Believe? Or just Leave?

Should we? Can we afford to?

I was greeted with an unfamiliar and, quite frankly, unappreciated surprise on Monday afternoon. Retrieving the mail on the front porch, I saw a young man, obviously pained, walking (or straggling) down the sidewalk. As he approached, I was leery. He was covered in snow and not wearing a jacket; an anomaly on a 17 degree day.

With a notable limp, he came to the gate and asked if he could come inside, and that he was just 'jumped' around the corner. He seemed sincere, if not altogether trustworthy, so I acceded to his request and ushered into the warmth. He immediately went to remove his shoes on the rug so as not to traipse snow around the house, which I took to be a good sign.

I asked him to tell me more about what happened, and he stated that he had been walking to CVS when two individuals sneaked up on him from behind, put him in a headlock, punched and kicked him repeatedly, purloined his (new Columbia) coat, and took off, leaving him winded, injured, and lying in a bank of snow.

My point in posting this is not the (unfortunate) novelty of having been near-witness to a mugging, but as a frustrated homeowner wondering what the future of this city is. Katie and I have been Cleveland proponents since we rediscovered it's charms after our college adventures, and have tried to support it financially, culturally, and personally at every turn. But where does one draw the line? After our property has been vandalized? Is it after we've been robbed? Or is it only a forced trade-off for living in a(n at times) vibrant community of artists, entrepreneurs, and progressive people? Maybe it's the weather, but my pessimism grows...

In Michael Ruhlman's inspiring look at his Cleveland Heights neighborhood, House, he nostalgically opines about the City's grander days, when streetcars ferried people in suits and hats around town on streetcars, and when the Millionaires Row of mansions on Euclid Avenue was not just some ironic joke.
I suppose the real question is; 'do we now embark on an effort to rebuild a city that may be already beyond the brink, or do we, like those of Cleveland's glory days, move to a place like it once was - on the move, growing, with a plan, a purpose, and a willful population'? I think I'd like to be on the deciding end of that question, for better or worse, than waiting to have it decided for me. Because if Monday is any indication, the good guys aren't looking so good.

The Grandeur of the Bush White House: a Memoir

So I stumbled upon a surprisingly intimate and personal look at the White House under George W. Bush.

That statement could be followed by anything from, say: 'I was reading the memoirs of the Secretary of Defense'.... or, 'on the news they interviewed the White House Butler, who has worked there for 35 years'... But no.

In actuality, that statement is followed by: a gay dude from Yale who is drinking buddies with Barbara Bush (the daughter, not the first lady) gets invited to the White House for dinner, and proceeds to have a perfectly lovely evening that in retrospect sounds absolutely bizarre.

Interested? I thought you might be. Click here.

If you haven't taken the jump yet and are still reading, I'll say this: I find the memories and impressions of this particular person a rather insouciant but telling peek into the world of Bush that we rarely see. Behind the Secret Service and pre-arranged photo ops, even dismissing the grandeur of the most famous residence in the world, he is a common man. Typically, this is a 'salt of the earth' sort of compliment, but that's not what I mean. I mean he seems frightfully disinterested and intellectually challenged, which I guess is actually a slight on 'common men' everywhere... and for that, I apologize.

Babe Ruth played at East 66th & Lexington?

The short answer is 'yes'. The slightly longer answer is 'yes, and he hit his 500th home run there also'. So where the heck is East 66th & Lexington? Well, currently it's a ramshackle corner within a run down neighborhood on Cleveland's East Side. But once...

Once upon a time... it was home to a Major League Baseball park in every way the equal to it's similarly aged counterparts Wrigley Field and Fenway Park. Yes, League Park was a testament to the strength and vitality of Clevelanders and their love of sport.

A "neighborhood park", so named because as opposed to today's sprawling commercial behemoths with parking for miles around, the Park was built literally in the middle of a neighborhood, with existing trolley lines to service crowds coming and going from the afternoon games. It opened in 1891, and Cy Young was the starting pitcher for the then home team Cleveland Spiders.

Unfortunately, an auspicious beginning did not herald a lasting success. As home not only to Cleveland's professional baseball clubs (the Spiders and the 1920 World Series Champion Indians), but Cleveland's first professional football team, the Cleveland Buckeyes, the legendary Negro League Baseball team, and other major sporting events, League Park was a gem for a city on the move.

Seating increased from 9,000 to 27,000 to accomodate increasing demands, but when space ran out (a neighborhood block can only contain so many spectators), plans were drawn for the cavernous, and equally legendary, Cleveland Stadium on Lake Erie.

As increasingly crowds and events were drawn downtown, League Park withered. The final Indians game to be played there was in 1946, and only as a token reminder of games past, and the bleachers were finally torn down in 1951.

Today, the shell of the once magnificent cathedral of baseball remains. To get to my long-winded point, there is a non-profit group, the League Park Society, who have drawn up plans to renovate the stadium for use as a neighborhood (or high school, or AAU, or...) baseball field in the heart of Cleveland's East Side.


The group is collecting signatures here, and if you're in any way interested, why not sign? We've lost too many landmarks in Cleveland to neglect, and a signature on an online petition takes hardly any time at all.

Artist rendition for new League Neighborhood Park

On a personal note, I remember running a 5k with my Dad from League Park to the as-then yet to be built Gateway complex downtown. I was amazed when he told me the stories that Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Cy Young and others played there. To me, at the time, it looked like an absolute lost cause in a city of absolute lost causes. Today, I am realizing that it is only apathy that makes causes lost.