On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
In case you missed my not in the Monday OTR post, there’s a change of schedule.
This week we will have 3 Captain C posts instead of the 3 Winter Wren posts, but Winter Wren will be back on the schedule next week. There was a 4th Winter Wren post that never made it through, hence the rescheduling.
This is probably a good time to remind you guys that it’s a good idea to compose your text ahead of time so you can just copy and paste into the OTR form. That way if you are the 1 in 100 where the form has a hiccup, you can re-do the post in a jiffy.
Next Monday is Jan 20 – I may have to ask Albatrossity if he can put together a special all-bird-butts post for Monday morning so we can think of it as Balloon Juice and the entire world of birds mooning the First Felon (FFOTUS) on the day he is sworn in.
Captain C
Of course, one of the main reasons for the Hall of Fame’s existence is to honor those players, managers, and other contributors who have achieved greatness within the game of baseball. Those elected are honored with a bronze plaque with a sculpture of their image, and a brief description of their career and contributions. The Hall contains roughly the top 1% of players, though there is of course much conversation and controversy among baseball fans regarding those at the margins: players (and others) who should have gotten in who haven’t, and vice versa. The next three photosets are of some of these plaques, mostly presented without comment.










raven
Great shots!!
narya
Berra was also part of D-Day landing, IIRC.
raven
@narya: The Netflix doc “It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over” is really good.
Ted Williams was also a fighter pilot in Korea.
Betty
That’s a good lineup. No Babe though?
jonas
I’ll just add a quick plug here for upstate NY and say that even if you’re not interested in baseball, Cooperstown is a really charming village on its own, with lots of great restaurants, stores (some of which aren’t memorabilia-related!), breweries and museums. Kids in particular love the open-air Farmer’s Museum, which recreates an early 19th century village with cute animals and docents showing you crafts like printing, maple candy making (in early spring), blacksmithing, etc.
WaterGirl
@jonas: If you go to the farmer’s museum sometime again, take pictures and share them with us in an OTR post!
p.a
Enjoyed my visit to Cooperstown quite a while back. If you’re a baseball fan I recommend Bill James’ Historical Baseball Abstract(s). Great, especially for the early years (say up thru WW2)
Several updated versions. Great stories, analysis of nicknames- the worse the economy the meaner they were. Not a lot of sabermetrics, IIRC
Trivia Man
@raven: and WW II. Absolute hero who knew how to prioritize. No question he gave his peak baseball years in service to his country. Could be the greatest pure hitter ever seen.
Trivia Man
@Trivia Man: in 1947 he won the Triple Crown… and didnt win MVP. The Boston sportswriter LEFT HIM OFF THE BALLOT COMPLETELY cause ted wouldn’t suck up to him and kiss his ring.
@Trivia Man:
Trivia Man
@Trivia Man: side note on that link. Towards the end it becomes more apparent that most or all of it is AI generated. “Dead Internet” theory gets another brick in the wall.
But he did fly planes in combat in 2 wars and he dld fly with John Glen.
jonas
@WaterGirl: Will do! Except now that our kids are older, we don’t really get out there much anymore. Now it’s mostly the better half and myself checking out microbreweries and tasting cheese at local farms, etc.. The farmer museum used to be a great weekend excursion to let them run around out in the open and see baby animals, though! There’s a marvelous, hand-crafted, old-fashioned carousel there as well.
WaterGirl
@jonas: Sweet memories.
Captain C
@raven: Thanks!
Captain C
@narya: That’s correct, he was on a destroyer or similar such ship providing fire support for the landing, and they were definitely in range of the Nazi shore guns.
Captain C
@p.a: I’ll see if we have it at the library.
Captain C
@jonas: We’re going back this year, and I agree on the non-baseball attractions. Thanks for the museum tip.
ed. for spelling