A Visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame

Our return to the Glimmerglass Opera Festival put us close to Cooperstown, New York, best known for being the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame (photo above: Kenneth C. Zirkel, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons). It is also reputed to be the birthplace of the game, though that claim is disputed. Regarding Mr. Chadwick's claim, I can say that during the three years of my childhood spent in an English school, I learned the game of rounders. On returning to the U.S. and learning about baseball (along with re-learning how to be American), I thought it had a strong similarity to rounders.

Martha had a strong reason to visit the HOF. She was celebrating the induction of David "Big Papi" Ortiz, of her beloved Red Sox. Here she is with his induction display.

And here I am, surgical boot and all (Thanks to which Martha was able to get Marc's car a handicapped permit that allowed us close in parking at Glimmerglass) with Gil Hodges' induction display. I'm wearing my Brooklyn Dodgers cap, they having been my first love in Baseball. Hodges later managed the Mets, to whom I owe my present loyalty, to their victory in the 1969 World Series. (Photo by Martha).

Our next stop was the art gallery. I've long thought of LeRoy Neiman (1921-2012) as America's, and perhaps the world's, pre-eminent sports artist. He was that, but also more. A graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where his schoolmates included Leon Golub and Robert Clark, who became better known as Robert Indiana. Mr. Neiman developed a neo-expressionist style, well suited to paintings of action, whether it be sports or the action at P.J. Clarke's bar. The painting above, displayed in the Hall of Fame gallery, is "The Hall of Famer", his notion of a generic HOF honoree, or perhaps two.

Another painting that got my attention was Joel Libby's portrait of the pitcher Christy Mathewson, whose Major League career lasted from 1901 through 1916, mostly with the New York Giants. He was known for his precise control. Chicago Cubs second baseman Johnny Evers, part of the Tinker to Evers to Chance double play combination, said of Mathewson, "He could pitch into a tin cup." 

Moving on to Monument Hall, I stopped to pay my respects to Gary "The Kid" Carter, the catcher who came to the Mets from Montreal in 1985, the year I became a Mets fan. In 1986 he was an important contributor to the Mets' National League championship and to their second World Series victory, both on defense and with his bat.

Looking out a window I saw this sculpture, by Stanley Bleifield, of Johnny Podres pitching to Roy Campanella, my first baseball hero. This was the battery that lasted the complete Game Seven of the 1955 World Series, won by the Brooklyn Dodgers over the New York Yankees.

“'Millennium,' yes; 'pandemonium'!

Roy Campanella leaps high. Dodgerdom crowned

had Johnny Podres on the mound."

Marianne Moore, "Hometown Piece for Messers Alston and Reese"