Baseball Hall of Fame president to embark on Route 66 trip

The soon-to-retire president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum on Wednesday will begin a trip on Route 66 to celebrate amateur baseball in the United States.

Jeff Idelson, who retires after 25 years with the Hall of Fame in August, will use the trip to promote the launch of Grassroots Baseball, a program designed to boost amateur baseball.

According to USA Today:

The five-month tour will begin May 1, traveling 2,448 miles on historic Route 66 through eight states.

The tour will begin on Lakeshore Drive in Chicago at the start of the famed Route 66, one of the country’s original highways that opened in 1926, and end in October in Santa Monica, Calif.

Idelson will travel in an RV with baseball photographer Jean Fruth, meeting with young amateur players in 12 communities. They will meet with youth groups, hand out gloves and baseballs, and hope to spread the love of the game.

“The concept started with Jean who has documented amateur baseball for years,’’ Idelson said, “and we just felt this is the direction we can really give back to the amateur level at the grassroots level.’’

Said Fruth: “There’s nothing more Americana than traveling Route 66 and accomplishing it in an RV. This just seems like the right place to start.”

Fruth, whose book, “Grassroots Baseball: Where Legends Begin’’ was the first in a series, now will shoot pictures in a second book titled, “Grassroots Baseball: Route 66.’’

Idelson and Fruth will include former baseball stars who grew up near Route 66: Jim Thome in Illinois, Ryan Howard in St. Louis, Adam LaRoche in Kansas, Johnny Bench in Oklahoma, Goose Gossage of Colorado, Billy Hatcher of Arizona and George Brett in California. Gossage also will be the national spokesman for the tour.

Stops obviously will include the major-league towns of Chicago, St. Louis and Los Angeles. The Route 66 towns of Joliet, Illinois; Albuquerque and Santa Fe in New Mexico; Tulsa and Oklahoma City in Oklahoma; Amarillo, Texas; Springfield, Missouri; and San Bernardino, California; also have minor-league or independent baseball teams.

Elk City, Oklahoma, also boasts a notable and architecturally striking ballpark — Ackley Park Baseball Stadium — built by the Works Progress Administration in 1939.

According to the article, Idelson and Fruth will make an estimated 100 stops during the Route 66 journey. Idelson will write about his experiences on the trip in a blog at Baseball-reference.com. It will include a database of baseball players who grew up in Route 66 towns.

I once did a project looking up players who grew up in Route 66 states. The number of players who grew up in St. Louis, Chicago and and Los Angeles obviously is huge. But you also get a surprisingly high number of quality players from Oklahoma — not just well-known ones such as Bench and Mickey Mantle, but all-stars such as Willie Stargell, Paul Waner, Lloyd Waner, Joe Carter, Matt Holliday, Alvin Dark, Bob Johnson, Matt Kemp, Bobby Murcer, Lindy McDaniel, Allie Reynolds, Pepper Martin, Paul Blair and Johnny Callison. Bobby Cox would be the manager, and Warren Spahn could be added because he lived near Tulsa for many years.

Idelson will have to take a two-week break from his Route 66 trip in July to preside over the annual Hall of Fame induction ceremony that will include Mariano Rivera, Edgar Martinez,  Mike Mussina, Harold Baines, Lee Smith and the late Roy Halladay.

(Image of a baseball by Patrick via Flickr)