Personally, one thing on my baseball fandom list was to make the trip down to Cooperstown, and see the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and on January 21st, 2021 me and my family did just that.
It was breathtaking, and man did I learn a lot from the experience, as it makes you realize how deep this game runs, and how far back it goes. You also realize one thing when you’re there, and that is despite what everyone says about the baseball Mecca, it’s still as museum.
The first exhibit had it all, from how baseball was formed, the first ever rules of the game(21 runs instead of 9 innings), the first organizaed baseball contest, and the evolution of the game to what it is today.
The sections that followed were ones dedicated to Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, “Viva baseballl Latino baseball players, and the best teams in baseball history. Inside these exhibits were baseball memorabilia, you didn’t think you would see ever close up, such as the first ever baseball, Joe Dimmagios, bat, the first baseball glove, old jerseys, helmets, bases, trophies, former players lockers, newspaper clippings.. you name it! It was amazing to see the game change, and the way players themselves changed the way America’s past time was interpreted, played, and passed on.
Up next, was the women’s baseball exhibit, which featured the best women’s reporter in the game Suzan Waldman, who’s now the partner of the longtime radio voice of the New York Yankees, in John Sterling.
We also saw the African American exhibit, which obviously talked about the enormous impact Jackie Robinson had on the game, and of course Hank Aaron on the night he hit home run #715, to break Babe Ruth’s home run record.
Speaking of records, their was an entire exhibit dedicated to the “Records of baseball”, with all the records in baseball, and physical evidence from that day, on display. It was everything, from Pete Rose’s record of hits at 4.257, to Joe DiMaggio’s record of his 56 games hitting streak, to Barry Bonds record of 762 home runs,(With his bat in the hall of fame and his record- breaking ball having an asterisk on it as a reference to the PED scandal), to the lowest career ERA in Whitey Ford’s 2.85, to CY Young’s 511 wins, to Alex Rodriguez’s record 27 career grand slams ETc... whatever record you want, they have it for you, and I’m not going to take up lines bringing you every record, because we will be here all day, and have a long way to go.
One of the most fascinating exhibits for me, was the “Ballparks of baseball”, where we saw history about Ebbets Field, the old Yankee stadium, the Polo Grounds, and so on and so forth. What struck me most, was the dimensions of all these different ballparks over time.
As you know in today’s world, it’s a “Whole new ballgame”, which is what the hall of fame recognized, by setting up the revolution of baseball, from the 1970’s to the present, with color of jerseys changing, with the taping of historical moments being showed, the team dynasties(Such as the Yankees core four), and legendary players that are still playing in the game today, such as Miguel Cabrera, Albert Pujos, and Mike Trout. For you avid baseball fans, I’m sure you’ve heard of the “Pine Tar game”, where George Brett was initially called out, after what appeared to be a go-ahead home run, but was called out due to supposedly an illegal bat covered in pine tar before being overturned at a later date, with the home run counting, and the Kansas City Royals winning. Anyways, that bat was before my very eyes in that exhibit, as well as the “David Freese game”, the night of “Game 162”, and a bunch of more exhilarating baseball moments.
This led us to the “World Series exhibit”, where right at the entrance was a wall with the number 27 in pinstripes colors, with clips from the final outs from all the championships of the winningest team in sports history , the New York Yankees.
Inside their, was the history of each league championship seires, and of course... World Series, with the 2020 World Series between the Rays, and Dodgers having its own place there, including hilights from the series, and yes, the abnormal game four walk-off by Brett Phillips of the Tampa Bay Rays.
At the center of the room, was a case starting with championship pocket watches, all the way to team championship rings, as we know them today.
As we walked around the exhibit, I noticed our tour guide Chuck was a Dodgers fan, because it was on his name tag, and when I asked him about the feeling he had when his team won the World Series this past November, it was tough for him to describe his joy, but said it was a long time coming after how close they had been the last couple years, and the 32 year drought the franchise had to endure between titles.
So having gathered all of that background history, it was time to enter the real “Hall of fame”.
The doors opened, and you couldn’t believe your eyes, as 333 plaques stood before you, with all of the greatest players in baseball history, their careers , and the year they were inducted all there. The Yankees had the most with 61 (!!!) players there, and as fan of that team, it all came full circle, because whether it was about them or not, each section, and each exhibit had a tie or ties to the New York Yankees. It was amazing to see guys like Joe Dimmagio(Who had his own BA chart in the memorabilia part of the museum) , Mickey Mantle, Casey Stengel, Stan Musial, Sandy Koufax, Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, Willie Mays, and a host of plaques telling the historic of baseball through the writing on their plaques.
At the back end of the gallery, was the first ever Hall of Fame class in 1936, called the “First Five”, in Babe Ruth; TY Cobb, Honus Wagner Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson all being the very first ones inducted into the Hall of Fame. The ceremonies didn’t begin until 1939, which prompted a picture of all the Hall of Famers enshrined to that point, except Cobb, who “Showed up late” and missed the photo.
Something i learned, was due to the alphabet, Mariano Rivera, and Derek Jeters plaques will be next to each other, once DJ is officially inducted come the ceremony of the 2020 class this upcoming summer, along with Harold Baines, Marvin Miller, Lee Smith, and Larry Walker.
After we exited the gallery, we saw the “House of cards”, which had the most valuable cards in baseball history, with Honus Wagner’s $3 million from his rookie days, topping the list.
The last part of our tour may have been the best part of our tour, but we were very lucky to get to this point smoothly, because it was a relatively quiet day at the hall, with it being the winter, and not much happening in the baseball world, so walking around the “Baseball castle”, you can only imagine how full it Cooperstown is when the Hall of Famers get inducted in late July. But BH, it was honestly like we were VIP guests or something, even though this was a public place, and was open to anyone who wanted to walk in, and experience the journey of old baseball to new baseball. So when we got to the “Artifacts room”, and throughout the tour, I couldn’t help but thank Hashem for giving us the opportunity to come on this very day, when the hall was unofficially open to just me, and my family, which was truly a humbling moment.
As for the room, because we were. Yankees fans, we got to see , and touch Yankees things, like Ichiro Suzuki’s bat from hit number 4,000, if you add the numbers from Japan, Derek Jeter’s batting gloves from when he notched hit #3000, Phill Rizzuto’s cleats, and last but not least, an authenticated road jersey from Lou Gehrig’s last season with the Yankees.
Now that, was truly astonishing, to actually feel what big-league jersey’s, and bats felt like.
In the end, all those magical feelings were expressed in a 16 minute film called “Generations of the game”, with Hall of Famers from the past and modern day, talked about what this place means to them.
Walking out of there, one thing I took away from it, was “Greatness lives on”, and we see this In the Torah, with us still being inspired by our founding fathers in Avraham, Yitzhak , and Yaakov, while also looking up to Moshe, and Ahararon, among many other greats and leaders, us Jews try to model our lives after in today’s world.
Now to fast forward to Hall
of Fame Election Day on Tuesday, and it’s kind of ironic that we were there just before the Hall honored Hank Aaron, and the reigns were announced, when for the first time since 2013, no players were elected into the Hall of Fame, with Curt Schilling coming the closest with 71.1% of the vote, falling 3.9 shy of the honor ( https://www.instagram.com/p/CKj7t7lJyaL/?igshid=xqflky7l754u).
There’s something I don’t get with the voters, and that is why let a guys off-field antics in Schillins case, keep him out of a museum that is supposed to tell just the on-field play of his career , which is undoubtedly Hall of Fame worthy. Another thing I don’t get, is “Player increase”, with Scott Rollen’s climbing up 15% in the past year, from 40-55. But what did he do, to make you change your mind, and if the answer is “Looked into it more”, that doesn’t make sense, because nothing changed. It has to be for “criteria reasons”, which that I understand, because maybe he’s not as great as guys like Jeter were, but why should you still make him wait to get into the Hall of Fame? Now, this is also another reason why I like the fact we have so many voters have a say on this, because everyone has different interpretations of a “Hall of Famer”, and for some it does vary from year to year depending who’s on the ballot, while for others, it has stayed the same the whole way. For me, it’s either a guy was good enough to get in, or he wasn’t, with no if’s, and , or buts around it, be at the end of the day, he’s getting a plaque anyways.
Maybe someday BH, my vote will count, but it will take 10 years of covering baseball to even be in conversation to receive such an honor. But, here’s my ballot for this year.
My HOF ballot:
Bonds ✅
Clemens ✅
Andy ✅
Ramirez ✅
Rolen ✅
Curt: ✅
Gary ✅
Why Bonds and Clemens? Yes I know they used PED’s but if you look at their careers prior to the juicing, they’re Hall of famers anyway, which is why they have my vote. Give the fans a chance to tell their stories, with the writers job being to feed them information to do so, which is what you have on the plaques.
One more thing, while I respect the voting process, I don’t get the exact reasoning behind “hiding” your Hall of fame vote, but What I think it is, it’s because these guys don’t want to get bashed for choosing someone the public will disagree with. But I commend the brave, and the ones that put it out there.
Overall, it’s disappointing the veterans committee didn’t meet this year due to COVID, to appoint some old-timers in there, because at least we would’ve had players in the 2021 class. Although this result hurts the game of baseball even though it’s abiding by the rules, I understand Cooperstown has change to redeem themselves, with an off the charts ceremony in the summer, when the class of 2020 being groomed into the illustrations Hall, that is the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
-Marvin.
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