No Tebow? Why No Tebow? (Also No Hits)

As it turns out, there’s a whole lot of New York north of Westchester Country.  I have spent very little time there.  I’ve been to Cooperstown twice, I went to an American Camp Association conference with Brother Robert in Syracuse, and I took my students on a field trip to Albany once.  And I think that’s about it.  I just spent several days in upstate New York.  This is going to be a long post, so if you don’t want to read the whole thing, I put headings to divide it into sections (go to the section on Troy if you want to read about the no-hitter I saw).

Hyde Park

I started with a trip to the Franklin Roosevelt Presidential Library with Bobby and Darryl.  Five years ago, the three of us did our Civil War road trip.  This was just a day trip.  It was my eighth presidential library.  Of the ones I hadn’t been to, Roosevelt’s was easily the closest.  It might be the last one I get to for a while.  Hoover’s is in Iowa and I’m definitely not too interested in going to his.  Eisenhower’s would be cool to see, but I don’t imagine being in Abilene, Kansas, any time soon.  Lyndon Johnson’s is in Austin.  That’s very high on my list of places for Major League Baseball to expand, but if that doesn’t happen, I probably won’t be in Austin unless Notre Dame plays there again (even then, it’s not too likely that I’d go to the game, I didn’t in 2016).  Gerald Ford has two for some reason.  Apparently the library is in Ann Arbor and the museum is in Grand Rapids.  You know how I feel about Michigan, but at least the museum isn’t in Ann Arbor.  George H.W. Bush’s is in College Station.  Notre Dame opens the 2024 season at Texas A&M so that’s at least a possibility, but we’ll see.  Obama’s is going to be in Chicago, but apparently there are already delays in getting that built.  There’s a good chance that Obama’s will be the next one I get to.  That could be combined with a Notre Dame football game or a future trip to Wrigley Field.

Anyway, it was about a two and a half hour drive up to Hyde Park.  We started with a tour of Roosevelt’s home, which was built in the late 1700s.  Our tour guide was a very knowledgeable 87 year old.  We got to see many of the rooms in the house, including where he was born and his adult bedroom.  We saw his stuffed bird collection.  Winston Churchill stayed there when he visited Roosevelt during World War II.  So did some English people who are important for no reason.  I do approve of Roosevelt serving them hot dogs (hopefully they had brown mustard).  Our tour guide explained how Roosevelt moved when he was paralyzed.  Of course, I knew he was paralyzed, but I also knew that he wasn’t totally immobile.  So how did that work?  He wore braces to keep his legs in place and then with his cane on one side and leaning on somebody else on the other side, he could use his upper body strength to pretty much drag his legs to move without a wheelchair.

Franklin Roosevelt's house

The museum was the first presidential library to be opened (Hoover is the first president to have one, but his came later).  Roosevelt’s is the only one whose presidential library opened while he was still president.  You can see the office where he made some of his fireside chats.  The museum was good.  It’s the only one I’ve been to that didn’t have a recreation of the Oval Office, but they did have his desk from the Oval Office (I’m not sure if it was the actual desk or a replica).  The temporary exhibit was on Roosevelt, Churchill, and D-Day so I appreciated that.  I learned a lot about the disagreement among Roosevelt, Churchill, and Roosevelt during the war.  Stalin wanted Roosevelt and Churchill to move quicker in invading Western Europe.  That doesn’t come as much of a surprise since the Germans had invaded the Soviet Union.  As the war progressed, Churchill was more cautious about D-Day.  He wanted to wait longer, but Roosevelt and Stalin pushed for it to happen sooner and they outvoted him 2-1.  That might be the one time that I disagree with Churchill (of course, I have the benefit of hindsight).  They had Roosevelt’s car, which had hand controls that allowed him to drive it.  Another thing I learned was a little bit more about how Prohibition came to an end.  I had some vague knowledge of Roosevelt signing a bill allowing beer to be sold before the 21st Amendment was ratified.  I was wondering if that was unconstitutional because the 18th Amendment prohibited alcohol, right?  It turns out that reading the Constitution is helpful (some members of all three branches of the government might want to try it some time).  The 18th Amendment prohibited “intoxicating liquors.”  The bill Roosevelt signed allowed beer with up to 3.2% alcohol, which was not considered intoxicating.

Roosevelt gave a few fireside chats from this office.

Roosevelt's Oval Office desk

Roosevelt's car

I've been to the grave sites of Washington, Roosevelt, Truman, Nixon, and Reagan.

The Roosevelts and me

I liked the museum a lot, but I think if the museum had been built later on and if it wasn’t the first presidential library, it would have been built much bigger.  There were rooms in the basement where they just had stuff in storage.  There were windows to look in and you could press buttons to turn on lights, but they didn’t have the stuff out on display (like Roosevelt’s model ship collection).  I still think Reagan had the best presidential library I’ve been to, but I’d put Roosevelt’s high on my list.  It’s on the same level as Truman’s and Bush’s.  Below that I’d have Nixon.  Then I’d put Kennedy’s and Carter’s on the same level.  And then Clinton’s was the worst.

Syracuse

I had a day off and then I was taking the train back upstate.  My first stop was Syracuse.  I met Jon, his brother, and his father there.  They were stopping off on their way to Cooperstown.  We met at a cool Irish bar.  They were all drinking Kilkenny, which is hard to find in the US.  I had Kilkenny in Ireland and it was tempting, but I went with Summer Ale because it’s not going to be around much longer.  Then we went to Dinosaur BBQ.  It was on Man vs. Food with Adam Richman, but I was there before it was on the show when I went in 2007 with Brother Robert.  I don’t really remember what I had back then.  I knew it was supposed to be good, but it’s not like I was making a point of going there back then.  Also I was really sick on that trip.  This time, I had the same thing as Adam, the Pork-sket.  It was really good.  For sides, I asked for beans and a salad (there were definitely more interesting options, but I figured I should have something somewhat healthy).  The waitress asked if I was going to eat the salad.  My response was that I ordered it so yeah, I was going to eat it.  But it seems that she didn’t believe me.  When she brought out our food, she didn’t bring the salad.  So we asked for it and I ate it even though Jon and his brother offered me $10 to not eat it out of spite.  (Speaking of barbecue, I finally tried Old Fields Barbecue in Huntington.  It's really good.  I need to go back there soon).

This was really good.

Then we were off to see the Syracuse Mets at NBT Bank Stadium.  Much to our chagrin, Tim Tebow was not in the lineup (check the Seinfeld clip below for the inspiration for the title of this post).  Apparently he’s hurt, but his numbers are terrible anyway.  I would have wanted to see him.  The Mets went up 6-0 after three and won 8-4 against the Toledo Mud Hens (a Tigers affiliate).  After Dinosaur, I definitely wasn’t up for eating anything at the game, but it was Craft Beer Friday.  For $20, we got our ticket plus a voucher for two craft beers.  That’s a very good deal.  I was curious what the selection would be like.  The selection was excellent.  There were a few options on tap and then a wide selection in cans (probably more than you’d find at most Major League Parks).  I had a Bell’s Oberon in a can.  For my second one, I figured I should have something local.  I had an Eastwood Belgian Pale on tap.  It wasn’t bad, but it definitely wasn’t what I was expecting from something named Belgian Pale.  It was a big ballpark for a minor league park.  There was a second deck.  Capacity is 11,071, making it the 53rd biggest baseball stadium in the US.  Attendance was 5,855.  I couldn’t tell you about the food selection, but the beer selection was the best I’ve seen in the minors.  But the stadium was lacking character, as Jon put it.  I’m going to rank it pretty high because of the great beer selection, but if you could put that beer selection into some other stadiums that I’ve been to, then you’d really have something.

Our view for the Syracuse Mets

The following morning, I went to Mother’s Cupboard for breakfast, which is where Adam had his challenge on Man vs. Food.  His challenge was a frittata.  It had eggs, sausage, pepperoni, peppers, potatoes, and broccoli.  I had the quarter-size frittata (they recommend the half on the menu because the challenge is the full one and you’re not going to finish it).  The quarter-size was still a lot of food, but I did finish it.  Afterwards, I was pretty full.  I had taken Lyft to get there, but I felt like burning some calories and saving some money so I walked nearly five miles back to my hotel.  I was interested in the other Man vs. Food spot, Heid’s of Liverpool (a hot dog place).  I would have gone there if I had gotten in early the day before.  And I actually could have fit it in before leaving Syracuse, but I was still too full and I figured I could get hot dogs on my next stop.

This was good, but Dinosaur was the eating highlight of the trip.

Rochester

My next stop was the third biggest city in New York, Rochester.  That’s as far west as I’ve gone in the state.  There was a spot on Man vs. Food Nation that Adam visited that’s known for garbage plates.  There are all sorts of combinations you can have.  You start with a base of home fries, French fries, macaroni salad, or baked beans (or any combination of more than one of those things).  Then you have your choice of red hot dogs (regular hot dogs), white hot dogs, hamburger, cheeseburger, chicken, Italian sausage, fish, egg, ham, grilled cheese, or any combination of more than one of those things.  And you top it off with mustard, onions, and hot sauce (it’s like a meat sauce that’s popular in Rochester).  I was definitely not hungry enough for all of that so I just ordered a white hot with mustard and sauce.  I wanted to see what the white hot dog was like since that seems to be an upstate New York thing, but it was a little underwhelming.  I’d rather have the regular red hot dog and the sauce wasn’t too exciting.  Before going to my game that night, I went to a vigil mass.  Unbeknownst to me (but most likely knownst to the regular parishioners), this mass was ad orientem (the priest faced the same way as the people).  This was the first time I went to a mass like this.  It was in English, but there was a lot of Latin chanting.  At the sign of peace, there was no shaking of hands with other people.  And there was a communion rail.  So that was an interesting experience.

The Rochester Red Wings (a Twins affiliate) play in Frontier Field.  They were taking on the Indianapolis Indians (who are, of course, a Pirates affiliate).  Frontier Field was very good.  I had buffalo mac and cheese, which was solid, but it could have been better.  They had a good beer selection.  I had a Rohrbach Blueberry Ale from a Rochester brewery.  It was between that and the Rohrbach Red Wing Red Ale.  I opted to just go with whatever had the better ratings online so I went with the Blueberry Ale.  I think I probably would have liked the other one better.  If a blueberry ale is done right, it can be great.  If not, it’s nothing special.  That’s how I felt about this beer, nothing special.  Anyway, the Red Wings were down 6-5 going into the bottom of the ninth.  The started they inning with back to back doubles and an error to tie the game and put the winning run on third with nobody out.  The next three batters struck out.  But tell me more about how strikeouts don’t matter for hitters.  I was pretty tired and I didn’t really care about the outcome of a minor league game, so I left after the ninth.  The Indians won in the tenth.  I liked Frontier Field a lot.  Wikipedia has conflicting information about its capacity.  On the list of US stadiums by capacity it says 10,868, but the Frontier Field page says 13,500.  If it’s actually 13,500, that would make it the 39th biggest baseball stadium in the US and the biggest minor league stadium I’ve been to.  Attendance for the game was 7,142.  Frontier Field was good, definitely more character than NBT Bank Stadium.

My view in Rochester

I didn’t really know much about Rochester.  Apparently it’s the largest metropolitan area in the country without a Division I school.  Anchorage is bigger, but I guess metropolitan area would include suburbs, which makes Rochester bigger.  I found two Frederick Douglass statues in Rochester.  He lived much of his life there.  And so did Susan B. Anthony.  You can visit her house.  I just found that out from the little binder of information in my hotel room.  I didn’t have time to actually tour the house, but I walked over to see it before I took my train out of Rochester.

This Frederick Douglass statue was right outside my hotel.

Susan B. Anthony's house

Troy

My last stop was the Albany region.  I was there to see the Tri-City ValleyCats (Astros) take on the Connecticut Tigers (Tigers) in short season Single-A ball.  Tri-City refers to Albany, Schenectady, and Troy.  The ValleyCats play in Joseph L. Bruno Stadium in Troy.  This was much smaller than the two Triple-A stadiums I went to on this trip (capacity is 4,500), but it was very nice.  When I got there, the tarp was on the field, but it wasn’t raining.  It was supposed to be a 5:00 game, but the forecast was questionable from 4:00-8:00.  It did start raining, but it didn’t last long.  The game ended up starting a little after 5:40.  I was in Albany, so I had to have a steamed ham.  I got a steamed pizza ham that was topped with marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese, and pepperoni.  It was pretty good.  To drink, I got a Brown’s ValleyCats Ale.  They did have Summer Ale on tap, but I figured I should drink a local beer that I wouldn’t be able to find on Long Island.  This beer did not disappoint.  It was the best beer I had at a game during the trip.  Also, there were no lines so my wait was minimal.  The Tigers got out to a 3-0 lead.  The first run scored on a line drive that went for a double, but it probably would have been caught by the third baseman if the infield hadn’t been in.  The last run scored on a balk.  What was more interesting was that the ValleyCats did not have a hit through six when Connecticut took out their starter, 19-year-old Aussie Jack O’Loughlin.  It would have been cool to see a starter go for a no-hitter, but it’s Single-A ball, I get it.  The closest I’ve ever been to a no-hitter was when in 2007 at Yankee Stadium with John and Liz when Chien-Ming Wang got one out in the eighth before giving up his first hit.  The Tigers brought in different pitchers for the seventh, eighth, and ninth .  With two outs in the eighth, the ValleyCats got a baserunner with an error.  There was no perfect game on the line as there had already been six walks and it was a clear error.  The ball wasn’t hit particularly hard and it went right off the shortstop’s glove.  They got the next guy and the no-hitter went into the ninth.  It was a fairly uneventful ninth.  The first batter struck out looking when he thought he had ball four.  The next batter grounded out to the shortstop and the final batter struck out looking and I saw my first no-hitter in person.  Four pitchers, six walks, no runs, no hits.  I would love to see it happen in the Majors some day and I’d love to see one pitcher do it, but still, it was pretty cool to be there for a no-hitter.  Attendance was 3,533.  This was a very solid minor league stadium.  There was a building beyond the fence down the left field line.  It was marked 430 feet and also 79 Altuves since they're an Astros affiliate.

Ordinarily I would have gone with something different, but I had to get a steamed ham when I was in the Albany region.

My view for the game

Random Thoughts

I was thinking about minor league baseball with this trip.  I came up with the idea of reassigning the Triple-A affiliates.  Actually I came up with the idea of doing all the levels, but as you go lower, the leagues get much more regional.  What are you going to do with three teams in Montana in Rookie ball?  Double-A has no teams west of Texas.  So Triple-A is really the only level where it’s easy to logically assign the teams.  I try to go with the closest Triple-A team whenever possible, but with the way teams are clustered geographically, that gets tough.  In some cases, I just went with the teams they are already affiliated with.  It would make slightly more sense for the Mets and Yankees to switch Syracuse and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, but I’ll just leave that alone because it’s close enough.  But the Nationals having their Triple-A team in Fresno doesn’t make much sense.  Here’s what I came up with (change or same indicates if I’m changing who a team would be affiliated with):

Tacoma- Mariners (same)
Sacramento- A’s (change)
Fresno- Giants (change)
Reno- Dodgers (change)
Las Vegas- Angels (change)
Albuquerque- Diamondbacks (change)
El Paso- Padres (same)
Salt Lake City- Rockies (change)
Round Rock- Rangers (change)
San Antonio- Astros (change)
Oklahoma City- Royals (change)
Omaha- Twins (change)
Iowa- Brewers (change)
Memphis- Cardinals (same)
Indianapolis- White Sox (change)
Louisville- Cubs (change)
Nashville- Reds (change)
Toledo- Detroit (same)
Columbus- Indians (same)
Buffalo- Pirates (change)
New Orleans- Marlins (same)
Gwinnett- Braves (same)
Charlotte- Tampa Bay (change)
Durham- Nationals (change)
Norfolk- Orioles (same)
Rochester- Blue Jays (change)
Pawtucket- Red Sox (same)
Lehigh Valley- Phillies (same)
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre- Yankees (same)
Syracuse- Mets (same)

So I kept 12 teams the same and changed 18.

I have one more minor league game to blog about so I’ll hold off on updating my minor league baseball stadium rankings.  I don't have much baseball left this season, but the Dodgers play at Citi Field in September.  I’ll most likely be there for the Friday night game.  Usually I wait to see if and when Clayton Kershaw is pitching in New York, but it’s a September weekend.  Notre Dame’s game conflicts with the Saturday game (I know it’s New Mexico, but there are only hopefully 14 Notre Dame football games in a season, I have no interest in missing any).  If Kershaw pitches the Sunday game, I’ll consider going.  I’d like to watch the NFL, but we’ll see on that one.  I used to be such a big NFL fan, but the Jets being the Jets plus having two USC quarterbacks in the last decade and the Patriots with their combination of cheating and success have made me lose so much interest in the NFL.  But we are getting to a point where I’m just ready for college football and the Dodgers in the playoffs.  Go Irish!  Go Dodgers!