Looking for a New England

It goes without saying, and indeed typing, that one of the essential activities for those from Old(e) England when visiting (or living in) this country is a visit to New England. Preferably, this should take the form of a tour of several or all the six States which make up the beautiful and historic north eastern corner of the country.

(Now, in the days before the Information Steve Heighway (without which this site would not exist, of course), I could have had some fun by asking you to name the six States of New England. Thanks to the good people of Google, however, my fun has been curtailed. But here's a suggestion. Just for fun - no prizes or any of that nonesense - British and other non-American readers (imagine that!) should resist the temptation to Google it and try to guess the six using only their grey matter. The answers will appear at the end. But there'll be a couple of clues along the way.

Go on - do it now, before you read any further.

OK, let's move on.)

So, this summer, The Referee and family decided to make the traditional pilgrimage north and east to see what we could find. We decided to start on the coast of MA, then inland to NH, and then back east to the coast of ME. (You will note that I am writing in code in order not to spoil your fun.)

Well, it was just as beautiful and peaceful as we had imagined, in part. On the other hand, it was also strange and over-eventful...

1. MA

I cannot over-recommend to you the beautiful villlage of Rockport MA which, like St Ives in Cornwall - another of The Referee's favo(u)rite places - is both a fishing village and an artists' colony, as well as the proud owner of some lovely beaches. We spent a very happy couple of days there, staying at a wonderful B&B (the Old Farm Inn) which, having been there since at least 1705 (as the home of one Cpt William Woodbury), must be one of the oldest buildings in MA, and indeed in the US of America. But Rockport is most famous for "Motif #1", an old red lobster barn on the harbour, so-called because it is said to be the most-painted object in the country. I don't mean that it is often re-decorated, I mean that... You know what I mean.

2. NH

From there we drove north and west into the spectacular White Mountains, which are not particularly white in the summer, but a popular place to ski at other times of the year. They are notable primarly for (i) Mt Washington, the highest point in New England (and, at 6,288ft, half as high again as Ben Nevis, the highest point in the UK of Blighty), and (ii) the Mt Washington Hotel, which sits at the foot of the mountain in the town of Bretton Woods, and which hosted the famous post-war financial conference which goes by that name.

(It has also been said by some that the spectacular hotel was the inspiration for Stephen King's novel The Shining, although Mr King himself in the introit to the book explains that the inspiration was a hotel in Colorado, which seems to rather scupper that theory.)

Anyway, it's a remarkably beautiful area - like the Scottish Highlands on steroids - and we enjoyed a fascinating day taking the steam railway up to the top of the mountain, which the engineers were keen to explain is the second steepest railway in the world, after one in Switzerland. When you're going up the section which has a gradient of over 37%, you take their word for it.

The locals like to say that Mt Washington is the home of the world's worst weather. This might seem impausible at first but, being something of an anorak for this type of thing, I was pleased to learn that it holds the world record for the faster-ever recorded wind speed: 231 mph.

3. ME

Then things started to go awry. We had booked ourselves into an apparently beautiful little cottage, on the coast, in the middle of nowhere, in upstate ME. Sound idyllic? That's what we thought.

The first sign of trouble reared its head when we arrived in the nearest metropolis, let's call it Little Inbred. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that the good people of this area are completely uncivilised. But - this is true - the man employed by the local chamber of commerce to give out tourist information warned us to be careful about the locals, who were not always particularly welcoming of outsiders. For a town where there was clearly absolutely nothing going on except tourism - and there wasn't much of that - this was quite an admission. (The chap in question, who, it seemed to me, was doing his best in difficult circumstances, was wearing a t-shirt proudly advertising the local Lupin Festival 2007.)

Feeling rather unsure about whether we'd done the right thing, we set off in search of a supermarket. Since Little Inbred clearly had nothing at all to offer in this department, we decided that, before finding our cottage, we would have to check out the nearby settlement of Imarriedmysister. It quickly became clear that Imarriedmysister was a much more happening place, boasting not only a supermarket but also a parking lot, a couple of fishing boats and a dog with almost the requisite number of legs. We came away relatively pleased, in all the circumstances, with our haul of some long-grain rice from the 1970s and several potatoes with some lovely green shoots.

Without going into boring detail (imagine that!) about the accommodation in question, suffice to say that, on arrival, we quickly concluded that life is not always like the internet. Perhaps that's a blessing. But this place was not only different, it was also dirty and it smelled (although not as badly as the chap on my flight to Melbourne - see my message of 8 August).

We then did something which we hadn't ever done before, but which was actually rather fun. We had a family meeting, and we made a democratic decision. The unanimous decision was that there was no way we were going to spend a week in this place - we would stay only that night and leave again first thing the next morning.

After an unpleasant night, on the floor in my case (the kids were so spooked out by their creepy room that they got in our bed and refused to get out), we packed up and drove off, to nowhere in particular.

I don't know if you've tried this, but there is something strangely invigorating about driving with a car load of stuff and children without any idea where you're going to spend the night.

To cut a long story short (too late for that! I expect you're thinking) we were taken in like waifs off the street by the wonderful Carl at the Old Farm Inn back in Rockport MA, and spent a lovely few days there back on the beach, eating at the same restaurant every night, followed by the same walk to admire the wonderful harbour and Motif #1. Perfect.

The moral of the story, I suppose, is that things which look like they're going to go wrong sometimes turn out better than they would have done if they had gone right, if you see what I mean.

And finally, the answer to the quiz is, of course: Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachussets, Maine and Rhode Island. But then you already knew that.

Can A-Rod Save Baseball?

I don't know about you, but The Referee tends to be the sort of person who is not at the centre of things. I am generally the last to know when something important happens, and I'm probably not there at the time.

So it was recently when I slipped out to Australia for five minutes (see my message of 8 August 2007) that, whilst I was over there, or under there if you prefer, two important and long-awaited baseball records were broken back here in the US of America.

Now, you might actually have heard about the first of these record-breaking incidents, which received a good deal of media worldwide, including in Oz, a country which takes about as much of an interest in baseball as Americans take in Australian Rules football. However, unless you live in my adopted country and take a keen interest in these things, you are less likely to have heard about the second piece of baseball news I am about to report. But I suggest that this other news will ultimately become more important in the great sweep of history. And, this being The Referee, dear reader, I am not going just to suggest this - rather, I will demonstrate it using complicated math(s). Oh yes.

The first piece of news, of course, is that, on 8 August, Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants hit the 756th home run of his career, thus breaking the record of 755 held by Hank Aaron since 1974. You might be interested to know (!) that the third person on the list remains the great Babe Ruth, who hit 714 homers in his career, and headed the all-time HR list from 1921 until Aaron overtook him.

(By the way, although the record was broken at AT&T Park, San Francisco, in a game against the Washington Nationals, the record-breaking ball was caught by one Matt Murphy, a Mets fan from New York who was there only because he was on the way to Australia. Spooky, or what? In case you are looking to make an investment, the ball is currently up for auction and is expected to fetch half a million dollars.)

Those who are not close to these things might reasonably expect that this amazing record-breaking effort might have been accompanied by celebrations across the world of baseball. This was not the case, only because Bonds is one of a group of players widely suspected of taking performing-enhancing substances from the late '90s until the baseball authorities began testing for them, which was amazingly not until 2003.

Let me make it clear that The Referee is not going to comment on the veracity of these allegations. I have nothing to offer in that department. All I know is that the record books on the single-season HR records make interesting reading. The record for home runs in a single season is also held by Bonds, an amazing 73, set in the 2001 season. The odd thing, statistically, is that the next five records in that list were also all set between 1998 and 2001, all of them by Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, both of whom have also been alleged to have been involved with inappropriate substances. It seems odd, to say the least, in a sport with a history of more than 100 years, that the HR records should be bunched in a span of just four years. (Ruth's best ever in a single season, by the way, was 60 in 1927 - the 8th best all-time.)

On the other hand, there can be no doubt that Barry Bonds is a great player and one of the best hitters of all time. I can only speak for myself on this point, but I have no doubt that, even if The Referee was to take a good quantity of every performance-enhancing substance known to man, I would never be able to hit a baseball out of a stadium 755 times or anything close to it. In fact, just watch a live major league baseball game as hitters face a small, rock-hard ball arriving at over 90 miles per hour, and you'll be amazed that they ever hit it at all.

But, you are thinking, what was the second record I promised, and how can it be more important that Bonds' new record? I'll tell you.

On 4 August, just three days before Bonds hit number 756, one Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees hit the 500th home run of his career. Rodriguez, universally known here as A-Rod, thus entered the fabled "500 club", becoming only the 22nd player ever to do so, and the youngest. (As I write, A-Rod has 45 home runs this season so far, and has now entered the top 20 list for career home runs.)

Bonds is now 42 years old, which is about the time most baseball players hang up their romper suits, even those who have pickled their vital organs with human growth hormone - allegedly. A-Rod, however - and this is where it gets interesting (I promise!) - is only 32, and can expect to play for another decade, if he stays healthy. None of the other current players near the top of the career HR list is anywhere near as young as A-Rod. In fact, one has to go down to 64th on the list (Andruw Jones, currently on 366) to find someone younger than A-Rod.

Put all the above together, and you can see why many commentators believe it is just a matter of time until A-Rod takes the HR crown from Bonds, which would be widely popular, including amongst those who believe it still really belongs to Aaron, because it would be aided only by the unnatural number of sunflower seeds which players are able to consume during games.

But how long will we have to wait? I'm glad you asked that.

A-Rod has phenonemal numbers, as they say. His single-season record is 57 home runs, whilst playing for the Texas Rangers in 2001. And his season average, in the 14th season of his career, is 44. That includes hitting no homers at all in his first season (with the Seattle Mariners) and only 5 the following year.

Let us suppose, for the sake of this scientific experiment, that A-Rod keeps up his average of 44 for the rest of his career. If he does, The Referee calculates that he would reach Bonds' record-breaking 756 after another 5 and a half seasons, or in the early summer of 2013, to be precise.

On the assumption that Bonds will hit a few more this season and then retire, A-Rod might just need until the end of the 2013 season to top the list.

Of course, it's quite possible that he will not keep up his impressive average for that long. But The Referee prefers the view that we have yet to see the best of A-Rod, whose average may even improve over the next few years, as he climbs up the top 20 list, passing such greats as Mickey Mantle (13th), Reggie Jackson (11th) and Willie Mays (4th) on the way.

And so, there you have it. Keep your eye on the HR top 20, but don't hold your breath. And remember that you heard it here first.

As we often say in our house, "Let's go, A-Rod!", whatever that means.