Born to Hit and Run
Akron Rock n’ Roll Bobble Head giveaways.
EASTLAKE, Ohio—With no surrender and lots of Mountain Dew I drove to Columbus, Ohio in mid-April to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. This marked my 30th Springsteen concert dating back to Sept. 6, 1978 at the Uptown Theater in Chicago ($7.50 ticket.) All those ticket stubs are bookmarks in my life.
The Holiday Inn in downtown Columbus was filled with Springsteen fans who were knocking around the region for his “High Hopes” tour. They had been to Virginia Beach, Va., they were heading to Nashville, Tn. for his next show.
I was surprised how many people were traveling before summer vacation. Maybe they were all out of work like me. Some fans were as middle aged as a slab of warped vinyl. Others were in their late 20s and early 30s. They carried coolers and bags of chips into the elevators. They shared stories in the lobby and at the small hotel bar.
The road is a thread.
Whether you are following a musician or a baseball team, travel is a colorful fabric of commitment, open minds and good spirits. Who was it that said “Life is sustained by movement, not by foundation?” I had to look it up.
It was French poet-aviator Antoine de Saint-Expuery.
My plan was to wake up the morning after the concert and catch three baseball games in one day.
I wanted to see the new wacky named Akron RubberDucks (Cleveland) host the Trenton Thunder (New York Yankees) in a noon Eastern League double-header in downtown Akron, just 126 miles from downtown Columbus. The Columbus Clippers were on the road.
The next move was to go to Eastlake, Ohio for a 6 p.m. double-header between the Midwest League’s Lake County Captains (Cleveland) and the Peoria Chiefs (St. Louis). I watched three games in roughly eight hours. I did not stay for the second game in Eastlake. I am not the hard working The Boss of Minor League Baseball.
Maybe it is because I was a kid –ages 3 to 12–when I lived in Columbus–but life still seems more gentle and fresh in Central Ohio than in my native Chicago.
Before the Springsteen concert in downtown Columbus I stopped at the new Grass Skirt Tiki Room, 105 N. Grant Ave., also downtown. The Grass Skirt is a humble but pretty hole in the wall bar and restaurant that pays homage to the since-razed Kahiki in Columbus, one of the greatest Polynesian restaurants in America. Here is my Kahiki Supper Club link. A friendly customer gave me her plastic Grass Skirt membership card for another couple drinks but I had to get to the show.
The Grass Skirt is adjacent to The Hills Market, a fine locally owned one stop grocery store which also features a coffee lounge, local magazines and a wide assortment of local beer. For my morning drive on a pothole free I-71 to Akron I stocked up on the market’s coffee, vitamin water and a bagel.
Springsteen’s “Stand On It” played out of my car radio as I headed north into the concentrated land of Chief Wahoo. If you are a fan of the Tribe you could play out a marathon baseball day, just as my friends in Baltimore did. The Columbus Clippers, Akron and Lake County are all Indians affiliates and easy drives from Cleveland.
The crowd was sparse as I arrived at Canal Park stadium in Akron.
In this overly politically correct era the noon game was promoted as a “Businessperson” special. The previous night’s game had been canceled due to rain and snow so the “Businessperson” special became the first game of a double-header for the Chief Native-American affiliate. It was a sunny 33 degree day. I hand -counted about 100 fans through the first three innings of the game.
I saw a few familiar faces on the field.
Trenton’s center fielder was Mason Williams, the 22-year-old grandson of former White Sox center fielder Walt “No Neck” Williams. Someone should do a Walt Williams bobble head. I had seen Mason Williams play a few months ago for the Scottsdale Scorpions in the Arizona Fall League.
Mason batted leadoff for Trenton and went two for three in the first game with a fly swatter bat approach similar to that of Ichirio. Williams has a good pedigree. He is also the son of former New England Patriots wide receiver Derwin Williams.
I got a kick out of the new 23-seat “Tiki Terrace” in the far right field corner of Canal Park–even though the terrace was playing hip-hop music.
But the best motivational tool to return to Akron this summer are awesome rock n’ roll bobble head promotions that honor the rich musical heritage of Akron:
* Devo, May 24, Reading Fighting Phils
* Joe Walsh, June 14 with the Portland Sea Dogs
* Chrissie Hynde (no hot dogs or hamburgers please), June 28 with the Harrisburg Senators
* The Black Keys (and a Black Keys fireworks show), July 5 with the Bowie Baysox.
Where’s Akron’s pure pop singer Rachel Sweet, who in 1978 had a hit record by reworking Carla Thomas’s “B-A-B-Y” ?
The Rubber Ducks have many other nutty promotions: There’s a June 13 Springsteen fireworks show combined with a salute to soccer moms, and Moustache Monday “When In Rome” Ron Burgundy Night on July 21.
The temperature had jumped to 40 degrees by the time I landed in Eastlake, just 50 miles north of Akron.
Of course I arrived in timely fashion because I burned rubber ducks.
The Lake County Captains are still playing up the nautical theme that I enjoyed on my last visit in 2011. The west side of Eastlake is actually on Lake Erie.
My old friend Jay the Bartender from the Matchbox used to talk about baseball road trips with women. A game is only a couple of hours (now over three hours in the major leagues). so there’s ample time to explore other things. With more than 30 species of sandpipers and other wading birds along the Lake Erie shoreline, Eastlake’s Lake County is a huge draw for birding enthusiasts. Must-see stops include the 20,000 red-breasted merganser birds at Headlands Beach State Park in the Cleveland section of Lake County. The park’s trademark is its mile-long natural sand beach, the largest in the state.
Headlands Beach State Park
Classic Park opened in April 2003, when Lake County was a member of the South Atlantic League of all places. (Lake County joined the Midwest League in 2010). The men’s bathrooms at Classic Park are called the “Poop Deck” and the Castaways Bar down the left field line looked like an inviting port of call, although it was closed on my visit due to the cold weather.
Another sparse crowd helped define the sea of empty blue seats. At the 6 p.m. start for the first game I counted about 150 people in the stands.
The most exciting player I saw was Peoria’s fleet center fielder C.J. McElroy. The fleet, left-handed hitter is Billy Hamilton without the hype. McElroy, who turned 21 on May 29, is the son of former Cubs reliever Chuck McElroy. He laid down a couple of beautiful bunts in the first game, manufacturing one drag bunt into a catcher’s throwing error and then a stolen base. McElroy is ranked 24th in the top 30 St. Louis Cardinal prospects for 2014. And the former 5’10” prep wide reciever was signed by Ralph Garr, Jr.
Baseball is so bunched up in this stretch of Ohio, fans could even parlay visit to the Cleveland Indians’ Progressive Field and the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame with a Captains game. Downtown Cleveland is just 18 miles northeast of Eastlake.
Many minor league teams have Jimmy Buffett nights but I imagine it plays well in Eastlake: Aug. 22 is “Margaritaville Night” with Buffett themed fireworks and a post-game concert by Happymon. The Ohio-based Buffett-Beach tribute band performs on a stage that looks like a boat and their drummer is named James Taylor. And thrill seekers may want to catch the June 7 “Hungarian Heritage Night” with a Hungarian Disco fireworks theme at Classic Field.
Wonder if that includes the Springsteen smash “Hungarian Heart?”
View from home plate, Akron, April 16, 2014
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