August 2, 2014 All Things Baseball

Saturday August 2, 2014

My paternal human calls it Alvin, the smaller humans call it Simon or Theodore.  I call it a cat toy and they need to let me off this leash so I can protect them.

My morning walk took me along the highway along some beautiful farms.  As I left the campground, Spouse was there, waiting for Parker to finish his shower so he could drive him back.  Apparently, he got tire of waiting and left him.  It is about a 5 minute walk.  Well, I walked about 35 minutes, and when I got back to Hannah, 'Parketta' was still not ready, primping and making himself hunky.   He is worse than any girl I know!

Once we fed our faces, we headed back to Cooperstown to the Baseball Hall of Fame.  The amount of paraphernalia in the museum is overwhelming.  The history goes back to the early 1800's so you need to figure out where you want to spend your time.  Hunter whizzes through things.  Parker looks, but doesn't really read so he misses a lot of the significance in things.  Then he will ask me.  Naw... you gotta read for yourself!  Ultimately, I took Parker and pointed things out to him and we enjoyed the exhibits together.  Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio all command attention.  Kirk Gibson's home run in the 1988 world series is continuously shown.  Abott and Costello's 'Who's on First' has an audience.  And each team has a locker with more recent memorabilia, such as Clayton Kershaw's shoes. 

It was nice to see so many people totally excited by something on their favorite team or by a favorite player.  This year's inductions were just last weekend.  Joe Torre, and Atlanta pitchers Maddux and Glavine along with slugger Frank Howard of the Chisox were among this year's crop.

 They both wanted a souvenir and we had given them some money.  Hunter bought a limited edition Tony La Russo bat.  Parker vacillated.  Part of him wanted a signed ball from Rod Carew for $95.  The other part of him wanted a signed ball from Don Larson, the only pitcher in history to throw a no-hitter (it was actually a perfect game) in post season play.  That ball was on sale for $49.50.  He had never heard of Don Larson but he recognized the significance of his feat.  My question to him was... are you buying to collect?  or are you buying for emotion?  The salesperson agreed with my assessment that the Larson ball would be more valuable as a collectable, and that was what Parker was looking for.  Don Larson is 84 years old and won't be signing too many more balls over time.  So, the Larson ball is his.   I guess I will have to pass my Duke Snider ball on to them when I depart this earth.

 After another spin through a grocery store (boys sure do eat a lot), we came back to Hannah where the boys ran off to fish, and the adults didn't!