I think I mentioned that I had taken the suggestion that several of you had to spend a portion of my birthday two weeks ago at the Library of Congress baseball exhibition. Pitchers and catchers had just reported for spring training, so it seemed a particularly apt time to go.

Keeping in mind that this is a library, rather than a hall of fame, I thought the curators did a nice job of pulling together materials that covered the highlights of the sport, from its highlights of bringing people together and lauding athletic prowess to its lowlights of cheating and discrimination.

There were mementos from the majors, from white baseball to the Negro Leagues to the women’s league that arose during WWII and that was memorialized in A League of Their Own, as well as collegiate ball, Little League, town and work teams, rec leagues, and international play.

There was interesting trivia. For instance, did you know that the first intercollegiate baseball game was held between Williams and Amherst Colleges in Massachusetts, but since there was concern this was over-emphasizing students’ physicality, they made it a double-header with a chess match?

Or that “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” is about a woman fan? (Click through to Flickr to enlarge it so you can read the verses, rather than just the chorus we all know.)

They showed the ways in which equipment has evolved over time. The most startling definitely comes in the form of the glove. While the mitt of 1922 is largely recognizable today, I’m not sure if you showed the one from 1885 to a modern player that they’d try to field with it. (And even that was an improvement over the sport’s original barehanded technique.)

There were highlights from baseball films and on tv. They showed some of the memorable national anthem performances. And there was a selection of highlights from radio and tv broadcasters, which included Don Larson’s perfect World Series game (the ticket stub and program for which are below), the 1986 Mets, the 2004 Red Sox, the 2016 Cubs, and the interruption of the game to announce that Apollo 11 had landed safely on the moon.

My Mets got both some of our favorite and most painful memories included:

After I had moved on to the next case, one of the women behind me started singing “Meet the Mets,” much to the surprise of her friend, who didn’t know she’d grown up a fan of the team.

The hometown team got a shoutout from one of its Senators’ heroes, Walter Johnson, as well as Nationals Park providing the backdrop for the selfie station.

Obviously, I had a blast. If you’re in town (or can get here) before the exhibit closes in late July, I really hope you get a chance to see it. If you won’t be, they’ve put out an accompanying book, which is widely available and which your library might have.

Snowdrops by the bus stop to Georgetown.

As I was walking around northwest D.C. late this afternoon, I came across a flowering tree. We have a number of cherry trees that tend to flower in January (including some of the ones on the Mall, which always makes people worry there will be no flowers come springtime, but they’re two different types of trees). This one was in someone’s front yard, so I snapped a picture. It’s currently pouring out and temperatures are predicted to drop precipitously by Monday (it’ll be a 30 degree difference between now and Monday’s high), so I expect this will be it for these particular blooms. I’m glad I stopped to take their photo.

Gandhi in the early morning:

Gandhi in the early afternoon:

After returning home from the farmers market early this afternoon, I didn’t venture further than the end of the block, so I can’t give you any further updates, but it continued to snow for another 10 hours or so after this.

The snow finally tapered off around midnight after about 10 inches and nearly 30 hours of snowfall (in addition to all the flurrying it did yesterday afternoon). It started out fluffy and easy to shovel, but after it warmed up this morning, it definitely got damper and more solid. A peek up at the sidewalk suggests that our mid-evening ice melt application has kept things from refreezing, so a final pass with the shovel in the morning should finish it off on our corner, other than the occasional clearing I’ll need to do to the curb cuts after the plows go through and then when the melting snow floods them. (Woe to those who waited to shovel until the end of the storm. A thousand people tramping down your snow makes for an icy mess.)

The city is shut down tomorrow to allow for cleanup, since roads became treacherous after sundown and they had to pull the buses from service until morning.

Here’s what the Gandhi statue looked like earlier this evening, just before the snow started sticking to the pavement.

Six hours later, we were about three inches deep.

As I mentioned yesterday, Riverby Books, one of D.C.’s longtime used bookshops, is closing at the end of the year.

It has long been a favorite haunt of mine when over on on Capitol Hill, and I decided that I wanted to make one final pilgrimage before it was no more.

D.C.’s used bookstores each have their own unique feel. Capitol Hill Books is literally piled high with books. (They sit on the window sills, countertops, and in the bathroom, and used to be piled on the stairs until, I assume, the fire marshal shot that down.) Second Story Books in Dupont Circle has more of a storefront feel, with wide aisles and fluorescent lights. Wall of Books up Georgia Avenue is similar, but takes it further, being a bigger space, but it also is more a bookstore of the people, rather than of the collectors, so there’s less highbrow work and a broader selection. Idle Time in Adams Morgan has more ephemera (paintings and postcards), while Riverby fits into the upscale but laid back category, with a classy main floor (lots of wood, a couple wingback chairs, and a corner where you could brew yourself a cuppa to drink while browsing) aimed at adult bibliophiles and a cozier, more casual basement filled with kids books and a few overflow grown-up sections.

For the holidays, they’d assembled book bundles — trios of books relating to a theme, such as classics or movie fodder or titles based on Shakespeare quotations. This one was my favorite:

And did I come home with anything new, you ask?

As you can see, I had some luck finding an assortment of reading material. There are three books of poetry, including a local anthology; a classic; a middle-grade caper I’ve been meaning to read; three Christmas items (two dvd collections and one novella); and two books on language, including one by Bill Bryson. And with the closing sale discount, it all came out to less than $2.50 per item. Quite a good haul, if I do say so myself.