Been awhile

 

I took a trip to Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame last week.

It had been awhile, almost 30 years. It's ridiculous it's been that long, I've lived within easy driving distance of the town all my life. This was my fifth visit to the Hall of Fame but the first four were all before 1995.

So I was way overdue. We took a nice couple hours drive through the autumn countryside, disembarked at a modest lakeside hotel and got down to touristing.

I brought along a box of Chrome that arrived the day we left -- the less said about what was inside, the better.

 

The wife and I took the short walk up to the main drag that night for some dinner and to see what's changed over 30 years (not a lot). I could tell I was going to like this very much. The pleasantness of the people there can not be overstated.

 

 I took a shot of the baseball standings outside the Hall since the regular season had just ended and I had to capture those 111 wins!

So, after a couple of nonbaseball things, it was the next morning and time to walk right up to the Baseball Hall Of Fame!

I don't think I've ever been to the Hall of Fame when it was not busy. It was odd to see very few people or cars on the street. I intentionally picked a time of the year when it wouldn't be crowded, but I figured with the long weekend I'd encounter some lines.

Instead, we walked right up, opened the door ourselves and entered the little vestibule area alone.

Once inside, we walked up to one of two desks, with two very pleasant young ladies sitting there to take our admission.

From there we started our tour. There were two ushers waiting for us, and one was a Dodger fan. I was one of the few people there wearing team affiliations, I was surprised, I figured almost everyone would be wearing that stuff.

After a brief conversation about how the layoff would affect the Dodgers in the playoffs, the usher told us to start on the second floor and we got to it.

 

I spent most of this floor trying to get my bearings. Looking at the floor map now, I notice I somehow missed the Women In Baseball exhibit and the exhibit dedicated to Latin American players. Bummer.

 

 

 The Baseball Timeline exhibits greeted us first. I'm a sucker for a good timeline. Lots of exactly what you'd expect to start out -- old stuff and more really old stuff. The Beginnings. Old, moldy balls from the 1860s and such. Primitive equipment.

 

Naturally, the timeline dedicated to when I first started following baseball drew my attention. The 1970s were colorful and contentious and, according to the Hall of Fame, full of baseball cards!

There are a lot of baseball cards on display in the Hall -- more on that later. But here's a tighter view from this exhibit.

I'd like to say that except for that Nate Colbert "Washington N.L." card, I have all those cards.

 

There is a separate exhibit dedicated to all the things I grew up with as a kid in the '70s. That electronic game, that Kurt Bevacqua bubble gum card, that Fidrych & Big Bird SI magazine, that Reggie Bar, were all in my home growing up. And, look, even more baseball cards!

 

 

There is a portion focused on the 1990s. I find this era bland and uninspiring, but the Silver Bullets were fun and next to this exhibit ...

 

 ... was a baseball art collage dedicated to Silver Bullets manager Phil Niekro! All of the cards cut up for this are Braves. There is a 1968 Topps Braves team card at the bottom center that I could've used!

In separate booths near the Timeline exhibits are costumes for the two most famous mascots in baseball:

My wife knows the Phanatic but she had lots of questions about The Chicken.

Moving on to the Babe Ruth exhibit:

Lots and lots of stuff to view about the Babe. Video clips, newspaper headlines, all kinds of memorabilia. I found out a whole bunch about Ruth that I never knew. There is a life-size display of Ruth's uniform. I took a picture but it was all blurry.

I did have to get a picture of the 1933 Goudey card though!

We then walked through the history of Black baseball exhibit and into the Whole New Ballgame exhibit, which chronicles players from other cultures gradually joining Major League Baseball.

 

 

Naturally, I focused on the exhibits that focused on the Dodgers. There was so much here, just like the Ruth exhibit, that I could have taken far more photos. By the way, I believe these are the most photos I have ever taken for anything in my entire life.

 

On to the third floor:

 

 

 

The first exhibit we saw on the third floor were photo displays of MLB stadiums over time, from the fire-trap wooden stadiums of early days, to the cookie-cutters of the '70s and the retro stadiums of the early '90s. I love that quote from Richie Hebner.

 

Around the stadium display you can play some of the songs famously associated with baseball teams, for example "New York New York" for the Yankees or "Thank God, I'm A Country Boy" for the Orioles. My wife instinctively hit "Sweet Caroline" just because she likes Neil Diamond. It came booming out of the speaker, half the song, and I waited for angry Yankees fans to descend on us. Fortunately, as I said, there weren't too many people around.

 

Next up is the very detailed Hank Aaron exhibit. Just about every aspect of his life is chronicled. My wife liked this one a lot.

There is the life-size Hammer display, much like the Ruth one. You can watch a large video screen of Aaron's record-setting home run, too. There's a big picture of those two fans greeting him on the bases. I always wondered whether those fans were identified. I know there was a huge fear among Aaron and others that they were going to harm him. But I also noted how well-dressed they were for field-storming hooligans. One of the guys has his shirt tucked in.

 

From there are two exhibits you'd expect to always be in the Hall, one celebrating all of the notable records in baseball. Nolan Ryan is everywhere. And then there are various displays about the World Series and past champions, including one dedicated to the most recent champ, the Braves. There are large interactive video screens where you can play famous World Series moments.

 

There's also a layout showing every World Series ring presented to the champions. I noted how the rings have gotten bigger and bigger. The last two rings for the Dodgers and Braves are certified weapons. How do you wear those comfortably?

 

 Hey, whoozat?

The "Your Team Today" area is large as there are to-scale lockers for every major league team with jerseys of current players hanging in each. There are lots of opportunities for you to have your picture taken in front of various displays in the Hall, but this was the only one I posed in front of instinctively.

I meant to take photos of other lockers, because they're all pretty cool, but my dumb allegiance to my own team made me not care about the others. There is Trout's jersey in the background behind me if you really need to see another team.

 

According to the map, I missed the "New Inductees" exhibit, which is a pretty painful miss. But I think you'll understand why when you see the final exhibit on the floor.

 

I've heard about the Shoebox Treasures exhibit at the Hall since it opened in 2019. I had been bracing myself for inevitably missing it, just because it had been years since I had visited, but there it was! Still there! All beautiful and I could've spent three hours in this area alone.

 

There we go. Look at how wonderfully empty it is!

A couple of displays showing non-baseball and non-sports cards at left and various oddballs at right. I am the proud owner of many of these cards or at least have the same type of card that is displayed. Lots to look at here if you're a collector.

 

There are several mentions of the modern collecting game and I love that "manufactured scarcities" has made it into a Hall exhibit. I'd like to see the bottom graphic updated for 2020.

 

Lots of other hobby-related items, too, from the Great Baseball Card Flipping & Trading Book to RC Cola cans and Starting Lineup figures, to inserts and relics. Wooo! Where's the exhibit for Baseball Card Blogs?

 

An awesome separate display for cards improved by kids. Note that nothing here is post-1971.

 

 

Another awesome feature are the pull-out drawers where you can view cards from a particular era. I focused on the mid-1970s, of course. But I looked at a bunch of others, all very familiar cards. I do like how they mixed up the subjects though.

 

I caught this 1981 Fleer Fernand reference as I was leaving, I think there was something about error cards. I should've taken some pix here but there was just so much to look at, brain overload!

Then I came across the "Put Yourself On a Baseball Card" feature, which I've heard about. I decided to make my own. They give you a choice of 1953, 1965, 1975, 1987 and 2017 Topps and a tobacco-era card (1911, I think?) But then they end up sending you your image on all of them, maybe I didn't follow the directions right.

 

As much as I enjoy the '75 design, I think the 1965 one came out the best (name intentionally muddled). The background they put behind each makes it look like I'm launching a home run into the stands behind home plate, but whatever.

 

Then it was back down the steps to the other exhibits on the first floor and the actual Hall of Fame, which is called the "Plaque Gallery" on the map.

 

There is an art gallery exhibit showcasing noted baseball paintings and sculptures, some famous, some I've never seen before. I like this Casey Stengel creation.

 

Time to enter The Hall.

I know people get cranky about who is in the Hall and who isn't, but none of that matters when you're walking in there. Every single person on those plaques is cool. That said, I took pictures of only a few. We've all seen a Hall of Fame plaque.

The First Class 1936 exhibit is stationed at the end of all the plaques, immediately after the Class of 2022.

There are also a couple of large, what I think are paper mache, statues of Ruth and Ted Williams.

From there were were siphoned off to the Hall of Fame Museum bookstore. Lots of good books for me not to read are for sale there. The guy manning the register asked me how I became a Dodgers fan living in upstate New York and I got to tell the Tommy John story again, to someone who was genuinely interested!

I bought one postcard there, too.

I had planned to get all of the Dodgers postcards that I had missed while ignoring the Hall of Fame all these years. The bookstore had a limited inventory. The main gift shop had all of the ones that I was missing but that gift shop was probably the busiest place in the whole building. I wasn't going to wait in line to buy a few postcards.

There was also lots of 2022 Topps (Series 1 and 2), as well as Opening Day and Heritage. No shortage of card stock at the Hall of Fame. You could buy pages and binders, too. Out of everything available there, the card stuff was probably the only merchandise that wasn't inflated in price.

Leaving the museum bookstore, there are a couple of other displays, including one after my own heart, "Scribes and Mikemen."

That's a look at items from Vin Scully, Dizzy Dean, Harry Caray and others.

There is also an exhibit called "Baseball In The Movies" with posters and artifacts from "A League Of Their Own," "Field Of Dreams," "The Bad News Bears," "Sandlot" and others. It's pretty cool, behind-the-scenes stuff. As you walk out, there is this awesome framed poster of the Dock Ellis "Dockumentary" cover.

And that was it. We had to search a bit to find our way out. Wouldn't it be a shame if we were trapped in there all night?

Although I was there for three hours, I didn't see everything I needed to see. As we were just getting in to the place, they announced the movie was about to start, which they have shown every time I have been to the Hall of Fame, since I was 9 years old (updated, of course). I still have never seen it. Part of me doesn't want to sit for 17 minutes to watch some stuff I probably already know and the other part of me, upon seeing the swoop of people clamoring to go see the movie, instinctively walked the other way.

We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping and browsing. And we made the requisite walk to Doubleday Field.

It looked the same as it always did. I dug out a couple of pictures we took the last time we were there (it was actually in 1993!)

You can tell that, except for the brick walkway, the hanging flowers on each side and the lack of a sign advertising a major league exhibition, everything is the same.

We walked into the stadium and there was a game going on. There were maybe 6 people in the stands watching. I don't know what kind of game it was. One team was dressed like the Yankees and another one like the Pirates. The players looked like they were 30 and 40 years old. They were taking it very seriously, cursing after outs and such. I had no idea what I was watching.

So that was probably more detail than anyone will read, but I wanted to document as much as I could, and still there are a vast number of photos on my phone that I didn't upload here.

See, there are more cards (of "The Infield"), as well as Steve Garvey's glove. I'm telling you, there were cards all over this place, way more than when I was there as a kid (although I remember the entire 1975 Topps set displayed there vividly).

As for the cards I actually bought while in Cooperstown, that's a story for tomorrow.

I promise it won't be as long.