Baseball Weekend:

Bruce Levin and Jim Black came from vastly different worlds. But a love of America's national pastime helped spark a friendship -- and a tradition that's taken them around the world

TOM KNAPP | June 16, 2020 | Franklin & Marshall College

As freshmen, they were randomly thrown together by a housing experiment that sparked a friendship -- cemented in a mutual love of baseball -- that has lasted ever since.

It's taken them from Boston to St. Louis, Denver to Minneapolis, New York to Miami ... and, this past summer, London, where legendary rivals competed.

"We came from two very different worlds -- socially, culturally, religiously and in just about every other way -- but 32 years later, we're best friends," Bruce Levin, who graduated from Franklin & Marshall College in 1988, said.

The college thrust him, Jim Black (also '88) and three other freshmen together in a five-person suite in Schaeffer House, in the basement of Ben Franklin North, Levin recalled.

"It was pretty unconventional," he said. "And it didn't work out so great. We're a success story, I guess ... but they canceled the program the very next year."

They bonded anyway.

"It comes under the heading of opposites attract," Black said. "Bruce and I came from very different childhoods. For instance, I mentioned camping -- it was a foreign concept to him. He took me to my first Broadway show. He exposed me to a lot of things I'd never experienced before.

"That experiment was the beginning of a great friendship."

They were roommates again as juniors and got an off-campus apartment for their senior year. Black graduated with a degree in government and Levin -- who started out pre-med -- majored in economics.

After college, Levin went back to his hometown of Edison, New Jersey. Black, who was from Winchendon, Massachusetts, got an apartment in Lancaster and worked various jobs before meeting his future wife, Stacey, and eventually moving to Wisconsin.

The two pals -- who saw each other regularly while living in neighboring states -- knew they'd have to be more deliberate about keeping in touch.

That's where "Baseball Weekend" came in.

"We talked on the phone from time to time, but life got busy," Levin said. "He had young kids, a new job. He had a lot on his plate.

"One of our ideas was, it would be nice once in a while to get away from it all. Just for a couple of days. ... We wanted to get together for a guys' weekend."

Their wives, Stacey and Dorie, were understanding, he said with a laugh.

They got together in 1997 in Washington, D.C., where they walked the Mall and toured the Capitol. The following year, they met in Toronto.

"We had a great time. We have a lot of great memories," Levin said. "But later we were kicking ourselves -- we were so close to the Rogers Centre, and the Blue Jays were in town, but we didn't go to a game."

So a tradition was born.

It started in Boston. Black is a Red Sox fan, Levin roots for the rival Yankees.

"We decided to go to Fenway," Black said. "It took a little arm-twisting to get Bruce there."

"I said, 'I'm going to wear my Yankees jersey,'" Levin recalled. "He said, 'You do that at your own peril.'"

But it became customary, he said. Each year, they visit a different Major League ballpark, and at every game, Levin wears a Yankees jersey, and Black wears the Sox.

"People look at us and say, 'You guys are actually friends?' Of course we're friends," Black said.

"We get razzed by other fans," Levin added. "We get a real kick out of it. It happens every year, at every ballpark."

No matter where they are, he said, "regardless of how we feel about the team, we'll always suck it up and root for the home team." (Unless Boston or New York are playing.)

To date, they've visited 24 ballparks, including a few -- Turner Field and Shea, the original Busch and original Yankee stadiums -- that are no longer Major League sites.

"Once we do them all? Well, we'll have to redo them," Black said. "We'll always have a baseball park to go to."

They go early to tour the stadiums, he said. "Our mantra is, 'You never leave the game early.' Even if it's a 15-0 blowout, you never know what you might see."

They've seen a second baseman pitch and a National League pitcher hit a homerun. But, Black said, "we have yet to see a no-hitter. We have our fingers crossed."

In each city, he added, they also try to do some "touristy stuff," such as the Johnson Space Center in Houston, a Minuteman silo in Tucson and the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

This past summer was extra special, the men said, because their favorite teams played in London.

"We'd never seen a Red Sox/Yankees game together," Levin said. "Our wives were both like, OK, we're cool with you guys going on this weekend every year, but you're not going to London without us. So we made a vacation out of it."

They attended the first of two games between the archrivals at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park ... and it was a doozy.

"The Yankees won, 17-13," Levin said. "It was completely insane -- that's a football score."

With that off their bucket list, he and Black are looking to their future. They still have lots to do.

"It doesn't end," Levin said. "We still have a handful of stadiums to get to. We also have to go back to a few cities, because they built some new ballparks."

More importantly, he said, "it's stayed fun. And it's met the objective that we set out -- we've stayed close. He's been a great friend, and I like to think I've been the same to him. It's kept us tight as two families, even though we're separated by half the country."

As for next year, Black said, the two friends will right a 22-year-old wrong.

"We're heading up to Toronto," he said.

Meanwhile, he urged students to find their own someone at college.

"Whether it's a roommate or a teammate or a lab partner, whatever," Black said, "try to find someone you can hold onto."