Hide and Seek

Do you have a favorite baseball glove? A mitt that just feels right when you slip your hand in it? It might have the name of one of your favorite players etched into the leather, but that’s less important than the sensation of remembrance, the deja touche you get when your fingers are inside and you pound the pocket with your other hand.

Cooperstown is like that for me. My family and I have often visited this baseball Brigadoon, and in the years when I was a working baseball writer, I would think up excuses to visit even in winter. Among the greatest treasures of the Hall of Fame and Museum are the people who work there, folks who go out of their way to welcome visitors and preserve the game they love.

I put on the old glove once more last week to do some digging in the Giamatti Research Center at the HOF, and I am happy to report that the town is humming again after the pandemic cast a shadow down Main Street. The Hall is preparing for its first induction ceremonies since 2019—Wednesday, Sept. 8, when Derek Jeter, Ted Simmons, Larry Walker and Marvin Miller will be enshrined.

Cooperstown is best shared with family and friends. Indeed, the Otesaga Hotel is where our four children, two daughters-in-law and I retreated after my wife Bambi passed away in June of 2017. While there was an element of sadness to my solo journey this time, there was also the comfort of old acquaintances and new ones, too. When I got back to my inn one night, I fell into a delightful porch conversation with a couple from Arizona. He had grown up in New Jersey as a die-hard Yankee fan, and he brought the moral compass of his profession to an analysis of what’s wrong and what’s right with baseball—he had just retired as a homicide detective.

My old friend, former Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson, is back in Cooperstown this summer to help the institution transition to a new president. So on my second night, I had dinner with Jeff and two people he has come to know from his ongoing work with the Grassroots Baseball organization that he and photographer Jean Fruth founded. Sitting opposite us were Ray Birmingham and his wife Chris. Ray is in a different Hall of Fame, the New Mexico Sports Hall of Fame, thanks to his 14 years of coaching the Lobos’ baseball team and his 34 years of coaching in the state. Now retired, he wears both joy and concern for baseball on his sleeve.

This has not been an easy time for the HOF, or for Jeff, who had a close relationship with each of the 10 Hall of Famers who have passed away in the last year or so: Al Kaline, Tom Seaver, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Whitey Ford, Joe Morgan, Phil Niekro, Tommy Lasorda, Don Sutton and Hank Aaron. We told a lot of stories about them that night, each one ending in a smile.

I recalled my first encounter with Hank in spring training of 1974, when he was on the cusp of breaking Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record. I was a young, long-haired, smart-assed reporter for the Fort Lauderdale News, and I went up to West Palm Beach to pose what I thought was a cosmic question to Aaron. I approached him behind the batting cage, identified myself and asked him, “Hank, have you ever given any thought to the significance of your being the greatest player who ever lived and also the first alphabetically?”

He looked at me, muttered, “Ah, shit,” and walked away. Maybe I should have, as well, but I didn’t, and have continued typing long after Barry Bonds passed Hank and Dave Aardsma passed Aaron. I also still believe he was the greatest player who ever lived.

Besides the people and the resources, one of the great things about the Hall’s research center is that you have to pass through the gallery of plaques to get there. Like many other visitors, I stopped at the plaques of the recently departed to pay my respects and silently express my gratitude.

When I exited the building for the last time, I started wandering through the plethora of souvenir shops that dot Main Street and some of its offshoots. I like to see if they have any old gloves for sale—they’re usually kept in old bins or buckets, with no fanfare. Occasionally, I will find one with an evocative name and the magic that comes with an owner who took good care of it. I usually keep a Johnny Sain glove beside me when I write—he was Jim Bouton’s muse, too.

This time around, I found a Dick Groat for an old friend who loved the Pirates, and a Moose Skowron first baseman’s claw for my new friend, the homicide detective. I am, however, keeping a Spalding 42-3205 in magnificent condition for myself. The name, writ large on the left pinky, reads Bob Gibson.

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P.S. if you want to read about Gibson’s 1968 season, take a look at this story by the always wonderful Steve Rushin

And if you want to know a little more about the hold that gloves have on us, try this