Update 9:Cooperstown, NY

If you love baseball, you'll love Cooperstown, NY! In 1839 Abner Doubleday reportedly invented the game of baseball. Some dispute that claim. However, the Museum of baseball was established in Cooperstown. As the game grew and the Hall of Fame developed the two sites became one. The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is located right on Main Street in Cooperstown.  The front of the building resembles the legs of an "H"; with two wings rising from the sidewalk and the middle section set back to form a wide patio entry complete with benches.  The well designed museum can even be enjoyed by the non-baseball fan.

Visitors explore three floors of exhibits, which actually start on the second floor. 

The theater looks like a ball park.  The main stage has the backstop and scoreboard.  Murals showed fan- filled bleaches on both sides. "The Baseball Experience" film gets visitors in the mood for the game by showing a 13 minute history of the game. 

Outside the theater, a small exhibit tells about the creation of the museum. Inside the main area the game is divided by decades.  "Taking the field: the 19th Century" documents the beginnings of baseball. A picture from ancient Egypt shows two men, one with a stick and one with a ball. The implication is that ball and stick games have been around for a long time. The Knickerbockers Club established in 1845 made the original 20 rules of baseball to help bring uniformity to the game. The first teams came from real clubs with membership requirement, rules and fees. These club would promote picnics, dances and of course baseball games.  The National Association of Baseball was established in 1857.  The first World Series was played September 10, 1858. A telegraph key in this exhibit reminds the visitor of the telegraph's part in play by play for radio. The telegraph operator at the game would key in the plays. The announcer would say "the ball is going back.....back....back" to fill in time until the message of what happened could be relayed to him.

The decades 1900-1930, 1930-1960, 1960-1980, 1980-2000  and today's game create the other main divisions on this floor. Important people, events and memorabilia for each era are encased in glass showcases. Today's Game simulates a locker room. Each locker is dedicated to a professional baseball team showing their highlights, uniforms, artifacts and recent records.

This floor also has a section dedicated to Babe Ruth, The old Negro League, Women in Baseball and Latin Players.  I was busy reading all the information and forgot to take photos. Plus the interior was a bit dark, perhaps to preserve the artifacts.

The largest exhibit on the third floors explores Sacred Ground: the stadiums. It covers the history of stadium development.  Another exhibit highlights the life of Hank Aaron. This section we felt was particularly well constructed. The section on trophies also displayed team pins and world series rings.  WOW there was some serious bling on the rings!   Smaller exhibits focused on No Hit games, Amateur Leagues, Baseball Card Collections and, when in NY, on the Yankees.  In one corner was the old Abbott and Costello filmstrip of "Who's on first". You can't help but laugh every time you see it.

The main part of the first floor was dedicated to the Hall of Fame plaques arranged by years. Smaller parts showed Hall of Fame announcers and sports writers. A tribute to baseball and the movies was tiny but enjoyable.  The museum store was ample in size and doing a good business.

We were satisfied with our one day visit. However you could spend several days if you read everything and watched all the videos.

We went out of the museum for lunch and ate at the Doubleday Cafe. The backs of the servers black tee-shirts read "a drinking town, with a baseball problem".  The thought is obvious looking at the other merchants on the street:  Rivalries, On Deck Circle, 7th Inning, Cooper's Clubhouse, Mickey's Place and Shoeless Joe's to name a few. 98% of the business within a ten mile radius of Cooperstown displayed a baseball reference in their name.

We set out to complete the task in Cooperstown of changing our phone and air card program to include Canadian service. What should have been short process took two and half hours. Bonnie, our Verizon representative for Cooperstown usually gets 2-3 customers a day. She had more than that just while we were there. Then one of the Verizon people was nasty and hung up on her when she needed some connection data. Just as we thought we were done the computer asked for our SIMS card number.  Our what???  Well, when going "global" one now needs a "global modem with a SIMS card".  Guess who got to buy a new air card???  Although I must say that the new card works almost as quickly as our High Speed Internet at home.  Bonnie probably could have used a drink by the time we finished her day.  We stopped by the next day for Lynn and Jay to buy their new modem. Then we popped in the third day just to say "hi".

Cooperstown homes , like those in most towns in this area, caught our eyes. We also noticed many have large porches. Where there are porches, there are chairs: patio chairs, Adirondack chairs made of natural wood or colored hard plastic, padded swings and some had the old garden variety lawn chairs. People enjoy sitting out on these porches at all times of day.

Fly Creek Cider Mill felt like a bit of a tourist trap. Just a short distance from downtown Cooperstown, The store offers cider, cheeses, wine, sauces, fudge, pies and a large assortment of gifts and knick knacks. In the Fall, they press enough apples to make 20,000  gallons of cider. They freeze about 5,000 gallons to sell in the summer. The cider press and information on the process are located upstairs.  Next door, a deli/restaurant offered lunch and desserts. The store is to the left, and the deli to the right.

Cooperstown Dreams Park helps make dreams come true. The complex contains at least 25 baseball fields. During the time we were in Cooperstown, 102 youth baseball teams were in residence. Each team was guaranteed  to play six games. Teams and their coaches stayed in dormitories on site. Parents, grandparents and other interested parties stayed in local accommodations. We figured they ran these camps all summer, providing a steady source of people to visit the town and add to its economy.

The RV park I chose for us was 9 miles out of town and yet one of the closest. However it was not big rig friendly and our escort in was new to the job. Thank goodness for Derrille's amazing skill and parking us!
They brought us in by a much longer route on a poorer quality road. Then when we left we hoped to get out of the park before the state paving crew cut off out access. Everything went well as we headed north.

Next stop:  Natural Bridge