Crackerjack Memories

Baseball passion cuts deeply in New England, where being manager of the Boston Red Sox is the most scrutinized job in the six states. The earliest written mention of the game in the United States was a 1791 ordinance in Pittsfield, Mass. that banned playing it within 80 yards of the town meeting house. After the American Industrial Revolution was born in Pawtucket, the game became religion in mill cities up and down the East Coast, where immigrant communities spent precious leisure hours playing the sport – while their rich robber baron overlords in places like Newport preferred yachting, polo, golf, tennis and rambling around in horseless carriages.

Few books capture the relationship between baseball and the working-class players and fans hooked by the game better than Dan Barry’s “Bottom of the 33rd,” subtitled “Hope, Redemption and Baseball’s Longest Game.” Barry, a national columnist for the New York Times and former Providence Journal writer, revisits April 19, 1981, a cold and raw night in Pawtucket, when the Rochester Red Wings and Pawtucket Red Sox played the longest game in professional baseball history – a game that didn’t end until later that summer after being mercifully suspended at the end of the 32nd inning.

It’s a book full of gems, and its accordion-like structure, in which we experience a moment imbedded in the game – an at-bat, a player on base, a pitcher toeing the rubber – before pulling back as the author frames the life, moving from boyhood dreams to (mostly) broken dreams, captures the hard road and loss of innocence for the many who don’t make it. Rhode Islanders will enjoy the local history and colorful details that bring the book to life, with references to Pawtucket landmarks like the Mei-King, the Modern Diner, the Wiener Genie and McCoy Stadium’s slow transformation from dive to minor league field of dreams.

Barry captures sense of place beautifully, as one short sequence illustrates:

Hope, after all, is the motto of Rhode Island. Hope has a seat on the public buses, those thirty-five-foot green whales, their insides musty with urine at certain hours of the day, sighing through their blowholes as they stop and start past machine shops and old mills. One of the drivers, Scott Molloy, who will soon embark upon a long career in academia, is occasionally assigned the Pawtucket route. And for all the urban despair he sees, especially late at night, when that despair assumes the drape of gloom, he is struck by a small group of ragtag Pawtucket regulars, a couple of white guys, a black guy, and a woman, who routinely make the transfer to the dog track in Lincoln. Broken people, really, but made whole somehow by one another, and by the shared hope of a winning day at the track – of returning home on a RIPTA bus with a hundred-dollar score on a two-dollar bet. Never happens. Maybe tomorrow.

For lifelong Red Sox fans, there is much to savor, even if it is mostly painful memories. Playing for Rochester during baseball’s longest game was Cal Ripken, Jr., who would be the sport’s golden child in the majors, breaking Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games streak and quite possibly saving MLB from years of apathy following revelations of historic records shattered with the help of steroids from some of the game’s biggest stars. Playing for Pawtucket that night were Wade Boggs, Bruce Hurst, Marty Barrett, Rich Gedman and Bobby Ojeda, all of whom would meet a few years later when Ojeda’s Mets would defeat a Red Sox team made up in part of former PawSox teammates in a World Series that wrote another dramatic chapter in Boston's litany of epic collapses. Here’s how Barry writes it:

All of this is five years in the future, and far, far from Pawtucket. That ground ball hit by Wilson; that error made by Buckner; that series-ending, knife-in-the-heart moment when Jesse Orosco launches his glove high into the New York night after striking out Marty Barrett. Marty is here now, harvesting and tossing away the infield pebbles that might lead to bad hops around second base. And Wade Boggs, who will weep in the Boston dugout after that World Series, is here, muttering curfew, curfew, isn’t there any such thing as a curfew. And Rich Gedman, who will be unable to block an errant Bob Stanley pitch in the 10th inning of that fateful Game Six, allowing the Mets to tie the game, is in the bullpen, having left the game hours ago. And Bobby Ojeda, Hurst’s brother in the slightly odd fraternity of left-handers, somehow convinced Joe Morgan to let him go home a few innings ago. Ojeda will also appear in the 1986 World Series, but for the New York Mets. In the moments leading up to the climactic seventh game of the World Series games, the two former teammates will spot each other, one in a Red Sox uniform, one in a Mets uniform, and their eyes will lock in wordless communication, conveying so much, including: Pawtucket.
Of all the Shea Stadium revelry that followed the last out of the World Series, Ojeda will remember one moment above the rest. He sees them now, two Red Sox players making their way through the champagne-soaked chaos of the Mets jubilant clubhouse, through a party at their expense. Boston’s starting battery for Game Seven: Bruce Hurst and Rich Gedman, his Pawtucket brothers, coming to hug him and offer their heartfelt, heartbroken congratulations.
“I won’t ever, ever forget it,” Ojeda will say.

What is your favorite McCoy Stadium memory?

Santa sighting

Earlier this week, just a few short months after passing Pogo Dave on the highways of Rhode Island, I discovered another Rhody original whizzing along the asphalt artery of I-95 – Santa George. Also known as George Martin, owner of a Rhode Island vanity plate that reads “SANTA,” Santa George zoomed by me at a high-octane 80-plus reindeer-miles-per-hour on his way home to his summer North Pole in North Smithfield on his day off from Theatre By The Sea duties in Matunuck, where this month he is playing the Padre in “Man of La Mancha.”

On Independence Day Monday you can see Santa George riding in the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council’s “Polar Express” float at the Bristol Fourth of July Parade. After that he’ll appear in the Pine Acres Resort Christmas in July. Apparently, there’s no off-season for Santa. Look up “Santas for Hire” in Rhode Island and you’ll find Santa Lester and Santa James, both from Warwick, also in the mix for whatever stirs your eggnog. (Just fill out a Santa Request Form.)

In light of last Monday’s posting on the Believe It Tour, it appears that the Folklore component of Rhody Believeitology is alive and well with the likes of Santa George, Love 22 and Pogo Dave roaming around or beyond the state. Santa George has been spreading Christmas cheer for more than 30 years, including the last 11 as a Real Bearded Santa. (He’s listed No. 1322 on the National Beard Registry and is a past member of the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas.)

You can follow Santa George on Twitter or My Space. Or just wait until Christmas.

What is your favorite Rhode Island vanity plate?

[Blogger’s note: Posting early because of Monday’s Fourth of July holiday, when I expect to vanish into a world that is half-hammock, half-cooler.]

'Blood Simple' Meets 'Complex World'

The Believe It Tour came to Rhode Island last Friday to host a vampire-themed blood drive at the R.I. Blood Center and celebrate the season premiere of HBO’s “True Blood.” The company promotes something called “Believeitology” and encourages exploration of the weird, folkloric and supernatural – all in good fun.

There are five fields of study: Cryptozoology (study of “cryptids,” or animal-like creatures such as Bigfoot, Mothman, the Loch Ness Monster and Chupacabra); Paranormal (mostly ghosts and hauntings); Extraterrestrial (aliens and UFOs); Monsters (zombies, vampires, dragons, werewolves, mummies or any creatures bent on destroying humanity); and Folklore (the beliefs, rituals and stories contained within a culture, including such seasonal and holiday customs as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Green Man).

Believe It Tour (or BIT as we’ll call it from now on) is a national organization but it’s hard to imagine a better place for them to detour than Rhody, home to the grandmaster of weird fiction, H.P. Lovecraft, two Roto-Rooter plumbers turned Ghost Hunters and enough legends of vampires, devils and phantom ships to fill a crypt. Rhode Island has its own state folklorist in Michael Bell. Providence cemeteries are sometimes converted into public art galleries. Edgar Allan Poe once spent a few months pining for a lost love on Benefit Street. Back when Rhode Island was a colony, records of visits by ghosts, witches and devils were legion. Zombie walks occur with increasing regularity in the capital city. Somewhere a few years back in Hope Valley, a Rhode Island couple converted an empty strip mall store into an extraterrestrial reporting center.

Here’s a guarantee: Spend a day walking through Providence and you’ll run into a cryptid. Probably more than one. It may not have a fancy name like Clam Man or Swamp Yankee Thing but you can be sure that it will be only vaguely human – although, oddly enough, quite often erudite.

What is your favorite example of Rhode Island folklore?

Our Cup Runneth Over

The Bear came out of hibernation, and suddenly 39 New England winters of discontent just melted, as if by magic, like the moment in “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” when Aslan returns to Narnia. The Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup last Wednesday night, and ever since it has been a nonstop love-fest between the fans and the team. The game 7 win, the plane ride back from Vancouver, the Stanley Cup popping up in neighborhood bars everywhere, the Rolling Rally on duck boats through Boston and streets lined by more than a million fans, and the surreal scene at Fenway Park yesterday, culminating in Bruins wearing Red Sox caps throwing out first pitches to Red Sox wearing Bruins caps. As celebrations of tribal euphoria go, it will be hard to top.

And that’s saying something for a region that has been blessed to see seven world championships from its four major sports teams in less than a decade. The Patriots (three Super Bowls), Red Sox (two World Series titles), Celtics (one NBA finals trophy) and Bruins (one Stanley Cup) have accomplished something that no group of teams in any city or region in America can claim. Boston is Banner Town, and now the Bruins legacy has another piece of hardware, adding a glint of silver to the generations of stories spanning Eddie Shore to Milt Schmidt to Bobby Orr to Cam Neely to Tim Thomas.

We’ve said it before when the B's were alternating seasons of heartbreak and futility. Even though basketball was invented in Springfield, Mass., and the modern American gridiron version of football evolved out of games on the Boston Common, where the Oneida Football Club of Boston became the first organized team to play any kind of football in the United States, this is a hockey and baseball region first and foremost, representing our winter and summer souls. The Red Sox are the oldest team still playing in Boston, a charter member of the American League, winners of the first World Series, a storybook franchise playing in a storybook park. The Bruins are the second-oldest, one of the Original Six, and the first club from the United States to join the NHL.

Yesterday at the Fens, the Bruins were the toast of the Olde Towne. Speakers blared team anthems: “Dirty Water” by The Standells, played after every Bruins (and Red Sox) win; “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” by The Dropkick Murphys; “Black and Yellow” by Wiz Khalifa (apologies to Pittsburgh fans, since the anthem was written for them; then again, the Penguins took the Bruins colors when they came into the league, so maybe we can call it even); and most enjoyably, “Nutty” (a.k.a. “The Nut Rocker”) by The Ventures, a surf-rock instrumental version of “The Nutcracker Suite” beloved to all fans that grew up watching Bobby Orr and The Big, Bad Bruins through the fuzzy static and twitching rabbit ears of Channel 38. To top it off, during the Red Sox’ romp over the Brewers, every time Boston scored a run fans heard the Bruins’ goal celebration of a foghorn followed by Zombie Nation’s “Kernkraft 400” sample from the soundtrack of “Shaun of the Dead.” (Even the Celtics were represented, with Ray Allen sitting in the box seats with his children next to the Red Sox dugout.)

Great stuff. And the Stanley Cup, the world’s greatest sporting trophy (ah, the stories it could tell…), will be starring all summer in a local version of “Where’s Waldo?” called “Where’s Stanley?” We’ve already seen it on a rooftop apartment and in a baby stroller in the North End, at Tia’s on the waterfront, Stella on the South End, at Gypsy Bar, Foxwoods Casino and even the pitcher’s mound at Fenway Park.

Amazing. Summer starts tomorrow and everyone is still talking hockey. Earlier this spring, while trying to get some sleep at 3 a.m. at Blackwoods campground in Acadia, Maine, I couldn’t help eavesdropping at the campfire conversation next to me, a dozen or so young people talking excitedly about the Bruins-Tampa Bay series. The next morning, at Trailhead Café in Bar Harbor, one after another Bruins fan came in, asking the owner whether the B’s could contain Vancouver’s dynamic Sedin twins (they could) and whether Timmy Thomas, the University of Vermont graduate who spent the early part of his career sweating it out in Finland and Sweden and minor-league outposts such as Birmingham, Ala., and Houston and Hamilton, Ontario, could summon up one more stellar series (he could). After Wednesday’s victory, Sen. John Kerry phoned a sports talk radio show in Boston (J.K. from D.C.? The Senator from a van down by the Potomac?) just to exult in the triumph and relive some of its highlights.

Part of the reason for such universal joy about this year’s team is how unexpected it was, following so many seasons of epic collapses, Game 7 losses, high expectations dashed and – some years – little to root for. In that way, it was like the Patriots winning their first Super Bowl and the Red Sox toppling the Yankees then sweeping the Cardinals for their first World Series title in 86 years. Like those seasons – the Snow Game, the Tuck Rule, Adam Vinatieri’s Greatest Field Goal Ever (45 yards in a blizzard), followed by an overtime kick and winning the Super Bowl as time expired for the Pats; the Dave Roberts steal, Big Papi walk-offs and Curt Schilling’s Bloody Sock game for the Sox – this Bruins year had the stuff of magic about it. Tim Thomas’s Greatest Save Ever (“stick save and a beauty!”) against the Lightning. Bobby Orr waving the giant, black-and-gold No. 18 banner in honor of injured Bruin Nathan Horton. Former Providence Bruin Brad Marchand (forever known as “Marshmont” to loyal listeners of 98.5 The Sports Hub, the B’s flagship station) completing the holy trinity of hockey antagonism in 30 seconds, beginning with a Kevin McHale-like clothesline of one Canuck, followed by a ducking up-and-under to topple another oncoming skater, then an immediate fists-up skirmish with a third Vancouver player. Horton smuggling melted Garden ice and pouring it on the rink in Vancouver just prior to Game 7. Or the stoic captain Zdeno Chara, who stands 7-feet on skates, hoisting the Cup higher than it has ever been lifted before and uttering a Slovakian primal scream.

What was your favorite moment of the Bruins’ run to the Stanley Cup?

Remembering the Tent

In “The Tent: Life in the Round,” a documentary of the late, lamented Warwick Musical Theatre, one scene shows comedian Howie Mandel engaged in a battle of wits with a moth. The moth chases Mandel around the revolving stage before settling on his crotch, prompting an inspired sequence of physical comedy and more than one hysterically improvised one-liner. Then the moth, aglow in applause, takes its act to the audience and alights on the bare thigh of a woman in the front row. Mandel calls security over for help and together the comedian and the teenage staff member plot the best way to disarm the insect.

It’s a great Rhody moment, the summertime moth stealing the show from the headliner as if to remind everyone in the room not to get too full of themselves. Even better, Mandel played along enthusiastically, losing himself completely in the moment, recognizing the rich potential for comedy in the absurdity as the audience roared.

That was the thing about the Tent. Just like the summer musicals at the old barn in Matunuck, where moths join the antics on stage, lightning bugs illuminate the parking lot and coyotes sometimes howl in harmony to the score, the rough-and-ready venue carved out of a former Warwick cow pasture brought celebrities down to earth. Following up on last year’s hit exhibition featuring Rocky Point Amusement Park, the Warwick Museum of Art is presenting “Life in the Round,” a look back at the legacy of the Tent, which operated from the 1950s to the 1990s, bringing Broadway shows, pop crooners, country musicians, TV stars, Vegas acts, wrestlers and comedians to the only place in Rhode Island you’d ever see them.

The show, which runs through July 29, will have an opening reception on Friday, June 24 from 7 to 9 p.m. Comprising memorabilia from the personal collection of promoter Larry Bonoff, whose parents, Barbara and Buster, founded the place, the show positively drips with nostalgia. Ephemera includes playbills, posters, schedules and photographs of the big stars, including publicity stills with autographs and handwritten sentiments and backstage snapshots of Bonoff and the likes of George Carlin, Jerry Seinfeld, Barbara Mandrell, the Smothers Brothers and Huey Lewis & The News. The old color seating chart and some of the original chairs are on display along with signs and T-shirts. The DVD documentary plays several times daily. Like last year’s Rocky Point show, the exhibition’s value lies mostly in its carefree ride down memory lane. For Rhode Islanders of a certain vintage whose summers always included a taste of Broadway, Vegas or Hollywood between chowders and clam cakes, the Tent – and its uncomfortable seats, stifling heat and scene-stealing moths – will be forever missed.

What is your favorite memory of the Tent?

Wild, Wild Life

Rhode Island, unlike South Africa, doesn’t have a Big Five moving about beyond the confines of Roger Williams Park Zoo. There’s no Cape buffalo, rhinoceros, elephant, leopard or lion to watch out for…although some locals still swear that mountain lions roam in the wilds of Matunuck and Hopkinton. Any talk of a Little Five would have to start with the quahog and the Rhode Island Red, and perhaps include the endangered American burying beetle, a species that lives on Eastern Standard Time only on Block Island (and a Massachusetts island to which it has been introduced) and an insect that warrants its own headquarters in Rhody.

Unlike the South African quintet, the Rhode Island candidates don’t pose much of a hazard to the careless observer. You won’t find them hanging on the walls of private lodges or exaggerated in Big Game conversations at the neighborhood Elks or Lions. But there is one creature that deserves more respect than it gets in this state: the tick. By all accounts (and “by all” I mean generally a few friends and neighbors) this has been a terrible tick year already in Rhode Island (and by “terrible” I mean there’s a lot of ’em around). And given the damage they can wreak on human life, through debilitating afflictions including Lyme disease and other vector-borne illnesses, having a state full of ticks during beach-and-backyard grilling season is like the summer thundercloud that follows us wherever we go.

Fortunately, Rhode Island has Dr. Thomas Mather, University of Rhode Island entomologist and director of the TickEncounter Resource Center and URI’s Center for Vector-Borne Disease, to tackle the tick problem. Mather raises tick awareness through solid science, detailed reporting, sobering statistics, helpful tips and a healthy dose of good humor to bring more people to the cause of preventing serious diseases like Lyme, babesiosis and anaplasmosis.

The fifth annual Big Tick Gala will be held on Friday from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at the Roger Williams Park Botanical Center in Providence. The fund-raiser will include a silent auction, tick-bite prevention “marketplace,” speaking program, live comedy and a custom martini dubbed the “tick-tini.” The bug-inspired cocktail is the latest creative venture from Mather, who a few years back helped sell the state legislature on a “Scratch the Tick” instant lottery ticket to raise money for the cause. (Folks in Hollywood want to see their names in bright lights on a marquee or in stars in cement but it’s a bigger honor in Rhode Island to find your way onto a scratch lottery ticket.) Mather doesn’t have his own TV series yet, but maybe he should.

What animals would you look for on a Rhode Island safari?

Mascot mania

Once the purview of sports teams and colleges, mascots have become ubiquitous in Rhode Island. We all know the Big Blue Bug, the crouching giant termite off I-95 that welcomes drivers to and from Providence and does double-duty as the mascot for New England Pest Control. The Providence College Friars had Dalmatians serve as mascots before introducing a live-action, bald-headed, big-bellied Friar that routinely patrolled Schneider Arena and the old Providence Civic Center (while students at both venues blew up inflatable Friars to complement the live mascot, presumably to raise the intimidation factor.) A newer, slimmer, more serious Friar replaced the jolly, portly one a few years ago and has made appearances on ESPN’s “This Is SportsCenter” commercials and on SportCenter’s Top-10 Plays.

The University of Rhode Island’s mascot – Rhody the Ram – pays tribute to the school’s agricultural origins and the state’s textile heritage. It also got itself thrown out of a game between URI and Wake Forest, played in Providence, back when Tim Duncan played for the Demon Deacons. I know because I was at the game, yelling at the referee that threw out the Ram.

Strangely enough, that incident didn't make the Ram's Wikipedia page, but controversy continued to dog Rhody in subsequent years:

February 3, 1998 - Rhody the Ram tried to prevent the St. Joe's Hawk from his eternal flapping by putting an inner tube over its head, temporarily immobilizing his arms. While trying to remove the tube, the Hawk's head (costume) fell off. The incident was televised and repeated on ESPN.

December 2, 2006 - Rhody the Ram was assaulted by a fan at the Dunkin' Donuts center during halftime of the annual URI-Providence College game, a fierce in-state rivalry. The assailant was never found, but Comedy Central talk show host Stephen Colbert has claimed responsibility for the attack. The Ram was taken to the hospital for minor injuries, making this another incident in the long and sometimes ugly rivalry between the two teams.

The beloved mascot bears of Rhody’s professional minor league teams (“Paws” for the PawSox and “Samboni” for the P-Bruins) are more popular than the players taking the Landon Wilson shuttle back and forth to Boston.

But beyond sports, mascots are now selling everything. For a couple of years at least, the R.I. Resource Recovery Corporation, partnering with Recycling for RI Education, has promoted a multi-colored, oddly costumed alien superhero named MaxMan to champion the cause of recycling in the Ocean State. According to Encyclopedia Superheroica: “MaxMan saves the world by recycling.” And “MaxMan roams the Ocean State spreading the word regarding the wonders of recycling.” He even has a catchphrase: “Recycle it right!”

Not to be outdone, the mascot for the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council is a larger-than-life-size Chinese Mitten Crab named Mitzilla. Created by Providence puppet masters and international performers Big Nazo (who last year crafted the always-hungry, bloodthirsty plant Audrey II in Theatre By The Sea’s production of “Little Shop of Horrors), Mitzilla was commissioned under the R.I. Aquatic Invasive Species Management Plan. According to the CRMC Web site:

The mitten crab was inspired by the R.I. Resource Recovery’s MaxMan puppet, which serves as a mascot to educate the public on recycling. The crab’s purpose will similarly be to educate the public on the problems of aquatic invasive species and will appear at public events and school programs.

The latest mascot to enter the mix is the R.I. Blood Center’s Captain Hemo Globin, who appeared on the scene just in time to raise awareness of the need for summer blood donations. (You can find a picture of him by scrolling down on this Facebook link.)

Where the next Rhody mascot will come from is anybody’s guess. In the meantime: What is your favorite Rhode Island mascot?