Baseball in and Around Cooperstown National Baseball Hall of Fame

I love baseball because it's a significant part of my growing up identity. It's a smart game that connects us to older generations. Even my non-sports loving mother has a baseball hero from her teenage years, Pittsburgh Pirate Ralph Kiner.

I was not opposed to including the Cooperstown Baseball Hall of Fame in our vacation plans. Even so a part of me does wonder why Greek heroes slew monsters yet ours bat .400. The enshrinement of those still living seems historically premature. Nevertheless, baseball is more American to me than Chrysler.

Some people tour the Baseball Hall of Fame with stars in their eyes, like my husband or the reviewer who said it was the best museum ever and apologized to the Smithsonian. Middle to upper class dads give mini-lectures to their captive two-children families while the wives wander ahead then drift back wondering, "Are they still on that?" Cooperstown is a family experience and the dads are definitely in their element.

I the wife suppose that for those who have inhaled baseball from age two Cooperstown could be an almost completely visual experience. I had to read endless placards in order to make sense of it. My head felt like the time I toured an Etruscan museum in Fiesole deciphering Italian descriptions for a straight hour. Both times I needed a tour guide, but at Cooperstown only the dads and headsets were available. Try wearing head gear with a toddler on your back.

Somehow baseball manages to be simultaneously an individual and a collective experience. If your individual background is lacking in baseball history, go for the collective experience at Cooperstown. Moms of toddlers, I'm talking to you.

I liked the art gallery and the cinema exhibit. In the gallery there is nothing to read except the names of the artists and the titles of the paintings. At the time we were there the presentation at the cinema was on the 1972 Oakland A's Mustache Gang. I was appreciating that until my own toddler got so vocal that I took her out (of the exhibit).

She found amusement in a floor grate in front of picture windows that looked out on a courtyard. While she ran the grate back and forth, I studied the courtyard sculpture of pitcher-catcher Johnny Podres and Roy Campanella.

I go to my husband's baseball encyclopedia for some story on these two and find lists of numbers. Statistics are not what baseball means to me although I admit that statistics tell a story for those who can read them. I can discover from The Baseball Encylopedia that Johnny Podres and Ray Campanella were instrumental in winning the 1955 World Series for the Brooklyn Dodgers. But statistics do not tell me why there are no statistics for Podres in 1956 or that a tragic car accident ended Campanella's career.

I went in search of Podres' missing year. Not being a fan of any team from New York, I did not know that Podres died in 2008. Richard Goldstein summarizes his career and gives me my answer:

He won 9 games as a rookie, 11 in his second season, then endured a disappointing summer in '55. He injured his shoulder and later sustained bruised ribs in an incident that, as baseball lore would have it, could happen only in Brooklyn. He was struck by the Ebbets Field batting cage while groundskeepers were moving it during a pregame workout.

Baseball is weird and unpredictable just like life. That's the story I can always find in it.

After the museum, older children, dads, and former tomboy moms might enjoy the batting cages (I don't think they'll strike you) at Doubleday Field. There is also a small park on the lake one block from the Hall of Fame where you can enjoy a picnic lunch.

For real living baseball, catch a game at Doubleday Field or see the AA Binghamton Mets. The level of play in double A will keep you interested with the bonus of less expensive tickets, food and beer. This is baseball-a game with a great history that exists in the moment. Young strong men stretch and sign pre-game autographs. Fans strike up momentary acquaintances trading ballpark information.

When the ball parks close because we cannot afford to pay the players anymore, that's when I will return to Cooperstown and have a good cry. Meanwhile, I'm going to goop on the sunscreen, pair my scorebook with a sharp pencil, and take myself out to the ball game.

The Baseball Encyclopedia: The Complete and Definitive of Major League Baseball. 9^th Edition. Rick Wolff, Editorial Director. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993.

Goldstein, Richard. "Johnny Podres, Series Star, Dies at 75." The New York Times. 14 January 2008. Retrieved on 21 June 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/sports/14podresx.html