The Gods of Baseball Live Here
© Text & Photos by LeeZard
I am leaving New York City via its maze of parkways and expressways, Belt Parkway, Van Wyck Expressway, Whitestone Expressway and the Hutchinson River Parkway, on my way to the New York State Thruway. The Thruway – I-87 – is familiar ground; it is the gateway to the rugged and beautiful Adirondack State Park (2.6 million acres!) where I spent many happy youthful days.
When thinking of New York, most people think of the city and they assume the whole state is like that but heading into Westchester County and away from the tumult of the Big City, the rest of New York State reveals itself, lush and green.
At Albany the Thruway turns west, eventually becoming I-90. After too many miles of freeway I exit onto U.S. 20 west in the town of Waynesburg. The route gently twists through long stretches of forest, dotted by some fine old homes and the occasional farm. At one farm I spot a “Produce” sign and slow down; I am always looking for that elusive, fresh-off-the-vine tomato. When I find them, I eat ‘em like candy.
There they are! I stop; make a U-turn and park beside the stand. There is nary a soul in sight.
I wait a few moments and then start choosing tomatoes. They are all perfectly ripe. I weigh them on the professional scale – four pounds but still, nobody around. It is then that I notice the coffee can with a hand-scrawled sign that says “Pay Here.” At $2.00 a pound I drop $8.00 into the can and immediately reach into the brown paper bag to pull out one of the bright red beauties. It tastes like…WOW it tastes like a tomato!
The road into Cooperstown is County 31. It is much more narrow than the state and U.S roads, the trees nearly forming a canopy with the first red and orange tinges of autumn tickling their leaves. The harsh winter comes early to Central New York; Cooperstown is in the southern part of New York’s Snowbelt, averaging almost 70 inches a year. The average January temperature is 11° Fahrenheit.
A sharp right turn and CR 31 becomes Main St. Even though Cooperstown was established in 1786 (founded by the father of author James Fenimore Cooper <The Last of the Mohicans>) to me it’s like the Baseball Gods dropped this perfect little village from the sky into the dense forest and called it their Valhalla. Apparently they also told the residents to neatly maintain their fabulous colonial homes.
Cooperstown – is there a more intense baseball town on the face of the earth? I think not. Almost every shop and restaurant on Main St. has a baseball theme. But even the Gods of Baseball could not avert The Great Recession.
Thirty-nine year old Brad Horn is the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Senior Director for Communications and Education (I want his job!). He makes no bones about it, “We have seen a significant decline in attendance since 2008. We’ve gone from about 300,000 visitors a year to about 265,000.”
Horn predicts the 2013 numbers will be about the same. It is The Hall’s lowest attendance since the 1980s. He attributes most of the drop to the recession, the rest to what he calls “environmental factors” such as Cooperstown’s remote location, local prices (especially during the recession) and, oh yeah, that steroids thing in baseball.Thirty-nine year old Brad Horn is the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Senior Director for Communications and Education (I want his job!). He makes no bones about it, “We have seen a significant decline in attendance since 2008. We’ve gone from about 300,000 visitors a year to about 265,000.”
Interestingly, Horn puts some of the blame on the people who run the Major Leagues. “Their emphasis is more on the here and now than on the history associated with earlier generations.”
What Horn doesn’t know is whether the attendance figures are “the new norm” or just a certain time period. Either way, it affects the way the hall is run. Even as a non-profit they don’t want to operate in the red. Horn admits, though, “We have had financial losses each of the last few years.” He refuses to go into specifics.
“We have to make modifications,” Horn says, “we’ve had a reduction in programs, a reduction of exhibits but no reduction in staff. We do have to look at how we deliver our services and be as efficient as possible.”
As a PR guy, Horn puts on the rose-colored glasses, “We’d like to think it’s not going to go any lower, that this is the bottom of the barrel. We’re hopeful that life in 2014 will look more like it was in the first part of the 21st Century than it has for the past four of five years.”
The merchants who live off The Hall’s visitors sure hope he’s right. Forty-eight year old Kim manages a store that sells and custom-engraves wooden baseball bats. “This is one of three jobs I have,” she says, “I’m also a court clerk and a short-order cook. Because of the recession I had to do anything I could because I wanted to stay in Otsego County.”
She raises an important point; outside of Cooperstown, Otsego County (pop. 62,000) has a median income that is more than $12,000 below that of the rest of the state. Cooperstown (Pop. just fewer than 2,000) fares better with a median income $5,000 below that of the state.
Seventy-one year Dave helps run his great-nephew’s souvenir shop on Main Street. “The shop’s done okay during the recession but it’s also changed. We used to sell 75 percent souvenirs and memorabilia and 25 percent clothes. Now, it’s flipped in the last five or six years; people don’t want to spend on things they can’t really use. Because of that switch to more clothing we’ve been able to at least maintain rather than lose sales.”
Sixty-eight year old Pat is also helping family. She helps out at her daughter’s non-baseball-related boutique that sells children’s toys, games and clothing. “It’s been troublesome,” she tells me referring to the recession, “more than troublesome.”
“I would say we are down at least 20-to-25 percent and that’s no small thing for a small business.”
Pat says online shopping compounds the problem. “It’s difficult for a ‘brick-and-mortar’ store to generate loyalty and with tourism down that only makes it worse. I work here so my daughter doesn’t have to pay someone to do it.”
Several other stores along Main St. have similar stories; all of them saying their business has dropped anywhere from 20-to30 percent.
Sidebar: Talkin’ Baseball
How could I talk to someone from the Baseball Hall of Fame and not ask some baseball questions?
L: What impact has baseball’s steroids controversy had on the HOF?
Brad Horn: We see it as a period where it has affected the way fans celebrate heroes and moments. We don’t know what the long-term impact will be but we do know that certain records and milestones over the past decade are under a cloud. Fans have a disdain for steroid users. I’d say five-to-ten percent of our attendance drop could be attributed to that. But we can’t ignore it. We do refer to it in our “Today’s Game” section; it is a part of the game’s history.
L: Will there come a time when the steroid users will be admitted to The Hall?
H: Only time will tell. We have a process, more than 75-years old, by which players are elected to The Hall, the voting by the Baseball Writers Association of America. And, we have specific criteria for election that include character, sportsmanship and integrity. The writers have not seen fit to give any player associated with, or suspected of association with steroids more than 50 percent of the vote (election requires mention on 75 percent of the ballots).
L: I saw Pete Rose’s uniform in The Hall. If you have his uniform, why not have Pete (banned from Major League Baseball for life for gambling on his own team’s games)?H: You cannot tell the story of baseball history and not mention the all-time hits leader but our rules state that anyone banned by Major League Baseball is not eligible for induction into The Hall.
L: Let me play devil’s advocate. What about Ty Cobb? Amongst other things, he was a racist and an all around sonuvabitch.
H: We set the rules for selection and frankly the selection process is reflective of the times. Cobb was elected in the first class in 1936. Obviously for that era, his crimes were not egregious enough to not be honored in this institution.
Comments