Latinos who learn the game of baseball. Many still learn the game on the streets. Like children in poor neighborhoods everywhere--playing barefoot, using tree branches and broom handles for bats. Rolled-up cloth, duck taped rocks, and plastic water jug caps for balls. The passion is pure--the way the game used to be in the States.

I felt an irresistible surge of patriotism as my eyes caught hold of a bunch of laced leather dated back to when "The Yankees" were uniformed men wielding rifles not bats; engaged in battle against "The Rebels", not the "Red Sox." I envisioned the man who made the glove. He probably killed the cow and treated the hide himself. His mother likely stitched the hide--creating a rudimentary glove used to catch a rudimentary ball, on a simple farm field or vacant city lot somewhere. When this glove was loved, the game was ugly and hard. It forged boys into men, and men into boys. It was something we had in common. No matter our race, language, or nationality--it became our identity. Our collective American identity. Perhaps that was what I was supposed to remember. Baseball once brought us together as a nation. Baseball, among other sports, has showcased its power to create positive social change time and time again.

After the war, the Yankees and Rebels played ball and resolved their differences. Today their descendants live, work, marry, and go to school together. I am learning more and more a profoundly simple lesson: You must learn to play, if you want to live. I've waited for this experience since I was a little boy. Maybe the ghosts of baseball past have also been waiting for me; calling me to revive the game in America, to help other kids today--telling me to teach them through playing ball, to get them off the streets, to be active, to find purpose, to feel alive. Maybe we can eliminate some of the hatred and bigotry in the world if we learn how to play ball together.