Thursday, April 9, 2009

Madrid in New Mexico


A couple of years ago I revisited the little town of Madrid, New Mexico with my sister, and we walked down to the old ballfield. The grandstand was in danger of collapsing in on itself, cacti grew in the outfield, and the bones of some mice littered the floor of one of the stone dugouts. I had known that the field once was home to the Madrid Miners, a farm team of the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1920s and '30s. Standing out on the empty field, you could almost see the ghosts of the ballplayers running across the diamond.

I stumbled across Midori Snyder's blog The Labyrinth the other day and was pleasantly surprised to learn about the archives of Pinky Werner, whose grandfather ran the Madrid Coal Mine. Photos of old Madrid, the Miners, and the ballfield in its heyday!

Part of Angels is set in the little town, and one of the characters has a Madrid Miners jersey framed in her living room. Now I know what they look like.

No comments:

Post a Comment