Out in left field in 1864

This foggy view of the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse had me feeling sentimental about our Leaf Watch Leaf this year. It’s only been a day since we checked in to the Leaf Watch Cam and noticed that she had reached PAST PEAK, after giving us eight fun weeks of leaf peeping. So we said our thanks and bid her adieu until next year.

This just means it’s time for us to look forward to the return of the Cozy Map Of Comfy Places, which I debuted last year with more than 150 of the coziest places around the Hudson Valley.

This year, I’m niching down and looking for only the coziest corners of the cozy places – so reply to this email and let me know where you like to: sit and read, journal, knit, sip a hot cider, people watch, or listen to the gentle strumming of a double-action harp.

I’ll start putting them together and sharing some of the coziest places to help insulate us from winter’s apathetic chill.

Also: I’m starting to experiment with the design of this newsletter a bit. In my last issue, I published a travel report hand-drawn from The Travel Log; just trying to see what kinds of storytelling we can get away with here in the newsletter. I only had two unsubscribes!! I’m also thinking about writing an issue every week, instead of every two weeks. I have a poll at the bottom of this issue about newsletter frequency and would absolutely love your thoughts.

OK, on to this issue:

It was, I want to say, maybe three years ago when I started to see photos (really good photographs: here are a few recent shots by teammate Schuyler Meyer) of adult men in vintage base ball costumes, completely committed to the sport, and looking like they were having a great time.

I was intrigued, and then reminded of one of my favorite Conan O’Brien remotes, “Conan Plays Old Timey Baseball,” which aired in 2004 and not only taught me about U.S. history, but informed my approach to intimate journalism and documentary storytelling that I still use today. I’ve always wondered: How do the players of this vintage sport feel about this treatment of their beloved pastime?

This month, I finally got to ask. I visited the season-ending double-header between the Kingston Guards and the Ulster Nine and asked co-founder Dan Torres all about it.

By the way, this didn’t make it in the episode, but Dan co-founded the league with his friend Taylor Bruck, who, as acting clerk of Ulster County, made national news by refusing to file both the initial and a subsequent revised judgment from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

What I particularly like, as it relates to the Kingston Guards/Ulster Nine story, is that in a profile of Taylor published in November’s issue of Texas Monthly, Taylor nurses a broken finger he earned in baseball practice prior to their interview. We also learn that he has a baseball with the U.S. Constitution’s preamble stamped across its seams.

Anyway, to hear who won the exciting showdown on the baseball field, it’s in the podcast feed this week – just click the image above to listen.

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