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Six years ago at of the Lincoln Art and Balloon
Fest shows that to be the case…in spades. The day before my first
foray into being a flea marketer and purveyor of my written word,
which I will get to shortly, I found out I had been rejected for
induction by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Now a
person might ask how it came to be that Cooperstown ever heard of
Mike Fak let alone correctly and succinctly reject me for
admittance.
It really wasn't my fault. A month back, a conversation with Linda
Churchill, the then owner of the Mustard Moon Gift Shop, started my
road to baseball ignominy. Linda said she and her family were going
to Cooperstown on vacation. Always looking at a way to promote my
book, I asked if she would take one of my books with her to give to
the employees at the museum.
I worded a nice little tidbit in the front of the book about
employees getting a yuk out of the story about my throwing away
Ernie Banks' uniform as a youngster as well as my destruction of a
shoebox full of tobacco trading cards worth a fortune now but of no
interest to me back then.
I pictured the book being in the employee lounge or perhaps
receiving the highest honor an author can receive by having my book
placed at a point of necessity in one of their office restrooms. I
thought people who spend their days saving and restoring memorabilia
and collectibles would get a good laugh out of a screwball who threw
away such stuff not realizing its future value. To be honest, I also
hoped a few of them might enjoy the book enough to buy one or spread
the word on the East Coast about my writing.
When Linda came back from her vacation she told me she had given the
book to an employee making it very clear it was for the staff as a
gift and nothing more than that was expected from anyone at
Cooperstown. I put the event behind me thinking I might someday
receive an email from someone at the Hall saying they thought I was
an idiot or something to that effect.
But then I received the book back in the mail along with an official
communication stating with regrets that my work was not deemed
relevant enough to be enshrined in the archives of the museum's
library. Somehow, the book made it to the desk of the Library's
Accessions Committee and they found it lacking enough baseball
nostalgia to be placed next to Lou Gehrig's autobiography or the
family albums of Tinker or Evers or Chance.
The letter, signed by Anne L. McFarland, Director of Archives and
Special Collections in very kind words asked me what the heck I was
thinking wanting my book, dealing with baseball on only a few pages,
enshrined next to the words and pictures of the likes of Wee Willie
Keeler and Mordecai "Three Fingers" Brown.
Without even knowing I was up for enshrinement I was notified that I
had been rejected. I thought about sending back a letter asking if
they were aware I had a 750 batting average on the eighth grade
Saint Bartholomew baseball team. I decided not to be a sore loser
about the snub although I wish I knew I was being looked at.
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I could have had some of my major league friends send letters of
support for my inclusion. I wonder where Dick Drott and Mo Drabowski
and Moose Moran are right now. Maybe those old Cubs wouldn't have
helped me since they didn't make it into the Hall either. I did boo
them from time to time, but surely they wouldn't have held grudges
after so many years.
Anyway, I decided to just accept my rejection with grace and aplomb,
resigning myself to the fact my book, having little to do with
baseball, will not be under glass in the front atrium of the
Baseball Hall of Fame Library.
The flea market of course was tough on all of us trying to sell or
promote something. The rains came letting up just often enough to
get balloons up, but they kept down the hoped for crowds at Scully
Park. Saturday actually wasn't too bad a day for me but Sunday was a
total wash, pun intended.
To make matters worse, all the free time fed my new found paranoia.
Standing about my booth looking for that rare combination of reader
and buyer, I studied the few people who did brave the elements
stumbling about in the rain. From time to time I saw one of them
point me out to a friend of theirs and say something. Until the day
before, I would have assumed they were saying something about:
‘There's the guy who writes that stuff in the paper". After the day
before, I now pictured them saying: "That's the guy who got shot
down by the Hall of Fame."
Taking time to ponder if God is trying to tell me something about my
wanting to be a writer who actually sells his stuff, I am reflecting
on one positive note. I currently have a copy of a book I wrote that
was in the Library at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
Albeit, only for a moment.
Anyone know how E-Bay works?
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