Doubleday Field - Cooperstown, NY

            A couple years ago, I traveled to Amarillo, Texas with my papa. Unsure of what there was to do, I did a little research and found that they had a minor league baseball team. It was only an independent league team that played in an old, kind of run-down stadium, but I really enjoyed the experience because it had an old timey feel to it. (I wrote an article about it that I will post later.)

            I got the same feeling yesterday, when I attended a game at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, NY. I was there touring the Hall of Fame and I, again, did a little research and found that there was a game there at 10:00 in the morning. Instead of even independent league teams, it was two Men’s Senior League Baseball (MSLB) teams from Long Island, New York.

            Nonetheless, I was excited to see a game. My girlfriend, Kelcee, recently gave me a scorebook for graduation because she knows how much I love keeping score at baseball games, and I have been dying to use it.

            I showed up right at 10:00 and the players had just started warming up. Initially, I had no idea who the teams were. I finally figured it out when I overheard the kid working the scoreboard (who was also the son of one of the players) say that it was the Knights and the Black Sox from Long Island. A little asking around found that the Knights were a 35 years and older team, while the Black Sox were a 25 years and older team, both in the MSLB.

            The game itself wasn’t that great, as the younger Black Sox flexed their muscles, leading 6-0 after five innings when I left. They were aided by a three-run homerun in the second inning by #32 (I never got their names). The pitcher for the Knights was not a normal pitcher (according to the scoreboard kid), and you could tell. He lobbed balls over the plate so soft that I could have knocked one over the wall. Also, several of the men were out of shape. Routine fly balls weren’t routine any more, and easy groundouts to third base became adventuresome. However, the nuances of the field and the experience made the game worthwhile.

            When a batter hit a ball out of play, kids watching the game would run after the balls and get them, like they would anywhere else. What made this game unique is that they asked for the balls back because they would run out of balls otherwise. The players promised to give them all a ball after the game when they didn’t need them anymore.

            It reminded me of the things I’ve read that said in the early 1900s, professional teams would go through an entire game with a single ball. Today, that is unheard of, at any level. In fact, professional teams use a new ball about every ten pitches.

            Some balls hit out of play weren’t able to be retrieved. After one ball hit into the bleachers down the first base line, I heard one of the players say, “Oh that one’s in the stream.” Obviously, this caught my attention because I didn’t see any body of water near the stadium when I came in. So on my way out of the park, I went that direction to investigate. Sure enough, there was a little stream of drainage going underneath the bleachers. Any ball that got in it would be soaked and not suitable for play.

            These nuances, combined with the fact that it was an old park in the city where baseball was supposedly (although highly unlikely) invented, made me feel as if I went through a time machine, much like I felt in Amarillo a couple years ago.

            I really thought I had gone back in time when I overheard one of the umpires talking to the manager of the Knights. He said, “I love this game, I’d [umpire] for free, but the boss tells me he has to pay me.” That’s the way all ballplayers used to be. Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, Willie Mays, and all of the baseball legends from many years ago didn’t care about money. They just loved the game and wanted to play. If players these days had the same sentiment, the game as we know it would be far better.