An aside – last night I watched the Mets Weekly episode from two weeks ago which just happened to be a recap of the 1969 World Series 40th Anniversary Celebration. There was a lil’ segment on Nolan Ryan – crazy as that was airing as I was on the bus about to go PLAY with Nolan Ryan. 
So about that bus – we drove from Albany out to Cooperstown and watched the 1999 HOF Induction Ceremony video. All morning it had been raining and the weather forecasters on the Albany stations had said the farther west you’d go, the better chance you’d have of staying dry in the afternoon. We didn’t quite know where we were going to end up. Turns out that Doubleday Field was “unplayable” thanks to all the rain, so we went over to an indoor sports complex and were going to play Indoor Wiffleball. No one was really keen on playing inside, and at the time it was just overcast so we convinced everyone that mattered that we were all willing to play outside, even if it meant playing in the rain. The infield on the baseball field there also had big huge puddles, so the keepers of the complex ended up putting down some bases on the soccer field and that’s where we played our softball game.
Despite it being a not-so-nice weather day, everyone had a lot of fun playing and chit-chatting. I think the SWA team had practiced or something because they killed us. Oh well. Apparently that is the way it seems to go every year. I didn’t get a hit, but I did hit a ball into RF that if we would’ve been playing “for real” probably would’ve been a hit. Since we were just playing on a big open field, we had everyone come in to play the outfield instead of sitting people out, so there could be 6, 7, or even 8 people out there at any given time. My “hit” to the outfield was picked up by one of these extra people and I got thrown out at 1st. Lame. I wasn’t running all out fast because the grass was wet (I don’t need to bust something up in a “for fun” game) and it was hard to see where the bases were since they were covered by grass. That is my story and I’m sticking to it.
In the top of the 7th, a total downpour occurred and we called it quits with the SWA team winning by something like 145 to 3. (Not really, but it felt that way!) We had time to get some things autographed (I got my gameday jersey signed, personalized to me) and were being stalked by guys who had followed our bus all the way from Albany. When we’d leave the gym, they were coming up to us throwing things in our face “Can you get this signed for me?”. Um, no, especially since you are just going to throw it up on eBay for tons o’ cash money anyway and not appreciate it. They must’ve had a lookout outside too because they took Nolan Ryan out a side exit and all of a sudden all the guys that had been inside were tearing out over to his car. It would not be the last we’d see of these guys.
We had a short amount of time at the hotel to clean up and look nice before we were back on the bus going to the HOF. Outside there was one of the autograph-seekers from the afternoon trying to look inconspicuous but instead looked terribly shady. We were taken to the Baseball Experience movie room where we watched the movie, and then everyone got to read their essays that won them this trip. We laughed, we cried, we were nostalgic.
Then we went down to the Plaque Gallery where it was all ours for the night. They had tables set up in the middle and a buffet down at the far end. There’s a window looking into the Gallery and people kept standing at it, watching us in the Fishbowl, until security would come and tell them to get a move-on. It wasn’t long before more people would come by and hover. It was amusing. I enjoyed this part much more than the game (one because I was dry and warm!) mainly because we got to hear a lot of Nolan Ryan’s stories from back-in-the-day and from now. Like which person would he most want to pitch to today (Pujols and Ichiro if you’re keeping count). One of the SWA guys also did an interview for the podcast “Red Belly Radio” so keep checking out their podcast site for that (when I checked yesterday it still wasn’t up).
I’m working on getting my photos up online (still), so here’s another preview photo – me up at bat against Nolan Ryan (who pitched for both teams).
