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| The hot-dog wrapper kept turning up like Pete Rose at a paid autograph-signing session. |
Bill Mazeroski was too choked up to begin his speech, so the crowd gave the emotional fellow a standing ovation. When it quieted, Guy turned to the crowd and said "And now, Dave Winfield will give the second part of his speech." Guy autographed a rippled, white, paper-thin hot-dog holder before Winfield's ego fest. Bored, we all photographed it when we noticed during Winnie's speech that it had blown up against the legs of a lawn chair in front of us. Where had it been? Why was it back? Why was I lying on the ground photographing it?
It was hilarious, in a had-to-be-there, autograph-zealot, Pete-Rose sort of way.
We stayed in Sharon Springs, 25 miles away over a peaceful, rolling countryside with signs like 'Hay 4 Sale' tacked onto a tree near a farm yard. Two guys purchased Sharon Springs' 150-something-old inn for 18 thousand. They were about 250 large into refurbishing this grand little place with first- and second-story porches. Doug the extrovert, confided upon my arrival that friends asked if they had concealed video cameras in each room during renovation.
We shared the question, "Who'd have time to watch all that video?"
They didn't serve just great food in the restaurant, they served a "dining experience." It was a huge draw in this tiny town. Directly across the street stood an abandoned Masonic Temple with a white wood and brick facade on the first level. You could almost smell the musty, aging, curtains behind the panes. Next to that, the white paint was peeling on the Village Hall, which contains a "free library."
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| Dave Winfield's narcissim creates a domino effect at the Port-A-Potties. |
After meeting Doug, Tim said to me, "I hope you told Doug you like girls."
At the hotel or in Cooperstown (named after the father of James Fenimore Cooper, the snobby, racist, misogynist city boy who wrote novels about the wilderness), Tim annoyed Shari by periodically breaking into an old Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas song, written by Lennon and McCartney. I sang the theme from Pirates of the Caribbean at Disney World in retaliation, and to make the Pittsburgh fans feel at home.
We were happy as Babe Ruth at a prostitute convention.
When we arrived at the field before the Sunday induction, Tim, Shari and I needed to visit the port-a-potties, all blue, lined in a row by the road. After we joined the waiting crowd, a man approached and noticed a vacant kiosk. He opened the door and then hesitated, peering back at us. We must have looked like an eager, giant bladder. Is it line-jumping if 100 other people are too dumb to know a toilet is vacant?
"Go ahead," Tim said. "Knock yourself out. We're all pulling for you."
Everyone laughed, just as I noticed 1964 Rookie of the Year Tony Oliva in a biffy line. I said Oliva shouldn't be in line for a whiz with us commoners. "That's just not right," Tim agreed, but presently someone in that line recognized him -- lots of Twins' fans around for cuddly Kirby's induction -- and let Oliva go to the front of the line.
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| Winfield re-creates Jimmy Stewart's fillibuster from "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." |
Later, when beloved St. Paul, Minn., native Winfield reached "B" in his encyclopedia speech, I remarked to Shari that while she was in the blue house we noticed Tony-O in line. It seemed odd he'd have to use a port-a-pottie. As Winfield continued to monopolize what were certainly some of the final precious moments in the life of left-handed pitching great Warren Spahn, I asked Shari, "Don't they have a rest room behind the stage?"
"Maybe Winfield was hogging the bathroom," she said.
I laughed. I cried.
Everyone will remember Maz, who disproved there's no crying in baseball. You knew "the best-fielding second baseman ever" would struggle with that speech. The camera showed him on the big screen beside the stage as he prepared to move to the lectern. He looked emotional then. But I couldn't believe he didn't get any of it out. Puck told him afterward, "Man, your wife is going to kill you when you get back to the hotel."
Everyone will remember Little PuckMan gave a succinct, linear speech with a theme and a point -- unlike Winfield's rambling, corporately-sponsored filibuster. When Dave mentioned, no lie, Abe Lincoln, I was on the grass laughing hysterically. All the folks around us were entertained by our antics, and if they were not, too damn bad for them. You only live twice.
I told Guy -- who wrote a column for his newspaper-- it was interesting Winfield mentioned Lincoln, because the day Stovepipe Hat Boy gave the Gettysburg address an orator named Edward Everett spoke for three hours. This was before cable TV and the Internet.
What everyone remembers, of course, is Lincoln's remarks. No one recalls Everett was there. So it will be with Winfield.
Puckett later admitted he was crying along with Maz and wasn't ashamed. "If you can't feel it for a guy who can't finish his speech, can't even start it, then you don't have a precious bone in your body."
Still, you couldn't cry long. Not with Bud Selig, baseball's "commissioner" emerging to perform a simple duty now and then on the distant stage. Everyone booed Bud, the greasy former car salesman who took away the World Series in '94. Bud, Baseball's Dork for Life, unanimously booed.
I was forced to boo, too. I couldn't fling a bottle cap that far.