Baseball. The great national pastime, the stuff of movies and legends. Every time I see the word, in my mind I hear the way James Earl Jones says it in The Sandlot; baseball.

You cannot visit Cooperstown, NY, without visiting baseball. You don’t have to be a diehard fan, you don’t even have to know the names of any players, or the rules of the game, or the roar of a stadium around you. Cooperstown is the home of baseball, the place where it is celebrated most. Even before you reach the Hall of Fame Museum, it is apparent that you are in a world that is defined by the game. The shops all sell baseball bats and memorabilia; the entrees in the cafes have names like “Shortstop stack of pancakes;” and in the center of town Doubleday Field holds court.

Cooperstown Diner

Doubleday Field is the birthplace of baseball, at least if you believe the plaque. It is a modest little field – a far cry from Yankee stadium – but with the modesty comes the feeling that you are welcome there. That you can climb into the stands and watch a game without worrying about anything, because there baseball is played not for money, but for love of the game.

Doubleday Field Plaque

The game at Doubleday Field

Baseball is original America, like Route 66 and Elvis and Independence Day. It is honest and pure, at least in this form. Step away from the major leagues, where the players are paid hundreds of millions of dollars to dope up and get caught in scandals, and you find a different game – a game that is still about nine guys on a field ready for the ball.

Watching a game at Doubleday field is an experience. This was the perfect autumn morning, crisp, with a sky so blue. This was a group of men – and even a woman – who were obviously there because they love baseball. They all wore different jerseys and sometimes it was a wonder that they even knew who was on which team. When they came up to the plate, they became serious and took their turn and made the most of it. But in the dugout they were light hearted and made jokes, and no one was strutting around or spitting chew or doing anything that would embarrass the game. You kind of got to figuring that these guys would rather do anything than embarrass the game.

In the dugout

Baseball. The crack of the bat, the puffs of dirt under a runner’s shoes, and the look of a field in the sunlight. I could have sat and watched all day. This wasn’t a commercial game, this was an art form, and the players artists.

If all I had been able to do this trip is sit and watch the game, it would still have been worth it.

At bat

Doubleday Field

Babe Ruth at the Baseball Hall of Fame