Matthew Monday: Our Trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Part 2

Two weeks ago I posted on our trip to Cooperstown, NY, where the Baseball Hall of Fame resides.  Part 1 was limited to our stay in Albany, NY.  This post is on our visit to the Hall of Fame.

Of course on that first post I had promised I would come back the next week, but alas I have a tough time keeping up during baseball season.  As you may know, I love baseball!  And thank God that love is being passed on to Matthew.  Today he just got his birthday present.  Twelve days after his birthday I’m afraid, but that’s because Amazon had to back order the 2021 complete set of baseball cards.  He was thrilled when it came in this afternoon and spent the rest of the night going through all the cards.  Truth be told, I spent a little time going through them myself.  ;)

As I explained in Part 1, we stayed in Albany because it was the nearest big town with reasonably priced hotels.  Cooperstown is a very small town in the middle of nowhere.  “Nowhere” being relative for a city boy, and from a very big city at that.  Cooperstown was about an hour and a half drive from Albany.  About 45 minutes was on a major highway, but then it was 45 minutes on back roads that wound around hills and farmland, up curvy ascents and down equally curvy descents, around ridges and along cliffs.   Some of it was white knuckle driving.  I was surprised that such a well-known site required such effort to get there.  I didn’t take any pictures of the countryside.  I was too focused on getting us there in one piece.  Matthew and I marveled at some of the local town names, though “town” might be too generous a term for some of them.  Frequently the names of the towns or counties or whatever they were seemed to have a “kill” in them, like Bobskill.  Must be a hunting heritage. 

The whole town of Cooperstown is just lined with stores that cater to baseball in some fashion.  Clothing, baseball cards, memorabilia, touristy tchotchkes, framed pictures, equipment.  Even the food outlets, which charged an arm and a leg—or maybe it was just inflation—had a baseball association.  It was a pleasure to walk down the main street.  Parking was difficult since it was all metered.  We wound up parking about a half mile away in the residential neighborhood, which was a blessing actually which I’ll explain at the end.

There were lots of displays at the Hall of Fame.  I could not take a picture of them all, nor if I did could I post that many here.  It was a baseball lover’s paradise.  I had been there once before with my wife, but I had mostly forgotten how thrilling it was to see all the baseball history.  Matthew loved it immensely.  He said it was one of the best trips we’ve ever had.

So here’s an early display as you walk in to the third floor, which is where they suggest you start.  I may have mentioned it, but you probably don’t recall.  Matthew, much to his father’s chagrin, is a New York Yankees fan.  You may remember I’m a Baltimore Orioles fan.  (Despite being a Yankees fan, I let him live in the same house, but at some point I may have to reconsider.)  Here is Matthew standing to a display of the greatest player of all time, The Babe.

 

And here I am standing on a display for two of the Orioles greatest, third baseman Brooks Robinson (#5) and fiery manager that led them to four World Series, two of which they won, and a number of playoff appearances, mostly during the 1970s, Earl Weaver (#4). 

 

Here’s Matthew’s favorite display, an icon for the 27 World Championships the NY Yankees have won.  To show you how incredible that is, the next closest are the St. Louis Cardinals at 11. 

 

It wasn’t just displays.  There were movie clips, quizzes, radio announcing, pictures of dramatic moments, team songs.  Baseball is Americana, and you got to live through the 20^th century of American baseball.  I also enjoyed the art section where they had statues and paintings on display.  They had several Norman Rockwells, such as this.

 

And they had this interesting painting of Christy Mathewson, a great pitcher from around the WWI era for the NY Giants.

 

I had a blog post a number of years ago on Christy Mathewson’s book on pitching, “Pitchingin the Pinch.”  

The plaque section of every baseball Hall-of-Famer is the climax of the walk through.  If they made it into the Hall of Fame, they have a plaque up for them.  Here are a few of my baseball heroes in successive order: Earl Weaver, Brooks Robinson, Eddie Murray, Cal Ripken, Frank Robinson, and Jim Palmer.

And a couple for Matthew, famed NY Yankee relief pitchers, Goose Gossage and Mariano Rivera.

 

And to cap it off, here is a picture of father and son in front of the Hall’s entrance.

1210

 

So finally, about that spot we parked a half mile away.  This was on a Saturday, and it was going to be difficult for us the next day to get to a Church for Sunday Mass.  Across the street from where we parked was—wouldn’t you know it—a Catholic Church, St. Mary’s Our Lady of the Lake Church.  https://stmaryscoop.org/  Cooperstown is on a rather large lake called Otsego Lake.  And wouldn’t you know it, we would make the Saturday Vigil Mass that counts for Sunday obligation!  Can it get any better than that?  God had certainly a hand in the working of the day.  Here’s a picture of the Church’s sanctuary.

 

The church goes back well over a hundred years, and the choir was superb.  If you are in Cooperstown, go to Mass at St. Mary’s.