Upstate Life - Special Edition

KE T’S

!

TA - I E ON EE FR

BASEBALL 2022

Blackballed:

The Rise & Evolution of America’s Negro League

Hall of Fame Hero

Gil Hodges

Extra Innings:

A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Exhibiting Baseball’s Best

THE CLASS OF

2022 National Baseball Hall of Fame Inductees

AND MORE!

2022 COMMEMORATIVE Hall of Fame Edition

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On the cover

NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME

Tony Oliva is one of seven players being inducted into the 2022 National Baseball Hall of Fame.

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| UPSTATE LIFE MAGAZINE | BASEBALL 2022

EDITOR’S CORNER I’m not a huge baseball fan. Growing up in New Hampshire, just north (ahem, nawth) of Boston, I had an obligatory fondness for the Red Sox and would gladly bear hug Big Papi, but I’m no devotee. That people can be – that, for some, baseball is like religion – is compelling.

In Craig Forney’s “The Holy Trinity of American Sports: Civil Religion in Football, Baseball, and Basketball” he says, “Sports inspire frequent associations with religion. Fans ‘follow’ a team like religious disciples. Movies portray the ‘church of baseball’ and ‘angels in the outfield.’ Slogans … sound like religious campaigns: ‘Do you believe? Team of destiny! Year of miracles!’”

Forney outlines six dimensions of religion: ritual, sacred stories, doctrine, ethics and social and emotional experience. It’s all there in baseball. At the crux of religion and love of the game is something deeply human: a longing to believe and something to believe in, even (especially) if it can’t be proven or kept.

In his 1998 essay, “The Green Fields of the Mind,” former baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti ruminates on that belief, and its transience: “It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. I was counting on the game’s deep patterns, three strikes, three outs, three times three innings, and its deepest impulse, to go out and back, to leave and to return home, to set the order of the day. I wrote a few things this last summer … and yet that work was just camouflage. The real activity was … the playing of the game in the only place it will last, the enclosed green field of the mind.”

The essay recounts an October 1977 nailbiter between the Red Sox and the Baltimore Orioles. It’s in Giamatti’s description of the final inning that you can feel his fervor, his faith.

“The aisles are jammed, the place is on its feet, the wrappers, the programs, the Coke cups and peanut shells, the doctrines of an afternoon; the anxieties, the things that have to be done tomorrow, the regrets about yesterday, the accumulation of a summer: all forgotten, while hope, the anchor, bites and takes hold where a moment before it seemed we would be swept out with the tide,” he writes. “Rice is up. Rice, the best clutch hitter on the club, with the best slugging percentage in the league. Fathers pounded their sons on the back, cars pulled off the road, households froze, New England exulted in its blessedness, and roared its thanks for all good things, for Rice and for a summer stretching halfway through October.”

Rice would swing and get out on a fly ball to center, ending the game and reminding its followers of the impermanence of things, even those worth believing in.

“It breaks my heart because it was meant to, because it was meant to foster in me again the illusion that there was something abiding, some pattern and some impulse that could come together to make a reality that would resist the corrosion; and because, after it had fostered again that most hungered-for illusion, the game was meant to stop, and betray precisely what it promised,” Giamatti writes. “There are those who learn after the first few times. They grow out of sports. And there are others who were born with the wisdom to know that nothing lasts. These are the truly tough among us, the ones who can live without illusion, or without even the hope of illusion. I am a simpler creature, tied to more primitive patterns and cycles. I need to think something lasts forever, and it might as well be that state of being that is a game; it might as well be that, in a green field, in the sun.”

Allison Collins

BASEBALL 2022

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Contents THE CLASS OF

2022

VOLUME 16

|

ISSUE 3

The Rise & Evolution of 6 Blackballed: America’s Negro Leagues

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Buy Me some Peanuts and...

Easy Copycat Cracker Jack Popcorn

Class of 2022 16 The National Baseball Hall of Fame Inductees

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| UPSTATE LIFE MAGAZINE | BASEBALL 2022

16

12

18 Innings: A Behind-the-Scenes 22 Extra Look at Exhibiting Baseball’s Best for the Fences: Women in 24 Swinging Baseball’s Past, Present & Future Cooperstown’s Class of 2022: Hall of Fame Hero Gil Hodges

Old Walls Talk: How an Old 28 The Baseball Created a Local Destination Directory 31 Business Meet the Locals

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W

Blackballed:

hen Major League Baseball barred Black players from America’s pastime, they took matters into their own gloves.

As with much of American history, there’s an oft untold and racially charged side to the sport’s early days. The Negro National League was formed in Kansas City in 1920 and, for decades, existed alongside, but separate from, the major leagues.

According to mlb.com, “Black Americans have played the national pastime since it first spread across the country like wildfire during the Civil War, but they were barred from the highest levels of organized baseball by unwritten rules and ‘gentlemen’s agreements’ as the 1800s came to a close.” Instead, the site notes, “Black players organized teams and barnstormed across the country, but it wasn’t in the organized forum fans have come to know today until one of those barnstorming players, a dominant pitcher named (Andrew) ‘Rube’ Foster, envisioned a league where those Black stars could properly showcase their talents.”

The Rise & Evolution OF AMERICA’S

NEGRO LEAGUES

BY ALLISON COLLINS

Stepping Up to Bat Foster formed the Chicago American Giants club in 1911 and, baseballhall.org notes, by 1920 he had “set the wheels in motion to create the Negro National League, an association of Black teams modeled after Major League Baseball (with Foster as) president and treasurer.” Mlb.com notes that, “in a nod to its independence,” the Negro National League adopted the slogan, “We are the ship, all else this sea.”

Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, said the league’s formation was “born out of necessity.”

“It was dictated by the fact that Major League Baseball would not allow Black or brown players to play in its league,” he said. “These very talented athletes needed a forum in which they could showcase their baseball abilities. Black owners … came together to say, ‘We’ll create a league of our own; if you won’t let me play with you, we’ll create our own.’”

From left: Leroy Paige and Jackie Robinson, Jose Maria Fernandez and Leroy Paige, pictured below.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE NEGRO LEAGUES BASEBALL MUSEUM, INC.

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Members of the Detroit Stars are pictured in 1923.

The Negro Leagues, mlb.com notes, “took off,” with “Foster’s American Giants club (drawing) nearly 200,000 spectators during the (1921) season.” The league, the site states, bred “stars like Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell, Martín Dihigo, Turkey Stearns, Judy Johnson Oscar Charleston and many more would soon become household names for both Black and white baseball fans across America.”

And, despite a Great Depression-induced decline in the early ‘30s, mlb.com continues, “Negro League baseball remained wildly popular through the 1930s and early 1940s, with an estimated three million fans coming to ballparks during the ’42 season.

Black ballplayers had proven that they could play on even terms with their white counterparts, and challenge Major Leage Baseball at the box office, too.”

Final Innings The league’s end, Kendrick said, was caused by the very thing many of its players sought: entrée to the majors.

“You might say they were so popular that they took themselves out of business,” he said. “There was this movement of looking at why these talented African American and Hispanic ballplayers couldn’t play in the major leagues, and once Jackie Robinson breaks through (in 1944), that essentially opens the door. This Black and brown talent started to flow into the major leagues, which is actually the thing that put the Negro Leagues out of business.

“There was simply no replenishing system,” Kendrick continued, “so, once integration occurred, if you were a young and aspiring Black ballplayer, you no longer needed the Negro Leagues; you could go into the minor or major leagues and work your way in. The Negro Leagues took one for the team, and the team, in this case, is the country, and that’s what makes the story so very interesting.”

Such advancement, Kendrick noted, had mixed ramifications.

“There was what we now deem to be progress and that progress was associated with the integration of our game, and that triggered integration in a broader capacity in our society,” he said.

“But, as I like to say, integration came at a cost. Obviously, a bevy of Black baseball players lost their jobs … (and) Black businesses were hurt tremendously by this, because the Negro Leagues had been such a tremendous catalyst that sparked support for those Black-owned businesses.

There was simply no replenishing system, so, once integration occurred, if you were a young and aspiring Black ballplayer, you no longer needed the Negro Leagues; you could go into the minor or major leagues and work your way in.

The Negro Leagues took one for the team, and the team, in this case, is the country, and that’s what makes the story so very interesting.”

“It’s a duality … because, in some folks’ eyes, it was progress,” Kendrick, who hosts Sirius XM Radio’s Negro Leagues podcast, “Black Diamonds,” continued. “We saw progress as the assimilation of Black folks into white culture and, in this case, moving into the major leagues. And, for that player moving into the majors, this meant making more money and their living conditions improved, but a lot of Black players’ careers were circumvented by this. So many urban areas across the country really died, and you can trace the demise of the Negro Leagues to their death, so it is bittersweet at best, because it moved us in ways socially that we never dreamt possible, but it absolutely came at a cost. It raises the question of who defines progress?”

Headed for Home Progress struck again in 2006, when, through a special ballot, 17 Negro League players were inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Again, Kendrick said, the advancement was double-edged.

“We all thought that was going to close the door on the Negro Leagues and that was going to be it,” he said. “That 2006 induction saw 17 Negro Leaguers go in, but it also saw (John) Buck (O’Neil) and Minnie (Minoso) left out, and that created a tidal wave of anger among baseball fans, particularly as it related to Buck O’Neil, who is the founder of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and who missed by one vote … and subsequently passed away later that year.

“The Hall of Fame made the call to erect a life-size statue, I think, in response to the uproar of fans who were so greatly disappointed,” Kendrick continued. “I always commended them that they came back and created that statue and the Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award, (given to) someone who embodies his spirit and made indelible contributions to the sport.”

It came as a pleasant surprise, Kendrick said, when this year’s induction class included three Negro Leaguers: O’Neil, Minoso and Bud Fowler.

“I was resigned to no more Negro Leaguers getting in, and my friend Buck not getting in,” he said. “At that point (in 2006), I waved the white flag and thought, ‘that’s a wrap,’ … but then I caught wind of this opportunity (through the

Hall of Fame’s creation of ) two new committees: the Early Era Committee, which would essentially open up the door for Negro League players to be considered again, and the Golden Age Committee, and Minnie was on that.

“We still had to go through the process of how to whittle to the final 10 and Buck got through,” Kendrick continued. “So, then we were all anticipating and hoping that he would receive the required 75% vote to be inducted, and fortunately he did.

Along with Bud Fowler, that (makes) three members of the Black baseball family being enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2022, 16 years after we thought the door had been closed to Negro League Players. Three out of seven: that’s a pretty good percent. I’ve been smiling since Sunday, December 5 when we got the news.”

A Museum with a Mission

Buck O’Neil

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| UPSTATE LIFE MAGAZINE | BASEBALL 2022

The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, 1616 E 18th St., Kansas City, Missouri, has always gone beyond the game.

“From the onset, when we started this museum way back in 1990, we did so with the understanding that this was going to be much more than just a baseball story,” museum president Bob Kendrick said. “I find it interesting, in 2020, after the George Floyd murder, that people started to turn to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum … seeking thoughtful leadership. They turned to us with the realization that this museum is a social justice museum and a civil rights museum, just seen through the lens of baseball.”

Such presentation, Kendrick said, promotes understanding.

“The Negro Leagues is one of those great American success stories,” he said. “You need to see both sides of the spectrum, and that’s when we start to develop commonality. Through the lens of baseball, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum helps people gain a better appreciation for the importance of equity and diversity and how those become the pillars of building a bridge toward tolerance and respect. If we can get to that point … where we have tolerance and respect for others regardless of whether they look or talk or worship like us, then we’re going to make strides. Through this powerful story of baseball and triumph over adversity, we can help us move toward that place.”

And, Kendrick said, the museum contextualizes racial struggle while still celebrating Black people.

“So much of my story that has been recorded is the very downtrodden story of Black citizenship in this

Called Up The intervening years saw the Negro Leagues recognized by Major League Baseball when, in December 2020, all 3,400 Negro Leaguers, from 1920-’48, were given MLB status.

According to espn.com, leagues acknowledged included the Negro National League I, (1920-’31), Negro National League II (1937-’48), Eastern Colored League (1923-’28), American Negro League (1929), East-West League (1932) and Negro Southern League (1932). Such recognition had bypassed the Negro Leagues in 1969 when, the site notes, “a special committee on baseball records identified six official major leagues dating to 1876.”

“What Major League Baseball did in December 2020 was provide historical validation for what these leagues represent-

country,” he said. “You’ve seen me enslaved, you’ve seen me with the water hoses trained on me, or the police dogs turned loose on me, and you’ve seen me beaten by police in this quest for civil rights. Those are the images people have, and it’s certainly part of my story, but it’s not my full story. You also need to see my success story. There is very little commonality in my struggle; very few people had to endure what Black folks had to endure, but you do find commonality in success stories, and they’ve never been fully told.

“This is a story of tremendous pride,” Kendrick continued. “It’s not somber, and initially people thought, ‘I don’t want to be reminded of that,’ but you come in and I think you leave inspired. We’re cheering the power of the human spirit to persevere, and there’s nothing sad or somber about this story. It is, indeed, a celebration.”

Fostering such common ground, Kendrick said, is mirrored in museum demographics.

“The majority of our visitors are white, and if I was doing it by numbers – the gap has closed during the years; when we first started this place, it was disproportionately white to Black – I’d say it’s still 60-40, white to Black,” he said. “It’s beautiful, because it’s so reflective of the population.”

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Kendrick noted, the museum saw roughly 60,000 visitors annually. Though “numbers took a huge hit in 2020,” Kendrick said, the museum is on track to recover.

For more information, visit nlbm.com.

ed, both on and off the field,” Kendrick said. “I oftentimes remind folks that the Negro Leagues players themselves were never seeking validation from anybody; they knew how good they were, how good their league was and, quite frankly, Major League Baseball knew how good they were. There was never any doubt about their ability to play … but that historical validation was really significant, because it did what we already knew, which was to recognize the Negro Leagues as a major league.

“What Commissioner Manfred and the folks at Major League Baseball did, is they righted a wrong, and that has been poignant,” he continued. “I tip my cap to Major League Baseball for doing what should’ve been done years ago. He did what was the right thing to do and what others could have done and didn’t.”

Negro League Baseball Museum

Josh Gibson

Field of Legends

BASEBALL 2022 | UPSTATE LIFE MAGAZINE | 9

What’s On Deck Kendrick said such industry-wide strides, alongside this year’s inductees and broader cultural context, make the future of his museum and the sport bright.

“What we’ve done is … opened up this chapter of America that most people did not know about,” he said. “For so many folks, the story of the Negro Leagues is a brand-new history, even though we’ve been at this thing for three decades, (following the museum’s 1991 opening). For the majority of baseball fans and new generations of baseball fans, it’s still new history and people are just amazed by what they’re learning here. Interest in the Negro Leagues is really at an all-time high, and engagement around this museum and people willing to learn more around this history has really grown, and that’s a good thing.

“Negro League baseball hasn’t been played in over six decades, and yet its significance may be more meaningful today than ever before,” Kendrick continued. “People think, ‘That was then; this is now. I don’t have to go to the back of the bus. I can go to eat anywhere I want,’ but then we see things like George Floyd’s murder, and other things in recent times, and maybe start to realize, ‘Wait a minute.

Now is starting to look a whole lot like then,’ and we need these places that so beautifully and vividly demonstrate how people overcame that level of adversity. I think that’s what makes the museum so vitally important as an educational resource, but maybe just as important as an inspirational resource. So, while we’re obviously very excited and overjoyed, we also understand that we have to win in this race. There’s a lot riding on this induction, (so) that the museum can hopefully maximize this opportunity … and position itself for long-term sustainability. What drives us, as we look to the future, is continuing to connect the dots and helping people continue to understand the relevance of this, on and off the field, and taking the lessons that stem from this – the story of triumph over adversity – and making sure it connects in a relevant fashion. I think that’s the challenge we’ve given ourselves. They’ve teed it up, now we’ve got to hit.” +

See hanfordmills.org or call 607-278-5744 for our tour times, reservations, or to find out more about our new Exploration Days.

Negro League baseball hasn’t been played in over six decades, and yet its significance may be more meaningful today than ever before.”

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| UPSTATE LIFE MAGAZINE | BASEBALL 2022

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e m o s e Buy M … d n a s Peanut

BY ALLISON COLLINS

It’s part of the ballpark experience.

It is still a good snack. It sells well. It holds a place in the sales mix, and it’s in the song.”

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| UPSTATE LIFE MAGAZINE | BASEBALL 2022

Easy Copycat Cracker Jack Popcorn Baseball is steeped in tradition. From the game itself to the players and the fans, America’s pastime is rife with ritual, and the snacks that go along with the game are no exception.

This recipe offers an easy way to replicate that old-timey baseball snack everyone loves to sing about: Cracker Jack.

Frederick William Rueckheim, a German immigrant and popcorn seller, is credited with creating the classic crunchy treat, which blends popcorn with molasses and peanuts.

According to ThoughtCo.com, “together with his brother Louis, Rueckheim experimented and came up with a delightful popcorn candy, which the brothers decided to mass market.”

The pair branded themselves the F.W. Rueckheim & Bro. Company, with Rueckheim originally calling his confection “Candied Popcorn and Peanuts.” The origin of the name Cracker Jack is less clear, though it is widely believed that the snack borrowed the slang expression “crackerjack,” used at the time to describe something pleasing. The name was trademarked in 1896.

“Cracker Jack,” the site notes, “was first mass-produced and sold at the first Chicago World’s Fair in 1893.” The site also notes that Cracker Jack’s mascots, Sailor Jack and his dog Bingo, were released between 1916 and 1918. The former, it states, was modeled after Rueckheim’s grandson, Robert. The song came in between, when vaudeville singer Jack Norworth’s “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” was popularized in 1908.

Candyfavorites.com notes that the Rueckheims partnered with inventor Henry Gottlieb Eckstein, who created the “Eckstein Triple Proof Bag,” in 1899. Eckstein’s packaging made the snack easier to handle and distribute and it is after his dog that Bingo was modeled. Following the partnership, the site states, the company rebranded as Rueckheim Bros & Eckstein in 1902.

An early 2000s “New York Times” article entitled “Cracker Jack: the Seventh-Inning Snack” suggests that, thanks to Cracker Jack’s place in American but also baseball history, the sticky stuff is sticking around. And, new this year, limited-edition “Cracker Jills” are being released nationwide at major league ballparks to lift the brand’s social consciousness and inclusivity.

“Concession managers consider it a do-not-disturb item amid an ever-changing (ballpark) menu,” the Times piece states. “The caramel corn with a prize inside survives, even flourishes.” (The well-loved Cracker Jack prize was introduced in 1912, though traded for a digital scan code by current owners Frito-Lay in 2016. Frito-Lay bought the company in 1997.) “Cracker Jack has withstood the rapid expansion of items offered, including recent trends toward local delicacies and healthier fare.”

Marketing Dive, too, notes, “Cracker Jack sales have remained relatively stable, even as ballpark food moves beyond beer and hot dogs into more adventurous or healthy food.”

Kevin Haggerty, a Fenway Park concessions manager in 2009 quoted in the Times piece, said, “It does still have relevance.”

Haggerty notes in the article that more than 1,000 bags of Cracker Jack are typically sold during a game. “It’s part of the ballpark experience. It is still a good snack. It sells well. It holds a place in the sales mix, and it’s in the song.”

But these days, at roughly $5 a bag at the ballpark, it’s cheaper to make Cracker Jack than buy it and doing so takes little effort, making it an at-home home run.

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P R O F E S S I O N A L T H E AT E R O F T H E G R E AT W E S T E R N C AT S K I L L S

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1 T 2 S G U NA A U VERO N OF

ME 1 – NTLE Y O GE L AND W B T NA E’S O J U R A L A E E RC SP N TA N

E BA SA S H A K RIS TINA O TA GE 7 1 – K 1 C ARL I K AZZ A O C J JUL V I I E V V H T O 4 OF NC 1– 2 JUL 2 1 F L A M E , L E G E N D F P 3 – O 9 ON I ICK T JUL 2 R S B –2 1 MIS AU G 5 AD

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LIMITED SE ATING • RE SERV E AHE AD

FranklinStageCompany.org

Recipe:

1

10 to 12 c. plain, fresh air-popped popcorn, roughly 2/3 c. dry kernels (you can substitute two cooked bags of unbuttered microwave popcorn) 1 c. light brown sugar 1/3 c. light corn syrup ½ c. melted butter 1 tbsp. water 2 tsp. vanilla extract ½ tsp. salt ½ tsp. baking soda

2

1 to 1 ½ c. salted, shelled peanuts

Directions:

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4

6

5

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1. Peanuts and popped corn pair up to make easy at-home Cracker Jack. 2. Airpopped corn works best. 3. Though the traditional recipe uses molasses, this recipe makes caramel with brown sugar and butter. 4. The butter-sugar mixture must come to the soft-ball stage. 5. The caramel gets poured over fresh-popped corn while still hot. 6. Popcorn gets a plentiful coating of caramelized sugar and peanuts. 7.

Baking the mixture at a low temperature gives it that signature crunch.

This version of the classic is as good as at the ballgame.

Line two to three baking sheets with wax or parchment paper.

Preheat oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit.

Pop corn according to machine or package directions, place in large bowl and set aside.

Over medium heat, combine sugar, corn syrup, melted butter, salt and water in a medium-size, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Stir continually, until reaching the softball stage, or 250 degrees Fahrenheit, on a candy thermometer, about eight minutes.

Remove sugar mixture from heat and add in vanilla and baking soda. Stir to combine.

Pour sugar mixture over the popcorn and fold in, being careful not to crush the popped corn. Mix until popcorn is well coated, then add in peanuts and stir gently.

Spread popcorn mixture onto prepared baking sheets in a single layer.

Bake for 60 minutes, or until popcorn is golden brown and crunchy. While baking, stir every 20 minutes.

Cool and stir to break popcorn up. Store in an airtight container for up to a week. +

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BASEBALL 2022 | UPSTATE LIFE MAGAZINE | 15

Bud Fowler: Born John W. Jackson, Junior in Fort Plain, New York, on March 16, 1858, Bud Fowler and his family moved to nearby Cooperstown – about 30 minutes from Fort Plain – just a few years after his birth. Often acknowledged as the first Black professional baseball player, Fowler endured a nomadic career in search of opportunities to play baseball.

He played professionally for nearly two decades and his talents earned him recognition in the baseball community.

In 1894, Fowler helped form the Page Fence Giants, who would go on to become one of the all-time great Black barnstorming teams. Later, Fowler had a hand in establishing other barnstorming clubs, including the Smoky City Giants, the All-American Black Tourists and the Kansas City Stars. He was a strong proponent of establishing Black baseball leagues.

Fowler passed away Feb. 26, 1913.

THE CLA

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Gil Hodges: Gil Hodges played 18 seasons with the Dodgers and the Mets, from 1943-‘63, earning eight All-Star Game selections and three Gold Glove Awards at first base. He topped the 20-homer mark in 11 straight seasons from 1949‘59, drove in 100 or more runs each year from 1949-‘55 and played on seven pennant winners and two World Series champion teams, ending his career with 370 home runs – the third most by a right-handed hitter at the time of his retirement.

Hodges went on to manage the Senators and Mets for nine seasons, leading New York to a memorable World Series title in 1969.

Hodges passed away April 2, 1972.

Jim Kaat: Jim Kaat pitched for 25 seasons with the Senators, Twins, White Sox, Phillies, Yankees and Cardinals, winning 283 games.

A three-time, 20-game winner, three-time All-Star and 16time Gold Glove Award winner, Kaat’s 625 career games started ranks 17th all-time and his 4,530.1 innings pitched ranks 25th. He helped the Twins win the 1965 American League pennant and the Phillies the National League East titles from 1976-’78, before transitioning to the bullpen, where he was a key member of manager Whitey Herzog’s relief corps as the Cardinals won the World Series in 1982.

Minnie Miñoso: Minnie Miñoso starred in the Negro National League with the New York Cubans from 1946-‘48 before debuting with the Cleveland Indians in 1949. Born Saturnino Orestes Armas Miñoso in Havana, Cuba, he played 17 seasons with the Indians, White Sox, Cardinals and Senators, becoming the first dark-skinned Latin American player to appear in an American League or National League game.

Miñoso finished second in the AL Rookie of the Year voting in 1951, earning him the first of nine All-Star Game selections in the Midsummer Classic that year. A three-time Gold Glove Award winner in left field, Miñoso led the AL in triples and stolen bases three times apiece and finished his career with 2,110 hits and a .299 batting average.

Miñoso passed away March 1, 2015.

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Bud Fo Gil Ho Jim K Minnie M Buck O Tony O David

LASS OF

022

Fowler Hodges Kaat Miñoso O’Neil Oliva d Ortiz

Tony Oliva: Tony Oliva spent his 15-year big league career with the Twins, winning three AL batting titles while leading the league in hits five times. The 1964 American League Rookie of the Year – he tied a rookie record with 374 total bases that season, a mark that remains – Oliva was named to the All-Star Game in eight straight seasons from 1964-’71, before knee injuries took their toll. A Gold Glove Award winner for his play in right field in 1966, Oliva became the first player in AL/NL history to win batting titles in each of his first two seasons. He received votes in the AL Most Valuable Player balloting in each season from 1964-’71, finishing his career with a .304 batting average.

Buck O’Neil: Though Buck O’Neil played, managed, coached, scouted and served as an executive for nearly eight decades, his legacy expands far beyond baseball.

O’Neil got his start in semi-pro ball before spending time with various barnstorming and minor league clubs. He broke into the Negro American League with the Memphis Red Sox in 1937, then latched on at first base for the Kansas City Monarchs in 1938. He remained with the club for nearly two decades. From 1939-‘42, the Monarchs captured four consecutive Negro American League pennants, sweeping the Homestead Grays in the 1942 Negro League World Series. In 1948, O’Neil was named player-manager of the Monarchs, a role he held until 1955.

O’Neil departed Kansas City in 1955, signing on as a scout for the Chicago Cubs. The Cubs promoted O’Neil to major league coaching staff in 1962, making him the first Black coach to serve on an AL or NL roster.

A beloved champion of the game and gifted storyteller, O’Neil helped establish the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City in 1990.

O’Neil passed away Oct. 6, 2006.

David Ortiz: David Ortiz played 20 seasons for the Twins and Red Sox. A 10-time All-Star and eight-time winner of the Edgar Martinez Award, presented to the outstanding designated hitter, Ortiz powered a Boston team that won three World Series titles in 10 seasons, reversing the “curse” and breaking the franchise’s 86-year streak without a championship.

A seven-time Silver Slugger Award winner who finished in the Top 4 of the AL MVP voting each year from 2004‘07, Ortiz led the league in RBI three times and reached the 30-home run mark in 10 seasons, finishing with 541 round-trippers. Ortiz retired as one of only four players with at least 500 home runs and 600 doubles, and his 1,192 extra base hits are tied for eighth all-time. His 20 walk-off hits in the regular season are the third most in MLB history, and his 485 home runs as a DH are the most by any player at the position. Ortiz hit .289 with 17 homers and 61 RBI in 85 career postseason games, earning ALCS MVP honors in 2004 and the World Series MVP Award in 2013. +

BILLIE WEISS/NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM

Inductee bios provided by the National Baseball Hall of Fame Photos courtesy of the National Baseball Hall of Fame

BASEBALL 2022 | UPSTATE LIFE MAGAZINE | 17

Cooperstown’s Class of 2022:

Hall of Fame Hero

GIL HODGES

BY BILL SIMONS

O

n Sunday, July 24, the Baseball Hall of Fame will induct seven of the game’s greats: Bud Fowler, Jim Kaat, Minnie Miñoso, Tony Oliva, Buck O’Neil, David Ortiz and Gil Hodges.

It was 1956. Growing up in Brooklyn, 9-year-old Nathaniel Silver rooted for the hometown Dodgers. His hero was Gil Hodges, their slugging first baseman.

When the Brooklyn Union Savings Bank announced that Hodges would sign autographs, Grandpa Jules, an immigrant, volunteered to take Nathaniel to the promotion, fatuously claiming to have played against Gil in Russia. Crestfallen, Nathaniel arrived as the bank was closing. But Hodges, with a friendly wave, beckoned Nathaniel for an autograph and—affirmative to the boy and grandfather—pretended to remember playing baseball against Jules’ Russian Bears. As they departed, the grandfather asked the Catholic Hodges if he knew Yiddish, adding, “Well, you should know what a mensch is. Because that’s you.”

The preceding is a scene in the 1991 debut episode of the TV series Brooklyn Bridge. Although the vignette was fictive, Gil Hodges was a mensch, an individual of decency and honor. He took seriously his responsibility as hero to America’s youth.

In December 1949, a red-suited and bearded Santa Claus visited boys facing polio at St. Giles hospital in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The Santa disguise didn’t fool anyone. The boys immediately recognized the muscular giant who moved like a big cat. More than seven decades later, David Shacker lights up when he shows the photo of Santa Gil sitting on the mattress with his 10-year-old self and beaming at the boy as they shake arms.

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This photo of Hodges was from a 1971 New York Mets photo set baseball card. | NEW YORK METS, PUBLIC DOMAIN, VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

During his 1950s prime, he was baseball’s best power-hitting and fielding first baseman.

An eight-time All-Star, Hodges won three Gold Gloves, even though the award wasn’t introduced until late in his career.

For 18 seasons, Hodges played Major League Baseball with the Dodgers (Brooklyn, 1943, 1947-1957; Los Angeles, 19581961) and New York Mets (1962-1963).

During his 1950s prime, he was baseball’s best power-hitting and fielding first baseman. An eight-time All-Star, Hodges won three Gold Gloves, even though the award wasn’t introduced until late in his career.

Hodges walloped 22 or more home runs in 11 consecutive seasons and, over seven successive campaigns, topped 100 runs batted in. On Aug. 31, 1950, he crashed four home runs in a single game. There were seasons of absolute dominance; consider his 1954 stats: .304 batting average, 42 home runs, 130 RBIs, .995 fielding average.

With Hodges’ big bat and sure glove, the Dodgers won seven pennants and lost two others in the final game of the season. Jackie Robinson was the crusader, Pee Wee Reese the captain, Roy Campanella the MVP and Duke Snider the marque on those legendary Brooklyn teams, but Hodges was the anchor. Even when Hodges faltered, as in his miserable hitless 21 at bats in the 1952 World Series, he was the one Dodger never booed at Ebbets Field. Fans even sent him rosary beads and mezuzahs.

Mastering the ‘Miracle Mets’ When National League baseball returned to New York in 1962, Hodges, in the twilight of his career, hit the first home run in Mets history. Upon retirement from active play, Hodges’ 370 home runs, accompanied by a robust 1274 RBIs and solid .273 career batting average, marked the record for a National League righthanded batter.

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Baseball and St. Joseph’s College enabled Hodges to escape the Indiana mines that crushed his father. During World War II, Marine Sergeant Hodges received the Bronze Star for courage in combat at Okinawa. He supported Robinson’s brave campaign to racially integrate baseball. Beating back his visceral fear of inside curveballs, Hodges became a hitter to reckon with.

A respected leader, he managed the Washington Senators and New York Mets. With benevolent authority, firm command and masterful platooning, Hodges led the formerly hapless Miracle Mets to the 1969 World Series championship.

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A Gentle Giant Nearly 6’2” and more than 200 pounds, Hodges possessed enormous shoulders and a tapering torso. Given his outsized hands, the first baseman’s glove appeared largely ornamental. Recognized as the strongest player in baseball, Hodges, humble and contained, possessed the formidable presence of an Atticus Finch with muscles. He seemed physically invincible, but smoking, Hodges’ one addiction, acquired during lulls in Pacific combat, presaged a fatal heart attack.

Hodges died on April 2, 1972, at 47, 13 days before his Mets would open their 1972 season.

From Brooklyn and Queens, surviving boys of summer, now grown old, will come to Cooperstown for Hodges’s induction. So too will a resilient 95-year-old lady named Joan, Mrs. Gil Hodges. + About the author: Bill Simons is the longtime co-director of the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture and professor emeritus of history at the State University of New York at Oneonta.

Editor of 12 baseball anthologies published

by McFarland Press and author of numerous sports articles, essays and reviews, Dr. Simons received the American Jewish Press Association 2021 First Place Award for Excellence in Writing About Sports.

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Extra Innings: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Exhibiting Baseball’s Best

E

very year, tens of thousands of fans flock to Cooperstown to pay homage to the living and late legends of baseball. On Induction Day, generally a sunny Sunday in July, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum admits new members to its storied halls. This year, after two years’ disruption by the COVID-19 pandemic, the show will go on.

If you are braving the induction ceremony crowd, your trip is not complete without a stop at the museum, where visitors can wander exhibit after exhibit, learning about the history of the game and finding artifacts from their favorite teams and players.

An annual highlight of these exhibits is

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the special cases displaying artifacts from that year’s inductees. Generally, each player has their own case, but with so many 2022 inductees from the three voting committees, there may have to be some sharing of space. In 2022, the Baseball Writers Association of America selected Big Papi, David Ortiz, as their inductee.

Ortiz will be joined by Golden Days Era Committee electees Gil Hodges, Jim Kaat, Minnie Miñoso and Tony Olivia and Early Baseball Era Committee electees Bud Fowler and Buck O’Neil.

A Staff of Storytellers Putting these special exhibits together falls to the hall’s curatorial staff. Museum curators are subject matter experts who

design exhibits and tell stories with the artifacts they choose.

Gabrielle Augustine, curator with the Hall of Fame, said she got her feet wet doing collections work with a few historical societies before working as collections manager for the International Museum of Art and science in McAllen, Texas. Upon hearing of a job opening in the curatorial department of the Baseball Hall of Fame, she decided, on a whim, to apply. One week before Mike Piazza and Ken Griffey’s 2016 induction – one of the most largely attended inductions in museum history – Augustine joined the hall’s team. Now, Augustine says, she gets to “talk and research baseball all day and play baseball at night with her wooden bat league.”

We pitch it to [the inductees or family] and ask, ‘What story do you want to tell?’

Some players don’t keep much, some keep everything they’ve ever collected.”

Augustine’s favorite part of the job is working with the artifacts that come straight from the field when something noteworthy happens, or if the hall is seeking to enlarge its collection for an active player. These artifacts go to either the “Today’s Game” exhibit or the “Your Team Today” exhibit, often referred to as the Locker Room exhibit, which displays artifacts from each active team in baseball.

The big annual project is centered around the inductees. Hall staff does not have any advanced warning on who is inducted, or any say, as inductees are selected by the BBWAA and its subcommittees. They learn the same way as anyone else, by watching the hall president open an envelope and read out the names on national television. Members often gather at a local bar on induction night, waiting to hear who will be visiting Cooperstown that summer.

The Hunt for History

keep everything they’ve ever collected.”

The real treasures, she said, often come from the inductee’s parents: “Derek Jeter’s father had his high school cap.”

After collection, curators must verify that they have items identified by the correct player, team, game or moment in a game. This painstaking process, Augustine noted, has earned the curatorial crew the nickname “CSI Cooperstown.”

Some items come with a description of what they are, meaning the team just needs to cross-reference a specific game to make sure the description matches. Sometimes, artifacts come in and the inductee or their families don’t recall what it is or where it’s from. That’s when a process of reviewing video and still footage of games turns to looking for clues. First, they try to narrow down their search to the year, then they begin looking at minute details on equipment and uniforms for correspondence.

“For instance, with pin stripes, each uniform is going to be slightly different, with the pinstripes aligning, or not, in unique ways,” Augustine said. “The same goes for patches or decals, which are all placed individually, and therefore can show subtle differences.”

The Home Stretch

From January to Memorial Day, the full team, which includes about 12 people (curators, two exhibit designers, two collections staff, the communications team and the exhibit fabricators), all work to

go from idea to installation. They have to contact the inductees, negotiate the loan or gift of the artifacts, verify all the facts around the items, write and fact check all the labels and then fabricate the exhibit.

This year, the “Please Pardon our Diamond Dust” sign was up a little longer than usual, as the hall ran behind schedule, like most things and places in this phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, Augustine assures fans that the wait will have been worth it.

For fans of David Ortiz, the display runs the gamut of his career, from the first big league homerun ball – on loan from his dad, to all three of his World Series rings and his one-of-a-kind 2013 World Series MVP ring. Gil Hodges fans will be treated to plenty of Dodgers’ memorabilia, but also Hodge’s jersey from the famed 1969 Miracle Mets, which he managed.

The Baseball Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony is one of the greatest celebrations of sport. Baseball fans come to Cooperstown for a chance to meet their favorite player, hear them speak at the ceremony and see their plaque hung in the hall. However, baseball fans hoping to enjoy the induction artifacts among smaller crowds can always stroll baseball’s memory lane all summer at the Hall of Fame and Museum. While you’re at it, take a moment to marvel at what a dedicated team of baseball enthusiasts and professionals can do in just a few months to tell the game’s greatest stories. +

Once everyone has been announced, the staff, which includes Augustine, Senior Curator Tom Schieber, and Curator of History and Research John Odell, divvies up the assignments. As they are all baseball fans, they make a point to have some fun with the assignments. “We take into consideration personal factors, like favorite teams or personal connections with teams or players,” Augustine said.

When each curator has their assignments for the season, they take stock of what is already in the museum’s collection relating to a certain player. From there, they reach out to the inductee, the inductee’s teams and the inductee’s family to request loans or gifts for the exhibit. Augustine says, in the end, it’s all about the story that gets told.

“We pitch it to [the inductees or family] and ask, ‘What story do you want to tell?’,” she said, noting that artifacts acquired can vary significantly by inductee.

“Some players don’t keep much, some PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME

All-American Girls Professional Baseball League shined a light at Wrigley Field in 1943. | NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME

Swinging for the Fences: Women in Baseball’s Past, Present & Future

BY CHRYSTAL SAVAGE

I

n an article published by the Cherry Valley Gazette on May 26, 1859 – a publication described by then-publisher A. S. Botsford as “Independent on all subjects – neutral on none” – local perspectives on women in sports, specifically baseball, amid the ongoing war, were addressed.

The article states, “The Albany Times pronounces the idea of crinoline bustles and ample hips playing base-ball as ridiculous. To this the Troy Times responds thus: Humbug! As if woman must at all times and under every possible circumstance be arrayed in the stiff and conservative propriety of drawing-room attire.”

The Times response continues, “We are no advocates of the Bloomer costume, but we can imagine there are occasions on which short dresses, minus the outlandish pantaloons – in brief, a rig permitting the free and natural exercise of the lower limbs – would be both healthful and proper.”

Sports & Suffrage Twenty years after the invention of baseball by Abner Doubleday, women in 24

| UPSTATE LIFE MAGAZINE | BASEBALL 2022

upstate New York and around the world continued to fight for representation in traditionally male-dominated spaces, including sport.

In August 1920, after a nearly 100year suffrage movement, women secured the right to vote in America. Less than a month later, Doubleday Field opened on Sept. 6, marking the early years of the 20th century as historically progressive and preservative.

In 1936, Cooperstown was recognized as the birthplace of baseball, with its founding of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Soon after, opportunities for women outside the home flourished, as men 21 to 45 were drafted into the second world war. Women largely led the war effort at home, taking up factory work, tending to victory gardens, finding entertainment in sport and more.

A Lady’s League Half a century later, “A League of Their Own” was filmed, commemorating the experiences of baseball-playing women in the states during the war. The film not

only preserved historical accuracy in its depiction, but it is also widely regarded as revolutionary in the sector of women’s sports.

The bloomer costume, accidentally popularized by Amelia Bloomer in the mid19th century, was adopted by the suffragette movement as an alternative to traditional attire. | LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Dorothy ‘Dottie’ Wilste Collins is pictured with her daughter in matching Fort Wayne Daisy Uniforms. | CONTRIBUTED

Effa Manley’s plaque at the Hall of Fame is pictured in this undated photo. | CONTRIBUTED

Many of the women depicted struggle against societal norms throughout the film, with Doris Murphy, played by Rosie O’Donnell, explaining to the other women that she is with her “stupid,” unemployed boyfriend despite his mistreatment of her, “because … the other boys … they always made me feel wrong, like I was some sort of a weird girl or a strange girl or not even a girl, just because I could play [baseball]. I believed them, too, you know? But not anymore.”

Sarah “Salty” Sands Ferguson, an All-American Girls Professional Baseball League alumna, said of the league’s recognition, “We don’t want to be inducted either as a league or as individual players.

We just wanted a display, so people knew what we did so many years ago.”

In 2006, the first woman, Effa Manley, was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Manley earned this honor “through her commitment to baseball and civil rights,” according to the National Baseball Hall of Fame website.

“As a businesswoman in a primarily man’s world, Manley wanted to be a winner,” the site continues.

“Though the only woman among an industry of male owners, she got her wish in 1946, when the Newark Eagles, owned by (Manley) and her husband, Abe, won the Negro League World Series.

Her career is a testament to … her vision and dedication to (creating) respect for Negro (League) baseball.”

While Manley remains the only woman to earn this recognition, there is reason to hope that such recognition is the first chapter of many great stories yet to come. +

Timeline: • Abner Doubleday was born in Ballston Spa, New York on June 26, 1819.

• Abner Doubleday is credited with inventing baseball in Cooperstown in 1839.

• The suffragette movement in America originates in July 1848.

• Bloomer pants originate, quickly becoming a “healthful” alternative to traditional women’s garments in 1849.

• On Sept. 17, 1862, Abner Doubleday commands a division in the Battle of Antietam.

• In November 1862, Abner Doubleday is promoted to general following his contributions in Antietam.

• The American Civil War comes to an end on April 9, 1865.

• Abraham Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on April 15, 1865.

• On Feb. 26, 1869, Congress passes the 15th Amendment.

• On Feb. 3, 1870, the 15th Amendment is ratified, guaranteeing Black men the right to vote.

• Major League Baseball is founded in 1876.

• Abner Doubleday dies in Mendham Borough, New Jersey on Jan. 26, 1893.

• Effa Manley, the first and only woman to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, is born on March 27, 1897 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

• On June 4, 1919, Congress passes the 19th Amendment.

• On Aug. 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment is ratified, giving women the right to vote.

• Doubleday field opens on Sept. 6, 1920.

• The Negro National League is founded on Feb. 13, 1920 • In 1920, a local initiative to fundraise $5,000 to acquire Doubleday field begins.

• The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is established at 25 Main St., Cooperstown, in 1936.

• Effa Manley becomes involved in the operations of a Negro National League Team, the Newark Eagles of Newark, New Jersey after meeting her husband at a major league game. It is believed that her influence in marketing helped to advance Civil Rights initiatives.

• World War II begins on Sept.1, 1939.

• The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League is founded in 1943 and continues until 1945, providing the one-day premise for “A League of Their Own.” • World War II ends on Sept. 2, 1945, with a victory by the Allied powers.

• Black players and players of African descent are allowed to play in the major and minor affiliated leagues in 1947, officially dismantling the infamous color line within the sport.

• The Negro National League is disbanded in 1948.

• On Sept. 5, 1954, the AAGPBL is dissolved, preceding other women’s league sports.

• The Civil Rights movement begins in 1954.

• In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act into law, prohibiting racial discrimination in public sectors.

• Effa Manley dies on April 16, 1981, in Los Angeles, California.

• “A League of Their Own” is released on July 1, 1992, starring Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Madonna, Rosie O’Donnell and others.

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The Baseball Hall of Fame as it appeared when opened in 1939. | THE NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY

How an Old Baseball Created

A LOCAL DESTINATION The Old Walls Talk

BY MARK SIMONSON 28

| UPSTATE LIFE MAGAZINE | BASEBALL 2022

T

he ink was barely dry on the Mills Commission report, which investigated the invention of the game of baseball in 1908. The report claimed that Abner Doubleday invented the game of baseball in Cooperstown in 1839, and protests and debate to the contrary soon followed. Hoboken, New Jersey and numerous other communities maintained that the origin of the game happened on their local ballfields.

Nevertheless, there it was in writing — Cooperstown was called the home of baseball. Area leaders had something to work with and started capitalizing on the opportunity to promote baseball as America’s pastime with local beginnings.

Not much was done with the bragging rights until 1919, when the Playgrounds Committee of the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce went searching for a new site to play ball in the village. At the time, the Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital was being built on the old ball grounds.

Left: Doubleday Field is seen under construction in early 1939. The field opened at the same time as the new Hall of Fame building on June 12, 1939. | FENIMORE MUSEUM RESEARCH LIBRARY. Right: The first addition was added after World War II, opening in 1950. | NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY.

The committee found Phinney Lot, a former cow pasture, where Doubleday Field is today. At the same time, local suggestions arose that the grounds be made into a national baseball park and, if possible, a game be played each year between National and American League teams.

Clark’s Catch The first game was played during Labor Day Weekend 1920.

People from the Major Leagues were on hand and liked what they saw. By 1934, the field had seen significant improvements.

That same year, an old baseball was discovered in a dust-covered attic in Fly Creek that supported the Mills Commission’s findings.

Stephen C. Clark purchased that baseball for $5. Clark had in mind displaying the historic ball, along with other museum objects, in a room of the Village Club, today’s village offices and library. The one-room exhibition attracted great public interest.

Support was sought and subsequently given for the establishment of a National Baseball Museum.

The growth of interest in this museum and improvements to Doubleday Field continued; by mid-February 1939, work began on new bleachers and a grandstand to mark the 100th anniversary of the game.

On Monday, June 12, 1939, an overflow crowd watched the first game on this new field between Major League stars. Just down the street from the field, before the game, the National Baseball Hall of Fame hosted its grand opening.

Cooperstown cleared its first major hurdle in becoming the proclaimed home of baseball in 1939. But another hurdle lay ahead: survival.

Slumps & Spikes After guests left the second major weekend of baseball centennial festivities in July 1939, when the first Hall of Fame class was inducted, a total of 25,332 had visited Cooperstown.

After World War II broke out, attendance dropped dramatically because of gasoline rationing, hitting an all-time low of 2,595 in 1943.

Following the war, attendance picked up again and the number of acquired baseball artifacts expanded greatly, as did the number of inductees into the Hall of Fame.

Stephen C. Clark, a strong supporter of the hall, saw a need for expansion of the facilities and broke ground for an addition in June 1949. By 1956, the hall admitted its one-millionth visitor. Expansion followed in 1958.

After recent additions, today’s Hall of Fame is seen in 2014. | MARK SIMONSON

Visitors just keep coming to Cooperstown, with the Hall of Fame surpassing its 10,000,000-attendance point in August 1995; in July 2018, that figure surpassed 17,000,000.

A freestanding library was added to the downtown museum, dedicated in July 1968 behind the museum and facing Cooper Park. An extensive addition was made to the library in 1993.

The Hall of Fame admitted its four-millionth visitor in August 1973. Two other major additions followed: the first in 1980, with the west wing of the museum, today’s gift shop area and, in 1989, the east wing, the former Alfred Corning Clark Gymnasium, opened. Today’s Stadium Theatre was once used as the gymnasium’s swimming pool.

Visitors just keep coming to Cooperstown, with the Hall of Fame surpassing its 10,000,000-attendance point in August 1995; in July 2018, that figure surpassed 17,000,000.

According to the Hall of Fame, Baseball Writers’ Association of America electee David Ortiz will join Golden Days Era Committee electees Gil Hodges, Jim Kaat, Minnie Miñoso and Tony Oliva and Early Baseball Era Committee electees Bud Fowler and Buck O’Neil.

Plan your visit for the annual induction ceremonies, happening on the grounds of Alfred Corning Clark Sports Center on Susquehanna Avenue, 124 County Route 52, July 24. Visit baseballhall.org for more information and upcoming events. +

City historian Mark Simonson grew up in Oneonta, but like many, left to explore opportunities elsewhere.

He returned in 1997.

Before returning, Simonson worked in public relations, marketing and broadcast journalism.

He worked locally in Norwich and the greater Binghamton area, and for a short time in Boston.

Simonson was appointed Oneonta City Historian in 1998.

Since then, he has been doing freelance research and writing for a twice-weekly column in The Daily Star. Additionally, Simonson has published books about Oneonta and local history in a five-county region.

Through his years of research, Simonson has come across many interesting stories about old buildings in the upstate region. He will share those stories in this and upcoming editions of Upstate Life.

2022

1980 1989 1993 1995 2018 2022 Thorough & Professional Home Inspections

Buying Old Military Items From Vietnam to Ancient Times

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NACHI20010920

Top Price paid for old military items, US or foreign: Medals Uniforms Swords Knives Bayonets

Muskets Buttons Patches Canteens Binoculars

Boots Coats Tools Letters etc.

I buy collections.

Will come to you.

Email: buyoldwarstuff@gmail.com Contact Vincent at 607-287-4022

Business Directory Advertising & Media

Entertainment

(Publishers, Public Relations, Marketing)

(Arts, Entertainment, Recreation, Travel, Events, Museums)

The Cooperstown Crier 102 Chestnut St., Oneonta, NY 607-432-1000 coopercrier.com

The Daily Star 102 Chestnut St., Oneonta, NY 607-432-1000 thedailystar.com

Meet the Locals Health & Fitness

Non-Profit Organizations

(Medical Centers & Clinics, Dentists, Rehabilitation Centers)

(Family, Community & Civic Organizations)

COOPERSTOWN ART ASSOCIATION GALLERIES

22 Main St., Cooperstown, NY 607-547-9777 •cooperstownart.com

Chestnut Park

Rehabilitation & Nursing Center 330 Chestnut St., Oneonta, NY 607-432-8500 • chestnutparkrehab.com

Hanford Mills Musuem

(Salons & Spas, Funeral Homes, Driver Training, more...)

Otsego Outdoors

otsegooutdoors.org

(Buying, Selling, more)

324 Caverns Rd., Howes Cave, NY iroquoismuseum.org The Franklin Railroad and

Community Museum

Vincent 607-287-4022 Email: buyoldwarstuff@gmail.com

Tobacco Free Communities

155 Main St., Suite C, Oneonta, NY 607-376-7910 • gotobaccofreedos.org

(Automobile Dealers, Auto Body & Painting, Auto Clubs, more...)

101 Main in Pioneer in Street Pioneer Alley Alley, Cooperstown cooperstownfarmersmarket.org Cooperstownfarmersmarket.org With SNAP Match, your spending power at the Market is doubled (up to $15).

3 Railroad St., New Berlin, NY 607-847-6173 Like us on Facebook

Restaurants (Full Service, Casual Dining, Fast Food)

STIX N STONES

332 North St., West Winfield, NY 315-794-9134

572 Main Street Franklin, NY 13775

Auto, Motorcycle & Campers

Open Saturdays Year-Round

Expanded hours 9 am - 2 pm begin May 7 Cooperstown Farmers’ Market

30+ local farmers, artisans, and specialty food 101 Main St., crafters, Cooperstown, NY producers

Homestead Pet & Farm Supply Tuning In - Tuning Up Oneonta, NY 607-433-2089 tuningin-tuningup.com

Iroquois Indian Museum

Buying Old Military Items

Rosemary Farm Sanctuary

1646 Roses Brook Rd., S. Kortright 607-538-1200 • rosemaryfarm.org

Personal Services & Care

51 County Hwy. 12 East Meredith, NY 607-278-5744 hanfordmills.org

Antiques & Collectibles

Shopping & Retail (Appliances, Clothing Apparel, Accessories, more...)

The Franklin• johncampbell8@gmail.com Railroad and 607-829-2692 Community Museum

Hours Open: Last Sunday of Each Month, 1:00pm to 5:00pm or by Appointment Call 607-829-5890 or 607-829-2692

572 Main St., Franklin, NY Admission: Free Handicapped Accessible Find us on 607-829-2692 johncampbell8@gmail.com

Home & Garden (Home & Garden, Remodeling Bath & Kitchen)

BROOKS’ House of BBQ

5560 State Hwy. 7, Oneonta, NY 607-432-1782 • brooksbbq.com

Sybil’s Yarn Shop

Oliver’s Campers Inc.

6460 State Hwy. 12, Norwich, NY 607-334-3400 •oliverscampers.com

65 South Main St., Milford, NY 607-286-4061 • sybilsyarnshop.com

Franklin Stage Company Franklin, NY • 607-829-3700 franklinstagecompany.org

Construction & Building Services (General Contractors, Construction, Engineers, Architects)

Windows & Doors Kitchens & Baths A&J’s Windows & Doors Kitchens & Baths

4189 State Hwy. 28, Milford, NY 607-286-7856 anjwindows.com

Drilling Corp.

Titan Drilling Corp.

264 Co. Hwy. 38, Arkville, NY 1-800-GO-TITAN • 1-845-586-4000 titanwelldrillingny.com

Cody-Shane Acres

90 Crystal Creek, Walton, NY 607-865-4913

Get Fresh on the Main 254 Main St., Oneonta, NY Inside Plaza, next to Lux Studio

Golden Guernsey

Finance & Insurance (Banks, Financial Advisors, Insurance)

bieritz insurance Bieritz Insurance

Ben Novellano 209 Main St., Cooperstown, NY 607-547-2952 • 607-263-5170 (Morris) bieritzinsurance.com

Health & Fitness (Medical Centers & Clinics, Dentists, Rehabilitation Centers)

Pure Catskills

44 West Street, Walton, NY 607-865-7090 purecatskills.com

Tweedie Construction Services, Inc. 90 Crystal Creek Rd., Walton, NY 607-865-4916 • 607-865-4913

1272 East Side Rd., Morris, NY 607-263-2030

Ice Cream 15 Main St., Oneonta, NY 607-432-7209 • Find us on Facebook

Clinton Plaza, Oneonta, NY wolfwilde.com

Sal’s New Classic Pizzeria

285 Main St., Oneonta, NY 607-432-6766 • newclassicpizza.com

Sports & Recreation (Golf Courses & Country Clubs, Sports Facility, Sports Team, Campgrounds)

The College Golf Course at Delhi

Bettiol Chiropractic

607-433-1150 • Offices at: 427 Main St., Oneonta 69 Meredith St., Delhi 31 Harper St., Stamford

Farm Market

OPEN YEAR ROUND! Weaver’s Farm Market

Golden Guernsey Ice Cream

Secor

Home Inspections & Testing Otsego, Delaware, Chenango & Schoharie Counties 607-287-7908 Secorhomeinspections.com

WEAVER’S

ServiceMASTER by Burch 607-988-2516 servicemasterbyburch/com

Tino’s Pizza & Restaurant

180 Main St., Oneonta, NY 607-432-0008 • tinosoneonta.com

85 Scotch Mountain Rd., Delhi, NY 607-746-GOLF • golfcourse.delhi.edu

BASEBALL 2022 | UPSTATE LIFE MAGAZINE | 31

WEAVER’S • 50 Meats & Cheeses • Large Selection of Candy, Spices, Baking Supplies & More • Fresh Fruits & Vegetables Payment • Local Baked Goods Cash Or Check No Credit Cards • Local Dairy Products • Local Free Range Eggs • Organic & Gluten Free Products

OPEN YEAR ROUND!

FARM MARKET

• Local Beef, Pork and Chicken • Local Produce in Season • Local Maple Syrup and Honey • Large selection of Organic & Natural Foods • Amish Made Hickory Furniture, Crafts, Baskets & Other Gifts

We look forward to serving you!

Products From Over 60 Local Farmers, Bakers & Crafters

1272 East Side Rd. • Morris, NY 13808 • 607-263-2030 Hours: Tues., Wed. & Sat. 9am-5pm / Thurs. & Fri. 9am· 6pm; Closed Sun. & Mon.