UNEXPECTED BASEBALL ENCOUNTER

Whenever I go somewhere, I am a magnet for the weird and unusual.  A bizarre modern combination of P. T. Barnum and Robert Ripley, freakazoid places, people, and things seem to attach themselves to me wherever I go.

Sometimes these things are creepy, like the very nice but extremely odd male stranger in Tarrytown, NY, who bought me a hot chocolate on a cold day at the lacrosse field while I was photographing a college game.  (Yes, I drank it, and yes, it was delicious.)  Sometimes these things are fascinating, like discovering a church with stained glass windows crafted by famous artists Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse -- right in the middle of nowhere.  Sometimes these things are heartwarming, like helping a baby seal make its way back into the waves and on its way back to its mother.

Sometimes, though, these freakazoid happenings are completely and totally serendipitous.

My sister is visiting.  After a living room slumber party at my house, we decide to go on a historical tour of Concord.  One of the places we stop is the Concord Museum, a brick house loaded with local artifacts from pre-Revolutionary War to post-Industrial Revolution.  We sit through a thirteen-minute video then explore the museum.

The place is compact but amazing.  Three hundred years of history are housed here, including displays, period-styled rooms, and Emerson's study (moved and recreated and smelling of the leather-bound texts that fill the shelves).  There are muskets and pistols and sabres and cannonballs.  Original documents written in longhand are close enough for us to read the intricate script.

Just when we think we have hit every single room, we cross the upper foyer to a special gallery.  Inside the gallery is a display, "The Art of Baseball."  A short video introduces us to the owners of these treasures, an amusing older couple who have my sister and me laughing out loud throughout the gallery.  We laugh so much that one of the guides guesses instantly that we are siblings.  Guilty as charged.

In this gallery are paintings, sculptures, and various artifacts of baseball through the ages.  There is an old box office sign, an amazingly intricate and surprisingly ornate lady's hair comb carved with a baseball motif, and memorabilia of all kinds from throughout the ages of baseball.

Suddenly from across the gallery hall we spot a Lucite display case.  Inside are some everyday baseball items, or so we think.  Until we get closer.

Oh ... my ... god.

Inside the case are Pudge's catcher's mask, Jim Rice's baseball bat, Yaz's Red Sox cap, and Ted William's mitt.  Next to these are three World Series rings.  Right here in Concord.  Smack in the middle of a historical museum.  Hiding in plain sight where you'd least expect to find them.


Weird and unusual, yes.  Just another typical day on the road for me?  Absolutely.