See Willie, Mickey, and the Duke and Many More Baseball Greats at Cooperstown
Written: Dec 07 '07
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Product Rating:
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Pros: covers a lot of Baseball history, includes a lot of artifacts, Hall of Fame impressive
Cons: removed much of amateur section, newer Hall of Fame plaques not presented well
The Bottom Line: Even though I was disappointed in some of the changes to the Hall of Fame, I still thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Cooperstown.
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| quasar's Full Review: Cooperstown Hall of Fame |
I recently made my second visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. My previous visit was almost 20 years ago. There have been some changes to the museum since then, but much remains the same. I enjoyed both visits immensely.
The Hall of Fame spans three floors with an adjacent library also containing a few exhibits. The Hall of Fame itself is on the first floor, but visitors are urged to start their visit on the second floor and the main timeline of the history of baseball.
The first area encountered there is an interesting room explaining the history of the Hall of Fame and its various expansion projects over the years. I've often found museum exhibits documenting the museum they grace are among the most interesting around and this one was no exception. It's worth a few minutes and serves to acclimate you to the museum as a whole.
Next to the history of the hall room is the entrance to a multimedia theater presenting 13 minutes shows once an hour on the hour. Set in a replica of old Comiskey Park complete with a non-exploding version of Bill Veeck's exploding scoreboard, the show includes a mix of scenes from baseball, baseball movies, and kids just playing the game. There's a spectacular ending with baseball card replicas of some of the greatest of the great plasters across the ceiling and a big reveal of the scoreboard, but as a whole I found the presentation a bit on the boring side. I seemed to be in the minority, though, so you may enjoying more than I did.
The bulk of this floor is devoted to a mostly chronological history of baseball with lots of artifacts, information, and pictures. There are some interactive pieces including a video quiz on old-time baseball rules that was really interesting, but mostly this is a read and absorb museum.
As you progress along the timeline, there are three "callout" sections on Babe Ruth, blacks in baseball, and women in baseball. I really enjoyed the blacks in baseball exhibit (called Pride and Passion). It included its own explicit timeline with two tracks - one focused on black history generally and one on baseball. It really gives a lot of perspective and includes some fascinating information. The timeline runs underneath more traditional exhibits on the walls including lots of photographs of Jackie Robinson and some interesting film clips on the Negro Leagues, integration, and other relevant topics. The women in baseball exhibit wasn't quite as well presented but it had a lot of information about organized baseball for women at all different levels (from little league to high school to college to professional) and also had an interesting display on women umpires.
These are temporary forays from the main history exhibit, though, one that focuses primarily on teams then highlights individual players and events related to the team. There are very few large exhibits on individual player and some players appear in multiple places when their team affiliations and length of careers make it appropriate.
Most of the information is interesting, but it can feel a bit incomplete at times if you're already familiar with baseball history. The most glaring omission is that the 1951 entry just mentions Willie Mays and Monte Irvin but does not discuss the team at all, the way it came back from way behind the Dodgers to tie them for the regular season crown, the playoffs in general, or the Shot Heard Round the World (it is mentioned in the World Series exhibit on the third floor). I just didn't get that at all.
That said, most of the exhibits through the 50s include a fair bit of information and cover things year by year. Once you reach the 60s things speed up a great deal. Rather than discussion of individual teams in individual years, the 60s through the 90s are grouped by dynasties and teams that were contenders for many years in a row. There are a few exceptions - the 1969 Mets get called out - but for the most part the 60s are covered by discussing the Dodgers and the Yankees, the 70s by covering the Reds, As, and Yankees, etc. and by discussing them in generalities rather than in the specific.
The timeline ends after 1999 which is a good place to end if you're not going to update yearly. There's a bit of room to expand later, but not a great deal. This lack of space may have something to do with the condensed fashion of the later 20th century displays.
Some of the placards along these exhibits are bit hard to read. The lighting can be odd, dim in some places and bright in others. There can also be a bit of a glare, especially high up in the display cases. Several flip through books augments these displays, providing quizzes or more in-depth or more recent information. There has been some updating of the displays (the Hank Aaron blurb doesn't mention he's the home run king, for example) but not all of the exhibits have been updated to reflect current information. I can understand not updating continuously, but it seems like there should be an errata sheet or single display pointing out recent changes to records or other things that might make a formerly correct display out of date.
After the timeline is a small room covering recent accomplishments containing memorabilia and uniforms from each current Major League Baseball team. Set in lockers, the display lists the retired numbers and championship years for each team. The center of the room has a "this year in baseball" display. At the time of my visit, this area covered Barry Bonds' 756th and Craig Biggio's 3000th among a few other things.
During my last visit this space was devoted to amateur baseball with information and displays containing memorabilia from little league, college, American Legion, and other similar leagues. They displayed the jersey worn by the MVP of each championship team in each of the leagues which I thought was fabulous since it really rewarded the excellence of players who likely won't see their names in the hall for other reasons (although you never know). In fact, during my earlier visit, I actually knew the American Legion World Series MVP and I got a really kick out of seeing his name in Cooperstown. There's still a small display with team pictures from various amateur champions, but it's not the same. I understand the need to keep current (I was just complaining about out of date information myself), but the amateur game is also an important part of baseball and it wouldn't be the information I'd choose to remove to accommodate the passing of time and the need for more room for the professionals.
The third floor begins with an exhibit on ballparks that includes a video tour of Ebbets Field. Computer generated to the last detail, somehow it felt cold and removed (although my dad, a regular at the ballpark in his youth, told me they got it right even to the specific views from different seating areas). The area also includes an original Ebbets Field cornerstone and memorabilia and the history of other parks.
The most interesting exhibit on the third floor shows the current leaders in 20 or so statistical categories. Each category includes a list of the all time leaders and the current leaders accompanied by a photo collage of both leaders for the category. The stats are current through the end of the 2007 season but the photographs are from the end of the 2006 season which leads to an odd dissonance at times, but these displays were really fascinating.
A section on the World Series includes a display on the current champion (updated for 2007), displays of memorabilia, information on changes to the post season format over the years, and clips of great moments in World Series history. It was interesting but not very comprehensive.
The final area of the third floor didn't do much for me. A kid's section with a continuously playing video of Who's on First off in a corner, artwork featuring baseball players mentoring kids, and an empty area for educational activities round things out. They may have some interesting things to do during the summer when there are more visitors, but the area was completely dead in late November.
The actual Hall of Fame on the first floor begins with a plaque listing members of the hall who served in the armed forced during times of war. This leads into a grand room with high ceilings containing the individual plaques for each member in induction order (the first class of inductees is separate). A rotunda in the rear has the first class and all of the inductees from 2000 and later with odd year inductees on one side of the first class and even year inductees on the other. This makes it difficult to view inductees in order and feels sort of haphazard.
Each inductee plaque has some combination of a likeness, description, list of active years, teams, and records held. The exact format and order varies slightly, but in general the plaques are very nicely done. The whole presentation is nice other than the rotunda area.
The Hall of Fame leads to the library area containing two small exhibits, a very nice (but expensive) bookstore, and a research library for historians and academic sorts. The exhibits here are media related, covering sports writers and radio broadcasters as well as baseball in the movies.
The small room on writers and broadcasters includes newish annual awards for each, cartoons from older sports sections and magazines, and a continuous radio broadcast. It was okay, but the Louisville Slugger Museum covers this material more completely and presents it a lot better.
The even smaller room on baseball in the movies consists mostly of movie posters but has some costumes and props. It presents a list of baseball movies in chronological order and it can be fun to laugh at some of the names of the older movies (Alibi Ike was a particular favorite). The lighting and color of the signs made most text in the exhibit nearly impossible to read but I didn't feel that was a great loss.
In addition to the bookstore in the library, the Hall of Fame has a large gift shop near the main entrance. It has a mix of cheapish and more expensive items and sells a lot of baseball and team themed games (Red Sox scrabble, monopoly, and Uno to name three). The team coverage wasn't terrific; in cheaper items it seemed like they were merely out of the popular teams and in some of the items that move more into the novelty area such as the aforementioned games I don't think more than three or four teams are actually offered. In addition to the fun and games, postcards of each Hall of Fame inductee can be purchased for 50 cents each.
The Hall of Fame really requires a full day to visit properly. We arrived at about 10:15 in the morning and, although I think we say everything, I felt a bit rushed to finish before the museum closed at 5pm. We had to set a time limit on the third floor to ensure we actually got to see the Hall of Fame room itself and, from the moment we left the second floor, I was almost always conscious of the time. If you visit, especially if you like to read every tidbit of every display in a museum, plan for a full day.
Even though I was disappointed in some of the changes to the Hall of Fame since my earlier visit, especially the removal of the area honoring current amateur players, I still thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Cooperstown. I strongly recommend it to any baseball fan out there.
Recommended:
Yes
Parking Availability: No Problemo
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