Baseball and Beer

#5

I wanted to put something on my list baseball related. I’ve been to plenty of games at both the old and new Yankee Stadiums. I did a tour of the old stadium before they knocked it down. Ever since I moved to NYC in 2005, I was determined to go to the Ticker Tape Parade, and finally got to when the Yanks won the World Series in 2009. I thought maybe I should do a tour of the new stadium. I tried last year, but getting tickets seemed near impossible. I had it on the list, but I removed it at the last second and replaced it with a visit to Cooperstown to really see where the Yanks rule. I was trying to avoid putting things on the list that I’ve kind of sorta done already.

I made plans to come home for Easter weekend. Now, this is something I never do. Church? Not so much. Baseball? Yes. As my friend Andrea says, her religion is the Yankees, and I have to agree. So I grabbed my brother Levi and my sister Em and we drove to Cooperstown, about 2 hours from where we grew up. It was a cold, rainy Saturday morning and I of course didn’t bring proper footwear. Upstate NY hasn’t realized May is practically here.

 

We headed straight to the Baseball Hall of Fame when we arrived in Cooperstown. There were many other fans of the game milling around. I could see Phillies fans, Red Sox fans and of course plenty of Yankees fans. Right before we entered, the current standings were on display—Yanks 1^st in the AL East and the Red Sox last. The way I like it.

During the tour we gravitated to all the Yankees memorabilia—Babe Ruth memories, the Pinstripe Wall, many World Series rings. All the greats were there, Yogi, Jackie Robinson, Babe, Mickey Mantle. Every team was represented by a locker. In the Yanks one, we had Jeter’s gloves, A-rod’s cleats, a ticket for opening day at the new stadium

After spending a couple of hours of reveling in baseball glory, we headed outside of Cooperstiwb to drink some beer. Cooperstown Brewery was up first. We did a quick tour and tasted a bunch of varieties—Nine Man Ale, Old Slugger, and Benchwarmer to name a few. We were beginning to run out of time and made our way to Ommegang Brewery. Unfortunately google maps failed big time and we couldn’t find the brewery until they were closing. We squeezed in a couple of tastes of Belgium-style beer, like Witte and Hennepin. Since we didn’t get to taste too much, we made our way to Bear Pond Winery since they were open until 7pm. We then had a few tastes of upstate NY wines.

For dinner, we may our way back to Cooperstown and had dinner at the Doubleday Café. Burgers and beer. Yummy. All in all a good trip with baseball, beer, and burgers. And the Yanks beat the Orioles 15-3.