There are two rules on the Baseball Trip: 1) No interstate highways and 2) No chain restaurants.
Monday morning we drive to beat the rain. We cannot outrun the heat. 95 degrees and riding in pools of sweat. Indiana is corn and soy but the towns offer a welcome respite to the flatness of everything. Limestone courthouses center the towns with their well-manicured lawns and perfectly symmetrical gardens. A small boy wielding a Wagner power-sprayer in the bucket of a cherry-picker coats a silo silver - gleaming in the hot sun - for his old man who sits in the cab. Ice cream shoppes offer malts and cold drinks and cones and try our special double cheeseburger it's the best in three counties! A young man and woman share a smoke on break at the metal plant and, crushing the butts into the gravel simoultaneously, walk together as they head back in to work. Are they friends? Lovers? Will he buy her a cold one down at Johnny's Tap when their shift is over? The Palace theatre now offers dance lessons but the marquee is wonderfully, respectfully preserved in all its former glory.
Lunch in the Streamliner Restaurant, established 1939. A BLT never tasted so good.
Rochester, Indiana, courthouse; taken from The Streamliner Reastaurant.
Listening to Blonde on Blonde-
Random observation from my friend Randy: "This is a summer album."
Also from Randy:
"Fifteen miles to the Ohio state line. Hmmm...not the route we're taking."
We do find Ohio, eventually, and it is much the same as Indiana. Time is short if we want to make Columbus by 7:00 for the Clippers game. Columbus is the Triple-A affiliate of the Cleveland Indians, and it is our first stop on the Baseball Trip. We drive headlong into a nasty storm pelting us with outsized raindrops and howling winds. Roll up the windows. We are one half hour late, but it doesn't matter; the storm has beaten us here and the game is delayed. For two hours. Soaking wet but enjoying the cool. I saw Columbus score three runs on wild pitches in one inning. I have never seen that before. You would think it would be an easy win, but no, they gave up 4 runs in the ninth to let the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees tie the game. Some guy named Jared Head hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth to win it for the Clippers. The 150 people left in the stadium empty out onto barren streets at 12:15am.
Favorite signs:
- The Fish Truck Will Be Here Tomorrow
- Bud's Guns and Boots
Favorite city names:
- Bippus, IN
- Toto, IN
- Tocsin, IN
More observations from Randy:
"Want to visit the Swiss Heritage Village? Too bad, we missed it."
"Huntington, Indiana, home of the Dan Quayle Museum. Must be closet-sized."
Rolled hay outside Allentown, OH
Tomorrow, Pittsburgh. Major League.
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