Latest / The Red Solo Traveler Podcast / They Put the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown for Doubleday. He Was a Cadet at West Point.

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They Put the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown for Doubleday. He Was a Cadet at West Point. · The Red Solo Traveler Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: If you pack up your car and drive to Cooperstown,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: New York, with the intention of standing on the exact
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: patch of grass where baseball was invented, you are basically
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: setting your GPS for a massive lie.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, 100%. It's a total fabrication.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: Right. I mean, you make the pilgrimage to see the
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: legends of the game, but the town itself is, you know,
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: living inside this completely fabricated myth. So Welcome to the
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Red Solo Traveler podcast.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Glad to be here.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: Today, we are taking a travelogue into a really fantastic
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: essay by Louis about visiting the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: And on this journey, we are going to explore the wild,
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: entirely fictional origin story that built the museum and how
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: the exhibits navigate the intense physical reality of the sports history. Plus,
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: exactly how you should approach your visit to this tiny village.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: It's such a fascinating lens for a travel destination. You know,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: usually geography and history are strictly tethered together, right? Yeah, exactly.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Like you go to Gettysburg to stand where the actual
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: battle happened, or you go to Kitty Hawk because the
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: plane literally flew off that specific sand dune.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: We crave that physical connection to a factual past. Right.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: We want the facts. But Cooperstown is, it's entirely different.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Before you even think about buying a ticket, you really
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: have to understand why this massive brick shrine exists. is
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: sitting in a remote village of 2,000 people. I mean,
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: it is miles away from the major league stadiums that
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: actually pay the freight for the sport.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: And to understand that, we have to wind the clock
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: back to 1905, which is where this story takes a
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: turn into what basically looks like a modern corporate PR stunt.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: Lewis's essay brings up the Mills Commission. This was a
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: group tasked with officially settling the debate about where baseball
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: actually came from. Yes.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: The commission was named for the former National League president, A.G. Mills. Now,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: at the time, Henry Chadwick, who was this incredibly influential
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: English-born writer who essentially codified the game and gave us
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: the box score, he was arguing that baseball had evolved
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: from the English game of rounders.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: Okay, for anyone who didn't grow up in the U.K.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: or just isn't familiar with it, what exactly is rounders?
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: So it's a traditional bat and ball game played in England.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: You hit a small, hard casing with a bat, you
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: run around a circuit of boxes, and, you know, you
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: score runs.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: Sounds pretty familiar.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Right. Chadwick was looking at it with a historian's eye
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: and correctly pointed out that baseball was simply an evolution
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: of this older English pastime. Because, I mean, games evolve.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: They rarely just spring out of nowhere.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: Which makes perfect logical sense. But from what I gather
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: in the essay, Albert Goodwill Spalding, who was this massive
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: figure in early baseball and sporting goods, He was not
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: about to let an English writer claim that America's new
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: national pastime was just some imported British hobby.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Not a chance. I mean, Spalding was fiercely nationalistic. He
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: didn't want a slow, messy evolution from Europe.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: That doesn't sell well.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He wanted a definitive sentence for the history books.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: He wanted a strictly American inventor creating the game on
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: American soil in a distinctly American town.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: So they essentially crowdsourced a myth. To give Spalding what
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: he wanted, the commission just relies on a single letter
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: from a mining engineer named Abner Graves.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's one letter.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: And Graves writes in and claims that in 1839, a
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: man named Abner Doubleday laid out a baseball diamond in
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: a pasture in Cooperstown. Now, OK, let's unpack this. I
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: know the name Abner Doubleday from American history, but definitely
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: not from sports. He fired shots in defense of Fort Sumter.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: He was a union general at Gettysburg. But what was
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: he actually doing in 1839?
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Well, in 1839, Abner Doubleday was a cadet at West Point.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: He definitely wasn't laying out baseball diamonds in a pasture
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: in Cooperstown. That is wild. And perhaps the most damning
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: piece of evidence is that Doubleday, who left behind diaries
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: and letters, he was very well documented. He never once
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: in his entire life claimed to have invented baseball.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: Never. It is staggering when you think about it. It's
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: like a brand completely ignoring historical reality because, well, a
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: fake story just looks better on a billboard. They fabricated
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: a hero out of thin air.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Pretty much.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: And the commission, despite all the obvious holes in this story,
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: they published the Cooperstown finding anyway, right around 1907 and 1908.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: They did.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: And that single fabricated paragraph is the foundation that the
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: village of Cooperstown has been standing on ever since.
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: But, you know, a myth can only survive so long
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: without a physical anchor. People need something to actually look at.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: Right. They need an artifact.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And that materializes in the mid-1930s. A local philanthropist
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: named Stephen C. Clark bought this battered, cloth-stuffed baseball that
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: had supposedly been found in a nearby farmhouse trunk.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: And how much did he pay for this historical treasure?
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Five dollars. He paid five dollars for it. He puts
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: it on display in the village. And the president of
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: the National League at the time, Ford Frick, sees this
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: and just loves the idea of creating a permanent shrine.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: They move incredibly fast from that $ 5 stuffed ball to
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: a full-blown institution. They asked the baseball writers to elect
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: a first class in 1936.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Right, the inaugural class.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: And that vote gives us the foundational titans of the game, right?
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Then they have to actually open the building, which brings
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: us to June 12, 1939. And the logistical coordination for
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: this opening day is just brilliant. What do they do?
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: They ensured that absolutely no major league games were scheduled
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: to be played anywhere in the country that day. Wait, really?
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: How did they convince the leagues to just stop playing entirely?
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: In the middle of June, was there pushback from the
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: owners who were, you know, losing out on gate receipts?
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: It was a massive undertaking, sure. But the leagues understood
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: the long-term marketing value. I mean, the centennial... of the
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: supposed 1839 invention was just too big of a promotional opportunity.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: Ah, that makes sense.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: By shutting down the entire sport, they guaranteed that every
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: single sports camera, every newspaper reporter, and every fan's attention
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: had literally nowhere else to look but Cooperstown, New York.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: It's an incredible manipulation of attention, and it worked flawlessly.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: The essay mentions a specific line from Time magazine covering
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: the opening, and it perfectly encapsulates how deeply people bought
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: into the illusion.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Oh, that line is amazing.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: Right. They wrote that the world would little note what
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: Doubleday did at Gettysburg, but it would never forget what
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: he did at Cooperstown.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Think about the weight of that. Yeah. They're completely ignoring
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: his actual monumental historical reality. His role in the defining
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: conflict of American history in favor of a fake sports story.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: It's mind-blowing.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Which really leads us to the core thesis of Louie's
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: essay and our exploration today. The myth is how the
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: shrine got a street address. But the plaques and the
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: genuine history housed inside are why that address still works today.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: Let's follow that transition because it's a fascinating pivot. You
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: drive out to this town built on a tall tale.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: You walk up the steps of 25 Main Street. You
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: buy your admission. How does a museum that literally owes
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: its physical location to a lie actually introduce you to
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: the messy, real history of the sport?
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Well, they definitely don't ease you in with the myth.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: When you walk into the lobby, the very first thing
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: you see is reality. It's a set of three bronze
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: statues cast by Stanley Blyfield, and it's titled Character and Courage.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: That's Jackie Robinson sliding to steal home, Lou Gehrig standing upright,
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: and Roberto Clemente holding the baseball. Right.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: If you come to the museum through the side door
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: of pop culture-like, maybe watched a movie, or you only
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: casually follow the sport, this sculpture is the opening statement.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: It sets the tone immediately.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The building is telling you that the story of
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: this game... is inextricably linked to human struggle, to race,
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: to illness, and to tragedy. And conceptually, the rest of
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: the museum acts as the argument underneath those statues. The
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: exhibits organically pull you into the deeper, often uncomfortable truths
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: of the game.
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: Especially in the Souls of the Game exhibit.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: Yes, particularly there.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: This part of the essay is so compelling because the
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: history of baseball is really the history of a game
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: that had to be invented multiple times. You know, first
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: as a local pastime, then as a rigid business, and
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: then slowly and under heavy systemic protest opened up to
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: the very people it had explicitly locked out.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: And Souls of the Game doesn't present this as just
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: a quiet, polite corridor of glass cases. It is a
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: deeply immersive space. You are surrounded by the voices of
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: black baseball.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: It's very auditory.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: Yes. You hear from the visionary owners, the players, the
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: women who ran the front offices, and the men who
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: barnstormed for decades before the Negro National League even had
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: a formal name in 1920.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: Let's clarify barnstorming for a second. We hear that term
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: a lot, but what did that actually look like.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: On the ground? So barnstorming meant you didn't have the
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: luxury of a set schedule in a major league stadium.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: These teams would travel relentlessly, pulling into random towns, playing
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: exhibition games against local squads, just to earn a share
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: of the gate receipts. Wow.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: Just grinding it out.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Completely. They were entirely locked out of organized baseball, which
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: was the official segregated structure of the major and minor leagues.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: So they had to create their own economy on the road,
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: often in places that wouldn't even let them eat in
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: the local restaurants.
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: And what really struck me in Louis' breakdown of this
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: exhibit is the framing of Jackie Robinson. He isn't presented
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: as the triumphant conclusion. Jackie is the hinge of this story,
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: not the end of the book.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: It is a vital distinction. The museum does not pretend
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: that when Robinson stepped onto Ebbets Field in 1947, some
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: magic wand was waved and racism just vanished from the sport.
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: Right. The struggle didn't end there.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: Far from it. The exhibit meticulously walks you through the
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: incredibly messy reentry of Black players into organized baseball. It
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: covers the economic damage done to the Negro Leagues once
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: the majors started cherry picking their top talent and the
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: arguments that raged on for years.
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: That context is so important.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: So when Major League Baseball made headlines in 2020 by
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: officially elevating the 1920 to 1948 Negro Leagues to Major
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: League status. It wasn't some shocking revelation to historians. It
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: was literally just the official paperwork finally catching up to
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: the reality that this specific room in Cooperstown had been
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: teaching for years.
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: It's a space where history is demanding to be heard
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: rather than just passively observed. But a museum dedicated to
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: a sport that is being played tonight across the country
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: can't solely rely on bronze statues and archival audio. The
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: building requires proof that the game is still breathing right now.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Which is how you transition from those deep historical archives
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: into the vivid present tense.
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: The Your Team Today exhibit. You walk into this area
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: and the sensory shift is immediate. You leave behind the
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: sepia tones and step into blazing saturated color.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: It's a great contrast. It really is.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: It's 30 glass lockers, one for every franchise, dedicated purely
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: to recent memory. And they are curated brilliantly. You look
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: at the Mets locker, for example, and it isn't just
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: generic jerseys. They have David Wright's helmet from his emotional
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: final game in 2018. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. And they
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: have the actual trumpet, the physical instrument from the year closer.
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: Edwin Diaz's bullpen entrance became a viral pop culture phenomenon.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: They even have the baseball from the Mets 2022 combined
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: no hitter against Philadelphia. And, you know, a combined no
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: hitter takes five different pitchers, which means there isn't one
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: single star's name you can put on that ball. It
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: represents the collective chaos of modern baseball. Exactly.
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: It's raw, recent memory. And why is this so crucial
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: to the experience? Because it bridges the gap between you
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: and the untouchable legends. It reminds the visitor that the
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: ticket they bought last Tuesday is part of the same continuum.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: It connects you directly to the history.
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: And right nearby, you see the massive promotional posters for
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: the newest incoming class. For 2024, that's Adrian Beltre, Todd Helton,
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: Joe Maurer, and manager Jim Leyland. It is this sudden
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: jolt of the contemporary right before you have to descend
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: into the permanent roster.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: Because eventually every visitor has to face the plaque gallery.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: The room everyone thinks they understand until they actually step
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: inside it. So let's clear up a massive physical misconception
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: for anyone planning a trip. When you walk into that
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: grand oak line gallery, you are not looking at 3D busts.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: You are looking at bronze plaques.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Right. It is an incredibly specific, constrained medium. You have
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: a sculpted face, a cap logo that the hall often
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: has to negotiate with the player, and a tiny paragraph.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: It's so small. It is. That paragraph is forced to
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: summarize an entire, complex human career in a space smaller
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: than a newspaper box score.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: Which brings up a really intense dynamic for the visitor.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: What happens when you walk into that room and you
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: see a plaque for someone whose life off the field
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: was notoriously messy? Or, conversely, you start scanning the walls
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: looking for your childhood hero, the player whose poster hung
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: over your bed, and you realize they aren't there.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is how the institution handles that tension.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: Which is how?
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: They don't. A Hall of Fame does not offer you
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: an apology. And they don't put up an asterisk or
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: a disclaimer. They cast the medal, they hang it on
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: the wall, and they force you to stand there and
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: sit with the ambiguity.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: It sounds intensely visceral. Louis mentions in the essay that
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: you can literally hear people arguing and whispers in that room.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: Fathers arguing with sons, friends debating statistics.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Because that fight, the whispers about who is missing, the
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: debates about players with mathematically flawless numbers but deeply damaged legacies,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: that fight is older than the building itself.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's baseball.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: And importantly, it is the entire point of the gallery.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: You shouldn't walk into this space treating it like you're
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: running a corporate ballot meeting, tallying up who deserves to
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: be in or out.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: It's not an audit.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Exactly. If you only travel to Cooperstown to confirm your
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: own childhood rankings, you'll walk through that gallery in 20
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: minutes and leave disappointed. You have to let the room
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: be what it is intended to be. A permanent physical
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: record of our endless cultural arguments remains. about greatness.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: It requires emotional effort to be in that room. And honestly,
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: it requires deliberate physical effort just to get to that
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: room in the first place. You do not just stumble
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: into Cooperstown on a road trip. Geography strictly dictates the
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: terms of your visit.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: It really does. It is not designed for casual foot traffic.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: So for the traveler looking to make this journey, let's
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: break down the logistics. There is no interstate highway running
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: through this village. It sits at the south end of
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: Otsego Lake. And take note of the spelling on the map.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: You know, it's Otsego, not Oswego. If you're flying in,
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: Albany Airport is about 90 minutes away, and you have
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: to treat that winding two-lane country drive as part of
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: the ticket price.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: And there's a golden rule for scheduling your trip, which
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Louis stresses in the essay. Skip induction weekend in late July.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: Seriously, unless standing on a hot, crowded hillside for the
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: actual induction ceremony is the singular goal of your trip,
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: Avoid that weekend entirely.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: It's chaos.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: It turns a quiet village of 2,000 people into a
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: gridlocked crowd that the local infrastructure simply cannot absorb. So
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: go on a Thursday in May. Go on a Tuesday
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: in September. Let the crowds happen to someone else so
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: you can actually experience the quiet reverence of the gallery.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: And when you've finished navigating all three floors of bronze, history,
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: and debate, there is a perfect way to decompress just
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: a few miles south of the village in the town
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: of Milford.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: This brings us to Brewery Omegang, and this isn't just
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: a place to grab a drink. It's a fascinating thematic
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: contrast to the museum.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Opened in 1997 by Don Feinberg and Wendy Littlefield, Omegang
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: sits on land that literally used to be a hop farm.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's cool.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they built it with Belgian partners on a traditional
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: farmhouse footprint. They deliberately chose a valley that New York
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: State had once marketed as a little Belgium. Due to
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: its geography.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: The taproom is the ultimate final stop for this travelogue.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: Think about the contrast. Cooperstown will sell you the manufactured
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: American baseball myth on literally every single porch and storefront.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: It's everywhere.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: But Omegang is doing something entirely different. They are genuinely
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: delivering an authentic slice of Belgium. Louis recommends the Grand Cru.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: For those unfamiliar, a quadruple is a dark, heavy Belgian
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: ale that usually hits you like a truck.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: But this one is aged in bourbon barrels, and somehow
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: it comes back drinking incredibly clean. It isn't aggressively boozy
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: at all.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: And you pair that Grand Cru with their buttermilk chicken
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: and waffles, which is loaded with maple, cream, strawberry jam, bacon,
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: and scallion.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: It eats like a major life decision, not a snack.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: It perfectly stands up to the weight of a heavy
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: quadruple beer. It's just the ideal decompression zone to wash
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: off the heavy manufactured Americana you've been soaking in all day.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Because both of these realities can exist simultaneously on the
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: same trip. I mean, the Hall of Fame exists because
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: a commission fabricated a story, pointed at a map, and
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: demanded a shrine.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: The brewery exists because two importers just really liked the
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: drive and wanted to build something authentic in a quiet valley.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: The Hall of Fame isn't going to fix your favorite
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: team's bullpen, and it certainly isn't going to settle your
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: bar arguments about who belongs on a bronze plaque. But
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: what it does beautifully is put the invented hometown and
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: the real breathing, complicated roster of the game into the
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: exact same brick building, and it lets you walk the
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: distance between them.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, it leaves
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: you with something profound to mull over long after you
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: drive away from Main Street.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: What?
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: Think about the immense power of shared physical spaces that
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: are built entirely on a fiction. Even if the foundational
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Bedrock Abner Double Days pasture is an absolute myth, millions
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: of visitors have brought their authentic arguments, their raw emotions,
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: and their deeply personal childhood memories to those bronze plaques.
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: That's a great point.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: At what point does a fabricated tourist destination absorb so
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: much genuine human passion that the myth itself stops mattering?
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: The origin may be completely fake, but the reverence you
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: feel standing in that gallery is undeniably real.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: The myth gave it the street address, but you, the
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: fans making the pilgrimage, you give it the soul. Thank
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: you for joining us on this journey on the Red
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: Solo Traveler podcast. We highly encourage you to seek out
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: and read Luis's full essay to get even more of
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: these incredible historical details. Until our next travelogue, keep questioning
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: the map, and we'll see you out on the road.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Thank you.