Reusse goes to Cooperstown: Visiting a Canada baseball legend (not Justin Morneau)

Follow along this weekend as Star Tribune Patrick Reusse makes his way, eventually, to the heavily Minnesota-flavored National Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Sunday in Cooperstown, N.Y. Reusse's trip won't be like the ones that others are making. For one thing, there's a detour through Canada. For another, there will be characters that you won't meet else.

. . .

Thursday night detour: Dinner in Toronto

Supper with a Canadian baseball legend

Three of us arrived at the Barrio restaurant on Thursday night in Toronto's Leslieville neighborhood. This was down the block from home for travel companion John Sharkman and his sainted bride, Danica.

Bob Ellliott was making a heroic drive in from Mississauga, the massive Toronto suburb, to fill the table for four.

The young woman greeting diners and assigning tables was given this request by me:

"A senior citizen soon will be arriving. He will be detected by his head of gray hair and a gray mustache. Please say, 'Excuse me, sir, but you're Bob Elliott, the famous baseball writer, are you not?' ''

She offered assurance of doing precisely.

Ten minutes later, Elliott arrived, there were hale and hearty greetings and then the 5-foot-10 (perhaps) septuagenarian revealed that the woman at front said to him: "Oh, you're that famous basketball player."

Hard to find reliable help these days.

This was the first time I had seen Elliott since mid-May in 2016, when the Blue Jays were in town and we had lunch outside at Rojo's at the West End.

It was uplifting to obverse Thursday that Elliott was looking very good for a guy who had left this vale of tears for a couple of minutes since we had last seen one another.

Elliott had hinted at Rojo that retirement was near for him at the Toronto Sun — and it became official a week later.

Always a promoter of Canadian baseball, while also covering first the Expos for the Ottawa Citizen and then the Blue Jays (as primary subject) in Toronto for three decades, that now became his emphasis:

Writing about Canadian players at all levels for what he calls the Canadian Baseball Network.

In true Canadian style, where athletes and personalities from ocean to ocean are the home team, it had been a national event when Elliott became the first Canadian to win the annual Hall of Fame honor for baseball writing in 2012.

Wife Claire put him on a diet for that one. I had to watch on TV, but he was wearing a nice suit and made a great speech.

Then came retirement, and devotion to Canadian baseball, and to young grandkids, and then the heart attack in February 2019 — while giving a speech at the 12th annual banquet for Ohotoks Dawgs senior team in Alberta.

He excused himself, sat down, crumpled and he was gone … until a couple of heroes at the banquet, Savannah and Angela, got him going again before the EMS team arrived.

Baseball writing friends have called him "Boxer" for decades. It comes from the guys at the French-language newspapers with whom he shared the Expos beat. Somehow a wrestling event in a bar (I think) turned him into Boxer.

He's down a couple of weight classes from peak. And it's not a devotion to Diet Coke that's done it — I can attest to that.

So what's the post-heart episode diet?

"Not much," he said. "Except I can't eat greens."

What in the name of Martha Stewart are you talking about Boxer?

"Lettuce, green beans, none of it," Elliott said. "There's a common trait in the greens that could mess with my fibrillation and cause another episode."

I love Boxer. Sharkman and St. Danica call him "Uncle Bob." Ball writers through decades love Boxer. Even players he covered love Boxer.

One reason is the wonderful quirkiness, and now he's added this medical update to that resume:

"Go ahead and keep pounding the Diet Cokes, but for the love of God, Mr. Elliott, stay away from asparagus."

Thursday morning: At the airport

I need a plan ... and a wingman

My February visit to Cooperstown for Tony Oliva's orientation to the Hall of Fame was notable for Tony's enthusiasm for all corners of the baseball paradise, and the absolute mid-winter quietness of the rest of the hamlet.

I spent two nights at a train depot that has been restored into a hotel. The activity was such that I could have been auditioning for the role of Jack Torrance, the Jack Nicholson character, in a remake of "The Shining."

On the second day, I asked the lonely young clerk if there were still rooms available for Hall of Fame induction weekend. She thought so, and promised to have top management contact me.

A week later, I received a call. There were a few rooms available — starting at $800 per night, plus taxes, with a minimum of two nights (or perhaps three) … it didn't make much difference. A direct assault on Cooperstown for the weekend was not possible at those prices. A diversion would be required.

My mind became a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought: "Toronto can't be that far from Cooperstown. I always liked Toronto and haven't been there in a while. ... That's it. I'll call Sharkman, my adopted Stearns County nephew living in Toronto, and find out if he's game for an attack from the west on Leatherstocking Country."

Of course he was. He's Sharkman.