It’s a baseball-kind-of day. We’re in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, best known for the Little League World Series, which is held here every summer. This time of year, when the real World Series for grownups is held somewhere else, you can still come to Williamsport and go to its Little League World Series Museum for your baseball fix. Click here to visit it on-line.
For you dyed-in-the-wool baseball fans, the Major League World Series is scheduled to begin October 24 — and if it goes seven games, will end in November. You’re correct if it seems the season is getting longer and longer. Fifty years ago, I attended a World Series game at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, when the Giants lost to the Yankees in seven games. The first game was on October 4 that year, but there were only 20 teams playing major league baseball at the time. Today there are 30.
As you know from watching “Moneyball,” player salaries have changed a bit, too. In 1962, centerfielder Willie Mays was a stud for the San Francisco Giants, one of the greatest players of all time, in the prime of his career. He played in all 162 games, hit 49 home runs, and batted .304 His salary was $90,000 for the year. By comparison, last year’s centerfielder for the Giants, Andres Torres (who?) had 4 home runs, and batted .221. For his efforts, Torres was paid $2.2 million. One other frame of reference: today’s highest-paid player, Yankee Alex Rodriguez, makes twice as much per game as Mays earned in an entire season. A-Rod is paid $30 million a year. Oh, how times have changed.
A final baseball thought, on two of the best baseball songs ever.
The first is “Centerfield” by John Fogerty (“Put me in coach, I’m ready to play today …”). “Centerfield” is often played between innings at major league games, and you can hear it on a continuous loop at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown New York. Click here to hear/watch Fogerty and Keith Urban play baseball on CMT’s Crossroads series.
Fogerty wrote “Centerfield” after watching the 1984 Major League Baseball All-Star Game from the center field bleachers at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. As Fogerty later told MLB.com, the song “is about baseball, but it is also a metaphor about getting yourself motivated, about facing the challenge of one thing or another.” Click here for the lyrics to “Centerfield.”
Runner-up for best baseball song: “Baseball,” by Michael Franks (“Love is just like baseball, all it is is baseball …”). Click here for its lyrics.
OK, so these songs tell us today must be a day to get ourselves motivated, and a day for love. Let’s ride.
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After continental breakfast at the Williamsport Econo Lodge, on our way out of town, we stumble across an unexpected treasure on Lycoming Creek Road. We stop at the Bob Logue Motor Sports Honda shop to pick up a part for Ray. When we walk in the door, we find a museum of most Honda motorcycle models ever built. The place, which has more than 100 vintage Hondas, calls itself a Classic Showroom. It has three bikes I owned in my younger days, including my first one (1965 S-90), my second one (1967 CL 250 Scrambler) and my last bike before I became a Harley rider (1976 CB 550F).
Ray picks up a replacement light bulb ($4.50) from the parts department, and we move on.
We ride mostly north through rural Pennsylvania, crossing the Susquehanna River — again (we did it yesterday in the dark) — and in Meshoppen, we cross the Roosevelt Highway (US-6). From Meshoppen, we continue north on PA-267 and enter New York about 20 miles south of Endicott, where we stop at the Broadway Diner for a bite. Ray has a burger (diners don’t have spaghetti), I have a gyro.
Endicott is the home of the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open, a Champions (old guys) Tour event held in August. This year’s winner was Willie Wood, who pocketed $270,000 for beating Michael Allen in a playoff. The Dick’s Sporting Goods Open began in 2007. It took the place of the B.C. Open, a now-defunct PGA Tour (young guys) event that was held annually from 1971 to 2006. You may think, as I did, that the B.C. Open should be held in British Columbia, Canada. Au contraire. The B.C. Open was named for a comic strip.
Notables from Endicott:
- Cartoonist Johnny Hart, creator of “B.C.” and “The Wizard of Id.” Every year, Hart brought in a group of cartoonists to play in the B.C. Open Pro-Am, including Jim Davis (“Garfield”), Mike Peters (Pulitzer-prize winning editorial cartoonist), Mort Walker (“Beetle Bailey”), Dik Browne (“Hagar the Horrible”) and others.
- Comedienne Amy Sedaris, known for playing the character Jerri Blank in the TV series, “Strangers With Candy”
- “Twilight Zone” creator Rod Serling, born on Christmas Day in 1924, winner of Emmys, Hugos and Golden Globes for his work
Here’s a Serling connection you may not be aware of: Rod’s brother, Robert Serling, was a long-time journalist who wrote the book “Legend & Legacy: the Story of Boeing and its People.” The book was published in 1991, too soon to chronicle the legend and legacy of Sarah Murr — who, if you didn’t know it, retired from Boeing on July 31, 2012 — after 35 mostly memorable years with the company.
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From Endicott, we head for Binghamton, New York – known as the “Carousel Capital of the World” for its collection of antique carousels. If you ride the five Binghamton-area carousels over the summer, you qualify for a free “I Rode the Carousel Circuit” button. Woo-hoo!
We cross the north branch of the Susquehanna River. riding north along NY-12. We’re in the vicinity of Long Pond State Forest, Ludlow Creek State Forest, Five Streams State Forest, McDonough State Forest, Balsam Swamp State Forest, Beaver Meadow State Forest, Skinner Hill State Forest, and other similarly treed areas. So many forests, so little time.
We’re on our way to Utica, New York, former home of Mouseketeer Annette Funicello, and American Bandstander Dick Clark, who got his start in a mailroom at Utica radio station WUTI.
Why stop in Utica? Good question.
Mostly, it’s a convenient place to park at the end of a 223-mile, 8-hour day. When you plan a ride like this, and you don’t want to camp along the way (we don’t), you look for small cities in the middle of nowhere that have cheap motels. Utica fills that bill, so we’ll shut off our bikes at the luxurious Red Roof Inn ($56.99 tax) and call it a night.
FYI, Utica is located where it is because it was next to the shallowest spot along the Mohawk River, which made it the best place for fording across the river. A little-known fact: the Mohawk River was named after the Mohawk hairstyle. Click here to check it out.
As we enter Utica, we roll on I-790 for eight-tenths of a mile, and are within inches of I-90 (The Governor Thomas E. Dewey Thruway). We are really racking up the Interstate miles.
You can catch up on the local goings on by reading the O-D, as the Utica Observer-Dispatch is known locally. Click here to read today’s news. We will probably read the O-D while staying at the Red Roof Inn ($56.99 tax), since it doesn’t offer complimentary copies of the New York Times.
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Day Seven Summary: Love is just like baseball, following the Susquehanna, Legend and Legacy, the carousel of life. Total miles today: 223. Miles ridden since leaving Tennessee September 21: 1,822
To view today’s complete route from Williamsport, Pennsylvania, to Utica, New York, click here.
What will tomorrow bring? Well, for one thing it’ll be Sarah’s birthday, and I won’t be around to celebrate with her. Who planned this trip, anyway?
Riding With Gary 