July 28, 2007

Idyllic days in baseball heaven

Bob Keisser

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. - In this city, on this weekend, there is no whining in baseball.

If anyone has an opinion about the home run record, the commissioner or pharmaceuticals, they've left it at home with the mail.

Everyone here during baseball's ultimate weekend has a perfectly idyllic view of the game.

Red Sox fans take it down a notch and call them the "Dang Yankees." Yankee fans show a rare slice of humility, perhaps because their heroes, like Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra and Reggie Jackson, are sitting at a table in front of a merchant signing autographs and shaking hands.

Two Dodgers fans, one wearing a Brooklyn jersey and the other with the script Los Angeles, shake hands and a half-century of bad vibes dissipated.

A man puts a cell phone to his ear, makes his connection, and says, breathlessly and with wonder, "I'm in Cooperstown."

Walk into one of the shops along Main Street (naturally) and one can actually find the merchant selling baseball scorebooks, and here I thought Vin Scully was the only one still using one. There's no denying that a lot of commerce is taking place here, and the Hall of Fame Museum shop reminds one of Main Street (naturally) at Disneyland before the
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nightly parade.

But this is a literal village - ask someone for directions and he might say, "Do you know where the stop light is?" - and idiots are not allowed this weekend.

A crowd of 50,000 is expected for Sunday's induction of Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken, Jr., perhaps the largest ever, and it seems half of them populated Cooperstown on Friday. They're proud to have made the pilgrimage, too, despite thunderstorms that made umbrellas a commodity. No one is here incognito.

The Baltimore Orioles haven't made the playoffs since, umm, Ripken, Jr. was active, so this was a rare chance to proudly wear the orange jerseys and a variety of different Orioles hats. The one guy who wore an Orioles jersey and an old St. Louis Browns hat set quite a standard for history.

As for fans of Tony Gwynn and the San Diego Padres, it was nice to know everyone didn't throw away or burn those old fashioned-challenged brown pajama-like jerseys and yellow-and-brown hats.

If there are more Baltimore fans here, it's only a matter of geography. Getting from Maryland to upstate New York is simple, and one can caravan. There was a small fleet of motor homes on the New York Turnpike, each with the writing on the side, like "Honk for Cal Ripken."

Padres fans had to make a flight from literally one corner of the nation to another, and more than enough of them are here to welcome Gwynn accordingly.

This is a big moment for most of them, perhaps the biggest ever. The Padres have been to two World Series, already have a Hall of Famer in Dave Winfield and really have no reason to apologize to anyone. But seeing Gwynn inducted gives these fans a cachet they've never had.

"I think we're a bigger part of baseball history now," said Dave Mayes, a San Diego resident who flew here for the ceremony. "There's always been that `backwater town' stereotype about San Diego. But now Tony is in the Hall and we can say, `Look at us. We're a real baseball team, with real history."'

Randy Hawley is a transplant. He grew up in Ventura, attended his first Dodgers game when they played in the Coliseum, remembers Wally Moon depositing one of his inside-out fly balls over the left-field screen, and Jim Gilliam was his favorite Dodger.

His favorite player is Gwynn.

"I used to bleed Blue. Now I bleed Brown," he said, wearing a satin version of the Padres' old brown jersey. "I went to school at San Diego State at the same time Tony did and first knew him as our point guard.

"I saw the team mature while watching Tony, from his first season to the 1984 World Series to the 1996 playoff team to the 1998 series team. You have to remember, the Padres were so bad before Tony came along. I remember in the '70s, and paying $1.50 to watch some bad games."

Gwynn isn't the first to wear a Padre hat into the Hall. Winfield did that, and Rollie Fingers, Willie McCovey, Gaylord Perry and Ozzie Smith all wore Padres uniforms, too. But they all either left early or arrived late. Gwynn stayed.

"Winfield was a great player," Hawley said, "but he left a bad taste in our mouth with all that talk of backroom deals about his getting a piece of ownership. Plus, he did leave us for New York.

"Tony could have left. We knew he could have made more money playing somewhere else. We also knew he could have left because the Padres had let everyone else go. But he was always more interested in the town and the team. He said he loved San Diego, and he showed it."

Kris Erickson is a San Diego native who smiles when he says the name "Nate Colbert." He went to Cal State Fullerton and worked and lived in Long Beach for four years in the late '80s before moving back home.

He knew Gwynn was a standout at Poly, but what made him special was that he "became a local." From the moment he arrived at San Diego State, he put down roots. He also provided the kind of example that Erickson, other baseball fans and most of the people here in Cooperstown have of a real ballplayer.

"They're the end of the breed," said Erickson, here with his wife Elise and 8-year-old daughter Amelia. "They played for the same team their entire career. They weren't fixated on money. They played by the rules. No scandals.

"Tony is an outstanding individual. That's one of the reasons Amelia came with us. She's grown up at baseball games, and we wanted her to be a part of this and know what a good example in sports truly is."

On this weekend, there are nothing but good examples, so much so that even brown jerseys look cool.