10 Aug - Longaberger Basket Building, Columbus Clippers Baseball

 

<Delayed post from last night.>

This morning (Tuesday) we picked up my Air Force buddy Ernie at his house and headed out to Newark OH, north and east of where we are camping, to check out the Longaberger Basket Building. Now, this is a unique building! It was the brain-child of Dave Longaberger who owned the defunct Longaberger Basket Company. This one-of-a-kind building opened it's doors in 1997. It was once the main office building for over 500 employees of the basket company that at it's peak employed more than 8200 people total. In March 17, 1999 Dave Longaberger, 64 succumbed to a kidney cancer and the company closed it's doors for good in 2018. In 2020 there were grandiose plans to turn the building into a luxury hotel but for various reasons including COVID that plan was dumped and now rumor has it YOU can own this piece of Americana for a cool $6.5M plus likely some back taxes!!

From there we drove to downtown Newark and took a break at a coffee shop on the town square, across the street from their awesome looking county court house.  

Ernie's wife Rhonda finished up her appointments so we met for lunch before heading back to the campground for a few hours.  

On the way to the ballgame this sign took us by surprise! It is at the exit just west of our campground! Of course we are intimately familiar with the I-80 truck stop at Walcott Iowa and this facility is apparently related!

We continued into town to attend a Columbus Clippers baseball game. The Clippers are the minor league AAA affiliate of the Cleveland Indians. They play at Huntington Park situated in the Arena District, a revitalized area of downtown Columbus. Professional baseball here in Columbus dates back to 1877 with the Columbus Buckeye's of the International Association. Since then the Columbus Senator's played from 1902-1930, the Columbus Redbirds from 1931-1954, the Columbus Jets from 1955-1970 and then Columbus was without a team until 1977. In 1979 Columbus changed it's affiliation to the New York Yankees and that lasted for 28 years followed by a two year affiliation with the Washington Nationals and now the Cleveland Indians.

As you can see from the sign, they were expecting us LOL!!

Huntington Park has been their home since 2009 and was preceded by Cooper Field from 1977-2008.  It is a modern field with a huge video scoreboard and family-friendly layout.  Tonight is $0.10 hotdog night!  You got it - 10 cent dogs!!

Tonight the Clippers were hosting the Toledo Mudhens, 

the AAA affiliate of the Detroit Tigers.  

Video scoreboard with the Columbus downtown skyline in the background

We met Ernie, Rhonda, their daughter Kelly and her friend there and enjoyed the game.  We watched some of it and talked through most of it!  You know what it is like when you get reconnected with friends and comrades from the past!!  Of course we had to have the obligatory 10 cent hotdog.... OK, two of them, and a local beer, OK two of them!!

Throughout the game we were entertained by Krash the Parrot, 

one of the Clipper's mascots.  

Doreen posing with Lou Seal, the other mascot.

The boyz of summer! Not a bad seat in the house!

Our dog meter expired so we bugged out at the top of the 9th inning and Toledo went on to beat Columbus 9-4.  We had a great time with great friends at the ballpark.

Tomorrow (now today!) is our last day here.  We will clean, etc etc.  You know the routine by now.  Tomorrow we drive westward roughly 218 miles to Camp Atterbury for the next four nights.  Camp Atterbury is south of Indianapolis IN near Edinburgh.