Home of the Braves
Bob signed on for the trip when he learned that Roger Angell, the fiction editor for The New Yorker, but known to baseball scribes as one of the greatest of baseball writers, was to receive the J.G. Taylor Spink Award, given annually to recognize excellence in baseball writing. Bob and I have shared a love for Angell's writing for decades, and now that the 93-year-old wordsmith was to be awarded, Bob wasn't going to miss it. On Saturday, after the drive up and some wandering around town, we watched that awards ceremony, which is held separately from the induction on Sunday. Angell, frail but forceful, told of his love for the game--he saw his first one in 1930. Their was a full crowd at Doubleday Field, but I had a sense of intellectual smugness--how many of these people had actually read Angell's work? They were probably thinking, "Who is this old man?" But after his speech, he received a standing ovation. Maybe some of these philistines will got out and buy one of his books.
Earlier that day Bob and I did some shopping. Bob likes to collect autographs (something that doesn't interest me in the least) and several ex-players lined Main Street in Cooperstown that day selling their signatures. Bob, a Mets fan, got the autograph of and a picture with Darryl Strawberry. I was later surprised that he had forked over sixty dollars to get the signature of Pete Rose, who signed in the back of a memorabilia star. We had to go around to the alley and enter the back way, as if going into a speakeasy. I went in, too, as Bob's cameraman, but I suddenly remembered that the now banned and disgraced Rose, one of the greatest of hitters, was a childhood friend of my father's. I had to say something. While Bob was getting the autograph I mentioned my father's name to Pete, whose face lit with recognition, no doubt taking him back to his days as a boy in Cincinnati, palling around with my dad. It was a nice moment for me, and dare I say, for Pete.
On Sunday, after an early morning thunderstorm, the skies cleared up as Bob and I sat on the athletic field in town, along with 48,000 other people. After the skimpy crowd last year, which saw three men who were dead for over 70 years inducted, this year saw six living men getting the honor. Three of them, Bobby Cox, Tom Glavine, and Greg Maddux, spent the lion's share of their careers with the Atlanta Braves, and thus the crowd was awash with Braves fans, doing the Tomahawk Chop. Frank Thomas, the slugger who played most of his career with the Chicago White Sox, was the reason there were many Pale Hose fans there. Oddly, Tony La Russa did not draw many die-hard Cardinals fans (although he was a manager of the White Sox), and even more surprisingly, there were not many Yankee fans in attendance, even though their great manager, Joe Torre, was to be inducted (of course, Torre also managed the Braves and Cardinals).
I love these things, even if it is an afternoon of listening to speeches while roasting in the hot sun. Maddux went first, and his speech was as mechanical and unemotional as one of his starts. But Maddux, though appearing as boring as an actuary, seems to have reserves of a very strange sense of humor. While thanking his brother, he chose to recall that his sibling taught him science involving methane and a lighter. This was perhaps the first mention of lighting farts in Hall of Fame induction history.
Cox went next. His speech was more polished, with speaker's bureau anecdotes. Glavine's was a solid if unspectacular speech, much like his career, which was mostly in Maddux's shadow. To their credit, once the Braves were finished, many Atlanta fans stayed.
Next up was La Russa, who seemed uncomfortable, and said as much. For man who has had to deal with the media in more than thirty years of managing, he was skittish as a man thrust into the limelight after years in obscurity. Frank Thomas followed, and was the only man to blubber on the day. He started by thanking his parents, including his late father, and the tears ran down the big man's cheeks. He ended his speech with a rat-a-tat recitation of about 100 of his teammates. Later the other Hall of Famers kidded him by handing him a phone book.
Last to go was Torre, and as might be expected, he gave the best speech. He cut to the chase, telling the crowd that he was there because of his stint at Yankee manager. He knew failure--his managerial record was below .500 before the pinstripes, and he was fired three times. He recalled the day as a player he hit into four double plays in one game. He also went over the great moments in his Yankee run, including many that must have given agita to Braves fans, because they came at their expense. Torre did forget to thank George Steinbrenner, which was the talk of the back pages in New York.
This morning Bob and I went to something called The Legends Roundtable, or something like that. Basically, it was the six men on stage fielding questions from Peter Gammons and the audience. Torre again emphasized that Greg Maddux had no pulse. They shared some stories, talked about their charity work, and the weekend was over.
I'll likely be living out west next summer, but I hope I can continue to come back east every year for this event, which is just so much fun. It's the chance to eat, breathe, and smell baseball, where fans from rival teams can break bread together, and there are no such things as PEDs, DUIs, or salary negotiations.
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