Day 57: Baseball Hall of Fame and Somehow More Baseball
Cooper’s team was seeded 14th out of 104 teams for the tournament round, which bought them an entire morning of byes (tons of teams were 5-0, so their place was determined by runs allowed). Their only game today would be at 7 p.m. The team took advantage of having the morning free and went to town to check out the baseball hall of fame.
This was the first trip to the hall of fame for any of us, and it was a bit overwhelming. We started with a guided tour of the Plaque Gallery. The tour guide was excellent, giving us an overview of the space, how the hall selection process works, and a few random tidbits about the players, plaques, and history of the hall. This is also where we got to be one of the first people to see Ichiro’s plaque; he’d been inducted just a couple weeks earlier.
Upstairs we went through the many, many exhibits, which had a special focus on this year’s class, so more Ichiro.
Rob loved seeing the original “Tough Call” painting by Norman Rockwell and the spikes Dave Roberts was wearing for his famous steal in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS.
We grabbed some lunch at a local pizzeria, then stopped by the old Double Day Field, where they used to play an in-season exhibition MLB game every year.
On the road to town from the campground there is a beautiful field of sunflowers.
Cooper’s team won their evening game, so we will be back tomorrow at 9 a.m. Unfortunately, the opposing team didn’t take the loss well, going to our team’s bunkhouse with masks and bats threatening them (who packs masks to a tournament anyways?). Security was called, and Cooper asked to come stay with us so he could feel safe and get the rest he needed. The poor kid just needs to have an experience staying away from us without feeling threatened. Talking with security at pick up, we learned this is not uncommon to have kids wreaking havoc on the Friday night when 90 teams have been eliminated and only 14 are still in the tournament. That is a lot of kids with nothing to lose.
A highlight from getting to pick him up so late was that on the drive back to the RV, Cooper and Kelly saw two porcupines crossing the road. Another bucket list wild animal checked off. The elusive armadillo still remains.