The Top 5 Must-See Baseball Museums

Below are the top five in my countdown of the 10 must see baseball museums. Some may be surprised at the National Baseball Hall of Fame being missing, but an overly crowded museum with misinformation on ballparks, poor sections on the Negro Leagues, and no friendly staff like at the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame made it an experience that pushed it entirely out of my top 10 best baseball museum experiences.

5.Nolan Ryan Exhibit Center - This museum dedicated to the career of Nolan Ryan is on the campus of Alvin Community College in Alvin, Texas. It is a great museum about on of the greatest pitchers of all time. It is filled with artifacts related Ryan's career. The museum is organized chronologically going through every part of his career. It also has an interactive part where you can feel what it was like to catch a Nolan Ryan fastball.

Website: www.nolanryanfoundation.org/museum.htm

4.Ted Williams Museum and Hitters Hall of Fame - This is a surprisingly large museum inside Tropicana Field, where the Tampa Bay Rays currently play. The museum is still not all that big, but it has displays on the ground level and a large exhibit space on a second floor. The exhibits are mostly about Ted Williams life and career. It is especially interesting to see the exhibits are about more than just his baseball career, as his time as a Marine Fighter pilot and world class angler are also represented. The upper part is also home to the Hitters Hall of Fame honoring some of the greatest hitters of all time.

Website: www.twmuseum.com

3.Roger Maris Museum - This is a very small museum located inside the West Acres Shopping Center in Fargo, North Dakota. It is a rather odd place for a museum to a great baseball player, but he wanted it somewhere where people would not have to pay to visit. The museum is mostly just a few display cases along a wall in the mall. It also has a little theater room that constantly plays videos about Roger Maris and video clips of Maris.

Website: www.rogermarismuseum.com

2.Negro Leagues Baseball Museum - The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum is located in Kansas City, Missouri. The museum has a good amount of memorabilia related to the Negro Leagues Museum. The information about each artifact is somewhat lacking, but it still gives a great overview of the Negro Leagues and some of the great players. The National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, gives similar information in a small exhibit, but it has very few artifacts making no better than a book. This museum, however, is well done and truly honors the Negro Leagues.

Website: www.nlbm.com

1. Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame - This hall of fame is way smaller than the National Baseball Hall of Fame and it is smaller than most of the museums in my 10 Must See Baseball Museums list. However, it does an amazing job with its two rooms of display inside an old house. The exhibit space is jammed packed with artifacts and information about baseball in Canada and Canadians that have played in the Majors. The hallway between the rooms is also quite full of plaques honoring those inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. The best part of this museum is that it actually has staff that is friendly and shares their passion and knowledge of baseball. It was the only museum that actually had staff that came into the exhibit space to share their knowledge and make sure you did not miss the key things.

Website: www.baseballhalloffame.ca