Day One at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Part One

The building sits right on Main Street in Cooperstown. It looks smaller on the outside.

The Hall of Fame Gallery has the Charter Members featured prominently at the far end of the gallery.

The recommendation from the box office was to start on the second floor. At the top of the stairs there are a series of lockers under glass (one for each team)

The infamous ball from the last out of the 2004 World Series that Doug Mientkiewicz held on to for quite a long time before turning it over to the Red Sox.

One of the oldest items in this section came from the Houston Astros. The Helmet shown was from the 1965 edition of the Astrodome grounds crew.

The Dodgers show of the batting gloves worn by Orlando Hudson the day he hit for the cycle.

Everything in that section was a showcase for the recent past.

The next room completely flipped the script. I can't really show much from that room, the light was very low (presumably to preserve the delicate artifacts) and I didn't want to use a flash on my camera to try to capture images of the things in the room.

There were 1880s / 1890s baseball cards, scorecards, a baseball from the first game that charged admission, and lots of other treasures. A curator was taking some high rollers through the museum right behind me, so I tried to respectfully eavesdrop on several of the inside tips he provided. 

One thing he mentioned was in relation to an interactive kiosk they put in that early history of baseball room. In it, you can select a baseball rule and watch a video that explains it. One was regarding a hit by pitch. They filmed modern players re-enacting the old version of the rules. He didn't tell the batter that he was about to get hit - so it was much more interesting the watch the video. He explained that he didn't tell the batter what was going to happen because he didn't want the batter to flinch before the ball came in. He told the pitcher he only had one chance to hit the batter. The video showed that in the old version of the rules a hit by pitch was just a ball instead of granting the batter first base. 

Next up there was a nice exhibit on African Americans in baseball - it covered more than just the Negro Leagues.

Cool Papa Bell's sunglasses

Satchel Paige's St. Louis Browns uniform

I think I'll leave it there for now, and add some more tomorrow.