From the mists in the right field corner trots the ghost of faded Fred Warner.
Went to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York with Adam, fellow blogspotist and baseball fanatic. What a trip! Alive! Very much alive. Much laughter, very sad, very happy, alive. I'll never forget looking up at the stars, lying on my back in the windswept sand, feeling the breeze, hearing the waves of beautiful Otsego Lake lapping at my feet. There were billions of stars, lots of shooting stars, many wishes. We spun around looking at the stars, falling or struggling for balance, acting like idiots on the beach.
There is so much beauty in this world that it fucking hurts.
Went to the research library at the Hall first. They pulled the file for Fred Warner, a comically obscure, below average ballplayer who died over 115 years ago. No one has ever heard of him, but I have become very intersted in his story - or lack thereof. But I saw his file, I saw a copy of his death certificate.
He died at the age of 31, consumption of the lungs.
We walked about the hallowed baseball shrine for hours, amidst the dust and ghosts. It was Saturday and very crowded, but as the day lengthened on towards twilight, the people started leaving. It grew more and more silent.
He died on February 13, 1886, less than a month before the world would turn over in its bed and begin to stir, less than a month before the baseballs would be flying.
We saw the plaques of the immortals, the bats and balls and gloves and shoes from the greatest moments in our history.
He was buried on February 16th, when the earth was still cold. Philadelphia, Woodlands Cemetary.
We saw Honus Wagner's baseball card, listed at a cool $451,000 - but it has gone for 2 million at auctions. We saw Ty Cobb's journal and false teeth, Shoeless Joe's bat, a lapel pin from the Cubs last World Series in 1908, the concrete facade from the long-dead, legendary Ebbet's Field.
He was married, worked as a clerk on Christian Street. His physician was J.S. McNeill.
We left the Hall at deep twilight and the globes on Main Street had begun glowing. Everything was green and perfect, summertime and baseball. We stopped at a restaurant and ate, talking baseball. We walked through the tiny, eastern New York hamlet, past Doubleday Field where it all began, under large spreading trees, marveling at how right everything felt.
He debuted with the Philadelphia Centennials in 1875, a team that folded the same year.
We camped on the beach at nearby Glimmerglass State Park. We had a fire on Saturday night, a roaring blaze on the sand. We could sit by our tent and watch the distant shimmering lights on Otsego's far shore. Friday night was windy, but Saturday was calm and eerily silent, the snaps of the fire often the only sound.
What a trip this summer has been. There is a higher power, because nothing this painful could be random, just as nothing this beautiful could be random.
He finished his brief career with the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers the year before he died.
At the age of 31.
Went to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York with Adam, fellow blogspotist and baseball fanatic. What a trip! Alive! Very much alive. Much laughter, very sad, very happy, alive. I'll never forget looking up at the stars, lying on my back in the windswept sand, feeling the breeze, hearing the waves of beautiful Otsego Lake lapping at my feet. There were billions of stars, lots of shooting stars, many wishes. We spun around looking at the stars, falling or struggling for balance, acting like idiots on the beach.
There is so much beauty in this world that it fucking hurts.
Went to the research library at the Hall first. They pulled the file for Fred Warner, a comically obscure, below average ballplayer who died over 115 years ago. No one has ever heard of him, but I have become very intersted in his story - or lack thereof. But I saw his file, I saw a copy of his death certificate.
He died at the age of 31, consumption of the lungs.
We walked about the hallowed baseball shrine for hours, amidst the dust and ghosts. It was Saturday and very crowded, but as the day lengthened on towards twilight, the people started leaving. It grew more and more silent.
He died on February 13, 1886, less than a month before the world would turn over in its bed and begin to stir, less than a month before the baseballs would be flying.
We saw the plaques of the immortals, the bats and balls and gloves and shoes from the greatest moments in our history.
He was buried on February 16th, when the earth was still cold. Philadelphia, Woodlands Cemetary.
We saw Honus Wagner's baseball card, listed at a cool $451,000 - but it has gone for 2 million at auctions. We saw Ty Cobb's journal and false teeth, Shoeless Joe's bat, a lapel pin from the Cubs last World Series in 1908, the concrete facade from the long-dead, legendary Ebbet's Field.
He was married, worked as a clerk on Christian Street. His physician was J.S. McNeill.
We left the Hall at deep twilight and the globes on Main Street had begun glowing. Everything was green and perfect, summertime and baseball. We stopped at a restaurant and ate, talking baseball. We walked through the tiny, eastern New York hamlet, past Doubleday Field where it all began, under large spreading trees, marveling at how right everything felt.
He debuted with the Philadelphia Centennials in 1875, a team that folded the same year.
We camped on the beach at nearby Glimmerglass State Park. We had a fire on Saturday night, a roaring blaze on the sand. We could sit by our tent and watch the distant shimmering lights on Otsego's far shore. Friday night was windy, but Saturday was calm and eerily silent, the snaps of the fire often the only sound.
What a trip this summer has been. There is a higher power, because nothing this painful could be random, just as nothing this beautiful could be random.
He finished his brief career with the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers the year before he died.
At the age of 31.
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