{"id":209,"date":"2013-04-24T22:42:21","date_gmt":"2013-04-25T02:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/minorroadtrip.com\/?p=209"},"modified":"2013-04-24T22:49:27","modified_gmt":"2013-04-25T02:49:27","slug":"hats-for-james","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/new.minorroadtrip.com\/?p=209","title":{"rendered":"Hats for James"},"content":{"rendered":"

As you could tell by the last two editions of our Minor Road Trip blog, we like to talk not only about minor league baseball, travel and historical sites, we also like to talk about food, baseball park food and what is sometimes referred to as \u201croad food.\u201d Road food is served in those little family-owned restaurants, diners and drive-ins that we run across on our baseball travels\u2014those small town coffee shops and places a person would never haunt unless they were a local or someone traveling the back roads of America going from one minor league baseball park to another. We have one here in our hometown that is on the top of our got-to-eat-there list.<\/p>\n

We have a good number of friends who enjoy baseball, but only a few who enjoy it as much as we do. As has been mentioned before, we really don\u2019t have a favorite team. Yes, we both grew up in the Cincinnati area so we always keep an eye on the Reds, but for the most part we have given up on major league baseball\u2014too much money and too many prima donnas. We love the intimacy of the minor leagues. Most of our friends enjoy minor league ball because it is near by and accessible, but they all have a love for one particular major league team. Dan has a friend who has even gone to the point of having the Boston Red Sox logo tattooed on his arm. We both have a close friend who loves baseball as much as we do, but he\u2019s one of those who loves his major league team and enjoys minor league baseball because it is available. His name is James Brown. The issue that we have with him is that his major league team is the New York Yankees. James lives and breaths the Yankees. We, on the other hand, always have to explain to James that the Yankees are the epitome of what we dislike about major league baseball. And we always add that our favorite MLB team is the one that has most recently beaten the Yankees.<\/p>\n

James owns and operates a diner in our hometown of Rochester, New York, called simply enough \u201cJames Brown\u2019s Place.\u201d It is an absolutely delightful little store front American diner that he has been running since 1998. Dan started going there for lunch sometime in early 2000 when he was the interim rector of the Episcopal Church about two blocks away \u2013 he would go there with the lay leadership of the church for meetings. He took Ginny there for lunch shortly afterwards and we have been going back ever since. To put it mildly, it is our favorite restaurant in all of Rochester. The diner is a breakfast and lunch place with a Friday night fish fry. As a matter of fact, we were there this past Friday for the fish fry \u2013 well, Ginny had the fish fry. Dan had James\u2019 BBQ ribs. (He does an outstanding job of smoking his own meats.) It\u2019s certainly not a fancy place by any means. Instead, it\u2019s one of those places when you walk in for the first time, you may think to yourself, \u201cwhat have I gotten myself into.\u201d However, the staff is extremely friendly and the food is wonderful. We are not the only ones in town who think this. James does a good business, but on Saturdays and Sundays the place is generally packed. There may be a wait at the door, but it\u2019s worth it.<\/p>\n

James himself is just one of those guys you have to like. He\u2019s a big bear of a man with an absolute heart of gold (as clich\u00e9 as that sounds) with an ability to keep people coming back. He makes them feel at home (in a restaurant) with his winks or hugs, his self-deprecating sense of humor (the motto of the restaurant is \u201cJames Brown\u2019s Place: A legend in his own mind\u201d) and his welcomes to all new and not so new patrons. One wall of the diner is filled with pictures of James and friends, but the most important section is his shrine to the Yankees (a picture of each of the Yankees\u2019 World Series winning teams plus other Yankee fan memorabilia). It should be noted that Dan prefers not facing the \u201cshrine\u201d when he eats. He would prefer to look at a picture of the backside of a naked man grocery shopping (they say it is a picture of James) than have to gaze at the Yankee shrine. (James and Dan have a continual discussion about whether or not the Yankees, according to James, are \u201cGod\u2019s Team.\u201d Dan always quips that if they were God\u2019s Team they wouldn\u2019t have to have a $ 230 million payroll and not be doing so poorly\u2014they would play just for the love of the game and be winning.)<\/p>\n

One characteristic about James is that he always wears a baseball cap with the logo of some baseball team. He doesn\u2019t get to wear them for long because he cooks in them, so he goes through them fairly quickly. One of our great joys, especially for Dan, is picking up at least one ball cap a trip from one of the teams we visit in a year for James. He loves getting the hats and Dan likes giving them to him. It\u2019s something Dan\u2019s grandmother taught him: if there is something simple you can do to bring joy into someone\u2019s life, do it. So Dan\u2019s goal in life is to find hats for James every trip.<\/p>\n

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James Brown with his Mets Affiliate hat.<\/p><\/div>\n

Although James is always grateful for his hats, he does have a couple of rules\u2014no Boston Red Sox or New York Mets affiliates. Occasionally, we do plot evil things and our we-are-not-Yankee-fans side comes out. Then our goal (especially Dan) is to get James into a Red Sox or Mets affiliate cap, and we did it with this last trip to Savannah. We picked up a Sandgnats fitted (7 & 5\/8ths) home team hat for James, got him to put it on, took a picture and then informed him that they were a Mets affiliate. He liked the hat so much, he changed his rules a little: as long as it wasn\u2019t Boston, well, even Boston is okay this week.<\/p>\n

So if you are hitting the Rochester RedWings (AAA\u2014Minnesota Twins) in between seeing the Auburn Doubledays (Short Season A\u2014Washington Nationals) and the Batavia Muckdogs (Short Season A\u2014Miami Marlins), stop in and see James Brown\u2019s Place (www.jamesbrownsplace.net). It is the ideal baseball road food place\u2014and you got to meet James. A legend in his own mind!<\/p>\n

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As you could tell by the last two editions of our Minor Road Trip blog, we like to talk not only about minor league baseball, travel and historical sites, we also like to talk about food, baseball park food and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/new.minorroadtrip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/new.minorroadtrip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/new.minorroadtrip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/new.minorroadtrip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/new.minorroadtrip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/new.minorroadtrip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214,"href":"http:\/\/new.minorroadtrip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions\/214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/new.minorroadtrip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/new.minorroadtrip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/new.minorroadtrip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}