BY SCOTT MORGANROTH
The last three weeks have been a whirlwind.
But not a bad whirlwind as my most recent trip was in the making since My wife and I returned from the Field of Dreams after visiting this attraction located in Dyersville, Iowa during the World Series on October 31, 2021.
I told my wife since we took the Field of Dreams off the bucket list, I will take her to Baseball Heaven in Cooperstown, New York. I mentioned to her that this is a very alluring place and she would never see anything like it.
Many years ago, I told my grandmother that I would remove the words “I can’t wait until” because I knew that the calendar moves forward and that day would come.
That day to go to Cooperstown did come on the night of August 2, 2022.
The weeks leading up to this featured Miami Marlins games along with Inter-Miam Soccer Matches. There were lots of podcasts as well.
The day of the trip took me to Coral Gables, Florida where I attended a Miami Hurricanes Media Day which was extremely productive.
That night, I did an episode of 108 Stitches, Baseball Talk with Lou Landers and Rick Curti.
At 12:30 AM, My wife and I took off on our journey. I had lots of things I wanted to accomplish when we hit Upstate, NY.
Before the trip, I told My Miami Marlins colleague Craig Minervini and another analyst that I was going to take out this trip in one day driving through the night.
Craig didn’t doubt that I could do it since I told him a I have an outrageous mentality when I take road trips that I’ve been doing for years.
He did tell me to download a hotel application in case I needed to stop, which I gladly accepted his advice.
I did make the drive in 23 hours and this averted having to rent an additional hotel room on the road. We arrived at 11:30 PM.
We stayed at the Red Carpet Inn in Cooperstown from August 3-12th. This was a great hotel and just a few miles from the Baseball Hall of Fame.
What we accomplished during this time was unbelievable.
On the Cooperstown portion of the trip, I did 10 videos, and two podcasts in the room.
There were eight short videos and two Sports Exchanges that ran 30 minutes.
One Sports Exchange was done at My hotel with a person that I met on Twitter and another one was at Doubleday Field in downtown Cooperstown with a guy that I met from Pittsburgh.
We did a short video with a youngster that we met outside of the Baseball Hall of Fame before the museum opened at 10 AM, who was sporting a Miami Marlins jersey because he liked it and him and his father were from Canada.
You talk about situations that fall into your lap.
The Pittsburgh situation and youngster worked out well.
The one addition of the Sports Exchange was recorded on Saturday, August 6 and then My wife and I took a 20 minute trip to Oneonta, NY and did a video at the stadium which used to have a team in the New York Penn League, which was unfortunately contracted by MLB when it scaled down Minor League Baseball.
This video, which is in this story, was the home of the Oneonta, Yankees and Tigers.
Check out this video because Miami Marlins Manager Don Mattingly played in the stadium for the Yankees.
What made this Oneonta trip possible was I told my wife, who wanted to go the Niagara Falls in a day trip that we could go here, but we wouldn’t return at a later date. Or she could pass on Niagara Falls, which is a four hour drive each way, at another time and we could combine it with a Detroit, Toronto, CA and we would spend a a few days at the Falls.
I told her if she made this decision, our last day in the state that we could go to New York City and she could experience the Big Apple, plus we could take I-95 South Home.
I’ve told her many times this was a brilliant move!
Our weekend in Cooperstown saw a lot of sight seeing in the area and then we would do more baseball activities on Monday August 8th. We did a lot of videos in the Hall of Fame and throughout the trip had a Restaurant Tour.
The majority of these videos were under 10 minutes.
You can access them by Subscribing to the South Florida Tribune You Tube Channel at no cost.
When we got to New York City, we did two videos outside the New Yankees Stadium and across the street at Old Yankee Stadium.
We were fortunate to have close friends in the area that took us to the Bronx.
There is a video planned in the future that will involve a New York City Tour Guide so stay tuned.
Outside of our Hampton Inn Hotel in East Rutherford, New Jersey, I did my weekly radio show in Oakland, CA.
At this point, lets go to the scoreboard.
In the State of New York, there were 12 videos, two podcasts and a radio show. I was on the air 15 times with another show on the way.
When we left the Metropolitan New York Area, I drove 19 hours down I-95 South and arrived home at 3:30 PM on Sunday, August 14, 2022.
But my real Baseball Journey for Myself concluded on Wednesday, August 17 when I covered the Miami Marlins vs the San Diego Padres.
To go along with the three videos included in this story, I was involved in the Marlins pre-game Availability with Mattingly. I certainly asked my fair share of questions.
I talked to Mattingly about my trip to New York, Upstate and the City after the Media Availability.
And I had to see Minervini and my other friend Jessica Blaylock that were concerned about my head injuries all year that I made it back home with no shortage of stories.
The Marlins lost to the Padres 10-3, but in this case, the score didn’t matter.
The stories I told to my friends did matter!
The Final Driving numbers on the road were 42 hours on the interstates and the odometer on my job added 3,159 miles. There were two hours of sightseeing. My wife did the majority of the driving in town beginning Sunday, August 7.
One other thing worth mentioning was the Field of Dreams Game featuring the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds took place on Thursday, August 11 and we watched a lot of it at a Sports Bar in Cooperstown.
You talk about coming full circle, this was incredible.
The Cooperstown idea started from the Field of Dreams Movie Site in Dyersville, Iowa and here we were watching the game in Baseball Heaven.
It doesn’t get better than this!
The New York to Miami Baseball Marathon was completed!
Scott Morganroth can be reached at southfloridatribune@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @TribuneSouth.
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