Waking up at Wake Robin Cottage

[slideshow]We moved into our Wake Robin Cottage.  It is a cute old little house that kind of reminds me of my grandmothers house.  It was window units in the bedrooms and creaky wood floors.  We love it.  Alana and Dave (the owners) live below us in the basement.  Alana was outside last night in her nightgown visiting when we got home last night.

This is beautiful country, rolling hills surrounded by mountains.   It really is rural but not really country.  We checked the boys in this morning and it really is like the Disney World of Baseball.  So clean and organized, a well oiled machine.  They all have the same jersey but some are red and the others blue.  There are 103 teams here from 30 states and Canada.  After we got them settled they ran off to trade pins with other players, like at Disney World.

We went to downtown Cooperstown for lunch and this weekend is Hall of Fame induction weekend so there was a large crowd for Cooperstown.  The street was full but no one in a hurry.  Former players were on the sidewalk signing autographs.  Some you had to pay up to $100.00 for Robin Yount and Ricky Henderson.  Clara and Lewis bought baseball cards from one of the Negro league players from Detroit, Pedro Sierra.  He was so gracious.  It really was a little bitty town filled with die-hard fans.  The women were definitely in the minority.  We came  back to our cottage and relaxed with the Youngbloods.  Clara and Sallie have been playing bandanna Grams.  We had the opening ceremonies tonight and it was amazing.  The guy who owns the organization was the mc.  He honored a former player who was killed in Afghanistan and told us stories about former players and team.  He told us about a team that lost all their games and got mercy ruled all the game.  This team had a pizza party on the last night and when the coach asked to describe their team in one word they said: wonderful, good, terrific, and joy.  Love that story and thought we could be a joy team.  Then they had three skydivers that landed on the field: they had on baseball uniforms, had smoke streaming from their suits and they were all in their 60's at least.  Then all the teams proceeded in and it was amazing.  All they sweet boys 12 year old boys with every color and size, and even a couple of girls.  The umpires came out to Darth Vader's theme.

They then went into some skills competitions on the different fields.  The fields are interesting because you can't see through the fence anywhere.  The parents sit to the right or left of their team's dugouts and that is it.  Brian said that was for crazy parents who yell at the umpires.  They have strict rules of conduct: if a player is caught with his hat sideways or shirt outtucked or pants not up at the knee then they get suspended for 2 games.  They only are guaranteed 7 games.  I love this old school stuff.  Tomorrow the games are at 11:00 and 4:30, our first one will be on the website, cooperstowndreamspark.com.  Rob is number 14 and the team name is Oak Mountain Eagles.